The Navy Thread

Just 200 nautical miles? That baddie ain't Chinese then.

That chart of Soviet naval power compared to Russian naval power is interesting, but - and I stand to be corrected - wasn't the Soviet maritime strategy less about power projection and more about area denial since they knew they couldn't possibly gain control of the seas from NATO? That isn't to say that such a force wouldn't be dangerous, mind, just that they may not have been employed as aggressively as NATO counterparts.

^ I believe it was a mix of both. Area denial for ranges beyond the Continent but actually controlling the seas in areas near.

Area denial tactics alone wouldn't keep REFORGER convoys out. Because sooner or later the US Navy would call the bluff of the area denial and get through one way or another.

Red Storm Rising is pretty much how it would have played out, massive losses on both sides, but the convoys would have gotten through.

The real question for the ground war would've been: would the Soviet offensive manage to break through before the reinforcements arrive? The studies on the subject are all pretty pessimistic.

@Major Tom:

I suppose, but I did get the impression it was more area denial than the latter.

@Sabre's Edge:

So you think the Soviet Navy would've tried predominantly to buy time for their army to beat the REFORGER units to the punch?

Eventually the Stavka would have said, "Fuck it!" and authorised their attack sub commanders to use those nuclear tipped torpedoes that they had handy. Because if REFORGER had worked and those convoys had went through, it could have cost them the ground war. They spent the development money for that program for just that reason - cutting the Atlantic convoy routes.

Seeing as how they well remembered just how important those routes had been to their own survival in the Great Patriotic War.

I doubt it, honestly; Soviet nuclear strategy was much more cautious overall, and they were much more worried about second-strike, than most NATO countries.

In terms of who had the most aggressive nuclear doctrine it's probably France.

edited 1st Dec '15 5:33:24 PM by Night

^ I don't know, I once saw in a TV documentary surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis that Soviet subs just outside the US blockade were armed with and authorized to use nuclear tipped torpedoes to break the blockade.

The skippers aboard the boats obviously didn't go that far. One boat was within strike distance and her skipper decided against firing. A few hours later Khrushchev and Kennedy had their accord and it was over.

There are more than a few accounts of near-miss nuclear incidents where some Soviet officer decided "Nyet, Tovarich" and sat on his heels rather than risk triggering The End of the World as We Know It.

There's an interesting school of thought regarding that the entire concept of nuclear deterrence hinges on the assumption that humans would be willing to end the world, contrasting that with a fair degree of evidence that most people would stop short of pulling the trigger on millions knowing the cost.

Have Rail Gun vid including the air bursting fragmentation shot. General Commentary and interesting shooting things bit starts at 45 seconds.

"Why hyper velocity air bursting rounds? Because fuck you and everyone around you."

edited 1st Dec '15 11:14:41 PM by TuefelHundenIV

^ And that is the technology that will bring back the battleship.

Fuck you, everyone around you, and everyone for about fifteen miles downrange of you

Tom: Keep dreaming.

@ Tom: I guess you'd bring back the Iowas?

It won't. Railgun ranges are barely comparable to the strike radius of an SBD-1 Dauntless, a model that was obsolescent by the time of Coral Sea and Midway (by which time the production model was the SBD-3).

The battleship was killed by it's inefficiency:

• Aircraft and missiles far outrange those 16" guns and are much cheaper.

• The battleships require a ton of manpower when the Navy was trying to shrink crews. No more draft, no more rounding up young men to go to sea. Each sailor is a huge investment in time, training and family benefits. Better to have smaller crews like on the LCS or the Zumwalt class ships.

• The big guns needed very specialized TTP's (Tactics, Training and Procedures) that were lost over time. The Iowa's gun turret explosion was a result of carelessness and lack of proper safety protocols. Not helping was the fact that most of the designers, and subject matter experts were either dead or retired.

After the Cold War, the Navy wanted to get rid of the battleships. Too expensive to maintain, just modernizing them cost a fortune and one ASM could put paid to a battleship.

The plan for the railgun is to arm Navy ships and take some of the stress of NAVAIR and give the Jarheads a hand at the beach.

The Battleship died when Billy Mitchel did his famous display on some World War One battleships. It took World War Two to finalize it. Sure they had a great run in the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. But that was just a long swansong.

Keep denying Marine. Once railgun technology is perfected the urge to make big gun ships with lots of railguns will be felt and will be yielded to.

Fuck no. I'm talking new ships. New with lessons learned from the Iowas and more. Modern engineering and survivability, modern power systems and sensors, lots of automated systems and beyond.

The Iowas have done their service for the country, it's time for new steel.

If you're talking the older powder burners. Once railgun technology is perfected what prevents a 16 inch railgun with 200-500 km of range? (Although personally owing to the velocities involved, the reborn battleship should carry something more akin to 203mm. It wouldn't need more than that for a long while. Although if the 16 inch railgun can shoot for orbit...)

And that is why if I were to build new age battleships I'd go for a far smaller complement than anything from the Dreadnought Era. Automation and modern systems would cause that.

The goal? A complement of 500 crew, officers and enlisted. Ideally I'd push to see if it's possible to make it with 400 or less. Automation should make that at least a possibility.

And none of that applies to what I'm proposing. It would be a new TTP built from scratch and history lessons.

The exact same thing applies to a CVN.

Yet the Navy doubled down on those. One ASM and a Nimitz or Ford or Forrestal, etc. sends 1000+ crew and a 100,000+ ton vessel to the bottom of the sea and an entire air wing and then some with it to boot. (Better hope any flight ops already in the air are close enough to shore, otherwise...)

At least you can pack fucktons of point defenses on a battleship without compromising its primary mission unlike a CVN.

500km range (well beyond what any railgun is envisioned for) is about 270nmi.

That puts you right in the same range category as the carriers that fought at Midway.

Or, in today's terms, "hahahaha oh god you're serious".

Hey, you know what's even better at the point defense role than a battleship? The outer and inner air battles.

edited 2nd Dec '15 5:18:43 PM by SabresEdge

And if you have the power and technology to heft a shell that far, you have the technology to make railgun point defenses that can nullify missile assaults outright.

All the range in the world means nothing if the round never gets through.

I do love how you're making the logical leap from "we can throw a shell so far" to "and we can use it as an infallible air defense too!"

While we're at it, why not power our ships off unicorns and rainbows?

And then your fancy railgun battleship gets blown in half by a torpedo, which beholds railgun defenses and goes "Huh, but can it swim?"

The main thing protecting an aircraft carrier from anti-shipping missiles would be the air wing. Anything wishing to lob such a missile has to get past the Air Wing, which can range out quite a ways looking for trouble before it finds the carrier. Aside from that, there's also the entourage of surface warships and submarines.

And if you can put railgun defenses to render your BBR immune to missiles, so can the CVN. So now you have a CVN which is immune to anti-ship missiles AND hosts the versatility of an air wing. Fuck it, put a railgun on the CVN unless it's prohibitively large.

And if it is prohibitively large, you probably won't get a whole battery of them on a surface warship anyways. You'll end up with a destroyer fitted with a railgun and their typical missile battery, because unless you've solved the armor problem, the face of naval surface warfare will still be a band geek that hits like a linebacker.

Also, it might be just my lack of knowledge in general, but I fail to see a connection between technology to shoot things real fast, and technology to block numerous things flying towards you, with any remote accuracy.

edited 2nd Dec '15 5:42:01 PM by dRoy

The former is true, the latter is not. The problem was the turret crew cowboy'd the procedures, not that the procedures were inadequate. Records on this subject were never lost and are indeed quite extensive. (I'm pretty sure you can find original manuals online if you look hard enough.)

edited 2nd Dec '15 6:04:08 PM by Night

For the same power levels as it takes to accelerate a big shell many times the speed of sound and hurl it 500 km away we could apply that to a battery of smaller bore weapons put out a lot more rounds at the same time. Aka increase the rate of fire.

Railguns once the technology is perfected can be applied to many things from main guns designed to engage ships, structures and beyond to auxiliary and Anti-Air guns that can defend against missiles or other threats the main guns would be poorly suited to.

They're unreliable.

Same thing applies to a carrier. Put a Mk 82 between the screws of a Nimitz and you see Yankee swim home.

Not if you want to fly anything in any appreciable numbers. The more guns, ammo and parts for it you put on a CV, the fewer planes and helis you can have for the same space. Admiral Kuznetsov is both a shitty carrier and a shitty cruiser because it can't do both because both options are compromised. It wanted awesome defensive capabilities and offensive measures beyond the air wing and an air wing all at the same time.

Plus for the same cost as retrofitting all that stuff you could build a dedicated ship....like said battleships.

Guided rounds are a thing. Just because the shell can travel many times the speed of sound doesn't mean you can't make it able to course correct.