The Ship Model Forum

Do you think these South Koreans represent what their government is planning? Remember Seoul values its relationship with Beijing ($88 billion in trade to China) over any possible profits their shipbuilders may get from selling to Taiwan.

The Japanese also sympathize with their former colony (Taiwan), but you don't see them selling the Soryu class subs to Taiwan anytime soon despite the possibility being mentioned in another article I posted above.

Aside from the Kidds, I'm guessing that you would also build up ship numbers by not only reactivating all those mothballed Perry class FFGs, but also buying back those ex-Perry class FFGs from Taiwan, Spain, Pakistan, Australia, Turkey etc. After all, there has been recent talk on the defense "blogosphere" about their possible reactivation.

(Yes, I'm aware some of those Perrys were licensed-built in those countries, like in the case of the Spanish Santa Maria class FFGs) It was already a stretch to get back the Kidds, I hope you're not going further by looking at the foreign-used Perrys as well.

Then there's the Knox class frigates still in Mexican, Thai and Taiwanese service.

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"Haijun" means "navy" in Mandarin Chinese.

"You have enemies? Good. It means you stood up for something in your life."- Winston Churchill

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I find the comparison between a battleship and an amphibious assault ship to be disingenious, and am surprised you would do so as well. "Combat impact" and "firepower" cannot be measured equally between ships designed (or built with the capability) to perform so very different functions.

How much "combat impact" would a battleship have when your objective is to occupy or establish a forward operating base several hundred miles inland? Or to deploy a small, persistent mobile force to outflank an enemy's land forces? Or to locate and destroy a mobile or hidden target?

Surely you must be trolling.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

America built four Fast Missile Craft for Egypt:

https://breakingdefense.com/2014/04/us- ... sian-gulf/

206 feet long, 32 ft beam, 6.5 foot draft, 3 in OTO Melara gun, 8 Harpoon, CIWS, RAM, fast, stealthy. Could be commanded by O-4. Cost around $300 Mil compared to LCS $450 Mil.

Sold four to Egypt in 2013-14:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassado ... ssile_boat

A proven design, operating where we would operate. Lots of experience to access.

How can Trump's admirals even hope for 355 ships when the Ticonderogas will start reaching the ends of their careers in the coming decades?

Defense News

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"Haijun" means "navy" in Mandarin Chinese.

"You have enemies? Good. It means you stood up for something in your life."- Winston Churchill

A notable update at the thread with the same name on the 355 warships topic in the History and Technology section.

The U.S. Navy to start losing its largest surface combatants in 2020

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"Haijun" means "navy" in Mandarin Chinese.

"You have enemies? Good. It means you stood up for something in your life."- Winston Churchill

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Please accept my apologies, Bob. It appears I've been on the internet for too long, and in places where calling out other posters for making statements that have as an objective to get a rise out of others is commonplace. The activity of trolling is, in such places, not necessarily viewed as a negative activity, but usually one of quippy sarcasm, and respondents tend to reply with that understanding in mind.

With that said, would you like to elaborate on the suitability of the LHA vs BB comparison?

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De quoi s'agit-il?

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Thanks for clarifying, Bob.

I question the claim that the economic argument exists in and of itself, divorced from the determining question of naval utility. Who makes such claims, without an implicit acknowledgement that the NGFS role is the sole purpose for which those 1200 crewmen serve? I admit I have not followed much of the battleship debates since several years ago on this board. Logic dictates that a criticism of the LHD/A based on economic grounds would also take into account the greater utility of amphibious forces across a greater spectrum of conflict types than a battleship - thus, assuming the manning costs are similar, the LHD will prevail (and take on fewer criticisms) because it's a more flexible tool that meets a greater number of possible contingencies. It is unreasonable to expect battleship critics to also critique the LHD based on crew sizes, because battleship critics have a fundamentally different understanding and prioritization of the primary goal of (naval) seapower.

I appreciate your acknowledgement that there's a utility to all ships, but since the discussion is (unfortunately) primarily economic, it does have to be zero-sum - at some point, the logician has to say "this ship fits America's needs more than this other one in a greater number of scenarios for which the Navy exists", and thus dollars should be spent on it than the alternative.

The point about amphibious assault forces being useless in the face of opposed landings in a major conflict essentially means you're measuring the two ships' relevant merits based on an operational emphasis on contesting/establishing sea control versus exercising that control, to which I counter the following:

LHD/As can participate in establishing sea control by landing forces ashore (whether via aerial or surface connectors) to help locate and destroy shore-based sea-denial assets that cannot otherwise be located or destroyed via more distant means. The landings to accomplish this goal may not need to take place in areas with serious opposition - indeed, a primary value of seapower has long been to enable a variety of choices as to where and whether to face the enemy. Once ashore, the light Marine forces may be able to maneuver towards and attain their objectives more effectively than a frontal assault against embedded sea-denial assets. In essence, an LHD may be able to deliver force onto a target that's well-defended against seaward approaches from well beyond the reach of those defences, whereas a battleship would have no choice but to be within range of those defences before it can prosecute its targets.

While it may be tempting to use battleships to perform the counter-sea-denial duty, I would raise the example of the Dardanelles, in which eighteen battleships failed to make an appreciable dent in the entrenched shore-based artillery systems guarding the strait at the cost of a quarter of those forces. Subsequent battles on land since that time have illustrated that the key to modern warfare is concealment and counter-concealment via maneuver, not the level of firepower itself (see Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle). That you can throw 16" shells containing more explosive power than an entire Marine task force means little if you can't find the enemy or if they are deeply entrenched. Would the 16" shells be fantastic for providing cover fire? Yes. For the level of precision required to ensure complete destruction of embedded weapons? History poses some doubts. (enter here, of course, the call for NavyDave's guided rounds )

But to bring things back to the start, I agree that the crew size argument in and of itself is not convincing, but it becomes more so when we consider the variety of ends for which the ships are suitable.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

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I shall take advantage of that opportunity


No, NOT the same denial zone - as I said, the benefit of naval seapower is to take advantage of enemy weak points along its coast. I am dubious that any country in our current period can comprehensively monitor, nevermind defend, its entire coastline - especially not the geographic behemoths that are China and Russia. While the task for the defender is made easier by certain locations being more favourable for landings than others, there remain some areas which will inevitably less well-defended than others, and amphibious units can take advantage of these weakpoints. These weakpoints, however, are not likely to be the higher-level objective, which are usually more heavily defended. The point of these peripheral landings is to reduce the number of defences holding your forces at risk as they try to reach that higher-level objective. This is even more relevant today given the longer ranges of shore-based missiles.


Agreed, but again, must they always assault where the enemy is at their strongest?



Those antennas for receiving fire coordinates and communicating with those aerial spotters, upon which the ship so depends to be effective amidst the smoke kicked up by the exploding shells, on the other hand...


Two things to address here:
1) Vulnerability: those four battleships that were taken out of service in a single day fell victim primarily to mines, not shore fire (though the latter certainly caused enough havoc with fires and splinter). I like that you highlighted the mine threat in an earlier post - how does that play out when we call for a battleship to get within 20 miles of the shore to deliver fires? How about coastal submarines? Yes, Iowa can take several underwater hits, but so could HMS Invincible - yet, her mined hull had to be beached outside the Strait and she eventually retired outside the theatre for full repairs. How much underwater damage are you willing to let the ship take before it needs to withdraw? How willing are you to fire those big guns when your structural strength has been compromised? Again, I'm speaking here of the primary operational objective (presuming some sort of major city or installation), where such defensive measures can be put into place well beforehand. The problem with battleships is they must always be within close range of the heavily-defended primary objective, while LHDs do not (necessarily).

2) Effectiveness of fires: HMS Queen Elizabeth was also at the Dardanelles. Her 15" guns, though inferior to the Iowas' 16", were hardly anything to stick one's nose up at! Yet, they, too, failed to cause sufficient damage to silence the forts and howitzers - the latter of which were all that were needed to ensure minesweepers fail in their duty to clear the battleships' way to the primary objective of Istanbul. This is compounded today with the spread of self-propelled howitzers and ASM launchers - the battleship gun has changed little, while area-denial weapons have evolved dramatically in range and lethality.


The Yamato and Musashi were sunk with a couple dozen of what we'd today consider to be "light" bombs and aerial torpedoes. To depend on a weapon system that can only perform its duty after it's well within range of enemy fires is, in my assessment, a poor use of resources. Seapower is ultimately about exercising sea control, not to contest it until the last ship floating in a coastal brawl. The best chance of winning in today's world of highly-lethal and inexpensive weaponry is to avoid being hit in the first place - and an LHD that can land its forces in a poorly-defended area overlooked by the defender has a much higher likelihood of usefulness than a battleship.

Now, if we get those 200 nautical mile-range railguns, on the other hand...

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De quoi s'agit-il?

That is one of the myths of the battleship supporters. The Iowa class is not one of the best armoured battleships built - and a lot of battleships including better armoured ones were sunk by weapons in World War Two, which were much weaker than today's. Most of the Iowa class is also not even armoured, especially its sensors, most of the superstructure and also big parts of the hull. For the fighting capability it is not crucial, if the ship still swims, but the functionality of its sensors.

That are only two roles - two roles, which can be also executed by most destroyers except that they have not 16" guns - which are short-range by today's standards. Nobody would send such an expensive ship so close to a defended shore that it can use its 16" guns. And for sure a 1980s Iowa class battleship could not single handed sunk any naval force, because its self-defence was ridiculously weak. It would require a lot of money to bring it to modern standards, both the required radars and launchers. And still a much smaller and cheaper to operate destroyer would have similar capabilities.

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The power of the Harpoon or Exocet is much higher than a Kamikaze: different explosives, different speeds, much more dangerous fuel etc. Remember that a Kamikaze has no properly shaped warhead, but usually only a small bomb below the aircraft.

But for sure a Harpoon and Exocet can harm a battleship: its most essential parts for modern warfare (sensors!) are not armoured at all. A warship without sensors is completely useless and have the same fighting value as sunken ship.


Yes, these were all very weak weapons by modern standards, but they could still sink a battleship - and several battleships were sunk by fewer hits.


Nobody would use a expensive ship so nearby to a defended shore that the guns can be used. 16" guns are short-range weapons.


No, this was only done in World War II, when the attackers had massive quantitative local superiority and could exclude strong counter attacks. And still usually only old ships were used. Today the ranges are very different, anti-ship missiles are much more powerful, aircraft could attack with much more powerful weapons, submarines have much more powerful torpedoes, mines are more dangerous etc.


The firepower of an Arleigh Burke in the early 1990s was superior to a modernised Iowa class ships: count the number of potential Tomahawk launchers: 90 VLS vs. 32 Mk 141

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A 250 pound bomb is a small bomb - also in combination with a slow aircraft. A Harpoon has a 488 pound warhead, some versions a 794 pound warhead, likely with a much more powerful explosive, and hits the target with a much higher velocity.

Anyway: both can destroy the sensors of a ship and therefore disable also a battleship.

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1.) I am not a weapon expert. But the claim that an dedicated warhead of an anti-ship missile is equivalent to much slower aircraft with a bomb below (with likely a much weaker explosive) appears to me very unrealistic. And a reminder: most of a battleship was not armoured including most of its superstructure and therefore most of its modern sensors.

2.) The claim that today an ship could fight based only on its optical sensors is bizarre. Already in Second World War the loss of radar (e.g. Scharnhorst's) reduced the fighting capability to something near zero. Radars are very exposed and can be easily damaged even by splitter - so that easily all radars could be disabled by one hit, especially if the masts are very close together (as in the Iowa class).

3.) Battleship armour was notoriously weak against bombs theoretically much weaker than the shells the armour was designed against. And this were bombs, which had much weaker explosives than the ones used today (the weight is not equal to its explosive power). All battleship armour used in World War Two could be also defeated by shells used then and was defeated, including very heavy armour (e.g. on Bismarck). If today armour is ships would be widespread, armour-piercing warheads would be designed, which easily can defeat any armour - that is the reason why no armour except of splitter armour is used today.

4.) 16" guns are short-range weapons without any relevant value in a high threat environment. It is a weapon system, which is useless except on those cases that there is no relevant defence of the target. That means that the main weapon system of the modernised Iowa class were Tomahawks and Harpoons - and there they had no advantage of an Arleigh Burke destroyer (which can load up to 96 Tomahawk today - for sure typically much less are loaded).

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Maxim,

I think Bob is also overlooking the potency of ICBMs/SLBMs or even tactical nukes against a surface fleet that includes a battleship, regardless of how many AAW escorts the BB may have, it only takes one nuclear-tipped ballistic missile to get through to destroy a fleet.

Let's not forget electro-magnetic pulse/EMP. Or even dedicated EMP weapons. Say for example, we have a CVBG and an ARG/amphibious ready group accompanied by BBs that are both steaming towards the same destination. A nuclear cruise missle hits the CVBG first, and even if the ARG is not within the area directly affected by the explosion, wouldn't the EMP from the blast knock out most of the AAW defenses of that ARG? Thus allowing follow-on strikes by nuclear or conventional weapons that would make the BBs and their escorts a sitting duck?

Operation Crossroads, which saw the target battleships IJN Nagato and USS Arkansas sunk by nuclear explosions, as well numerous other ships, shows that a battleship's armor is not proof against nuclear blasts. The old battleships USS New York, USS Nevada and USS Pennsylvania were also so heavily damaged in those same tests that each had to be disposed of as target ships or eventually sank on their own.

What about the threat of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs)? Are these not only faster than cruise missiles, but less likely to be intercepted by a battleship's escorts' AAW defenses? Whether or not these ASBMs are conventionally or nuclear armed, one can only imagine the impact of such as a projectile that has a velocity many times that of the cruise missiles or ASMs he's thinking of. And wouldn't battleships' armor belts be subject to eventually becoming "time expired" after all those years in mothballs?

Thus, the anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), such as China's "carrier-killer" missiles mentioned below, is another potent threat that the modernized Iowa class battleships are ill-equipped to face or withstand if hit. The battleship had its heyday decades ago, but today is the age of digital warfare, cruise missiles and other threats.

US Naval Institute

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"Haijun" means "navy" in Mandarin Chinese.

"You have enemies? Good. It means you stood up for something in your life."- Winston Churchill

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