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I know I am new to this board and still wet behind the ears as far as starting new threads, but after reading through a lot of these very interesting threads, and particularly the contributions of Dreadnought, RustyBattleship, Ytlas, et al., I felt that the real point of the presence of those dinosaurs, even if unintended is being missed. So I thought I'd just throw this out there and let ya'll chew on it a bit.
The real point of the presence of the battleships, and more importantly, the BBBGs was that it signaled a real sea change (no pun intended) in the philosophy of the US Navy. For nearly 50 years, naval aviation had ruled the roost, and we all marched to their tune. The nuclear power community was very powerful as well, but they had feet in all three of the regular warfare branches; surface, sub-surface, and aviation. However, it was my winged brethren who really called the shots all those years. And why not? They had won WWII in the Pacific, right? At least that's what everyone thought . . . the reality, one that hit me square in the face while a student at the US Naval War College back in 1997, was that the war in the Pacific was won by the service group ships; the oilers and supply ships that kept the carriers, battleships and all of their escorts topped off and ready to rock and roll won the war, and if you don't think so, you are living in a fool's paradise. The submarine community has more than a few things to say along the lines of who choked the life out of the Japanese economy, but being the "Silent Service" no one paid any attention to them to begin with.
Anyway, everyone, including the aviators thought they had won it all, so they had a lot to say about how the Navy looked for 50 years or so. I cannot begin to tell you how, as a young officer, their influence was all pervasive in everything we did. I even served in a carrier for three years on my first tour, and thought that when I transferred off that thing that I wouldn't have to deal with aviation any more. Wrong! That influence was in everything. I swear it felt at times like we were choking on airplanes and those who fly them. Then someone got the bat crap idea of bringing the battleships out of mothballs. And the world turned over, because almost simultaneously the Tomahawk Land Attach Cruise Missile hit the fleet for real. Suddenly, the Surface Navy had a real strike and power projection mission. No longer were we just sacrificial lambs who were to keep the carrier afloat at all costs. Desert Storm just sealed the deal. We launched a lot of Tomahawks at Iraq and unlike the submarines, we didn't have to run back to Guam to reload. We just sidled up to the nearest AOE or AE and reloaded at sea; just like we did in WWII. Only instead of striking down gun ammo (although we did that too); we were striking down those Tomahawks. The Ticonderogas could see the entire battlespace without the need for an E-2C or an Air Force E-3A and in either the passive or active modes, we gave submarines something to think about.
We truly were the experts at fighting up, out and down, and all of that was driven home by the BBBGs. If you don't think the Soviets noticed, you would be quite mistaken. They were going ballistic about this new threat. They had nothing to match it and the hits just kept on coming with the Arleigh Burkes, and the role that Aegis would play in Theater Ballistic Defense. There are a lot of reasons why they crumbled, but the advent of the new Surface Warfare paradigm was definitely among them. And that is the importance of the battleships, with all of the fits and starts, and frankly bad press they got with the Iowa tragedy (by the way, the XO before the one in the saddle in Iowa when the turret explosion occurred is a friend of mine; he got a lot of undeserved press in the book A Glimpse of Hell; yeah, he can be an a-hole, and maybe too often, but he's the kind of guy you'd want along for the ride when you march into hell), they were the vanguard of a revolution in war at sea, and a true Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). When trained strategists like me look at history and current events, we are trained to look for those RMAs. Well, this is one that stands out like a sore thumb, and as a Surface Warrior, one whose altar I worship at every now and then. Like now. ;)
It's because of the battleships and Tomahawk that we will eventually have 77 Alreigh Burkes, why we are going ahead with the LCS (although if you talk to most dinosaurs my age, we see them as ships that can't "flee, f***, or fight"), and the DDG-1000. Hell, it's even why we will have the Gerald R. Ford-class of carriers; because we can protect them, and lead the air strike with Tomahawk to suppress enemy air batteries, clearing the way for the air strike. We save pilot lives (they aren't long for the world anyway, the way drone technology is progressing . . . someday, when appropriate, I'll share my tales of Predator and Global Hawk development when I was on the Joint Staff). We make the carriers more effective, and keep costs down (in 1997, the CNO at the time, Jay Johnson, an F-14 jock, told me that the cost of just one take off and landing of an F/A-18 was $65,000 . . . a one-way flight of a Tomahawk isn't cheap, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than losing an airplane and its crew). There is almost no part of naval warfare, including Special Ops in which we of the Surface Warfare branch are not now involved. I cannot tell you how different the paradigm is to that which was extant when I took to oath of office more than 34 years ago. And we have the Iowa-class to thank for that; they shattered the old paradigm.
The real point of the presence of the battleships, and more importantly, the BBBGs was that it signaled a real sea change (no pun intended) in the philosophy of the US Navy. For nearly 50 years, naval aviation had ruled the roost, and we all marched to their tune. The nuclear power community was very powerful as well, but they had feet in all three of the regular warfare branches; surface, sub-surface, and aviation. However, it was my winged brethren who really called the shots all those years. And why not? They had won WWII in the Pacific, right? At least that's what everyone thought . . . the reality, one that hit me square in the face while a student at the US Naval War College back in 1997, was that the war in the Pacific was won by the service group ships; the oilers and supply ships that kept the carriers, battleships and all of their escorts topped off and ready to rock and roll won the war, and if you don't think so, you are living in a fool's paradise. The submarine community has more than a few things to say along the lines of who choked the life out of the Japanese economy, but being the "Silent Service" no one paid any attention to them to begin with.
Anyway, everyone, including the aviators thought they had won it all, so they had a lot to say about how the Navy looked for 50 years or so. I cannot begin to tell you how, as a young officer, their influence was all pervasive in everything we did. I even served in a carrier for three years on my first tour, and thought that when I transferred off that thing that I wouldn't have to deal with aviation any more. Wrong! That influence was in everything. I swear it felt at times like we were choking on airplanes and those who fly them. Then someone got the bat crap idea of bringing the battleships out of mothballs. And the world turned over, because almost simultaneously the Tomahawk Land Attach Cruise Missile hit the fleet for real. Suddenly, the Surface Navy had a real strike and power projection mission. No longer were we just sacrificial lambs who were to keep the carrier afloat at all costs. Desert Storm just sealed the deal. We launched a lot of Tomahawks at Iraq and unlike the submarines, we didn't have to run back to Guam to reload. We just sidled up to the nearest AOE or AE and reloaded at sea; just like we did in WWII. Only instead of striking down gun ammo (although we did that too); we were striking down those Tomahawks. The Ticonderogas could see the entire battlespace without the need for an E-2C or an Air Force E-3A and in either the passive or active modes, we gave submarines something to think about.
We truly were the experts at fighting up, out and down, and all of that was driven home by the BBBGs. If you don't think the Soviets noticed, you would be quite mistaken. They were going ballistic about this new threat. They had nothing to match it and the hits just kept on coming with the Arleigh Burkes, and the role that Aegis would play in Theater Ballistic Defense. There are a lot of reasons why they crumbled, but the advent of the new Surface Warfare paradigm was definitely among them. And that is the importance of the battleships, with all of the fits and starts, and frankly bad press they got with the Iowa tragedy (by the way, the XO before the one in the saddle in Iowa when the turret explosion occurred is a friend of mine; he got a lot of undeserved press in the book A Glimpse of Hell; yeah, he can be an a-hole, and maybe too often, but he's the kind of guy you'd want along for the ride when you march into hell), they were the vanguard of a revolution in war at sea, and a true Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). When trained strategists like me look at history and current events, we are trained to look for those RMAs. Well, this is one that stands out like a sore thumb, and as a Surface Warrior, one whose altar I worship at every now and then. Like now. ;)
It's because of the battleships and Tomahawk that we will eventually have 77 Alreigh Burkes, why we are going ahead with the LCS (although if you talk to most dinosaurs my age, we see them as ships that can't "flee, f***, or fight"), and the DDG-1000. Hell, it's even why we will have the Gerald R. Ford-class of carriers; because we can protect them, and lead the air strike with Tomahawk to suppress enemy air batteries, clearing the way for the air strike. We save pilot lives (they aren't long for the world anyway, the way drone technology is progressing . . . someday, when appropriate, I'll share my tales of Predator and Global Hawk development when I was on the Joint Staff). We make the carriers more effective, and keep costs down (in 1997, the CNO at the time, Jay Johnson, an F-14 jock, told me that the cost of just one take off and landing of an F/A-18 was $65,000 . . . a one-way flight of a Tomahawk isn't cheap, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than losing an airplane and its crew). There is almost no part of naval warfare, including Special Ops in which we of the Surface Warfare branch are not now involved. I cannot tell you how different the paradigm is to that which was extant when I took to oath of office more than 34 years ago. And we have the Iowa-class to thank for that; they shattered the old paradigm.
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