Don’t care what anyone says, we should have Battleships! Iowa-Class battleships to be precise. In 1984 the USS Missouri was updated and modernized and Reactivated, and served until 1990. It was a glorious site to see and parked off the shore of an adversary struck fear knowing the devastation it could impart from a long ass distance via 2,700 lb HE rnds. Here’s how the Iowa-Class ships could be modernized into ships for the future, and good luck to the navy that had to face such a thing:
How the U.S. Navy Could Bring Back the Iowa-Class Battleships
The National Defense Authorization Act for 1996, generally known as the defense budget, had a unique provision hidden inside the text: the text directed the Navy to keep at least of the four Iowa-class ships on the Naval Register in good condition, retain the logistical support to maintain battleships on active duty and keep those ships on the Register until the secretary of the navy certified that existing naval gunfire support equaled or exceeded the firepower of two battleships. Iowa and Wisconsin were finally stricken from the Register in 2006 after the secretary of the navy, citing the upcoming thirty-two Zumwalt-class destroyers, certified they were no longer needed.
Now, eleven years later, the Navy is only getting three of the thirty-two Zumwalt destroyers, and the long-range attack projectile specifically designed for the Zumwalt’s two 155-millimeter guns is being cancelled due to exorbitant costs. The Navy is again facing a naval gunfire shortfall, in addition to an antiship shortfall. Could the Iowas make yet another comeback, bolstered with new and powerful weapons?
Iowa class was a compromise. It had to fit through the Panama Canal among other considerations. As sentimental as I am toward them, I just don’t know if they are sound anymore
Or you could actually build 10-20 Zumwalts and supply them with ammo. Magically the unit price would plummet to levels that Congress would approve (if still outrageous).
The Iowa class was awesome at its time. That time is 75 years ago. Even with all the armor I don’t see them surviving a real war against Russia or China, and they aren’t needed against anyone else. Capital ships as a concept are practically obsolete with both ballistic missile and hypersonic anti-ship weapons. The smarter investment would be lots of destroyers/cruisers for force projection and patrol, and lots of SSGN type subs - like the early Ohio boomers converted to cruise missile carriers - as formidable, stealthy, survivable arsenal ships.
When I was a teenager I got to go on the USS Iowa one Memorial Day while visiting relatives in the Newport News area in the mid to late '80’s. We used to go there every year for Memorial Day. Being on BB-61 as a young buck was a truly awesome experience! I bought a BB-61 souvenir hat, and I think I still have it in my hat box. I have a big box full of hats I’ve gathered over the years as I like to collect them. I need to dig the box out and see if it’s still there.
I’m all for bringing them back. They just ooze 'EFF OFF!!!
I was on Iowa last spring. As awesome as it was it was sobering to see just how rough the ship was. There is literally no way to bring these back without completely gutting them. Just the basic plumbing and electrical are completely shot. Apparently the 1980’s refurb program consisted of “if it looks like it need to be fixed, just throw some paint on it” because I saw paint so thick in places it had to have an armor rating.
I’d love to see one or two in service but damn it would take a lot, too much probably.
That said, there is absolutely a place for a ship that can function all of its weapons with mechanical and analog controls isolated from the digital world.
The biggest problem would be the supply chain for many of the replacement items. At one time there were replacent liners for the 16” cannons at Crane but I heard they were disposed of. The manufacturing process of the ship is a lost art also and they are manpower intensive. Are they sexy, hell yeah, but like the beloved M-14 and the F-14 they are a maintainence whore.
Build new ones with updated everything except the 16 inch guns.
The revisions to the ship class with the addition of the guided missile systems made it highly useful in an age between the necessity of having digital warfare devices and old school analog “pound your ass into submission” firepower. Is such a ship needed today?
We’re still using “obsolete” A-10s and B-52s aren’t we?
Let’s face facts here. Despite the “do more with less” attitude that often permeates the .mil, sometimes a low tech, single use platform is needed to get the job done. It isn’t pretty, flashy or have all kinds of bells and whistles, but it sure gets the job done efficiently when you need it to do that job. Having the ability to park a platform with a couple of escorts just off a coast with the ability to toss in 24,000 pounds of shells at once or attack targets hundreds of miles inland with its missile systems is a fairly cheap alternative to parking an entire carrier battle group as a show of force.
Check out the article. It’s suggesting following the trend of non powder based weapons.
That’s the idea.
I didn’t know that, but makes sense.
Might be an excellent choice for using in say low tech threat areas also. I don’t think what happened with say the Cole would have done anything but scratched the paint on an Iowa class battleship, and an Exocet might leave a mark, maybe. Seeing haji vaporized against the hull of a battle ship he ran a speed boat packed with explosives into have little effects on the battleship would be very demoralizing for them. A damn dingy and two guys almost sunk the damn Cole, and killed how many sailors? F that. Those battle ships were designed to take direct hits from kamikazes. Big Mo took 3 kamikaze hits. and it didn’t do chit. What’s haji gonna do against that? Die and die badly.
Funny, that scene did come to mind. Best scene in another wise meh movie.
If done per that article, it would be one hell of a platform O death and close to immune to low tech threats to boot. Besides being crazy thick, the armor design itself was quite sophisticated and designed to withstand a direct hit from guns equalization it’s own or smaller, and other low tech insults. Good read on that:
“The most notable difference between modern warships and the Iowa Class battleships is the huge amount of armor protection the Iowas employ. Modern warships are hardly armored at all, instead relying on their ability to stop incoming threats before they can hit the ship. Newer warships have only a few inches of armor plating and in an effort to save weight, have even used aluminum in their superstructures. In contrast, the Iowas were built at a time before missiles and since you could not shoot down or destroy an incoming projectile, the ships were built to withstand the tremendous force of impact produced by naval gunfire.”
All four Iowa battleships after WWII. If all four shot together, EACH broadside would have been almost 100,000 pounds of high explosive. All four ships together would take 2.5 hours to deliver the same amount of high explosives as the Hiroshima bomb.
A battle line like no other…
All four Iowa battleships after WWII. If all four shot together, EACH broadside would have been almost 100,000 pounds of high explosive. All four ships together would take 2.5 hours to deliver the same amount of high explosives as the Hiroshima bomb.
And I think people forget we had North Carolina and South Dakota class ships too. Not as fast, but with 16 inchers too.
I believe it was the armor and it’s design was what set the Iowa Class above those and set the standard for the time. There’s quite a few modern weapons that would sink, or severely damage modern ships that would hardly scratch the paint on an Iowa Class ship. Modern weapons being designed to deal with minimal armor.
Remove the rear turret, add in numerous more VLCS tubes and you still have room for a flight deck for up to 3 F35B’s. Now you have a mobile Gun Boat with its own carrier wing. The Carrier wing can provide air support for the battle group and or provide additional air cover for landing troops.
I read in a report that detailed this exact plan that they could put something like 300-400 VLCS tubes and the flight deck on the back of the boat. Along with strip all the 5in guns, add some of the 155’s the zumwalts are getting and updated multiple more phalanx guns. IMO, we could cut back the number of carriers to 1 per fleet and add 3 BB’s to each fleet for less money than they are spending now.
