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I had seen numerous aircraft carriers both docked, passing by in channels and at sea. None were as impressive as the first time I saw a battleship.

The Bismarck bow on is an impressive sight. I'll take one of our last 8 BBs though - the South Dakotas and Iowas. North Carolina and Washington are good looking too (but a little lighter on the armor)

Imagine if we didn't have to build our battleships to fit the Panama canal.

Imagine new battleships with nuclear reactor power plants and batteries of rail guns instead of 16”-18” guns. And Tomahawks.

Whoa baby!

The movie Battleship is a really stupid movie but I like it for the broadsides scenes.

anygunanywhere wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 12:39 pm The movie Battleship is a really stupid movie but I like it for the broadsides scenes.

I have a digital copy of the movie that I put on, and jump to that scene, and then turn it off.

Iunnrais wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 11:21 am The Bismarck bow on is an impressive sight. I'll take one of our last 8 BBs though - the South Dakotas and Iowas. North Carolina and Washington are good looking too (but a little lighter on the armor)

The New Jersey BB-62 is the one I saw coming into port in San Diego. I was on the USS McKee at Point Loma and watched it from as far out as I could see it until it went past to dock in San Diego harbor.

Chester Nimitz, Hyman Rickover and Jimmy Thach killed the battleship, albeit in very different ways.

Nimitz, being a submariner, unleashed the Silent Service upon Japan days after Pearl Harbor and demonstrated the terrifying power of the attack submarine. When Rickover aggressively made nuclear boats safe and reliable, the SSN functionally replaced the battleship. In that way, it's incorrect to say that we don't have battleships, just that they look different today. There is a reason that only SSNs and SSBNs are named after states Ii.e the historical naming convention for BBs).

Thach contributed to the BB's demise by starting the process of redefining "armor". In direct response to Midway and the Coral Sea, he proposed continuous CAP over American task forces with destroyer pickets at great range actively vectoring in those airplanes. The effectiveness of this strategy was apparent in its defense against kamikaze attacks, but most pointedly at the Philippine Sea, wherein Hellcats literally ate incoming waves of Japanese planes. What should've been the "Japanese Midway" (they had a big advantage in wind as well as a ton of land based aircraft to buttress their carrier air wings) was instead the "Marianas Turkey Shoot". Our planes killed exactly one carrier (the Cavalla also got one- cool boat to see in Galveston), but it didn't matter because by the end, nearly all of the Japanese pilots were busy fighting off sharks. Armor, like every other material, depends upon size and material properties. Steel's material properties are far superior to those of air, but hundreds of nautical miles of air can overcome that disadvantage.

Nuclear reactors, rocket propelled shells, nuclear warheads, and composite armor all COULD have contributed to a battleship that was massively superior to its predecessors. The Iowas actually carried W8 shells in the 1950s, which were reportedly ~15kt each. But none of that mattered compared to the sea change in naval power that lead to the ascendancy of the CVN as the primary support platform, the SSBN as the primary strategic naval arm, and the SSN as the new battleship.

The guy who ran a sports website that I used to frequent service on a Los Angeles class SSN. He said that during wargames, they essentially cruised around racking up tonnage.



The Mk 7 is an impressive weapon, but the Mk 48 Mod 7 is horrifying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81fRUr_8mLI

This ole Army guy sure wishes he knew what all these abbreviations meant. CAP, CVNs, BBs, SSNs, and SSBNs are some kinda super-secret Naval code.

Liberty wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:58 am This ole Army guy sure wishes he knew what all these abbreviations meant. CAP, CVNs, BBs, SSNs, and SSBNs are some kinda super-secret Naval code.

I know CAP is Combat Air Patrol, I know BB is for battleships, but don't know what it actually stands for.

Jago668 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:46 am

Liberty wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:58 am This ole Army guy sure wishes he knew what all these abbreviations meant. CAP, CVNs, BBs, SSNs, and SSBNs are some kinda super-secret Naval code.

I know CAP is Combat Air Patrol, I know BB is for battleships, but don't know what it actually stands for.

CVN - aircraft carrier nuclear
SSN - attack submarine nuclear
SSBN - ballistic missile submarine nuclear
Also there are:
SSGN - guided missile submarine nuclear (the US SSGN’s are SSBN’s converted to carry cruise missiles instead of ballistic missiles)
Finally, some countries still build and deploy:
SS - submarine diesel electric

I served on two SSN’s - one named after a fish and one named after a city.

This reminded me of an old sci-fi novel, THE AYES OF TEXAS. Basically, an eccentric secretly updates the Battleship Texas and takes on Russia.

You can add Halsey to the list. He foresaw the power of the aircraft carrier and promoted them over BBs. He even went so far as to get himself sent to flight training as a Navy Captain to learn about aircraft and their operations.

MaduroBU wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:44 am ...
Thach contributed to the BB's demise by starting the process of redefining "armor". In direct response to Midway and the Coral Sea, he proposed continuous CAP over American task forces with destroyer pickets at great range actively vectoring in those airplanes. The effectiveness of this strategy was apparent in its defense against kamikaze attacks, but most pointedly at the Philippine Sea, wherein Hellcats literally ate incoming waves of Japanese planes. What should've been the "Japanese Midway" (they had a big advantage in wind as well as a ton of land based aircraft to buttress their carrier air wings) was instead the "Marianas Turkey Shoot". Our planes killed exactly one carrier (the Cavalla also got one- cool boat to see in Galveston), but it didn't matter because by the end, nearly all of the Japanese pilots were busy fighting off sharks. Armor, like every other material, depends upon size and material properties. Steel's material properties are far superior to those of air, but hundreds of nautical miles of air can overcome that disadvantage.
...

Navy doctrine was somewhat similar in the 1980s with CVN's leading the battle group for power projection. DDG's and CG's with phased array radar way out as pickets (i.e. as Soviet AS-4 missile sponges and SM-2 magazines for said sponges). Then DD's a little closer in with Tomahawk and Harpoon cruise missiles for surface attack and some torpedoes as a last ditch Hail Mary for enemy subs that got past the SSN's also guarding the battle group.

Plus all manner of Oilers, Tenders, and USNS supply ships to carry the JP-5, DFM, beans, bullets, spare parts, and ordnance for said battle group.