"Is It Time to Bring Back the Battleships?" Topic

"Is it time to bring back the battleship?

For decades, naval architects have concentrated on building ships that, by the standards of the World Wars, are remarkably brittle. These ships can deal punishment at much greater ranges than their early 20th century counterparts, but they can't take a hit. Is it time to reconsider this strategy, and once again build protected ships? This article examines how these trends came about, and what might change in the future.

The label "battleship" emerges from the older "ship of the line" formulation, in the sense that a navy's largest ships participated in the "line of battle" formation that allowed them to bring their broadsides to bear on an opposing line. After the development of ironclad warships, the "battle ship" diverged from the armored cruiser based on expectations of usage; "battleships" were expected to fight enemy "battleships." The modern battleship form settled around 1890, with the British Royal Sovereign class. These ships displaced about 15,000 tons, with two heavy guns each in turrets fore and aft, and steel armor. The rest of the navies of the world adopted these basic design parameters, which provided a ship that could both deal out and absorb punishment. The process of ensuring survivability was simplified, in these early battleships, by the predictability of the threat. The most likely vector of attack in the late 1890s came from large naval artillery carried by other ships, and consequently protective schemes could concentrate on that threat…"
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Amicalement
Armand

No! No amount of protection can offset a Mk18 torpedo between the screws… Protection these days is not thru armour plate, its through early warning, hardkill, suppression, seduction – or just not getting pinged in the first place!

No indeed. A modern "battleship" is protected by "armour" at distance in the form of HK and SK

But.. but… nothing says "We're HERE" Like a huge ship, with HUGE guns :)

I seem to recall hearing (and I cant for the life of me recall where) a few years ago that there was a subset of RN officers trying to get a Battleship/Battlecruiser type ship built for the RN. They apparently cited a tactical or strategic need for a well protected (probably with lots of armour and also more modern defences) ship with big gun batteries.

I dont remember the details, and no idea if theres any truth in it, but I recall one of the arguments against it was "exocet etc", with the counter argument being that such a ship could be sufficiently armoured that Exocet and the like "wouldn't so much as rattle the china."

if there was any truth in it, it certainly wasn't official. Retired officers have ahabit of coming up with "interesting" schemes like that though :)

And never under estimate how many weapons were built a certain way because it was "cool." Think the M16 looks that way by accident?

Yes, please bring back the battlewagons.

Conventional powered or nuclear powered?

I don't know ? Can't everything a BB do can be done by air and smaller ships like FFGs, etc. ? You old sailors let me know ?

If only we had a small ship that could do it. The BB shouldn't come back but someone in Pentagon Inc should think of a big gun/missile destroyer/cruiser. They were working on the extended 155 but if railguns come online they would make a nice boomstick.

For what purpose? Bombarding shore? You don't need a BB to do that. Pounding the enemy fleet with big guns? Missiles (soon to be hypersonic missiles), homing torpedos that break your keel, and soon rail guns and lasers seem to make big guns as practical as putting 18 pounders and carronades on modern ships.

You could argue for a BBG, but if a Carrier's lifespan is considered dubious in the modern age, a BB (even a BBG or BBGN) would be even a generation removed from that.

I'd rather see more DDGs, SSGNs and a Frigate that can actually fight than wasting time and a great deal of money on an outdated armored monster that can be felled too easily by modern weapons.

Nuclear powered, Railguns…BF Railguns, latest EW/ASW Suite/weapory,ADA suite/weapons, Verticle launch missile, vulcan cannon, SEAL-Marine Force Recon-Ship's troops, Osprey deck, Otomat autocannon as secondaries, and a really mean name-USS Mad Anthony Wayne.

Someone HAS to do the miniature!

Note that the article is specifically talking about building a ship focused on survivability, ie, an 'armored warship', as opposed to the modern 'tinclad' style which eschews armor in favor of active defense. It isn't taking about bring back gunships per se.

-Will

We already do that though.

Isn't the closest thing we can come to a BB the new DDG Zumwalt's that we can't afford already?

At some time in the future physical survivability as opposed to stealth/countermeasures/whatever will become important again – if you are pretty much guaranteed a hit, then surviving that hit becomes pretty important. I would expect that over the next few decades the current ships will gradually improve physical protection to the extent that they they become battleship equivalents.

Being able to lob 2,000+ lb. shells, in triple salvoes, twenty plus miles away, at supersonic speeds does have a certain charm to it.

No doubt, it's probably more than a little intimidating to our enemies as well, many of whom live on, or near the coast.

So this is a serious argument? Wow! Well, OK, as has been alluded to indirectly, the main benefit of maritime power in thís age of 'warfare amongst the people' is the ability to 'poise' indefinitely off a hostile area, without straining host nation support and without forcing our precious politicians to make any form of concrete decision – exit strategy? The fleet just disappears overnight, no loss of face, no embarrassing flag lowering ceremonies…

So yes, I grant you, from that perspective an old school battlewagon is attractive in terms of impact and endurance, and a stable platform for naval fires.

But the best form of protection once the shooting starts is to hide – don't be found. Ship design these days is all about minimsing the radar, noise and heat signatures. Which all demand smaller, lower, decluttered hulls and superstructure…

No, sorry, can't take this debate seriously! The German High Seas Fleet is at the bottom of Scapa Flow, we really don't need a Grand Fleet of battlewagons any more than we do our soldiers going to battle all in a neat row dressed in scarlet marching in step behind a drum…

It would look kind of cool, but that's what wargaming is for…let the guys and girls doing the business out there have what they ask for, not what looks cool on TV….

Sure why not?
It'll give Cher something to hump…..again…..

Modernize all of the active defense and sensor systems – phased array radar, strong air defense, some form of reasonable ASW systems etc…

Use a mix of traditional armor where appropriate and modern composites to save weight…

Pack a modernized, smooth bore variant (auto-loading, preferably) of the 16" 50 cals used on the Iowas and … could be a frightening thing to run into.

If you're talking about building ships for operations in the littorals, there are two design philosophies.

1) you build lots and lots of small, light ships because they're going to get hit. This means that the loss of any given ship is more or less immaterial to the combat capabilities of the fleet.

2) you build a ship capable of taking hits and preventing hits from happening in the first place. The systems needed to prevent hits from happening make for a larger ship.

Personally, I'd build something along the lines of a Worchester-class CL (6" guns) or Des Moines-class CA (8" guns), with a large number of gun tubes. Either the 155mm from the Zumwalts or the new railgun. Add enough armor to laugh at Exocets or Harpoons, and give the ship a nuclear powerplant to feed a bigass anti-aircraft laser powerful enough to swat any missile with a fractional-second pulse. No secondary batteries of 5" guns, replace all those with VLS cells. Might keep a couple of the 40mm or 3" gun tubs, installing the 50mm CRAM system in addition to the Phalanx guns. Like pretty much every other non-carrier in the USN, it would have an Aegis system installed.

The idea is to have a ship that can go into the contested littorals and stomp anything that tries to contest control. With all the guns, it would be an awesome fire support vessel for the Marines.

Interesting concept for using a BB as part of a Carrier Task Force as a weapons platform to defend the Task Force from Aircraft, missles, subs. Might be an answer to the mass attacks assumed from the Chinese.

That's basically what the old Kirov class of Soviet Battlecruisers was tasked with doing.

Seems to me though, have a very large submarine that can do a lot of the above might be a better option.

Make it very large, like our Ohio class, or the Soviet Typhoon class, and pack it to the gills with conventional SSMs, cruise missiles, UAVs/drones, and other tech that can be launched from beneath the waves, and preferably a bit after the sub has moved off to safer waters.

Adding in a railgun capability might be useful as well, for shore and over the horizon bombardment/attacks.

Before the return fire reaches it, the sub can dive beneath the waves, to avoid enemy counter fire, so no need for Aegis, etc..

Then, it pops up again, a bit later, in a new spot, for another attack.

Considering that submarines are in danger from newer satellite detection techniques – I don't think trying to do that would be worthwhile…

It's getting to a point where anyone with a decent surveillance system can track the wake of a sub in very deep water. The ocean might as well be completely transparent.

If it's job is to protect the fleet then a sub would carry less clout than a similar sized and far cheaper surface vessel. Once it has fired, it's detected anyway, so no advantage.

Yup, subs are a stealth platform. Technically, a stealthy torpedo boat.

Surface ships are excellent for showing the flag, aka gunboat diplomacy. Seeing a big gray monster with the stars and stripes flying on the horizon is a not-so-subtle hint that the US cares about what happens there.

Submarines are for those times when the US needs to say, "what? we had no surface ships there."