AHC: The Battleship Stays Relevant

A new Battleship race commenced in the 1960s. Od battleships and battlecruisers are converted to heavily armoured missile ships carrying big anti ship missiles capable of taking and giving out hits at 100 mile plus ranges. This leads to 100,000 ton nuclear powered massively armoured ships with highly automated systems and a small crew sitting in a control room below the water line. Chobham style armour many meters thick hides VLS tubes spread along the ship to prevent one big hit mission killing it. Multiple redundant sensor systems are kept under armour till needed as one hit will probably wipe out every bit of electonics that is outside the armour.
 
A new Battleship race commenced in the 1960s. .....This leads to 100,000 ton nuclear powered massively armoured ships with highly automated systems and a small crew sitting in a control room below the water line. Chobham style armour many meters thick hides VLS tubes spread along the ship to prevent one big hit mission killing it. Multiple redundant sensor systems are kept under armour till needed as one hit will probably wipe out every bit of electonics that is outside the armour.
In the 60s one big hit will be measured in the hundreds of kilotons if not megatons no realistic protection that can fit under 100,000t will protect against that so why bother?
 
In 1991, the USN decides that the armored, big gun battleship still has a place in the fleet and decides to retain the Iowa class instead of retiring them. Yes, I know this is near ASB and all the reasons why. What I'm curious about is, IF the Navy had kept them, what upgrades/modifications do you think they would carry out to the ships, how much longer would they serve, and what would their replacement be? For the replacement, keep in mind, this is a Navy that has decided to keep armored big gun ships in its fleet. Other than that, go crazy.
If the Caribbean and central America are a lot more unstable than in the original timeline, requiring possible US 'military interventions' on an at least annual basis (usually from the sea) does that create sufficient need for big naval guns (to support landings and hit targets in coastal areas) that battleships are cost-effective?
 
What if, during the Gulf War, a number of SSMs strike naval vessels. Those without armour are seriously damaged and with many killed but the SSMs just "bounce off" on the battleships (well a lot of antennas and electronics etc. are out of action, but the public can't see that).

A mission kill due to destroyed electronics is not too different as the navy would need to deploy another ship to substitute the damaged ship.

The best and probably sole argument to retain big gun ship is fire support for land force in littoral operations.

The guns of Iowas, while powerful, need longer range. Self defence SAM capacity would be nice too.

This sounds like a descrption of the DDG-1000.
 

trurle

Banned
A mission kill due to destroyed electronics is not too different as the navy would need to deploy another ship to substitute the damaged ship.

The best and probably sole argument to retain big gun ship is fire support for land force in littoral operations.

The guns of Iowas, while powerful, need longer range. Self defence SAM capacity would be nice too.

This sounds like a descrption of the DDG-1000.
If a gliding artillery shells like LRLAP (with 190km range) could be produced with reasonable cost, battleships would make some sense again. Unfortunately, LRLAP cost ($1 mln) was close to 1/3 of the cost of contemporary Russian tank, with accuracy bad enough to require 50 shells to destroy one tank. Actually, here come the real reason why battleships went obsolete: launching gliding bombs/shells from the bottom of atmosphere is terribly inefficient. You spend money mostly for punching a long hole through the atmosphere. Of course, initial physical problem was amplified by subcontracting-related cost overrun. For cost overrun problems of this sort, you have exponential cost increase with each added feature, instead of linear or logarithmic increase typical for less sophisticated projectile designs. Because each new feature out of scope of knowledge of base design developer require additional subcontractor with generally fixed profit margin percentage, regardless of the actual expenses to install a new feature.
 
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In the 60s one big hit will be measured in the hundreds of kilotons if not megatons no realistic protection that can fit under 100,000t will protect against that so why bother?

If the Cold war has gone nuclear everything bigger than a sharpened stick is irrelevant so why bother.
 
If we'd built the Montana-class battleships, they might be even more useful than the Iowas. But even a Montana-class would need to be converted into a nuclear-powered battleship with the main armament being missiles.
 
Short-range coastal defense against low-level threats. Battleship used as monitor, jsb already noted.
But for defending a reasonable length of coastline with a short-range asset with speed below 50km/h, numbers will be needed, so not very cheap. Surely a far more sensible alternative is missiles mounted on trucks, aircraft and small combatants. Any enemy capable of suppressing such defensive systems would also most likely be capable of plinking battleships/monitors as an amusing pastime. Even for point defense of a very limited section of coastline the tradeoff between cost, speed of response and survivability does not seem like it would favour a battleship/monitor.

Even the classic 'shore bombardment' alternative is only low-cost as long as legacy WW2 ammunition is available and it is possible to handwave away the platform cost. As soon as it is exhausted or expired, the cost of manufacturing new shells is probably going to be comparable or higher than e.g. MLRS, BM30 etc on a per-round basis. And such systems can be mounted on much cheaper and smaller ships, while outperforming 16" guns.
 

Md139115

Banned
Let’s be honest- by the 1990’s, it was pretty clear that the Iowa’s were expensive to run, too costly in manpower, and too historically significant to seriously alter (like removing the turrets). As it is, I suspect that the act of scrapping Admiral Halsey’s stateroom and wardroom on the New Jersey to make room for the electronics suite (which went into the admirals bridge on each ship) probably caused a nasty internal uproar that had the navy thinking about if they could get away with making any more changes.

I for one think that the navy would be seriously looking for a replacement that could fill the role of the Iowas, and I speculate that such a vessel would have heavy armor, a displacement of just over 25,000 tons, a length of 700-750 feet, and a crew of 1250-1500. It will probably be nuclear powered, fitted with the whole AGEIS combat suite, and possess the following armaments:

2 × 100 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems

16 × RGM-84 Harpoon missiles

2 × Mk 45 Mod 2 5-in/54-cal lightweight gun (or maybe a bigger custom design :happyblush)

6× Phalanx 20mm CIWS Block 1B (4 went on the Iowas and I noticed the last time I was on one that there was a bit of a blind spot straight forward and aft)

And just for the sake of overkill, the removal of the eight Mk 143 Armored Box Launcher mounts for 32 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Iowas and their reinstallation here!

I imagine this being a class of three vessels, with two on the oceans at any given time, one probably in the Persian Gulf, the other in the Eastern Pacific, accompanying the respective carrier battle groups.

No idea if this is plausible, but if it is... a lot of people in Moscow and Beijing will be investing in brown pants! :biggrin:
 
So a sort of armoured AEGIS super-Virginia? That's a much more plausible design, but surely it gets you to the point where you have to seriously question ever taking such a valuable and powerful ship within gunnery range of anything. Having artillery on that is almost on a par with mounting a couple of 5" on a Nimitz.
 

Md139115

Banned
So a sort of armoured AEGIS super-Virginia? That's a much more plausible design, but surely it gets you to the point where you have to seriously question ever taking such a valuable and powerful ship within gunnery range of anything. Having artillery on that is almost on a par with mounting a couple of 5" on a Nimitz.

First, thank you for the compliment.

Second, I do see what you are saying, but the problem is that almost every ship of the modern U.S. Navy capable of filling a naval gunfire support role is outrageously expensive. The Arleigh Burke’s and Ticonderogas are both over a billion dollars (although the Burkes may have been cheaper at the time), and honestly I don’t think that they could stand up to gunfire that long. At least this proposed vessel could take a few punches.
 
IMO you have to somehow butterfly Submarines altogether. Once subs go nuclear then they're a fleet killer by themselves. You can try to armor a BB against heavy guns, bombs and such but put a couple Mark 48 torps underneath and she's gone. Carriers made the battleship a shore bombardment platform. Submarines made them obsolete.
 
Short-range coastal defense against low-level threats. Battleship used as monitor, jsb already noted.

Sorry, but I'm having trouble seeing the logic here. Any potential enemy who is at the point of mounting an amphibious invasion of the United States will only do so under conditions of overwhelming air and naval superiority, right? So how is a single obsolete battleship expected to get close enough to the landing areas to pulverise them with 16" gunfire without being spotted and sunk?

If you're talking about a less powerful enemy force then that, then the situation is even more confusing. An enemy who is not powerful enough to have air or naval superiority, but can still mount an amphibious assault on the Continental US, is at a very specific level of power - too weak to stop an unescorted battleship, too strong to be put off by the US army and air force.

Or maybe you're talking about a non-state actor. But even that doesn't make the picture clearer. In what situations less than an invasion by a hostile state would the US be willing to bombard its own coastal areas? And in which of those situations would nothing less than a battleship be able to do an adequate job?

In short, I can't really see what sort of threats a battleship is meant to deal with as a coastal-defence asset. It seems to me that it'll be slow to arrive no matter what, and either vastly overpowered for whatever it faces or detected and sunk long before it gets close enough to do any good. Would you mind explaining what situations you have in mind where a coastal defence battleship is "the right answer"?
 

trurle

Banned
Sorry, but I'm having trouble seeing the logic here. Any potential enemy who is at the point of mounting an amphibious invasion of the United States will only do so under conditions of overwhelming air and naval superiority, right? So how is a single obsolete battleship expected to get close enough to the landing areas to pulverise them with 16" gunfire without being spotted and sunk?

If you're talking about a less powerful enemy force then that, then the situation is even more confusing. An enemy who is not powerful enough to have air or naval superiority, but can still mount an amphibious assault on the Continental US, is at a very specific level of power - too weak to stop an unescorted battleship, too strong to be put off by the US army and air force.

Or maybe you're talking about a non-state actor. But even that doesn't make the picture clearer. In what situations less than an invasion by a hostile state would the US be willing to bombard its own coastal areas? And in which of those situations would nothing less than a battleship be able to do an adequate job?

In short, I can't really see what sort of threats a battleship is meant to deal with as a coastal-defence asset. It seems to me that it'll be slow to arrive no matter what, and either vastly overpowered for whatever it faces or detected and sunk long before it gets close enough to do any good. Would you mind explaining what situations you have in mind where a coastal defence battleship is "the right answer"?
Think about special forces operatives, not the full invasion. Then you need to sweep a long coastline and shell each small hideout, battleship may have some merit compared to airstrikes.
 
If one is keeping the Iowas, one option would probably developing long-range rounds and charges for them that are safer to handle, removing the aft pair of 5" batteries for SAM launchers that retract behind an armored shield to reduce damage from gun backblast (My first thought was a Mark 29 Launcher Box for Sea Sparrows on each side) and ditching the Armored Box Launchers for a large Mark 41 VLS between the two funnels and two smaller ones on either side of the rear funnels, both well armored to handle backblast. The big one would be filled with Tomahawks, the smaller one with SM-2s. The result is tons of extra missile firepower while not compromising the gun firepower. To support this, the ships gets a New Threat Upgrade setup - SPS-48E air search radar and Mark 62 missile fire control radars along with the Missile fire control system from the Virginia-class cruiser. (Installing AEGIS would be too costly.) In addition to this, the engines are overhauled to reduce manpower needs considerably as are the main guns.

In the 1990s, the Navy and Army's development of GPS-guided shells is enough to convince the Navy to use the battleships as test platforms for the use of 155mm guns on warships. The tests are successful, and the long-term maintenance of the heavy guns leads to new shell types being developed for 155mm, 8-inch and 16-inch guns for the American armed forces. All four Iowas have their 5" guns and hoists replaced with 155mm units in the 1990s, considerably extending their gunfire range. By the early 2000s, the Iowas have been modified and fitted to drop their crew requirements to about 1000-1100, still high but much more acceptable. 2000s improvements to UAVs and Phalanx systems and ever-better refits see the Iowas take up roles as capital ships and flag stations for Marine units, joining the amphibious fleets as support for USMC, which leads to the Marines ultimately helping to share the cost of operating the vessels. Of particular utility is the ability of the Iowas, usually paired with a Tarawa-class or Wasp-class amphibious assault vessel along with amphibious units to form Amphibious Battle Groups that could, and at times did, take the place of carrier groups to show the flag and cover assignments usually assigned to the carriers.
 

SsgtC

Banned
If one is keeping the Iowas, one option would probably developing long-range rounds and charges for them that are safer to handle, removing the aft pair of 5" batteries for SAM launchers that retract behind an armored shield to reduce damage from gun backblast (My first thought was a Mark 29 Launcher Box for Sea Sparrows on each side) and ditching the Armored Box Launchers for a large Mark 41 VLS between the two funnels and two smaller ones on either side of the rear funnels, both well armored to handle backblast. The big one would be filled with Tomahawks, the smaller one with SM-2s. The result is tons of extra missile firepower while not compromising the gun firepower. To support this, the ships gets a New Threat Upgrade setup - SPS-48E air search radar and Mark 62 missile fire control radars along with the Missile fire control system from the Virginia-class cruiser. (Installing AEGIS would be too costly.) In addition to this, the engines are overhauled to reduce manpower needs considerably as are the main guns.

In the 1990s, the Navy and Army's development of GPS-guided shells is enough to convince the Navy to use the battleships as test platforms for the use of 155mm guns on warships. The tests are successful, and the long-term maintenance of the heavy guns leads to new shell types being developed for 155mm, 8-inch and 16-inch guns for the American armed forces. All four Iowas have their 5" guns and hoists replaced with 155mm units in the 1990s, considerably extending their gunfire range. By the early 2000s, the Iowas have been modified and fitted to drop their crew requirements to about 1000-1100, still high but much more acceptable. 2000s improvements to UAVs and Phalanx systems and ever-better refits see the Iowas take up roles as capital ships and flag stations for Marine units, joining the amphibious fleets as support for USMC, which leads to the Marines ultimately helping to share the cost of operating the vessels. Of particular utility is the ability of the Iowas, usually paired with a Tarawa-class or Wasp-class amphibious assault vessel along with amphibious units to form Amphibious Battle Groups that could, and at times did, take the place of carrier groups to show the flag and cover assignments usually assigned to the carriers.
I like that. Definitely could see something like that happening.
 
Think about special forces operatives, not the full invasion. Then you need to sweep a long coastline and shell each small hideout, battleship may have some merit compared to airstrikes.

Umm, okay. So why is a battleship appropriate for this task, but a few artillery batteries or destroyers with 127mm guns are unable to handle it?
 

trurle

Banned
Umm, okay. So why is a battleship appropriate for this task, but a few artillery batteries or destroyers with 127mm guns are unable to handle it?
Combination of mobility and relative impunity. Destroyer can realistically become a "mission kill" if struck even by SAM. Shore based batteries..well, these are vulnerable to SpecOps by definition.
 
TheMann has the same idea I was thinking about: the battleship becoming part of a MEU.
I was thinking that what if naval gunfire played a bigger role in the eighties? OTL New Jersey supported the Marines in 1983 Beirut. What if the US plays a bigger role in Lebanon and naval gunfire support is more accurate and in some cases saves the day? This could keep the Navy wanting to hold on to it’s battleships.
Another POD is what if the Iranians are more aggressive in the Persian Gulf? The US Navy gets involved in a naval conflict against Iranian PT boat attacks. An Iowa in the Gulf engaging targets from a distance without risking the loss of an aircraft looks good in the press.Finally in 1991 if Iraq invades Kuwait, what if the Iraqi invasion isn’t so rapid? If there is a battleship already on station it could bring the thunder down on the Iraqis before the first Americans put boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia.
In an alternate 2018 the battleship has been replaced by a monitor type ship that sails with the Marines.
To elaborate on TheMann’s idea the new “battleships” would have their own UAV/drone detachment. I would also attach an ANGLICO team on her for the deployment. In fact I would have a dedicated ANGLICO team on each coast that would deploy on battleships. The team could be paired with SEAL teams for COIN operations if needed.
 
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