What-If USS Kentucky BB-66 for Dave

[Cliffy B]

Neither was I until Dave told me that's that what they would do. Dave, please clarify.

[Timmy C]

Ah, my comment was more for general What-ifs than for this thread, though I had missed the preciseness of just how much of BB-66's construction was completed.

"Scramming" a nuclear reactor is an emergency cessation of nuclear reaction - it's a term used more often in submarines. It can involve dropping rods that interrupt the reaction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram
I guess the concern here is that in most cases, scramming is a more-or-less permanent cessation of reaction - that is, once you do it, you can't simply take the rods out and have the reaction restart. However, according to the last paragraph in the wiki, warships do have mechanisms that allow for partial scramming, allowing for restarts.

[Russ2146]

Shut down the reactor after taking a hit?????????

Guys, the engineering spaces on the Iowa class are within the heavy armor. There is some heavier protecting C&C space, but you'd have to blow through a lot to get to the propulsion. The magazines and engine rooms were protected by an armored belt 12.2 inches (310 mm) thick, which sloped to give an effective vertical thickness of 13.5 inches (340 mm).

Go back to the premise. It was based on photos of the Kentucky in Navsource, information in a history of the Naval Weapons Factory that I possess, the thought that Howard Hughes tucked the Spruce Goose away for so many years, the fact that pieces of the Illinois were completed but not yet installed at Philadelphia.

[navydavesof]

Shut down the reactor after taking a hit????????? Guys, the engineering spaces on the Iowa class are within the heavy armor...

Quite right. It's not that it scrams after the "first" hit, but if the ship sustains enough damage (which might be the first hit depending on the hit) the reactor scrams. The deal with nuclear reactors scramming is that whenever a nuclear vessel's power plant, CVN, CGN, SSN, SSBN, or BBN, or land reactor, thinks that it is in danger, such as the ship sustaining significant impact that reverberates through the hull, an event drives the propeller shaft back into the ship, or anything that would disrupt safe operation of the nuclear reactor, the reactor will shut itself down. Safety is paramount.

The question is: how much disruption triggers the scram? I don't know, but we can partially deduce. We know SSNs have run into Soviets SSBNs and SSNs really, really hard, in fact SO hard we breach the Soviet hulls but did NOT scram our reactors.

So far, no aircraft carriers or nuclear cruisers sustained damage, so a precident cannot be applied like that of our submarines. Now, what Cliffy B and I talked about was that the armor would have to remain in place to prevent an immediate scram. The requirements for a scram is all very strictly regulated and set up by people high, high, high on the nuclear food chain and cannot be changed by the ship's crew. I would greatly hope and suggest that the reactors equiping a battleship would reflect the protection incorporated into a battleship.

[navydavesof]

For all of those questions about space inside the hull take a look at the Builder's Plans for Wisconsin (1956) and New Jersey (1984) over on HNSA. They should clear up some of those questions.
BB-64
http://www.hnsa.org/doc/plans/bb64.pdf
BB-62
http://www.hnsa.org/doc/plans/bb62.pdf

What a great resource Cliffy has found.

You are missing a point, the hull is completed only up to the second deck. It still requires completion up to the 1st deck and then the main deck.

This does allow for a free arrangement of the secondary armament and other stuff that does not penetrate deeply into the hull. As a result, the 8� battery, which I would install instead of the 5�, can be best placed. We just have to remember that since the ship has an interior armor belt that tops at the 2nd deck, and another armor deck and bulkhead that push inward one compartment, nothing that penetrates the deck more than these two decks can go directly against the hull. It runs into the armor.

The superstructure is non-existent...Its design is going to be influenced by the choice of power plant and their respective air supply/exhaust requirements. In the case of nuclear, that would be none.

Russ brings up a very good point, also. As I was sitting at a pizza joint yesterday, I sketched out more of how the general arrangement might be for the turbine air supply. I would imagine it might reflect more of how the Burkes have their plenum arrangement. That would give a big platform just aft of the bridge on the O-2 to O-3 deck, and the Burke-ish stacks.

There are other questions we need to answer, too. Are we going to WIF deeper and say that the VL Harpoon was finally finished and brought on-line or are we staying with the Mk141 launchers? That will dictate a lot how the armament is arranged. Unless we come up with a better ASM than a Harpoon, we are going to have to stack quite a lot of Mk141 Harpoon launchers on Kentucky.

Is this ship supposed to operate outside of air cover? Like a few of us have discussed, it seems like our surface combatants are really weak on ASuW (8 Harpoons? puke on that). It will require quite a few Harpoons to overwhelm the target ship's defenses. After that, you have to start damaging the target ship. Someone (carr ) pointed out to me that the notion of relying on damaging them with Harpoons and closing to gun range to sinking them is a good back up plan but not a good primary one. You don't necessarily want to have to follow up with guns, because something else might be waiting for you to get closer, too. So, lots of Harpoons (and hopefully a next gen missile will come into play, too) is the answer.

Its design is going to be influenced by the choice of power plant...In the case of nuclear, that would be none.

Indeed, and in this arrangement, I would not go to all the trouble of the below-decks hanger. Instead I would do a Spruance-style hanger amidships, because there is SOOOO much room between the turrets.

Does anyone have any further ideas? Remember, the ship is so big we don�t have to delete a main battery turret. We can put the potential stuff between the turrets.

[Russ2146]

On 30 July I posted "Looking at the plans of the NJ and WI on the HNSA site," Unfortunately HNSA doesn't post here so you have to check them from time to time to see what they have posted

Again, could you 16" mount #3 to the level of mount #2? You could pick up some space for hangers.

I was thinking that VL Harpoons would be an assumed reality. Otherwise, how about going Russian with them or on 01 Deck, on the outboard edges, parallel to the centerline or canted outboard, between 8" mounts.

"It will require quite a few Harpoons to overwhelm the target ship's defenses." Overwhelm with decoys??

Are you going to need both of the main battery director towers?

[carr]

Someone (carr ) pointed out to me ...

Curses! I've been out'ed. My secret identity is known! Back to the Batcave!!

[navydavesof]

Again, could you 16" mount #3 to the level of mount #2? You could pick up some space for hangers.

Not if the barbette is already constructed, which by your scenario it is. It's even installed. If you had 2 Turret 2 barbettes I think you could, but the Turret 3 barbette is not long enough to do that and still provide the protection needed. Now, even if you did raise Turret 3's the barbette, it would simply turn into a really armored stool for the turret to sit on.

Now, an above deck hanger directly underneath discharging 16" guns produces another set of problems. That hanger would have to be one tough hanger. Unless you were to make the top and sides of the hanger out of deck armor (not a very good idea for weight/center of gravity concerns; not only is 3,500-4,000 tones of turret and barbette almost 2 decks higher, now there is an enormous armored box, the hanger, as high as the O-2 level), you would likely be blowing out lights inside the hanger all the time. The doors would have to be very hardened, too. I would suggest that a hanger like that would probably produce way too may problems.

Even though that would produce a neat looking stern, I think that is the hardest way to go about putting helos on the ship. Since the ship is not even completed up to the 2nd deck, build a below decks hanger just aft of T-3.

I was thinking that VL Harpoons would be an assumed reality...Otherwise, how about going Russian with them or on 01 Deck, on the outboard edges, parallel to the centerline or canted outboard, between 8" mounts.

Canted would be the way to go. You don�t want to have a Harpoon rocketing past the entire structure when you fire one. The issue with the Mk141 canisters is that they are rather vulnerable to all kinds of weapons fire. As they are, a strafe from one of my .50s could take out a whole launcher, and fragments from missiles being taken out by the various CIWS mounts would likely shower exposed launchers and damage the missiles inside. The way to protect against that is to build splinter protection around the launchers so at their angle the missiles still clear the walls on launch. Essentially you would build a splinter tub around the launchers.

Like I said earlier, amidships between the funnels would be an excellent place for a battery of Harpoons and on either side of the aft stack, I would put two more launchers on the back half of the stack. I say the last half, because that way when you shoot the missiles you hopefully won�t blast a bunch of exhaust inside of the rear air intakes.

Amidships: I would have two or three of these tub structures and Harpoon arrangement positioned between the stacks. The walls in there protect the surrounding missiles from a sympathetic detonation (a detonation caused by a perfectly lucky white hot fragment to the warhead) of a missile in its tube. These 8 round batteries you see here separated by these walls would prevent the blast and fragmentation from the above case from damaging or destroying the ones next to it, or all of the surrounding missiles in that case. Here, only 8 missiles would be affected.

Aft: The aft arrangement I would double the arrangement Iowas had during their last reactivation in similar tubs, so 2 launchers in each tub for 16 on each side.

This would give the ship between 32 and 48 Harpoons.

"It will require quite a few Harpoons to overwhelm the target ship's defenses." Overwhelm with decoys??

Overwhelm with missiles. I know the Russians have gone to the trouble to put decoys and jammers inside the missiles. I don't think that's a Harpoon thing. Unfortunately, overwhelming with Harpoon is done with �more targets� so more missiles. If the Harpoons have ECM jammers on them, great! However, I don�t think the Harpoon is cool enough to have any decoy systems. You have to overwhelm the targets defenses in order to score a hit, so lots of Harpoons are necessary.

Are you going to need both of the main battery director towers?

Absolutely I would keep them. They are enormous armored tubes that can hold all of the electrical conduit that runs up to the radar and range finders. Keep in mind, redundancy is essential if you expect to take hits, so both forward and aft ones would be a very good idea. If it were nuclear and the helo deck overtook that area, I would arrange a new aft range finder either in front of the hanger in its own structure or on top of the hanger. I would keep both original optical range finders, too, but replace the range finding radar with something current like a SPG-60 or something. In the nuclear version the optical would move accordingly. I would expect battleship to need its redundant systems.

Does all of that make sense? I hope I drew a good enough mental picture for an arrangement. If I had a scanner things would be easier!

[navydavesof]

Someone (carr ) pointed out to me ...

Curses! I've been out'ed. My secret identity is known! Back to the Batcave!!

Oh, uh....sorry. I meant to say "the dark voice of reason, mission, and how to accomplishment such missions." Yeah. That's it...

[Timmy C]

Does all of that make sense? I hope I drew a good enough mental picture for an arrangement. If I had a scanner things would be easier!

You can always use your camera to take a picture of your drawing.

[Cliffy B]

Does all of that make sense? I hope I drew a good enough mental picture for an arrangement. If I had a scanner things would be easier!

You can always use your camera to take a picture of your drawing.

I've been telling him this for weeks now but the punk is too lazy to dig it out and take a friggin photo!

Enough excuses already Dave, make with the photos!!!!

[navydavesof]

You can always use your camera to take a picture of your drawing.

I've been telling him this for weeks now but the punk is too lazy to dig it out and take a friggin photo! :bash_2:Enough excuses already Dave, make with the photos!!!!

Eat a male sexual organ

[Cliffy B]

No thanks Dave, I prefer the female version.

[navydavesof]

No thanks Dave, I prefer the female version.

Liar.

[navydavesof]

But really, the drawing I have as of now really sucks. Those pictures are better. When I get out a straight edge and start laying lines I will be sure to share it with everyone!

[navydavesof]

Radar Arrangement:

Conceptually, if we were to do a phased array, I would not recommend a SPY-1D type set up but instead a SPY-1F built up in a mound very near the top of the forward fire control tower just beneath the optical range finder. On an Iowa it would be positioned right on top of the ECM house. This way the guts can route inside the armored tube.

I would have a rotator back up, though. At least it would be a SPS-49 on a mast incorporated into the aft fire control tower and a TRS-3D mounted on the front of the forward fire control tower where the SPQ-9 is on an Iowa.

Another option, one I like, is where the aft fire control tower is a sensor structure arrangement like that of a Virginia CGN. On the top would be the optical range finder. Mounted on the forward face of the fire control tower would be the TRS-3D and on the aft face would be the SPS-49. To give TRS-3D a better radar field of view, it could be mounted on a platform on the forward face of the aft stack. Stepping down from the SPS-49 would be two track-and-scan illuminators (SPG-51 or modified SPG-62s)

This illuminates the need for a giant main mast that travels all the way from a stack to the top of the forward fire control tower. It�s not a problem if that is chosen, but there is a way to do it without a mast, and it keeps the two radar suites separated.

[navydavesof]

You know what the cool thing about this is, right? This exercise is helping me flesh out the real "modern" battleship: the Montana. Fan-tastic.

Let me ask a few of you guys out there, has anyone found out what the costs are on the SPY-1F and SPY-5? I am still maintaining the position that a battleship would maintain the same radar arrangement as a CVN or LHD/LHA (SPS-49, SPS-48, SPQ-9B, etc). I am wavering if it should be an AAW asset or not. CVNs and LHDs have all elements of the New Threat Upgrade that gave the Mk76 Terrier WDS such an incredibly good air warfare picture that it was peer with Aegis, but since the CVNs and LHDs/LHAs do not have the Mk76 WDS, the ship does not shoot stuff down; it just has an incredibly good air picture. That is an asset a battleship could benefit from. Unless the ship is supposed to become an AAW asset, there is no reason for the ship to have the big, bad, Mk76 (or greater) WDS.

[Russ2146]

Why keep the optical range finders on the towers, and the two turrets for that matter?

[navydavesof]

Why keep the optical range finders on the towers, and the two turrets for that matter?

The optical range finders on the towers are not dependent on power whereas electro-optical are. In this case you can use the sites when the ship has no power. The towers' elevation provide you with 21nm visibility whereas the turrets only provide you 10 at best. Redundancy and the ability to target and engage when without power in the worst case scenario is pretty important.

[Russ2146]

Just as a point of reference.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/mk- ... ted-02139/


Lockheed notes that the MK 41 VLS is itself available in three different sizes to meet differing hull and mission requirements:

�The Strike length MK 41 is the largest system accommodating the widest variety of missiles, up to and including SM-3 ballistic missile defense and Tomahawk cruise missiles. In future, it also has the potential to carry Harpoon anti-ship missiles, if a VL-Harpoon is developed. Its capabilities cover every threat in naval warfare, including anti-air, anti-submarine, ship self-defense, land attack and ballistic missile defense.
�The Tactical length Mk 41 is over 7 feet shorter than the Strike length and can accommodate a variety of missiles up to approximately 18.5 feet in length. The SM-2 and Evolved SeaSparrow air defense missiles, and VL-ASROC anti-submarine missiles, will fit in a tactical length cell.
�The Self-Defense Launcher (SDL) is specifically designed for ship self defense. SDL is shorter and lighter than the other variants. Its size and weight are designed to accommodate smaller ships like corvettes and frigates, as well as aircraft carriers with limited deck and hull space.

So, on a BB, you could conceivably have all three sizes of launcher, depending on the space available in a given area. For exaample, between the stacks centerline - Strike size; outboard of that, P&S, Tactical size; and outboard of those, P&S, Self Defense size.

�US Navy � Mk 41 VLS
�BAE Systems � VLS MK 41 Strike Length Missile. Strike length cells, as opposed to Tactical length Mk.41 cells, can accommodate longer missiles like the SM-3 anti-ballistic missile and Tomahawk cruise missile.
�BAE Systems � VLS Mk 41 Missile. As the U.S. Navy�s Mk 41 canister design agent, BAE Systems has developed the Mk 25 Quad-Pack canister that fits 4 RIM-162 ESSM anti-aircraft missiles into a single Mk.41 cell.
�Lockheed Martin � MK 41 Vertical Launching System (MK 41 VLS)
�Lockheed Martin � Extensible Launching System (ExLS). Fits into a Mk. 41 cell, as an semi-permanent adapter for a range of existing and new munitions. Quad-packed Nulka decoys or RIM-116 RAM missiles, or strike munitions like NLOS-LS/NETFIRES, are some examples. Developed under IRAD funding. An obvious potential competitor to the Mk 25 Quad Pack.