What-If modernised USS Montana BB-67

[Sauragnmon]

Nuclear conversion would be a likely solution, if the old gun club could get enough support in the key points of congress to get the money together. Fully modernized, one could similarly see the conversion coming up instead of a couple of the CGNs possibly, to give the Monty some serious love and polish and spit shine. To get full propulsion benefits, they'd have to refit the shafts, screws turbines, all of it, to get a higher efficiency supply of speed.

At Least two 61 cells would be the going rate for a refitted Monty, in all truth and honesty. Three might be considered, but certainly not on the level of my Mightier Mo, which is just absolute Insurance as I put it.

And Dave, that's the problem with ideas - they tend to just creep up on you, whether you like them or not.

[Guest]

To move the whole thing up to current conditions and address all of the concerns with regard to propulsion plant age, hull form, and weapons fit.
Take main guns and armor off the current hull and install into a new construction unit. Options range from a full new century BB with all the construction tricks, weapons, and electronics etc available in 2009 to a 21st century version of a British monitor.

[GTDEATH13]

Minor update...

The armor factory (aka LHS) produced some armor, but only enough for one side of the hull. The following pics show the cross section of the main armor belt. Take in mind that both for and aft the edges of the armor belt will be sanded so as to form a digrading pattern and that I have decided to change the curnes of the bow and reinforce it so as to decrease the resemblance to an Iowa class bow...

The thickness of the belt at its maximum is approximately 3.5 mm but after sanding that will decrease to about 3mm. The thin upper belt is about 1.5 mm

Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome...

[navydavesof]

I think it's looking pretty cool, man! The blister on the side (if you don't know) is just a torpedo blister. The buldge is not armored, just a giant spacer involved to predetonate a torpedo and absorb the shock. But I am sure you realized that from the pictures of the protection arrangement posted.

Have you come to any conclusions about the missile armament yet? Are you staying with the ABLs or are you going with VLS?

I wonder if a reactivation proposal was indeed made for a Montana-class ship if she would have ONLY been equipped as the Iowas if not heavier.

But...big, fat Montana would be incredibly more powerful and better protected than the Iowas. If the Montanas came along, they would have been at least 30% more protected than the Iowas. In consideration to any shore missile or artillery batteries, Montana would be nearly invulnerable. Her deck and side armor was going to be unparalleled. So, being either nuclear powered OR conventional 600lb boilers, she would have been possibly revolutionary in the field of gunnery and capital ships.

I would imagine if they had been reactivated or in possession of the Navy at the time of the '80s, they might have been an excellent candidate for nuclear conversion in the case that they would be replacements for the New Jersey and Iowa by the time two Montanas came out of the yards.

If a Montana were built today, she would likely be built as nuclear power, and in such a case, she would have helos and such...but no real ASW capabilities, no sonar nor no torpedoes outside of ASROCs. I would imagine they would have an AAW capability but most likely would not have Aegis. At the least the same radar set up as the Wasp-class LHD and best of the Kidds we've talked about so many times, the New Threat Upgrade.

The best thing about battleships is they take the place of aircraft carriers, and a nuclear powered battleship that had undergone the same kind of fueling and renovation that a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier had, she would be a shockingly formitable capital ship capable of all kinds of missions.

Guest: Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it. I very much enjoy these mental gymnastics, and this is helping me better establish my arrangement for my modern CAG. I will be using the model to propose the next generation of large surface combatant to the CNO's Strategic Study's Group.

LET'S SEE MORE USS MONTANA!

[GTDEATH13]

Have you come to any conclusions about the missile armament yet? Are you staying with the ABLs or are you going with VLS?

The missile armament will be the same in type with that of a modernised Iowa, for two reasons:
First of all because I already have this armament from the two kits I am looting...
Second because I think that this would be the most propable choice of the US Navy, since the availability of Tomahawk box launchers from decommisioned ships would lead to such a decision, in order to exploit the left over launchers.

I wonder if a reactivation proposal was indeed made for a Montana-class ship if she would have ONLY been equipped as the Iowas if not heavier.

I guess that it would be much heavier and more sophisticated regarding the C4I suite (command, control, censors, communications and intelligence).

If a Montana were built today, she would likely be built as nuclear power, and in such a case, she would have helos and such...but no real ASW capabilities, no sonar nor no torpedoes outside of ASROCs. I would imagine they would have an AAW capability but most likely would not have Aegis. At the least the same radar set up as the Wasp-class LHD and best of the Kidds we've talked about so many times, the New Threat Upgrade.

The best thing about battleships is they take the place of aircraft carriers, and a nuclear powered battleship that had undergone the same kind of fueling and renovation that a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier had, she would be a shockingly formitable capital ship capable of all kinds of missions.

Well, that is what I have in mind. Perhaps the modern equivalent would be the proposed arsenal ship the Navy considered building but finally cancelled... The nuclear propulsion plant would be ideal for a ship this size and weight. Moreover, it would provide all the necessary means for carrier group escort, if not a nucleous of an attack-battle group herself...

LET'S SEE MORE USS MONTANA!

You will have to wait a while because I am away on a deployment and will be back after October 10th...

[navydavesof]

Good luck with your deployment. What kind of unit/ship are you with?

Are you still thinking of 6 CIWS emplacements or are you going to replace one of them with the Sea Sparrow launcher?

Concerning using the left-over ABLs, I think if the Navy were to reactivate the ship when the ABLs were coming off decomissioned ships (mid 1990s), they would likely be putting VLS in place instead. ABLS fell out of favor very quicly. The foot print of the ABL is huge for what you get. You get as many as 16 VLS tubes for the same surface area as one ABL.

Other than cost, the reason the Iowas were getting ABLs in 1981 (NJ) and 1983 (Iowa) was because they were new equipment and could be installed quickly and easily. Mo and Wisky got them because of restricted budgets : (

Are you in the Hampton Roads area?

[GTDEATH13]

Are you still thinking of 6 CIWS emplacements or are you going to replace one of them with the Sea Sparrow launcher?

No, I think I will install 4 ciws and use the space gained for the ecm antennas. The sea-sparrow launchers (which I have to find or scratchbuild) are still on the "move"...

Concerning using the left-over ABLs, I think if the Navy were to reactivate the ship when the ABLs were coming off decomissioned ships (mid 1990s), they would likely be putting VLS in place instead. ABLS fell out of favor very quicly. The foot print of the ABL is huge for what you get. You get as many as 16 VLS tubes for the same surface area as one ABL.

Other than cost, the reason the Iowas were getting ABLs in 1981 (NJ) and 1983 (Iowa) was because they were new equipment and could be installed quickly and easily. Mo and Wisky got them because of restricted budgets : (

You are possibly correct but still I do intend to use parts of my two Iowa kits. Furthermore I have decided to assume that the modernisation would have taken place in the mid 80's as part of the 600 ship navy building-modernisation program.

Good luck with your deployment. What kind of unit/ship are you with?

Thanks a lot, this is my ship, HS Nikiforos Fokas (F-466), ex BLOYS VAN TRESLONG (F-824), of the Standard or Kortenaer class frigates of the Royal Netherlands Navy.

[Avery Boyer]

Can't believe I missed this thread, great project, great concept, and some great discussion going on! Can't wait to see more!

[GTDEATH13]

Thanks for the kind words...

I will post some progress asap. I hope that tomorrow I will manage to get the supplies I need to finish the hull and might also have a rough sketch of the superstructure...

[GTDEATH13]

Well guys, get ready to light up the boilers to this thread... Progress report is on its way...

[Sr. Gopher]

Good news I guess!?!?!?!?!...

[GTDEATH13]

Well, I finished installing the styrene to the armor of the other side. I also added some cement and started shaping the bow...

As you will see in the pictures that follow, I am stuck with hot to shape the aft end of the armor belt. Any ideas would be more than welcome, since I am close to hitting my head to the wall...

The easiest solution would be to add water around the model and get rid of the lower hull, but I do not like the idea of wasting such an effort...











For those who have not followed the project from the beginning the scale is 1/700 and I am kitbashing a couple of modern Iowa calls kits from Trumpeter...

[Sr. Gopher]

I can't wait to see the product of this!!!!!!!!!!! So far, looks like the Montana will live after all.

[navydavesof]

Death,

Are you having problems smoothing the blister material into the hull? If so, the solution is to use a sanding block to sand the sides down. The second way is to lay a piece of sand paper down on your desk and hold the hull in your strong hand with the side of the hull face down and run the hull down the sand paper toward the side you want smoothed over. As you learn the technique you will see how to shape the material to match the shape of the hull. It would be great.

[GTDEATH13]

My main problem is how to shape the after end of the armour belt... If you examine the photos, there is a huge part of the end of the armor belt that does not "fit" to the shape... Should I fill it or rub it smooth like the part in the bow?

I have become a mastersander with all this sanding on this model... Tha sanding required on my 1/350 Montana seems easy....

[navydavesof]

My main problem is how to shape the after end of the armour belt... If you examine the photos, there is a huge part of the end of the armor belt that does not "fit" to the shape... Should I fill it or rub it smooth like the part in the bow?

That's a good question. I think you should smooth it into the hull. If you have not seen in the Friedman book US Battleships there is a front, back, and side view. That should help out a lot, and there has to be a few people on here who have those pictures scanned and can post them up. Those pictures with your sanding abilities I think you will get a good result.

[LSUfan]

Kitbashing begun yesterday and today it is progress time...

Modernised USS Montana BB-67... 1/700 Trumpeter kitbash using USS Winsconsin and USS Missouri...

With two GMM deatail sets..

And perhaps some extras like replacing the 5"/38 cal. with modern 5"/54 single mounts... With VLS and perhaps a Hangar deck...

These are the first pics...

23082009641.jpg

23082009642.jpg

23082009644.jpg

Comments and thoughts are always welcome...

Replacing the 5"/38s with 5"/54s or 62s is the exact right call. Cuts down the manpower requirement and reduces weight.

I would leave ALL 16 in guns intact, even if it means not having VLS. Armored box Tomahawks are enough.

Keep in mind that guided projectile technology, RAPs and other technical innovations just coming out when the Iowas were retired resulted in an 11in, 1000lb submunition with a certain range of 70nm and probable range of 110nm. With GPS, this makes for a more effective antiship weapon that even Harpoon, plus the ability to project power much further inland.

[BFR4570]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but the idea of building a new Montana does not seem possible in this day and age (even if you could get the funding). I have seen it written in several threads (and nobody argued) that it is basically impossible to match the armor that was used on battleships. The technology is lost, and would need to be re-invented. I have no doubt it could be done if sufficiently motivated, but this would greatly raise the amount of funding needed to make one of these monsters. Or you could try to make do with thinner armor, but that defeats the purpose of using this ship in the first place. Modern armor cannot stand up to the normal weapons we use now, much less what the Montana would have been able to dish out, and its armor was designed to withstand a direct hit from its own size weapons. If you cut up the interior armor to put in nuclear power, what are you going to fix it with? We don't have the simple, yet effective, technology they had in WWII to be able to work with armor this thick. Even the remaining repair sections for the Iowa Class are not as heavy as the Montana's would have been, right? Or were they planning to downgrade the Montanas to the level of the Iowas before they were canceled completely. I am sure a lot of you have MUCH more knowledge about this than I do. This is just what I have seen over the years in these forums. Being able to cut through armor up to, or exceeding, 16" thick, and then repairing it as near good-as-new as possible would seem to me to be nearly impossible as things stand right now. It would be an interesting problem for a Yard to try and solve!

All that said, this model is looking like its going to be a beautiful interpretation of what might have been! I just found this thread tonight and I am looking forward to seeing more pics.

[navydavesof]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but the idea of building a new Montana does not seem possible in this day and age...

Uh oh. You're not going to like my up coming build of a 21st century new-build Montana at all

Just for reference, we can make most of the armor on battleships matching the strength requirements and characteristics of STS, Class A, & B today. The steel strengths are classified by HY strengths today, such as HY80, 100, and 110 with various surface hardening and other treating techniques to match what each kind of armor is supposed to do. The thicknesses and lengths are what would require some retooling of the industry, but it's a myth we can't do it. It's also a myth we can't make new 16" barrels. We won't make them the way we did back then with all of the many different pieces, nor would we want to. We would make them mono-barrels (one-piece) in a similar technique used to make propeller shafts.

I think Death's Montana here is one that would have been reactivated during the '80s.

[BFR4570]

Uh oh. You're not going to like my up coming build of a 21st century new-build Montana at all

Actually, I will enjoy seeing it very much! When (approx.)?

Just for reference, we can make most of the armor on battleships matching the strength requirements and characteristics of STS, Class A, & B today. The steel strengths are classified by HY strengths today, such as HY80, 100, and 110 with various surface hardening and other treating techniques to match what each kind of armor is supposed to do. The thicknesses and lengths are what would require some retooling of the industry, but it's a myth we can't do it. It's also a myth we can't make new 16" barrels. We won't make them the way we did back then with all of the many different pieces, nor would we want to. We would make them mono-barrels (one-piece) in a similar technique used to make propeller shafts.

I think Death's Montana here is one that would have been reactivated during the '80s.

I have no doubt that given proper motivation, we have the capability to re-create anything from WWII, and do it more efficiently. That is because we know so much more about the properties of alloys now than we did back then. But, creating the infrastructure to actually do it would be EXPENSIVE. You would need to make the equipment, that could be used to make the machinery, that would be used to make the parts you need. With design and testing all along the way, right? One advantage we have now is really good computer simulation to do most of the grunt work of design and testing. Plus all the equipment and machinery you will need for repair and maintenance of these new armor pieces. Short of another World War that would require the need for something in the scale of a Montana (and not need carriers), I don't have a clue as to where the neccesary motivation could come from. Unless some other country does something to the USA, on the order of Pearl Harbor, that REALLY ticks us off, I don't believe the support could be drummed up for a project of this scope. Personally, I would love to see something like a Montana built, instead of another Nimitz or Ford carrier! But then, I've been a little battleship crazy since I built my first Arizona when I was nine. So bring on your new Mod! I want to see it!