IMHO targeting the deck armour in a steep dive vs flying into the belt armour might have been a plausible way for large supersonic ASM's to increase their chances of defeating the armour scheme of a battleship. I take your point about the ASM's probably not having dedicated AP warheads but my understanding is that a number likely targets besides battle ships did have some form of armour so at least some Soviet ASM's having some form of warhead casing designed for a certain ammount of penatration seems plausible to me.
Other Battleships in the 1980s?
- Thread starter Robinsml
- Start date
IMHO targeting the deck armour in a steep dive vs flying into the belt armour might have been a plausible way for large supersonic ASM's to increase their chances of defeating the armour scheme of a battleship. I take your point about the ASM's probably not having dedicated AP warheads but my understanding is that a number likely targets besides battle ships did have some form of armour so at least some Soviet ASM's having some form of warhead casing designed for a certain ammount of penatration seems plausible to me.
Yes.. But as you mention escorts and support ships would need to be found or built for the additional Surface Action groups. I supsect the Non Iowa Class BB's would not be as useful as the Iowa's in that role so there would likely be less enthuasim in finding or building the needed escorts and support ships. All that being said maybe the Surface action groups would simply have had multiple battleships without a comparable increase in the number of escorts. Maybe in some situations the faster battle ships might have operated with carriers if needed.
Finding crews for all the extra battleships might also have been interesting.
One can speuclate endlessley about what might have happened in an alternate time line.
And by 1980 the USN is a far larger Navy than the RN with a not inconsiderably larger budget in addition to the larger economies of scale
As for Anti Surface missiles verse battleships etc - we know that large war head guided weapons can kill or mission kill a battleship
The Battleship Roma was sunk by 2 hits and Warspite and Roma's sister ship Italia (ex-Littorio) were both mission killed by Fritz X hits and this was 1943
An we had known that Aircraft were a threat to Battleships from 1940 and by the end of the war they were obsolete as a weapon of war
For example Britain's response to the Russian plan to spam out 30 x Sverdlov class 6" gun cruisers in the 50s which on paper rendered British and US 6" cruisers obsolete was not to restart British cruiser production but instead they developed the Blackburn Buccaneer bomber as a more effective and cost effective weapon system.
The resources spent on Battleships were better spent on other types of ships and as in the example above - airpower.
so how about a heavy cruiser with sixteen x six inch guns ? in 4 quad turrets
IMHO modern rapid fire guns probably make the concept of quad turrets a bit un necessary.
Better off just putting two Mk71 8" guns on a destroyer and calling it a day
Correct , the missile would crumble against an armour belt so the kinetic impact is muted. Good at mission killing via degrading sensors etc but not going to sink the ship ( WW2 designers expected HE to be used against the superstructure, AP vs the hull so made provision for that )
You make a good point. The Iowas and Alaskas could keep up with the carriers at 31-33 knots. The North Carolinas and South Dakotas could make 27 knots. Not as fast, but still fast enough to keep up with an amphibious group. Create a SAG centered around a North Carolina or South Dakota with a few FFs and FFGs, combine it with an amphibious group centered around an LPH/LHA, and you get yourself a nice forced-entry tool with organic 16" firepower.
Re: anti-ship missiles versus battleship armor
Y'all are underestimating antiship missiles, particularly the large Soviet weapons. Sure, something like a Harpoon or Exocet is liable to just crumple against heavy armor. But the Styx missiles beloved by the 3rd world had a shaped-charge warhead that's going to carve through any practical thickness of armor. And while anti-tank shaped-charge warheads have limited after-armor effects, a 1000-lb shaped charge is going to do more post-armor. Similarly, the Kitchen and Kingfish missiles that equipped their maritime strike fleet had 2200-lb shaped-charge warheads - and the Soviets claimed the warhead, when used on warship targets, could make a hole forty feet deep.
By the way, the Iowa class' vital machinery and magazine spaces are only 18 feet behind the outer skin of the hull. A shaped charge drilling 40 feet deep is going to reach the vitals.
On the other end are the Bazalt, Granit, and Moskit all had semi-armor piercing warheads; given even 6" SAP could penetrate 8.7 inches of Class A at zero range and that all three missiles are faster and way, way heavier than a 6" shell, good luck stopping them!
Y'all are underestimating antiship missiles, particularly the large Soviet weapons. Sure, something like a Harpoon or Exocet is liable to just crumple against heavy armor. But the Styx missiles beloved by the 3rd world had a shaped-charge warhead that's going to carve through any practical thickness of armor. And while anti-tank shaped-charge warheads have limited after-armor effects, a 1000-lb shaped charge is going to do more post-armor. Similarly, the Kitchen and Kingfish missiles that equipped their maritime strike fleet had 2200-lb shaped-charge warheads - and the Soviets claimed the warhead, when used on warship targets, could make a hole forty feet deep.
By the way, the Iowa class' vital machinery and magazine spaces are only 18 feet behind the outer skin of the hull. A shaped charge drilling 40 feet deep is going to reach the vitals.
On the other end are the Bazalt, Granit, and Moskit all had semi-armor piercing warheads; given even 6" SAP could penetrate 8.7 inches of Class A at zero range and that all three missiles are faster and way, way heavier than a 6" shell, good luck stopping them!
Last edited:
I have a TL I've been brain storming involving the Alaska's design getting changed slightly so they have better torpedo production at a slight cost in speed. Slight enough that they can still keep up with the carriers.
The design change means that two of them are about half finished at the time of VJ day. The unfinished ships end up avoiding the scrap heap with various proposals as to what to do with them. In the late 40s/early 50's it's decided to turn them largely into SAM cruisers equipped with a fuckload of the three T's SAMs. They have plenty of space and electric production for Talos, Tartar, and Terrier along with the assosciated radars and sensors and the speed to keep up with Fleet carriers. The idea is to finish the two hulls into a super sized version of the OTL conversion of light and heavy WW2 cruisers with SAMs. Only one of their 12 inch turrets from the original design end up getting retained.
So they end up giving a long and notable service as carrier escorts and provide some time on the Gunline off of Vietnam.
I wonder just how many missiles you could pack into a Alaska hull.
I did consider the Polaris (Like was envisioned for the Long Island class I think) but like the Long Islands I decided to skip them and focus largely on SAM's for carrier defense.
marathag
Banned
HEAT doesn't work that way, the diameter of the warhead, and how thick the forming cone is,determines how large a molten jet is created and how much penetration can be done, roughly 5X the diameter.
Shaped charges a waste in antiship roles.
US DEs got hit with 18" shells, with little effect. You want HE to do real damage.
Honestly, burning rocket propellant would do more damage
That is a massive false equivalency. They were hit with little effect because unless that 18.1" shell scored a direct hit on a turbine, there wasn't enough resistance in a DE to trigger the fuse.
The Kh-22 is a 36" missile, even five times the diameter means 15 feet of penetration. That's not quite enough to penetrate into the vital spaces at the widest point. It is going to cause flooding of the TDS, probably blow holes in the holding bulkhead by means of high-velocity shrapnel, and around the forward turrets it is going to get to the magazines due to the hull narrowing there.
Exactly and if we look at more modern weapons
Harpoon for example has a 488 pounds (221 kg) warhead - and given the advances in explosives that probably equates well with Fritz X
Even the most chad like Battleship is going know all about being hit by one of those and they tend to come in swarms
Especially dangerous if the final attack is of the pop up plunging affair!
Against such weapons I doubt any battleship would fair any better than the victims of Fritz X
Look at the concern when Silkworms were being fired at USN BBs in the gulf?
marathag
Banned
Even if triggered, IJN AP didn't have much for the burster, just under 75 pounds, about what a 100 pound Light case bomb would have
mial42
Gone Fishin'
But why? Battleships are (a) really expensive to operate and (b) not that useful post-WW2. The Iowas were the best battleships around, and even they ceased to be worth it once money got tighter at the end of the Cold War. You're better off spending the money on something else.