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PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 2:24 pm 
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:16 pm 
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DavidP wrote:
Haijun watcher, read this as obvious you don't know what you are talking about as those 2 battleships were sunk in test baker which was an underwater explosion not the earlier test alpha that was a mid air explosion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads


Baker test was an underwater nuclear explosion. So what? My argument was about nuclear weapons in general, whether they donated underwater or in the air, if you read my whole post carefully.

You can argue that Nevada, Pennsylvania and New York survived those explosions since they remained afloat, but they had heavy radiation for weeks afterward. Not exactly habitable or usable for a crew, is it?

During the Cold War, even Soviet Foxtrot class subs had tactical nuclear warheads on their torpedoes for attacking port cities, while NATO forces had nuclear depth bombs used for ASW at one point.

Furthermore, neither you nor Bob addressed the threat of ASBMs, which can also be conventionally-armed, not necessarily nuclear-armed.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:35 pm 
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carr wrote:
Haijun watcher wrote:

This also has nothing to do with the cost and combat effectiveness of the battleship which is the actual topic of discussion.



Wrong. The topic is about cheaper, realistic alternatives to getting the US Navy back to 355 ships. Your discussion about the relevance and effectiveness of battleships (specially the modernized Iowa class) in a modern threat environment, is tangential to the topic at best.

Even though Trump did hint in passing about reactivating the Iowa class in his campaign rally on the USS Iowa museum last year, it is very unlikely your Congress will allocate the money to reactivating warships that are more than 70 years old.
--------------------
Furthermore, you never addressed the threat of ASBMs I mentioned in that long post I made on the previous page, which can also be conventionally-armed, not necessarily nuclear-armed.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:23 pm 
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DavidP wrote:
Haijun watcher, read this as obvious you don't know what you are talking about

Dude....that's a little harsh. You can disagree with someone without turning it into an attack.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:31 pm 
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DavidP wrote:
maxim, you do realize that a grenade is an infantry weapon

My mistake: in German the same word is used for shell and grenade. I was talking about the ammunition used by for large guns. Those could defeat all armour in Second World War, including the strongest heaviest armour. Armour was designed to defeat shells fired from a certain range - it can be defeated by shells fired from shorter or longer ranges. World War Two demonstrated that all kind of armoured ships could be sunk - which is the main cause why afterwards no armoured ships were built anymore.


There was the statement that ballistic anti-ship missiles would be not relevant - interestingly spend the US Navy a lot to develop a defence against those.

And again: a 16" gun with a range of 39 km is today a short range weapon. Even the smallest anti-ship missiles have ranges above 100 km. The current generation if Russian Kalibr missiles (3M54K) are described to have range of 440-660 km and final speed of Mach 2.9 (the kinetic energy from that speed is obviously different from a typical World War Two Kamikaze). Even the cheaper export version has a range above 220 km.

Anyway interesting: with the Iowa class or an similar high-end approach a 355 ship fleet would be very difficult to reach...

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:56 am 
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Even if the USN decided that it needed a battleship the amount of money to bring one into service would be enormous. How is the machinery? I guess that it needs a complete overhaul and perhaps even replacement. Even if it needs an overhaul I suspect it would cost more money than the potential usefulness of a battleship would warrant. And then you need specially trained engineering staff to operate and maintain it.

And that is just the machinery!

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 9:18 am 
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So...battleships. Here we go.

Admiral John Byng wrote:
Even if the USN decided that it needed a battleship the amount of money to bring one into service would be enormous. Even if it needs an overhaul I suspect it would cost more money than the potential usefulness of a battleship would warrant.
The battleships were all expected to be in service with 96 VLS tubes and extended range guided munitions to 100nm (11" and 13" RAP sabot) until a minimum of 2010. When they were prematurely decommissioned, each was heavily overhauled during deactivation, because the Navy knew it would need them in short order. Reactivating the ship would not cost much. It's literally hooking up shore power and turning the ship back on. It has already been estimated that both reactivating and modernizing the battleships would cost approximately $900 million a piece, and that was done by people who have no interest in bringing them back. So this brings us back to the same situation we had back in the 1980s. It cost a minimum of $328 million to bring back the New Jersey in 1982 and a little over $400 million for the Wisconsin in 1988. Currency conversion directly leads you to reactivating and modernizing the Iowa-class battleship is equivalent to the (under quoted) modern FFGs. So, a BB (a capital ship with an unrivaled striking power) instead of an FFG (with ineffective qualities at worst and limited capabilities at best).

Admiral John Byng wrote:
How is the machinery? I guess that it needs a complete overhaul and perhaps even replacement.
See above. It's in extremely good condition. When I went through the Wisconsin with NAVSEA inspectors on their nineth Ship Check, they expressed how impressed they were with how well everything had been laid up. One statement that suck with me was, "This propulsion plant is in better condition than some of the carriers. The overall ship is in better condition than most of the fleet."

We can discuss other concerns like spare barrels, new projectiles, new propellant, GFCS upgrades, etc later.

Admiral John Byng wrote:
And then you need specially trained engineering staff to operate and maintain it.
The USN currently has plenty of boiler driven plants ie LCCs and LHDs. No big deal. Sending Sailors to those schools and then having further training aboard the ships is no problem.

The age of the ships is also very subjective. How ships gain age are years of use and how they are preserved. The BBs have around 20 years of service. They were made to be 35 - 50 year ships. Easy day.

The battleships can be reactivated, modernized, and serviced with little problem.

The only problem would be brining back a 5 ship force instead of just 4. That would require brining either Indiana or North Carolina back. Either ship would have to be brought all the way up from WWII standards to modern. I imagine that would be twice the Iowa cost. I would prefer the North Carolina, because she has far more real-estate and could be similarly modernized far easier. Even then, reactivating and modernizing the North Carolina at $1.8 Billion would still be a great deal compared to a DDG-51 Flight II at $2.3 Billion...much less a Flight III. :heh:

So, is it worth it? Indeed it is. A BB is a replacement for a CVN in 9 our of 10 peace time scenarios and 8 our of 10 wartime. What does that mean? It means a CVN does not have to be committed to that area 8 out of 10 times. With the limited CVNs we have (10 instead of the 15 we need) that is remarkably useful.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:54 am 
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But which sensors they would have got for that 900 mio $? With a 96 cell VLS they would be on level of an Arleigh Burke destroyer, but only, if the sensors would had a similar quality. Which would have been for sure not the case with a combination of SPS-49 and SPS-67...

And how realistic was extended range guided munitions?

The promised extended range guided munition for the 5" guns still does not exist - and for sure many navies mainly bought the BAe 5" L/62 because of the expectation that this ammunition will be available. Also there is no extended range guided ammunition for the 15.5 cm guns of Zumwalt either...

I would think that a modern frigate is much more versatile and for sure much cheaper to operate than the reactivation of any old ship - and for sure compared to reactivated battleship. The battleship's re-activation was already a gigantic destruction of money, especially compared to their time of active service. The OHP frigates at least served up to 30 years. And which peace time tasks a modern (NOT OHP or LCS) frigate cannot fulfil compared to a modernised battleship?

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:27 pm 
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:01 am 
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Ok, you want a ship without any self-defence capacity except of old-fashioned armour and without any relevant sensors. A large strike platform, which would rely on other ships to survive.

I would recommend this very cheap and economic to operate version:

buy a second-hand fast container ship, add four 64 cell VLS launchers (for sure only filled with Tomahawks), some 155 mm turrets (e.g. PzH 2000, range up to 56 km, i.e. better range or higher rate of fire compared to an old 16" gun), plus an armoured conning tower. Should be relatively cheap, because no expensive sensors have to be bought, optics and communication are sufficient in your opinion. It should be cheap to operate, perhaps can be made completely automatic and would have a similar combat value and therefore naval power than a Iowa class ship - i.e. non, except she would be protected by good AAW and ASW ships and/or aircraft.

:lol_pound:

If attacked with modern anti-ship missiles it would look similar to a defence-less battleship: wrecked superstructure, burning. Ok, perhaps the turbines of the battleship would be still running and it perhaps the battleship would not sink so easily. Perhaps even some of the 16" turrets of the battleship would be functional - but who would care about them? The ship would be a defenceless wreck, which could be easily sunk by normal bombs.

Remember perhaps this: Bismarck had to discontinue her mission because of one 14" hit in the weakly armoured foreship and was disabled by one torpedo hit at the stern. After that she was no longer able to fight back (with all the guns and sensors intact!). For sure she was still swimming after Rodney with some help of King George V destroyed her superstructure, turrets etc. including all heavy armoured parts above the waterline - but why should the fact she was not yet sunk be relevant? Her fighting capacities were already before nearly zero and she afterwards she could not even defend herself against the following torpedo attacks by cruisers (and therefore it also not relevant at all, if she was scuttled or sunk). Armour does not guaranty survival - and there are many examples of sunken heavily armoured battleships proving that.



Some more serious comments: a Tomahawk equipped battleship cannot have a greater strike range than a destroyer equipped with the same cruise missile. There are today even small corvettes equipped with long range cruise missiles. My comment referred obviously not to cruise missiles, but to extended range guided munition for the 16" guns mentioned by navydavesof ;)

Also my comment to the peace time role referred to a comment by navydavesof ;)

/edit: another small comment: the Iowa class fired its 16" guns only against very weakly defended targets on shore: the nearly defeated Japan in 1945, which had lost its fleet (the remains were immobilised by lack of oil) and the big majority of its properly trained pilots; North Korea, North Vietnam and Lebanon without any proper defence, and the nearly defeated Iraq in 1991. Those ships were never risked in an attack against well defended land targets, e.g. earlier in World War Two or even earlier in the (Second) Gulf War in 1991.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:57 pm 
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maxim wrote:
Some more serious comments: a Tomahawk equipped battleship cannot have a greater strike range than a destroyer equipped with the same cruise missile. There are today even small corvettes equipped with long range cruise missiles. My comment referred obviously not to cruise missiles, but to extended range guided munition for the 16" guns mentioned by navydavesof ;)

Also my comment to the peace time role referred to a comment by navydavesof ;)

/edit: another small comment: the Iowa class fired its 16" guns only against very weakly defended targets on shore: the nearly defeated Japan in 1945, which had lost its fleet (the remains were immobilised by lack of oil) and the big majority of its properly trained pilots; North Korea, North Vietnam and Lebanon without any proper defence, and the nearly defeated Iraq in 1991. Those ships were never risked in an attack against well defended land targets, e.g. earlier in World War Two or even earlier in the (Second) Gulf War in 1991.


Maxim,
Here's a number of points to nitpick on:

1.) The assertion that members of the Iowa class only fired its guns in shore bombardment is wrong. The first two members in the class, USS Iowa and USS New Jersey, actually engaged enemy ships during the Operation Hailstone raids against the Japanese base in Truk lagoon in February 1944. The Iowa sank the Japanese light cruiser Katori while the New Jersey sank the Japanese destroyer Maikaze. There are numerous sources that confirm this such as Combinedfleet.com:

Quote:
During this engagement, CINC, Fifth Fleet, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (former CO of MISSISSIPPI, BB-41) flies his flag aboard NEW JERSEY. She engages LtCdr Hagio Tsutomu's (former CO of URANAMI) MAIKAZE at 7,000 yards. MAIKAZE fires a spread of torpedoes that passes between NEW JERSEY and IOWA following in trail. Later, gunfire from MINNEAPOLIS and NEW ORLEANS starts a fire aft that probably explodes one of the destroyer's magazines. At 1343, MAIKAZE, still firing, sinks with all hands. NEW JERSEY sinks SHONAN MARU No. 15 with her port side five-inch battery.

40 miles NW of Truk. IOWA engages KATORI and fires forty-six 16-inch high capacity (non-armor piercing) rounds and 124 five-inch shells. She straddles KATORI with all eight salvos. KATORI launches a salvo of torpedoes at the Americans. Just after the IOWA's fourth salvo, KATORI starts to list to port. After being under fire for 11 minutes, the cruiser sinks stern first at 07-45N, 151-20E. Reportedly, a large group of survivors is seen where she sinks, but none are picked up. Later, Captain Oda is promoted Rear Admiral, posthumously.


2.) To add to your point about a "battleship not having a greater strike range than a frigate", Bob chose to omit the importance of aircraft carriers, whose air wings have a much greater range than than the battleship's 16-inch guns.

3.) Battleships may have concentrated firepower of their VLS tubes/TLAMs to add to the 16-inchers when it comes to shore bombardment, but concentrating enough CGs, DDGs and SSNs can yield similar firepower. Unlike battleships, submarines using their VLS to fire off Tomahawks offshore don't need the protection of numerous escorts; the submarines can rely on their stealth when submerged to remain undetected by the enemy, while a battleship requires a whole task group's protection from aerial, surface and sub-surface threats.

Lastly, despite what these battleship advocates continue to say about the merits and advantages of these leviathans, it is highly unlikely that any of the Iowa class will return to service. Most, if not all, have been relegated to museums.

As said, the topic is about cheaper, realistic alternatives to getting the US Navy back to 355 ships. The discussion about the relevance and effectiveness of battleships (specially the modernized Iowa class) in a modern threat environment, is tangential to the topic at best.

What's relevant to the topic include:
1.) possible reactivation of remaining mothballed Perry class FFGs and other ships in reserve such as early flight Ticonderoga class CGs (there's even been talk of reactivating CV-63 USS Kitty Hawk)

2.) the looming deactivation of 9 Ticonderoga class CGs over the 2020s and how the Navy can still get to 355 ships despite losing these cruisers.

3.) Whether the US Congress will fund more Littoral Combat Ships or go fully with the FFG (X) program; there is some resistance to abandoning the LCS program despite many officials' stated preference for the FFG(X). (the US Coast Guard's National Security Cutter program may be a good template for the FFG(X) )

4.) The issue of arming amphibs, such as the San Antonio class LPDs and their successors, with VLS to make them more potent in
ASuW, ASW and AAW and thus need less escorts.

5.) the Zumwalts- is only 3 enough? (perhaps an enlarged Zumwalt can be the template for an updated battleship design)

6.) the Columbia class SSBNs (Ohio class replacements)

7.) Smaller/Riverine combatants such as the Cyclones- do you need to build more?

8.) Integrating new technology such as drones, rail guns and lasers into a future fleet

9.) Ford class carriers- do you still build all of the class members? Or can't you achieve the same global presence with the America class LHAs which are effectively mini-carriers with F35Bs? Does the US Navy need to grow beyond the 10-11 carrier group requirement?

Food for thought.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:22 pm 
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:29 pm 
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carr wrote:
Do you recall what the topic was? Apparently not so I'll remind you. It was about the operating costs of battleships.


I'll repost my earlier post from the top of the page since you apparently couldn't be bothered to read it:

Wrong. The overall topic is about cheaper, realistic alternatives to getting the US Navy back to 355 ships. Your discussion about the relevance and effectiveness of battleships (specially the modernized Iowa class) in a modern threat environment, is tangential to the topic at best.

Even though Trump did hint in passing about reactivating the Iowa class in his campaign rally on the USS Iowa museum last year, it is very unlikely your Congress will allocate the money to reactivating warships that are more than 70 years old.
--------------------
Furthermore, you never addressed the threat of ASBMs I mentioned in that long post I made on the previous page, which can also be conventionally-armed, not necessarily nuclear-armed.

Nor did you address the advantage that VLS-equipped subs have over VLS-equipped battleships that I mentioned in the post directly above.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 2:51 am 
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carr wrote:
Sure, one can assemble enough other types of ships to equal a battleship (actually, that's not true since nothing equals a 16" bombardment!!!) but the operating costs of such an assembly of ships would be enormous compared to a single battleship.

It needs that fleet to protect a battleship, which should according to your own argumentation have no self-defence, but would be completely depended on several ASW and AAW ships. I.e. these ships are anyway necessary. Most modern ASW and AAW ships can fire a significant number of cruise missiles, i.e. have combined easily the same long range firepower than one battleship. But they could defend themselves, i.e. it is the battleship which is not needed. For a larger fleet - if needed at all - it would be for sure better to have ships, which both have long range firepower and can defend themselves. Multi-purpose ships make more sense than very specialised expensive to operate ships if not unlimited funds are available.

Haijun watcher is also completely right point out that also submarines can fire cruise missiles - and would not need ships defended them.

If numbers have to be increased cheap ships would be necessary. The Royal Navy had the same problem when the funds for it were shrinking - but they built a lot of cheap ships for patrolling (e.g. sloops), not only expensive to built and expensive to operate ships. In that sense LCS make a lot of sense - if their hulls would have be designed for economic operations and not for high speed.


@ Haijun watcher: my comment about the 16" use of the Iowa class was only about bombarding land targets. For sure they were also deployed to attack the already damaged remains of the Japanese fleet fleeing from Truk.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:49 am 
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:24 am 
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carr wrote:
Haijun watcher wrote:
The overall topic is about cheaper, realistic alternatives to getting the US Navy back to 355 ships.

No. The sentence that triggered the specific discussion about battleships was this statement from maxim:

"But the battleships were very, very expensive to operate"

Followed by my reply that that was an oft cited truism that is false.

There you have the genesis of this specific point of discussion.


You keep insisting on pursuing the battleship tangent when the title of the overall thread topic is as clear as day:

Quote:
355 Ship Fleet - Cheap and Easy

--------------------------------------------

carr wrote:
This discussion is growing nonsensical is becoming populated with blatantly untrue statements so I'll drop out at this point, having made my points for those who care to read the thread. Have a nice day!


What good is your battleship argument if you feel it can't withstand scrutiny and counterpoints, many of which Maxim and I have brought up but which you don't address? If they're "blatantly untrue" as you contend, then say why and have logical arguments to back it, instead of bowing out of the discussion when you encounter opposition.

Apparently all those Congressmen working for various defense committees and all those people still working for the US DoD or various defense think tanks on the DC beltway disagree with you; otherwise, the battleships would have stayed in service until now.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:53 am 
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carr wrote:
"But the battleships were very, very expensive to operate"

Followed by my reply that that was an oft cited truism that is false.

You had admit yourself two points:

a) a battleship requires additional ships to protect it
b) these ships are equipped with cruise missile launching capacities surpassing the 1980s Iowa class - and several of those surpassed even a modernised, VLS equipped Iowa, even when a significant part of the destroyer's VLS are loaded with AAW and ASW missiles.

In that case the massive crew requirement combined with the old-fashioned machines and equipment plus the requirement for additional escorts make the battleship - a very specialised type of ship in contrast to its potential escorts a very expensive to operate ship.

That was also clearly demonstrated by the reality: they were decommissioned very early after the end of the Cold War.

For sure these old ships - which are also for sure not all in the shape of USS Wisconsin - are no solution, if the fleet size should grow. To expensive, need for too much crew, to outdated, no self-defence...

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 1:17 pm 
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Y'all are getting a little testy with each other. Knock it off, or I'll lock this thread.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:12 pm 
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Every time I hear or read about increasing and/or modernizing the ships of the US Navy, it's mostly the "combat" ships I hear most about like carriers, destroyers, cruisers, frigates, amphibious ships, etc. Very little do I hear or read about increasing and/or modernizing the support and auxilliary ships like ammunition ships, oilers, salvage ships, mine hunting ships, ocean tugs, etc., etc., etc.
So my question is: Do we have enough auxilliary support ships? Do we need more? Are any being modernized?


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:58 am 
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EJM wrote:
Every time I hear or read about increasing and/or modernizing the ships of the US Navy, it's mostly the "combat" ships I hear most about like carriers, destroyers, cruisers, frigates, amphibious ships, etc. Very little do I hear or read about increasing and/or modernizing the support and auxilliary ships like ammunition ships, oilers, salvage ships, mine hunting ships, ocean tugs, etc., etc., etc.
So my question is: Do we have enough auxilliary support ships? Do we need more? Are any being modernized?
That's a really good question, EJM! From my research, no, not really. Something I think we should modernize that requires little comparable funding are the mine sweepers. They need some TLC. Perhaps even produce another wooden hulled MCM.

New tenders is a good class to examine as well. If we could build destroyer tenders (which really would be CG/DDG tenders), that would greatly enhance the combat support of the fleet. Even if it came down to reactivating 2 AS. For instance the Simon Lake (AS33) and McKee (AS41) both moored at NNSY.

We will see how the new AFSBs...ESBs...turn out. Perhaps even a modification of the T-AKE.

I would actually suggest re-examining the Henry J. Kaiser Class Fleet Oiler design and figuring ways to turn that design into an AD or ESB. If the tensioning davits and kingposts replaced with storage spots and heavy lift cranes, you could turn this design into a solid AD or a Mk6/RCB expeditionary command ship. Maybe an increase in the propulsion plant could get the ship up to 25 or 28 knots.

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