"US Navy to Build 13 New "Battleships"" Topic

Hmmm, looks like the good old days of olde are new again.

There's money to build 13 new "battleships" in the budget.

"The measure includes money for 77 new Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, 13 new battleships, and a 2.6 percent pay raise for all members of the armed forces".

That should scare the heck out of the Chinese, Russians, North Koreans, and Iranians, I suspect.

It might even put the fear of God into Turkey's Erdogan, as well.

link

Wonder what class of "battleship" they'll be building?

Hope they have those nice, big, economical, 16" guns, and/or really large railguns.

;-)

I doubt these will be you grandfather's battleships. Also, given the lack of knowledge most journalists have of today's military, I'll bet the author's using "battleships" as a generic term when "warships" would perhaps work better….I'm just guessing.

It's one Aircraft Carrier, 3 LCSs, One sub, six ice-breakers and 2 other ships (don't know what atm).

Hmmmm, "Ice Breakers" and those "Little Crappy Ships" are now in the "Battleship" class?

Can't believe anyone agreeing to make any more of the LCS'. They worthless, and way too expensive.

Someone needs to be edumacated on naval vessel terminology.

Or is this like saying fighter jet or panzer tank.

Thresher01 – I was involved in the initial testing of the MIW modules for LCS. I couldn't agree with you more completely….

Yea, a pity.

The concept sounded good, but seems to have been very poorly managed, and implemented.

WWII, and early Cold War PT Boats, Gunboats, and Missile Boats had a lot more punch, far fewer crew, and some of them were almost as fast as the LCS.

As equipped now, they're not much more than sacrificial targets and war tripwires, instead of combat vessels.

Does anyone even know how to build battleships anymore?

@79thPA: No. We don't even have the steel mills capable of rolling the armor plate. Or machine shops capable of making 16" gun barrels (I think 8" tubes are the current max).

We do know HOW to build them (there's enough documentation to build old-school 74's and 1st raters, and plenty to build steel battleship).

The core capabilities to build ships anything like the Iowas just doesn't exist anymore. As stated above, the steel mills are gone, for the most part.

Now, we do need to remember that there is some commonality between producing high pressure piping for oil and gas – and building large caliber guns…hmmm…

The press uses the words people will click on, they're not concerned with what other people think those words mean.

There are a lot of other tricks to making a battleship (welding armor plate without compromising it's protection, for example), that we just don't have anymore. We'd have to beg/borrow/steal submarine workers to even come close (HY80 steel makes a good approximation of armor plate, but is usually only 4-6" thick).

Now, we do need to remember that there is some commonality between producing high pressure piping for oil and gas – and building large caliber guns…hmmm…

Yeah, the reproduction cannons are typically cast around a piece of drill casing for strength/safety. And even then the foundry doesn't warranty the cannon for anything but blanks!

This company link can still cast cannon for our last battleship link . ;-)

Well, those guns are bit newer than what Old Ironsides used and also much older than what an Iowa used…