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If there is anything it would be difficult to replace, it's one of these ships. Fact is, we don't have anything like them, and neither does anyone else. Should America find itself in a real war anytime in the next seventy five years, we're going to need these ships.
Like I stated earlier, the only thing difficult is the armor. They will not be available to be reactivated in the next 75 years. They are very close to being gone now. If they are to be reactivated, they need to be now. Maintaining them is not a problem. As they are, and as long as we don't sea-swap them, they have an easy 25 years left in them not them 10-15 like some have claimed.
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we're at war with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and all of the other Islamic Terrorists, but this is not a situation that requires the Iowas.
Oh, the reality is quite to the contrary. Laser guided ordnance fired from up to 120 miles away is really necessary. Refitted Mk8 AP rounds reaching out to 33nm is very necesssary. Battleships are terrorist killers. Laser guided ordnace able to literally "shock and awe" with 22 tones of ordnance per minute is very much necessary when dealing with everything from terrorists to a super power. Forced entry from the sea will always be a HUGE use for these, but even the "low-intensity" stuff is right up their alley. Littoral combat is what a battleship is all about. Sure, it can and will dominate a sea battle, but where it is better than anything else is delivering ordnance onto the shore anywhere within its gun range.
Crep proficiency is a is just as important as having them. Even though New Jersey did an outstanding job after being reactivated for only a few months off the coast of Vietnam, but it took Iowa from 1984-1987 to become the best shooting battleship in history. So, for the ships to be really effective in the scenario you're talking about, the ships have to be in commission and very proficient to even really be effective.
Wisconsin was terrible on the gun-line off Kuwait, because since theri reactivation in 1988, they focused on cleaning the ship instead of learning how to shoot all the time. It was not until they had shot over 100 rounds did Wisconsin start to measure up to Iowa's worst performance.
Constant training to proficiency is critical.
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As great as these ships are they are ships. They're made out of steel, they rust, they stress, they fall apart like everything else.
nothing else is built with the same alloy as an Iowa. The rate at which they rust, stress, and fall apart is nothing like "normal" ships. The battleships, even unprotected will last several times longer than any other ship. "Mild ship-building steel or aluminum" used on modern ships is nothing like "battleship grade hull steel".
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But if we take care of them then we'll have them when we need them, and not wear them out prematurely.
While that is true, they are already over 60 years old. The chance of getting them back is very slim now, and as every year passes, the chance, even in an "all out war" will be even less. It's the political thought that keeps them out of service, not ineffectiveness like some believe. They were scheduled for a SLEP to begin with New Jersey in 1993 to give them another 25 years on top of what they already have. Wearing them out is not too much of a concern. Their military utility outweighs the wear we might put on them in the mean time.
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Why are these ships out of commission?
Because we need them.
Maybe to you---and from a strategic point of view---but they are out of commission because their funding was going to be secured through 2000 by the decommissioning of the USS Saratoga, which wound up going out anyway. Yes, the survival of a single carrier was what pulled the money plug for all 4 battleship and their SLEPs and 96 cell VLS upgrades.
Your thought about the newer 16" gun is cool, but there was a design for a new mono-barrel 16" gun for if we wanted to use a new barrel or not. We had 36 spare 16" barrels at the time, but we designed a new monobarrel to replace the multiple piece-liner barrels if we wanted new barrels.
Your point about RAP rounds is good and has already been achieved. We designed, and Pratt&Whittney already produced and tested, RAP and SCRAM jet rounds. Guidance is already achieved, and if we wanted to make laser or GPS guided 16" RAP rounds, we could crank them out very quickly.
I would say after 10 years of all 4 being back in service, we would need to start laying keels for either re-do Iowas (with a new propulsion system) or Montanas. By the time the first reactivated Iowa is decommissioned, we would have at least one new construction battleship in the water.