What-If modernised USS Montana BB-67

[GTDEATH13]

Well, after deciding how to build my hanger (a single double door construction will be built) the question of modernised armament came out...

First of all the era of modernisation has to be decided and the budget of the modernisation...

What I mean is this: Had the Montanas been built, the most propable era of modernisation would be the mid 1980's and the 600 ship navy programme. If that's the case to be followed then the armament in the trumpy Iowa kits is really adequate. Harpoon launchers, Tomahawk "box" launchers, four phallanx ciws, maybe a couple of sea sparrow launchers and the 5 inch guns on twin mounts. Furthermore, some radar on an aft mast and some more antennas and other electronic equipment will be installed.

But, if the modernisation came to a later age (lets assume the mid 90's) then we need a couple of vls systems (easy to build), some single 5 inch mounts, propably the 5/54", ram launchers, as well as a couple of phallanx ciws. And the electronics equipment is much more diverse. Aegis combat system, different antennas and radars and so on...

There is also another issue. The directors for the main armament (which as you can see in not an issue of discussion, four 16" turrets). Could there be a more advanced system? Could present day directors be used for the main guns of the Montana? Or is there a possibility of applying a modern and more advanced fire control system for all the guns, main and secondary?

Any suggestions, thoughts and data more than welcome.

[Sauragnmon]

One thing to consider, is that even in the 80's refit, there were concepts for further developments that had been laid forward - mk42/45 replacing the 5" batteries, a Sea Sparrow launcher setup in place of the upper 5" position, etc. So you can also make such considerations there with this project in mind. The question is, how much is the Navy willing to commit to make these a seriously viable and usable platform for surface warfare - are they going to refit the main guns? are they going to upgrade the secondaries? are they going to fit missile systems? It comes down to how much are the bean counters in the pockets of the carrier humpers? *grumble*

[GTDEATH13]

The following picture is Appendix O from Malcolm Muir's book "Iowa class battleships" ISBN 0713717327.

It is a comparison between a carrier and an Iowa. If we take in mind that the Montanas had an additional main turret than the numbers increase in favour of the battleship...

[Sauragnmon]

The case for Montana would go up in places and down in others. Consider a few key places where there would be changes:

Yes, overall tonnage of bombardment would increase, though not listed and often cited by the carrier admirals is the range of delivery as well. Assuming equal range, a Battleship is by and large going to outpace a Carrier for sheer weight of delivery. Montana even more so for three more artillery tubes unloading a couple thousand pounds every shot. Fire For Effect, a Battleship will hands down just cause metric tons more damage, effect, and output. This also considers the original layout, heaven forbid the guns and systems were modernized for even further efficiency of ammunition handling.

The Montana would have a higher crew requirement than the Iowa, however, which would offset the cost a Slight ammount. Additionally, they don't include manpower costs for losses, but still it makes a case. The battleships' fuelling and maintenance costs without new source of parts would increase however, as the supply of parts for them ceased to exist - remember the sheer material cost that came about to bring the Iowas back into service, how they had to steal parts from museum ships in order to get the machinery back up and running.

Still, it's rather amusing just how much the difference is.

[navydavesof]

Well, after deciding how to build my hanger (a single double door construction will be built) the question of modernised armament came out...

That's pretty cool. Are you going to keep this below the main deck or are you going to put it up in the structure?

Furthermore, some radar on an aft mast and some more antennas and other electronic equipment will be installed.

I agree. The question is: what would you have on that aft mast? The Iowas got a CGN electronics suite in the '80s, but detection really isn't good enough. Engagement is a necessity (SAM capability, and thus the electronics needed. This would push her into the BBG category. If you don't want to go that far, the other stuff you can put on the aft mast could be RPV and 5-inch related).

But, if the modernisation came to a later age (lets assume the mid 90's) then we need a couple of vls systems (easy to build), some single 5 inch mounts, propably the 5/54", ram launchers, as well as a couple of phallanx ciws. And the electronics equipment is much more diverse. Aegis combat system, different antennas and radars and so on...

The only thing I disagree with is the Aegis suggestion. Aegis is not really an option with the massive over pressures from the 16" guns. MAYBE if you made the Aegis on a small mast in the middle of the ship (as far from the guns as possible) it could work. But it would likely still be an unrealislitic idea.

There is also another issue. The directors for the main armament (which as you can see in not an issue of discussion, four 16" turrets). Could there be a more advanced system? Could present day directors be used for the main guns of the Montana? Or is there a possibility of applying a modern and more advanced fire control system for all the guns, main and secondary?

Sure! The Mk8 main battery range finders are still the best. The optics involved are unparalleled, but something new has come out recently, and it's being used on board the DDGs. That might be a good addition to the tried and true range finders.

Good luck with the next step, man. Keep the pictures coming.

[GTDEATH13]

The hanger is going to be placed a deck below the main deck aft of turret No4. The black line in the following pictures provides a clue as to where and how large it will be.

Now, for the electronics suite. I have been studying modern US ships and I think taht the best suite is that of a Ticonderoga cruiser or an enhanced Spruance or Kidd destroyer.

The above picture is a Spruance destroyer. The equipment on the masts is really going to do the trick, and the masts will be easy to manufacture.

Below is USS Ticonderoga.

The aft mast of the Montana will resemble the aft mast of the Tico and the equipment on the for masts of the Tico and/or the Spruane will be added either to the aft mast as well, while two SPS-60 gun fire control radars will be placed for and aft.

I hope you get the point, or at least you can imagine...

[GTDEATH13]

Below are two pics of a mock-up that I made yesterday, if the equipment of a modernised Iowa is used. The only exception will be that the middle 5" mount will be replaced by a Sea sparrow launcher. The elevated position will have Phallanx ciws on each side, the Harpoon launchers will be placed on an elevated position between the two ciws platforms.

[Sauragnmon]

Uh... Nikos, there's a problem with that layout.

The Tomahawk ABLs on the midships mount of the Iowas fired like the Harpoons on a Spruance - when the box elevates to launch, it's going off the Opposite side so the launch blast isn't striking the other ABL. In your case, it'd be firing Through your mast setup. But, you can always build the stack as a MACK on the aft section, where it's a partially enclosed design and your radar structure is mounted onto the same design.

Your Harpoons don't necessarily have to be elevated, as remember - the general plan had them side-saddle around the stack and aimed outboard for launch, with the blast against what I would surmise was a section of reinforced structure.

Another question is... what're you going to do with the two Phalanx that sit on the sides of an Iowa's bridge?

[GTDEATH13]

I guess then that I will place the boxes facing outwards and not inwards...

I am definately keeping the ciws at the bridge... Six ciws for this monster...

Now some food for thought... How possible would it be to go from a BB to a BBGN... Remove boiler rooms and add nuclear reactor(s)...

How viable would be a ship designed to take punishment with a nuclear reactor in its belly??? Would a single hit be crippling?

I have also considered the mack construction, especially after seeing some projects in the 60's and 70's... But I think that the separate mast is ok...

ah... by the way..

The construction of the armour belt has been temporalily halted due ti lack of resources... I am supporting the local hobby store recently and am waiting for raw material... But lack of armor will not cancel this porject as it did in the past...

[navydavesof]

I am definately keeping the ciws at the bridge... Six ciws for this monster...

May I suggest the center CIWS platform actually be replaced with your Sea Sparrow launcher? That would be a little more consistent with design and practicality. So far, none of our ships have had more than 4 phalanx mounts.

Now some food for thought... How possible would it be to go from a BB to a BBGN... Remove boiler rooms and add nuclear reactor(s)...

Not hard at all, my man! Two reactors along the centerline would be great. The design's "armored box" surrounding the entire propulsion plant would take care of the reactor compartments just fine. The only reasons why the Montanas were going to be under 31 knots was because they needed 320,000 shp (I believe) to achieve 33 knots. The two reactors would push them up to 35 easy, easy, easy. The extra electronics you have touched on need that extra power, too.

How viable would be a ship designed to take punishment with a nuclear reactor in its belly??? Would a single hit be crippling?

People think too little of the armor battleships carry. A single hit to cripple a BBN would have to be such a surprisingly heavy hit, it would be detected by look outs much less by radar.

Electronics:

From one of your earlier posts, yes, I am a real fan of the electronics the Kidds had in the late '80s and early '90s. If you will notice, they are different than earlier in their careers. There's almost no reason for a capital ship to have Aegis. None of ours (CV, CVN, LHA, LHD) do, nor should they. Nearly every escort around them has it. All the capital ship needs is a standard data-link to see what they see. The Kidd-class electronics suite, called the New Threat Upgrade, would make the battleship the most capable strike platform ever put to sea.

And that's what i have done to my USS Iowa (BBG-61). That's how the battleships, Iowa and Wisconsin, should be modernized right now.

Does that help, man?

[Guest]

Now some food for thought... How possible would it be to go from a BB to a BBGN... Remove boiler rooms and add nuclear reactor(s)...
Not hard at all, my man! Two reactors along the centerline would be great. The design's "armored box" surrounding the entire propulsion plant would take care of the reactor compartments just fine. The only reasons why the Montanas were going to be under 31 knots was because they needed 320,000 shp (I believe) to achieve 33 knots. The two reactors would push them up to 35 easy, easy, easy. The extra electronics you have touched on need that extra power, too.

Conversion to BBGN would be limited by at least several of the following issues:
Speed increase would not likely occur as the turbines and shafting have specific limits. Range and time at speed would of course be effectively unlimited.
Loss of the steam superheat would reduce turbine efficiency and increase issues with carryover and possible blade errosion not originally planned for.
Although physically able to fit reactors, layout, shielding, and support equipment would have to be addressed within confines of the originaly propulsion plant.

Look forward to seeing more discussed.

[navydavesof]

Conversion to BBGN would be limited by at least several of the following issues:
-Speed increase would not likely occur as the turbines and shafting have specific limits.

I would offer that while this is true, the turbines designed for a plant providing 120,000shp (the approved design) would be used for the seam coming from two nuclear reactors, presumably an A4W or A1B reactors. Those provide a minimum of 140,000shp a piece. Because the Iowa plant (212,000shp) would have provided the ships with 31 knots,a minimum of 280,000shp would provide likey 32.5+ knots (320,000 was quoted for 33knots). That plant was just awefully long. At 176', they settled on the South Dakota plant (130,000shp) because it was so much shorter. That is why they were only sited to have a 27 knot speed, and having that plant in mind would have driven the associated equipment. I am sure you realize this, I am just providing the info.

So, if we're looking at ship producing 280,000+shp, the associated machinery would be geared toward that. We must keep in mind if this is new-construction. Associated conversion would have to strip most of the guts out of the ships.

-Loss of the steam superheat would reduce turbine efficiency and increase issues with carryover and possible blade errosion not originally planned for.

I don't know much about why a nuclear plant would lose temperature, thus superheated steam, over a Babcox-Wilcox 600lb plant. Why would it?

-Although physically able to fit reactors, layout, shielding, and support equipment would have to be addressed within confines of the originaly propulsion plant.

Indeed! If it's new construction, no problem, if it's a conversion, the mutilation might be extreme. The fire-rooms on the battleships were shockingly well protected. Cutting through all that armor is a big deal, and that's why the type of boilers were used, and it turns out that they were as good as we expected! The Babcock-Wilcox 600lb boilers are the best. Unfortunately, you need more fo them for the same hp than the 1200lb-ers, but the 600lb boilers were so much safer and far more reliable.

[GTDEATH13]

I guess a nuclear conversion would prove too costly and very difficult to complete....

As far as the ciws configuration it is all on a hypothetical besis and not yet decided...

First I will complete the hull reconstructiuon and then move on to designing the basic shape of the superstructure... The most propable weapons suite will be equivalent to that of a modernised Iowa.

The electronics suite will be equivalent of a Kidd class destroyer, with some additional fire control compoonents.

The forward mast will have some alterations, and the aft mast will resemble that of a Ticonderoga class cruiser.

[navydavesof]

I guess a nuclear conversion would prove too costly and very difficult to complete....

Well, it is not un-doable, but the estimates in the 1980s for an Iowa conversion was 1.2 billion bucks. Yes, that would be the mutilation of the ship, but what would come out a couple of years later would be by far the ultimate surface combatant.

The electronics suite will be equivalent of a Kidd class destroyer, with some additional fire control compoonents.

One thing to keep in mind is that teh Kidds' electronic packages were specifically designed to produce a poo-man's Aegis anti-air warfare system. I think that is a fine idea! Unless you actually have an SM-2 capability, such as some kind of VLS arrangement. I suggest, however, if you don't want to have such an intense AAW missile direction system (Mk-74 with the New Threat Upgrade) without an SM-2 capability, then something like the Wasp-class LHDs would be appropriate.

My SM-2 armed Iowa-class battleship, USS Kentucky, is equipped with the New Threat Upgrade the Kidds have because in addition to be a battlesihp, she's a SAM ship, too.

The forward mast will have some alterations, and the aft mast will resemble that of a Ticonderoga class cruiser.

I look forward to seeing some of that!

[Guest]

Loss of the steam superheat would reduce turbine efficiency and increase issues with carryover and possible blade errosion not originally planned for.

I don't know much about why a nuclear plant would lose temperature, thus superheated steam, over a Babcox-Wilcox 600lb plant. Why would it?

The PWR reactors used in the USN don't generate steam at 850degf. No superheat. That is one of the reasons Kirov has oil-fired superheaters.

[navydavesof]

The PWR reactors used in the USN don't generate steam at 850degf. No superheat. That is one of the reasons Kirov has oil-fired superheaters.

Since we don't have any Kirovs, and since they're really horrible ships, how about we compare against ships we do have...like the Nimitz-class carriers? They work just fine with their PWR. If they work well for the 100,000 ton ships, why not a 62,000-70,000 ton ship? Their reactors are the ones that would be used aboard a Montana.

[GTDEATH13]

In my opinion if someone decided to put a nuclear powered steam propulsion system in the Montanas he would have to reconfigure to whole design of the propulsion plant.

First of all the changes in weight positions is huge.

Than, as you previously mentioned, the steam turbines of the propulsion plant have to be changed. Superheated steam turbines would simply not cope with the reduction in steam power output. Superheated steam is about 30% more efficient than saturated steam of the same pressure. So changing the steam turbines would become a necessity... So would be for the turbine driven generators (which also use superheated steam). The main and auxiliary condensers would have to be replaced also and this leads to a drastic change of the propulsion plants configuration.

So I guess a transision from a steam powered ship (especially a battleship) to a nuclear powered ship is something too expensive to be decided...

[navydavesof]

In my opinion if someone decided to put a nuclear powered steam propulsion system in the Montanas he would have to reconfigure to whole design of the propulsion plant.

First of all the changes in weight positions is huge.

Than, as you previously mentioned, the steam turbines of the propulsion plant have to be changed. Superheated steam turbines would simply not cope with the reduction in steam power output. Superheated steam is about 30% more efficient than saturated steam of the same pressure. So changing the steam turbines would become a necessity... So would be for the turbine driven generators (which also use superheated steam). The main and auxiliary condensers would have to be replaced also and this leads to a drastic change of the propulsion plants configuration.

So I guess a transision from a steam powered ship (especially a battleship) to a nuclear powered ship is something too expensive to be decided...

This is very interesting. Shore-based nuclear power plants produce super-heated steam as opposed to saturated steam. Unless siz is the determining issue, I wonder what the problem is.

Also, with my last post, what is the deal with the Nimitzs then? Their two power plants move around a lot more @$$ than that of a Montana. Why could those plants not be used in a Montana? Why would over-powering be a problem?

But, I agree. A full replacement of the propulsion plant is a liklihood.

Let's consider this. The Montanas would have been in commission possibly as long as the Iowas for the first term; say 1948 decommissioning. Then they would be recalled during the 1980s. Let's say two were reactivated with the four Iowa-class: Montana and New Hampshire.

I think it is safe to say that converting two conventionally powered battleships to nuclear would have been the same price as a new Nimitz-class CVN ($4 billion). So the contract for USS Abrahan Lincoln would have been awarded instead to the modernization and propulsion conversion of the Montana and New Hampshire from oil-fired boiler to nuclear, because two nuclear powered battleships are such a better deal than one nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

Once they came on line in the late '80s, I believe everything between the turrets (2&3) would have been but all the way down to the fire rooms and reconstructed. It might have been expected to see two 61-cell VLS pads in her, port and sarboard, 16 Harpoons, and maybe...maybe an aft mast similar to that of the Virginias with AAW antennas and radar aboard.

Now, you're giving me ideas for a feasible 1980s/1990s Montana. GOOD JOB! Thanks alot! Finally coming to a solution to this thought that I have wondered about for a very long timde is something I really need on my mind right now! You're a jerk.

So, Deathman, what did you think about my suggestion for the Sea Sparrow placement? Why not place it in the middle CIWS platform instead of having 6 CIWS mounts?

Good thread, man. I love seeing your in porgress shots. Keep it up.

[Guest]

Thank you GTDEATH13 for helping me make my point. Changes in steam conditions have major effects on equipment. Propulsion I know about. Weapons, weights, and effect on ship design not so much. Want to discuss best weapons and other such things have at it.
My only point has been that you cannot take things that are built for one set of conditions and try to make them work in completely different conditions without something happening. One of the fallicies of nuclear power are the power limits. Enterprise is over powered compared to Nimitz and much slimmer and lighter. Nimitz while efficient is not the speed demon some think. Nuclear power allows for very fast changes in speed compared to conventionally fired plants. Top speed is based on turbine power, shaft limts, and screw efficiencies. Power requirements increase at about cube of speed.
What nuclear power provides is effectively unlimited range and high speeds over time. Conversion would give the range and endurance benefits absolutely. The idea that you shove a reactor into a ship and automatically it has more power is a falllicy.
navydavesof: I appreciate your thinking and like what you have in both this and the Spruance post.

[Guest]

Not all shore based reactors are Pressurized water. One of the advantages to the liquid metal reactors was higher operating temperatures allowing a correct degree of controllable superheat. The example of the Kirov was only to point out one solution to obtaining the amount of superheat to produce the power required. As to judgement of the ship itself only the Russians know.
Standard superheat temperatures for the US 600psi plant is about 850edegf. Reactors operate on the primary side at just over half that. The heat transfer thru the steam generator producing the steam is somewhat less due to losses in piping and the exchange process therefore no useable superheat.