Nuclear powered Battleship?

Historical what if discussions, hypothetical operations, battleship vs. battleship engagements, design your own warship, etc.
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Legend
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Legend »

For the point, by the time WWII came along the point of smaller ships was to protect the capitol ships (BB's and CV's) from kamikaze's, subs, and other swarms of small ships. In the present, the protection role still applies for the aircraft carrier... but otherwise because of missile technology destroyers and cruisers are able to deploy on their own now, and as you said do spread out for a wider projection of power.

But I keep bringing up the point that the topic of this thread was... if a BBN was created what would it be. What systems would be valuable, superior, and logical. I personally am still stuck on what the BEST DP system would be. I have been looking at many newer systems, and my previous fervor in the Otomelera 76mm has been shattered by my research...
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by yellowtail3 »

Legend wrote:But I keep bringing up the point that the topic of this thread was... if a BBN was created what would it be. ...
it would be a money pit, of little use to the USN.

Maybe the RN could use a couple of them.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

I have seen and Arleigh Burke Class DD two times: one in New York and one in Panamá. Also have me a 1:350 scale model of the Arleigh itself. Yes, it´s big for being a DD but we can hardly classify it as one in the sense of a WWII Fletcher. It´s clear that the navies eliminated all their massive capitol ships and kept their smaller units which were updated as some kind of bigger vessel.

Now: the damage that Cole suffered produced a big hole on her side. Granted. And that´s why I, more than a couple of years ago, said it was weak: because a Battleship, at least one as Bismarck with her 320 mm side belt armor would have withstanded. WWII capital ships were better protected than actual ships, basically because nowaday designers decided it was worthless to expend resources in trying to bring protection against missile and/or torpedo attack. Today´s ships are a demostration that, finnally, the ofensive means defeated the defensive ones.

USS Cole suffered massive damage from a home made bomb fabricated by a bunch of worthless terrorists. The same ones whose boss has been hunted down by all technological and "superiority" means of the US arsenal for eight years with no success, which tell us that there is more than hi tech gadgets in the battlefields of the world.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

yellowtail:
Maybe the RN could use a couple of them.
Your lack of respect is astonishing. There is no reason for that kind of remarks, it´s gratituous and provokative. Let´s refrain ourselves of such kind of gratituous comments.
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Legend
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Legend »

You know... that is another thing that a BBN would solve. Having a large about of secondaries and CIWS would allow for her to train in and destroy more... littoral targets.

And Karl, all the advanced weaponry in the world would not be able to hunt down one man... unless of course you wanted to anniahalate his entire country.
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by yellowtail3 »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:yellowtail:
Maybe the RN could use a couple of them.
Your lack of respect is astonishing. There is no reason for that kind of remarks, it´s gratituous and provokative. Let´s refrain ourselves of such kind of gratituous comments.
You level of sensitivity is remarkable. But regarding respect toward... the RN? It is intact. What interaction I've had with the RN was positive (30 years ago). Same for the Bundesmarine; had one of their guys on one of my ships, he was alright. He, too, believed the Bismarck a much overrated ship.

I promise, Karl, never to be gratituous or provokative. Are you feeling provokated?
Karl Heidenreich wrote:... the damage that Cole suffered produced a big hole on her side. Granted. And that´s why I, more than a couple of years ago, said it was weak: because a Battleship, at least one as Bismarck with her 320 mm side belt armor would have withstanded. WWII capital ships were better protected than actual ships, basically because nowaday designers decided it was worthless to expend resources in trying to bring protection against missile and/or torpedo attack. Today´s ships are a demostration that, finnally, the ofensive means defeated the defensive ones.
Well, yeah... I guess a Burke is weak, compared to... a battleship.
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hammy
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by hammy »

Relax people , we are really not that sensitive !

As everyone in Britain knows , the peacetime role of our Navy is to provide jobs for the male members of the Royal Family , and husbands for the females .

Besides , if we are discusing the R N building a couple of "white elephants" , then what do you think those two new C V s are going to be ? ( Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker-Bowles , or whatever its to be called ).
At 60,000 tons - odd apiece , half the size of the American ones , therefore with an Air Group too small to carry out all of the C V tasks at the same time , therefore vulnerable . They havent even finished the planes that are supposed to go in them .

And for what ? To go parading round the world interfering in things that ceased to be any of our business sixty years ago , at mind-boggling cost . ( Why is it that whatever else you want , you get told " we havent got any money you know " but the government can always find money for war ? )
And to get ourselves resented and regarded as a duplicitous enemy by yet more of the worlds population . Great , cant wait !

From their first trials we know that they are going to go straight back into dock for major modification , from where they will occasionally emerge as the years go by until someone breaks something major again . I suppose we can always put Harriers on them - a fine piece of kit , dating from 1950 .
The active bit of the Fleet Air Arm is mostly wearing out their equipment with splendidly abrasive Afghan Dust at the moment , so couldn't deploy to them anyway until that useless waste of time and money and lives ends .
When the time comes , as usual there wont be enough money and so these behemoths are going to go out to sea with a single squadron of strike fighters , and a few helicopters and ancillary planes to do the rest . Of course It'll be made to look much better than that by parking a lot of extra stuff on deck , to be flown off or struck down into the far corner of the hangar as soon as the grand departure is over and shes got round the headland , out of sight !

Naval history is littered with examples of some second or third rank power aquiring one or two capital ships , in an attempt to demonstrate strength , or to " punch above their weight " . These are aquired at usually ruinous expence , and where not carefully conserved in harbour for nearly all of their lives in a slightly non-operational state , usually meet with some risible fate when finally deployed to sea . I have a foreboding we are next .
" Relax ! No-one else is going to be fool enough to be sailing about in this fog ."
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Legend
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Legend »

Were collaborating on designs for a BBN, whether the USN make it, the RN make it, or it be a group effort from many countries.
yellowtail3 wrote:yellowtail:
Well, yeah... I guess a Burke is weak, compared to... a battleship.
That is all we wanted to hear. :wink:

What is the current level of Anti-Mine technology at this point? I know they had high frequency development at one point... don't know if it was incorporated in previous or current warships...
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by yellowtail3 »

Legend wrote:
yellowtail3 wrote:yellowtail:
Well, yeah... I guess a Burke is weak, compared to... a battleship.
That is all we wanted to hear. :wink:
don't get too excited... weak, only in armor. Better in every other useful respect.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

don't get too excited... weak, only in armor. Better in every other useful respect.
From 1941 to 2009 there are sixty eight years: of course the weapondry technology has advanced so much that, as I stated before, the designers simply quit to give ships an appropiate protection against today´s weapons. Now, if we are to compare ships there are threads in which, basically, we had on one hand the Kirov Class Battlecruiser and the Arleigh Burke. I posted it when I was building me my 1:350 model of the Arleigh destroyer.

And for general information: I like the damn ship. It´s weird to regard as powerful a ship which doesn´t show any big guns, but you know that those vessels have super powerfull weapon systems that only awaits a politic leader strong enough to unleash it against the ayatollahs, the Hugo Chavez and commie scum that crowd the world and that are stealing oxigen, fuel and food from the western civilization law abiding populations.

I would hail the day those ships are used for what they are intended!
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Legend
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Legend »

What would the Arleigh Burke have that a BBN wouldn't?
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by lwd »

Legend wrote:...lwd, I had the impression that the Goalkeeper was the obsolete one... why the newer Nimitz Classes have both Phalanx and the new RAM. I used the same system with my design, mixing a missile based CWIS with the classic Phalanx system, a point I have repeatedly made is that while the RAM system may be very accurate, it only has a limited amount of missiles, which can also be fooled my countermeasures.....
I'm not sure if the radar and electronics of Goalkeeper have been updated recently but the 30mm gun has more range and more impact than the 20. Given the speed and numbers of todays missiles that can have some considerable import. Phalanx on the other hand has some very uptodate electronics (they've even used a ground based version of it to knock down mortar rounds). If I were putting a poiont defence system on a modern ship I'd certainly look at mating that GAU-8 with an up to date electronics system whether you want to call it Goalkeeper or something else. Metalstorm would also be worth looking at.
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Bgile »

lwd wrote:
Legend wrote:...lwd, I had the impression that the Goalkeeper was the obsolete one... why the newer Nimitz Classes have both Phalanx and the new RAM. I used the same system with my design, mixing a missile based CWIS with the classic Phalanx system, a point I have repeatedly made is that while the RAM system may be very accurate, it only has a limited amount of missiles, which can also be fooled my countermeasures.....
I'm not sure if the radar and electronics of Goalkeeper have been updated recently but the 30mm gun has more range and more impact than the 20. Given the speed and numbers of todays missiles that can have some considerable import. Phalanx on the other hand has some very uptodate electronics (they've even used a ground based version of it to knock down mortar rounds). If I were putting a poiont defence system on a modern ship I'd certainly look at mating that GAU-8 with an up to date electronics system whether you want to call it Goalkeeper or something else. Metalstorm would also be worth looking at.
The problem with Goalkeeper is that you have to devote a considerable amount of space and weight to it's installation and it can't be placed in as many locations as CWIS. The USN obviously could have used the 30mm weapon; it's made by a US company, but it isn't as versatile and it's increased range probably wasn't considered a deciding factor. Maybe it's more difficult to hit a missile at that increased range, so the advantages aren't as great as it might seem. Same with Army use. Goalkeeper would be much more difficult to use from a mobile platform. There are advantages to going with a more versatile, standard weapon even if it's not quite as capable as another one.
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by lwd »

Bgile wrote:
lwd wrote:
Legend wrote:...lwd, I had the impression that the Goalkeeper was the obsolete one... why the newer Nimitz Classes have both Phalanx and the new RAM. I used the same system with my design, mixing a missile based CWIS with the classic Phalanx system, a point I have repeatedly made is that while the RAM system may be very accurate, it only has a limited amount of missiles, which can also be fooled my countermeasures.....
I'm not sure if the radar and electronics of Goalkeeper have been updated recently but the 30mm gun has more range and more impact than the 20. Given the speed and numbers of todays missiles that can have some considerable import. Phalanx on the other hand has some very uptodate electronics (they've even used a ground based version of it to knock down mortar rounds). If I were putting a poiont defence system on a modern ship I'd certainly look at mating that GAU-8 with an up to date electronics system whether you want to call it Goalkeeper or something else. Metalstorm would also be worth looking at.
The problem with Goalkeeper is that you have to devote a considerable amount of space and weight to it's installation and it can't be placed in as many locations as CWIS. The USN obviously could have used the 30mm weapon; it's made by a US company, but it isn't as versatile and it's increased range probably wasn't considered a deciding factor. Maybe it's more difficult to hit a missile at that increased range, so the advantages aren't as great as it might seem. Same with Army use. Goalkeeper would be much more difficult to use from a mobile platform. There are advantages to going with a more versatile, standard weapon even if it's not quite as capable as another one.
Phalanx was designed and built in the70s and 80s. It was a very good system then. Actually it's still a very good system. However if you are talkinc CWIS for a major combatant at this time a 30mm makes a lot of sense. Even today I'm not sure I'd want to put one on even a ship as big as a frigate but we're not addressing small ships in this thread. As you say the GAU-8 and it's ammo are mil standard and you could probably mate it with the Phalanx radar and fire control although likely you would want to upgrade it at least a bit to make better use of the extra range. Those 30mm rounds are also much more destructive than the 20mm ones that Phalanx uses. That becomes important when you are trying to take out a modern high speed missile.
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Re: Nuclear powered Battleship?

Post by Bgile »

Both weapons use sabot, which is inert. It's unclear to me why a penetrating rod from a 30mm is going to be more destructive than one from a 20mm. In both cases the missile has to be hit to get results, and in both cases the missile will be destroyed by a hit.

It's also not obvious to me why you would want to mount a GAU-8 when for about the same weight and deck footprint you can mount a missile with several times the range.
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