Tracy White wrote:
The main problem I have with this is that I don't see a BB doing any sort of missions where it would be landing such a small force.
It's a SEAL thing. Iowa operated as a special operations hosting, coordinating, staging, and support platform for SEALs quite a bit in the '80s. Other than accuracy of gunnery there was nothing special about Iowa to the SEALs, so it's a fair be that the other battleships probably had SEALs on them just as often. What they liked about Iowa (and probably battleships in general) was having the massive support and strike capability at their direct disposal. Keep in mind that SOF support is by no way
the reason to have a battleship, but it adds an extra ordinary organic quality to the battleship's tactical situation, and the battleship adds an incredible strike resource to the SEAL's tactical situation. If they "know" a battleship is in the area or not, firing on targets up to 27 miles inland (or 47nm 11" sabot round) or up the coast catches everyone by surprise.
RPVs/UAVs can see things from the air, but the man on the ground who can identify a target entering or exiting a building or track which vehicle the particular guy got into is very unique and very valuable to the execution of a mission. That is one of the situations where our DDGs have been forced to use their 5" guns for immediate action. That's why gunnery is so important. Time is of the essence when providing fire support or executing a gun strike or "fire mission", and missiles cannot arrive on target fast enough to match that capability. It's all about "get him before he gets away" and "get him before he and his friends get me."
The way NSFS works today, with special forces at least, is not as formal as it used to be. SEALs see something they want to die, shoot a GPS coordinate off a line of bearing, find it on a satellite picture they have, virtually e-mail the picture to the ship and coordinate with the ship via that particular picture. It's exactly like this:
"Hey, um...
Benfold? Is that your name?...Yeah,
Benfold,"
"Negative, call sign is Dorothy,"
"Dorothy? Ha. Right.
Retards. Okay,
Dorothy, you see the 'L' shaped building at coordinate xxx?"
"The right side up 'L' or the sideways 'L'?"
"...
what is this guy talking about?..."
"Victor 13 come back,"
"My name is Carl. Now shut up. It's the only building around that forms an 'L' at that coordinate. Anyway. That's where three tier ones are. We need you to take out that building. Can you accommodate?"
"Yes."
"Alright, be quick about it. We don't know how long they'll be in there."
SEALs loved the Iowa in the '80s. As I have talked to SEALs, they would like to have them today.
Tracy White wrote:
I think the helos would be used for patrol, marine interdiction/VBSS, perhaps some ASW & VERTREP. You're not going to be able to base more than a small team on a BB,
Right on the money, sir. It's all about being able to accommodate a small team as they come and go as necessary, and maybe even host a permanent team on board as you go and do your thing. Realistically the ship would have the capability and would wait for the team to arrive from somewhere like Bahrain.
VBSS is nice, but there are qualifications to it. What it does boil down to, is that unless you are using SEALs or Marines, your helicopter VBSS team is going to need more helicopters than a BB, CG, DDG, or FFG can carry. Only SEALs or Marines are qualled to do non-compliant boardings (where you chase people through the ship and likely use deadly force). Those teams, however usually operate in numbers small enough to only involve two birds.
I think Tracy is 100% right, Russ is probably in agreement, and like I said before, most of the time the on board helicopters would be used for utility so the battleship does not have to pull them from other ships to do stuff any more. Everything else is extra capability that's there if it's needed.