Bob, Sorry this has taken so long, but life gets in the way.
carr wrote:
Admhawk wrote:
If you need that many defensive weapons, you're in the wrong kind of battle.
What an odd and backward statement!
If you're in that kind of battle, it's the enemy that's in the wrong kind of battle because they're about to be obliterated by a battleship.
It’s not a backward statement at all. You said it yourself, a modern battleship is, primarily, a land attack platform and, secondarily, an anti-surface platform.
I agree.
To that end, a BB will have a large group of escorts to keep it safe, just like a modern Carrier Strike Group. That’s current Naval doctrine and strategy.
If a BB is offshore making holes in the ground of some enemy, what will it be fighting around it that requires so many defensive weapons?
- If there is another fleet nearby, the BB won’t be doing NFGS, it will be staying out of range or attacking the opposing fleet.
- If there are Aircraft coming in, the Carriers better be active as well as the rest of the battlegroup.
- If there are swarms of fast boats, why isn’t there a fleet taking them out?
- Etc, etc…
When I say the wrong kind of battle, I mean that the BB doesn’t operate alone and neither is it the only asset that is considered for an engagement. If a modern BB is being attacked by overwhelming firepower, then it’s pretty much game over because that means everything else has failed and the enemy is going to win. Or nobody wins because the big red button has been pushed.
A Naval planner wouldn’t send a BB into a fist fight with other Navies, without a whole lot of planning and support.
Current USN Strategy embraces the concept of Distributed Lethality.
http://www.navy.mil/strategic/SurfaceFo ... ontrol.pdfWhile Current Naval Doctrine strives for a balance and offers peacetime objectives with deterrents to make fighting undesireable. NDP-1-Naval-Warfare-(Mar-2010)
https://dnnlgwick.blob.core.windows.net ... -(Mar-2010)_Chapters2-3.pdf?sr=b&si=DNNFileManagerPolicy&sig=fky%2FObDmYKlduAibAvs6HGU%2Bw%2Fb3WLBac1fPdC%2B7L%2FY%3D
If a modern BB was sent to fight a battle, it would be in a group. A typical standard formation provides a number of layers of defense within the battlespace, designed to give maximum protection to the fleet's high value units (HVUs). If a Carrier is present, it will have Combat Air Patrol and early warning aircraft 200 nautical miles (370 km) or more out from the main body. The ships of the outer screen operate between 12 and 25 nautical miles (22 and 46 km) from the main body. The inner screen is within 10 nautical miles (19 km) of the HVUs.
carr wrote:
You do know how many defensive weapons a WWII Iowa had, right? Do you understand why they had that many? They had them so that they could stay in the fight even if the ship received damage.
Actually, they had them because they were so ineffective. If they had any hope of hitting a plane, they had to throw as much lead into the sky as possible to have any chance of hitting it. Missiles can be fired from pretty far away and are getting pretty fast. However, it only takes one hit to disable an incoming missile. The accuracy of modern AAW is far superior to those of WWII. So following modern practice, you simply don’t need as many.
carr wrote:
Let's take the extreme case of a BB with a single close in AAW weapon. If it gets hit, even by simple shrapnel - it's unarmored, then the entire BB is just a floating target to be slowly pounded below the waves. Okay, that's valid, so let's give the ship two AAW weapons.
I agree. I neglected AAW weapons on my design, most likely because I was overwhelmed by the coolness of it.
carr wrote:
A BB is MEANT to be in heavy fighting. Its unarmored topsides may well be riddled. That being the case, we're going to want as many AAW weapons as we can fit so that no amount of damage will leave the ship defenseless. This is also why I called for weapons that have their own sensors - so that no single hit can take out a radar and render all the AAW weapons inoperative.
I totally disagree. A BB used for NGFS shouldn’t be in heavy fighting. That’s what the screen of escorts are for. Same as a carrier. There is also the possibility of interference between so many sensors going active at once, then you’d have to have programming to determine which targets are selected so a million shots don’t concentrate on one missile, ignoring the others. Development of software seems to be a huge weakness in the modern day, delaying a number of weapon systems.
carr wrote:
A note on responses - I'll gladly DISCUSS my battleship concept - it's fun - but I won't respond to people who want to nitpick, criticize, and argue for the sake of argument. We have several of those people on this forum and they contribute nothing worthwhile.
No need to be rude. Discussions include Criticisms and arguments to support ones views. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. If my earlier response seemed heated, or angry, it was probably just the short pointed form it took.
carr wrote:
Maybe consider throwing out your concept of a modern BB. You had a drawing that was, apparently, more of a cool-factor than a real concept. Maybe give it some thought and offer your modern BB features and see how they compare to mine?
I did. You dismissed it because I thought it was cool. Your response wasn’t what I expected. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it. Did you even read my responses to your queries? There may be some refinements that could be made, but I believe the concepts have merit.
For the record, I’m a huge fan of the Iowa Class. I’m even working on a 9 foot RC version of the New Jersey. I just don’t think 70 year old gun technology is sustainable in this day and age, no matter how cool it is. I also don't think that enough armor could be put on a ship to protect it. I also think Nuclear power is the only way to go with large ships. It reduces the amount of time needed to refuel, therefore the vulnerable UNREP window is smaller.