WI: 9/11 Targeted USN Assets

Delta Force

Banned
The Navy is the primary means of projecting power for the United States through direct action and logistical support and has been extensively involved in the Middle East since the 1970s. Additionally, most of its aircraft carriers and submarines at the time were nuclear powered (now it's universal), and many warships are equipped with nuclear weapons. What if 9/11 had targeted these nuclear powered ships and others while they were at port or maintenance facilities?
 
you mean fly a 747 into kings bay or Groton (ether EB or The Subbase)

Norfolk/Va Beach being another option.

Submarines are smaller targets then a skyscraper. A Carrier is a bigger target but still the reactors are that easy of a spot to hit.

If you could break the pressure hull and get into the reactor you could get a leak but would not be that massive.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
An airliner, even fully loaded with fuel, is

The Navy is the primary means of projecting power for the United States through direct action and logistical support and has been extensively involved in the Middle East since the 1970s. Additionally, most of its aircraft carriers and submarines at the time were nuclear powered (now it's universal), and many warships are equipped with nuclear weapons. What if 9/11 had targeted these nuclear powered ships and others while they were at port or maintenance facilities?

An airliner, even fully loaded with fuel, is basically an aluminum tube ... Moving at several hundred miles an hour. Maybe 200 tons?

A ship or submarine tied up alongside is thousands of TONS of steel. A CVN is 100,000 tons of steel. And it is at a dead stop, essentially,which means said airliner is basically flying into the ground or the sea.

Imagine an egg being thrown at an anvil.

Best,
 
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Delta Force

Banned
Kamikaze aircraft were able to cause significant damage to warships during World War II. Modern warships are larger than their World War II counterparts, and being in port would improve damage control, but a jet airliner would carry some significant kinetic energy and massive quantities of fuel.

I don't think it's likely, but an aircraft impact would be on par with being rammed by an aircraft carrier traveling at cruise speed. Using this calculator, a 100,000 long ton warship traveling at 30 knots would hit with a force of 5,929,243,895 joules. A 200 metric ton aircraft traveling at 470 knots would hit with a force of 5,846,186,669 joules.
 
Kamikaze aircraft were able to cause significant damage to warships during World War II. Modern warships are larger than their World War II counterparts, and being in port would improve damage control, but a jet airliner would carry some significant kinetic energy and massive quantities of fuel.

I don't think it's likely, but an aircraft impact would be on par with being rammed by an aircraft carrier traveling at cruise speed. Using this calculator, a 100,000 long ton warship traveling at 30 knots would hit with a force of 5,929,243,895 joules. A 200 metric ton aircraft traveling at 470 knots would hit with a force of 5,846,186,669 joules.
In other words, 5.9 MJ each within the margin of error. That many significant figures are irrelevant. You don't know the weight and speed of either vehicle that precisely.

If someone is crazy enough to try this, they're trying to start fires - shipboard fires are bad, and dockyard fires are worse. Trouble is, if the ship is in a dry dock, it's a difficult target; if it's afloat in port, it's not all that vunerable, since the flammables content is low.
 
Carrier hit...

A sub wouldn't be a practical or worthwhile target..small and hard to hit. Bin Laden was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them, so I'm going to look at carriers.

An underway carrier is NOT a viable target. They have rules of engagement that would allow them to shred a kamikaze before it hit--and the terrorists would presumable know that. Additionally, the pilots of the hijacked planes are NOT experts by any means. Once again, Bin Laden rules that out.

That leaves a carrier in port...that has possibilities, but also problems. Here's the problems as I see them:

Target selection:

9/11 required very good weather, and hence, was subject to postponement. Unless the ship was docked for an extended time, it's likely to move if there's a delay. Target gone.

For that matter, how good would the terrorist's intelligence concerning ship movements be? It's easy to see when a ship is in port--but not so easy to know when it WILL be in port, unless it's undergoing serious work.

Hitting the target:

I'll grant the terrorists the ability to crash dive onto a carrier in port. But within a half hour, I doubt that a second plane would be able to pull it off, at least on an active ship. Everything the US Navy has would be at battle stations, with AA weapons manned and armed. Even in a port where the carrier is stripped down for rebuilding, there's other ships that can man battle stations.

I think (but am not sure) that the decision to shoot down the plane attacking could be made, in this case, but the ship's captain, as his command is under direct attack. Defending one's own command against direct attack usually doesn't need clearance from higher up.

The way to get around this might be for every plane with a carrier available to have the carrier as one possible target, with a secondary target to be attacked once a carrier is attacked.

Damage:

The damage that the strike could inflict is, to me, the most difficult thing to assess. Carriers have LOTS of flammables aboard, and the ship is not at battle stations, but as open as a ship gets under normal conditions. The burning fuel from the jet could end up in some very bad places. The magazines are safe, though. There will be very few planes aboard; air groups fly off when a carrier will be in port for an extended time. This could be far worse than the fire on the USS Forestall back in Vietnam. This would, IMVHO, be unlikely to sink the carrier, but she might be a constructive total loss, depending on how bad it gets. Is the flight deck fire suppression system good enough to do the job? And even more important, the hangar deck system!

How much of the burning fuel would end up below, and how much would run off the flight deck into the water. Depending on the angle of impact, the wings (where most of the fuel is) might not even end up on the carrier, but in the water or on the adjacent dock, in which case the damage is much less.

Worst case: A carrier is making a short visit to a major city, but only for a few days, so the air group isn't flown off. A lot of burning fuel ends up on the flight deck, and starts a chain reaction of burning, exploding aircraft. The ship isn't at battle stations, of course, so damage control takes a moment to get going. Damage control would be a formidable task, with the sheer scale of the conflagration, and the total surprise. The ship possibly could be a total write off--though once again, IMVHO, it's unlikely to SINK.

Wrecking a carrier would be a major hit to the USN, but "heavy damage" doesn't look as dramatic to the world as a falling skyscraper, and lacks the CIVILIAN body count. It also won't do the same damage to the command and control of the US Military that a more effective strike on the pentagon has the potential to do.

In short, a strike to take out a lat of the American carrier fleet seems implausible, though striking one might be. The ship hit would be out of action for months to years, or perhaps permanently.

USS Independence was in mothballs, and could be returned to duty if need be; Saratoga and Forrestall were stripped hulks, that could, at massive expense, be put back into service. Constellation likely gets an extension on her career until the damaged carrier is back in service.

In short, one carrier severely damaged, or even wrecked, won't likely be as damaging as hitting one of the trade towers, but might be doable.
 
you would not want to hit a carrier in overhaul. All weapons and fuels are off loaded so that the magazines and fuel tanks can be worked on.
A carrier in home port will have the air wing and most weapons off loaded if they are in for a extended time.

So best target for a carrier would be a port visit.

And you are correct, you will only get one chance at a carrier. Unless you do a simultaneous attack on several other ships while hitting the carrier.

Hitting several weapons ships, weapons depots at the same time might get better results.

Though hitting the Capitol building while both houses are in session would get the best results. along with other high casualty targets
 
Time on Target

It's going to be very difficult to arrange any sort of coordinated time on target strike, as the weapons will be obtained at different times depending on the results of the hijackings, delays in take-off's, weather, and a multitude of other things. Shore facilities will be very robust, if they contain munitions of any sort.

A few general aviation aircraft added to the mix of planes could have added serious confusion to the whole scene, and a modest sized twin engine plane, loaded to do harm, could do a lot to a modern destroyer or frigate.

The basic problem that the terrorists have in attacking the US military is that they can't do enough damage to seriously inhibit military operations--a carrier, a couple of destroyers, and perhaps a Yemen style speedboat attack or two could do harm...but the US Armed Forces will be plenty able to deal out wholesale devastation to whoever is the designated target.
 
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