The Navy Thread

Gulf One decisively proved the superiority of helicopter-equipped frigates over missile boats. (It also incidentally proved most of what the USN had been saying for years about this matchup, so tread carefully challenging their other conclusions; they've got a good track record.)

The Tanker War, with Operation Praying Mantis and Earnest Will, taught us a lot about what does and does not work in a missile environment.

The Gulf of Sidra action showed the weakness of point-defense gun and missile systems against jet aircraft and ASMs.

The Indo-Pakistani War and the various rounds the Egyptians and Israelis went with their missile boats have taught the world much as well.

HMS Conqueror taught the world to fear the nuclear-powered submarine, a lesson that periscope video has reconfirmed a few hundred times.

Could go on if you like?

I mean, let me make it totally clear here, I love the dreadnaught battleship. I can discuss the minutiae of their designs for hours (and have, over on the World of Warships forums). But it's over.

edited 26th Jan '15 6:42:16 PM by Night

It ain't over. It merely needs to evolve.

It is; accept that.

The simple fact is that antishipping missiles have evolved far beyond the ability of passive armor to protect against them. The bomb versus armor race was over by WWII, and the bomb had won, conclusively. It was well-accepted that no amount of practical battleship armor—not even on the Yamato-class behemoths—could protect against a plunging 2000-pound AP bomb.

Besides, I notice with some amusement that seems to be you taking a mirror-image stance on an argument we've had three years ago on the subject of missiles versus armor. The conclusion arrived at that argument was that an Iowa could shrug off Harpoon or Tomahawk hits—but an AS-4 would do horrible things to it, as would an AGM-130. That equation is unlikely to change in the future; the reason the US doesn't fit old-style AP warheads to its cruise missiles is doctrinal, not technical. If someone were so silly as to introduce a warship with even moderate armor plating (say, cruiser level), it'd be very easy to swap out the HE head on a cruise missile for APHE and go to town.

That means there's no role for the armored behemoth. Protection instead comes from not being hit, and two 13000-ton cruisers providing mutual support is better at that than one 27000-ton monster. Also they can cover a lot more searoom, specialize on their tasks (comparative advantage, remember!), or if needed patrol two oceans at once, none of which the single super-cruiser can do.

The armor is supposed to be complimentary to the ship's defenses. Not the primary method of defeating things. Not getting hit is a great idea...until you take a hit and it's not a matter of if but when will you. Armor mitigates that hit rather than eliminate it entirely. Take the attack on the USS Cole, had that ship been an unarmored Spruance, she'd probably be at the bottom of the sea rather than active like today. The Cole's armor while nothing compared to a WW 2 ship was enough to mitigate the damage and not be sunk.

The modern supercruiser/battleship would be built around that. Enough armor that a hit getting through doesn't result in an atomized ship lost with all hands while equipped with the CIWS defenses needed to hopefully not need that armor in ideal conditions.

And yes, modern compartmentalization like on the Cole would be a factor for the new generation battleship's survivability.

There is a subtle but crucial difference between "armor" and "survivability". The latter comes down to tough structural design, redundancy in systems, damage-control, and the like, enough to keep you afloat after a good hit. It doesn't need to be heavy. It also means that you'll probably be combat-ineffective after said hit.

Armor means trying to ward off the hit entirely, and that's something you can't do without a lot of heavy weight. It means trying to be combat-effective even after taking a heavy hit, which isn't feasible with modern munitions. It's also displacement you're stealing from other crucial things, like speed, bunkerage, or weaponry and sensors that will keep you from being hit in the first place. This debate was had before in the WWII days with fleet carriers: the USN favored investing displacement in hangar space and larger air wings; the RN favored investing it in armored flight decks. RN carriers typically did better after kamikaze hits, but USN carriers were much more capable overall, since the extra twenty or thirty aircraft counted for a lot.

By that metric something like lining key compartments with kevlar to keep out fragmentation or reinforcing the hull is survivability, not armor. And unarmored US ships already do extremely well, because USN ship design has been focused very heavily on survivability since WWII. Remember the Stark? Unarmored little FFG-7 that survived two Exocet hits? Or the Samuel B. Roberts, another FFG-7 that survived a mine strike that literally broke her back and knocked out her power, yet still remained afloat?

edited 26th Jan '15 7:51:45 PM by SabresEdge

Nah, man. It was the spirit of the first USS Sammy B. that protected the frigate from sinking.

Entirely plausible!

By the way, Night, I just noticed.

Sauce please. Because this implies there are studies and papers done on the transition age between the gun and the missile, and I want so badly.

You know who else thinks we should return to the age of the armored all-big-gun battleship?

Sparky

A bunch of M113's tied together is not a battleship.

^ That, Very, very that.

Relevant Hark! A Vagrant is relevant

Early submarines were adorable.

You know, watching Gundam and the like for ten whole years gave me an idea. Why haven't anyone put 15 cm/6 inch+ guns on dock landing ships to support landing operations? They are not required to go very fast, so they can pack some more armor to start a pissing match with land based artillery. The space for ammo is not a very big problem. Amphibious SP Gs and cannon barges (something exclusively Chinese) be eliminated in this way.

Well, the Chinese and the Russians have taken to bolting Grad rocket launchers to their tank landing ships. For the US and the West, the main issue is that landing craft tend to be relatively small—there's not much call for the huge LSTs; most 'phibs are designed to loiter well offshore. And while a stabilized six-inch gun may not be all that big in the context of a destroyer, it is quite big and unwieldy when you're talking about landing craft—or even for that matter landing ships. It's the recoil and the mechanisms needed to absorb it, and the mechanisms needed to stabilize the gun to fire with any kind of accuracy; those are big and bulky. (Grads get around this by being recoilless.)

For instance, the German Zerstorers were destroyers in WWII that packed 15cm main guns. Experience suggested that, in addition to being useless in the antiaircraft role, it was simply too much gun for the ship size. That would apply to landing ships as well, I'd imagine.

edited 27th Jan '15 1:09:38 PM by SabresEdge

I'd send you my dad, who apparently found this stuff for something related to his EE degree at the Naval Academy in the class of '66, but I'm not sure if he'll fit in any boxes I have. It was apparently still the working doctrine on his first ship, a Gearing FRAM. It wasn't considered much by the time he got on a Charles Adams, partially because the mounts never managed to fire twenty rounds rapid continuous the entire time he was aboard.

I can ask, but I have no idea if the information is still existent in paper form or where you'd find it now.

EDIT: He suggests looking up the issue of VT-frag ammunition for heavy ships the CAGs/CAs during this period, even when not assigned to shore bombardment. It was apparently in the Naval Academy library when he was there; they had copies of doctrinal stuff going back to pre-WW 2.

edited 27th Jan '15 10:04:25 PM by Night

^^ That reminds me, what the fuck happened to that Marines project where they bought up all the mini-GAU 8 gun pods^note They were supposed to allow any aircraft to be a mini A-10 but most aircraft weren't natively able to use it owing to mounting and recoil problems as well as software fails thus was inaccurate as fuck so it ended up being sold off to the Marines. and were gonna put em on their LCAC's and shit for suppressive fire?

edited 28th Jan '15 6:50:17 PM by MajorTom

> CA/CAG

> eight-inch main guns

> VT/frag in surface-to-surface role

Oh that's nothing.

I know for a fact that they produced 14" and 16" VT frag for the bombardment ships in WW 2. Rounds were actually fired at Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Serious consideration was given to using them to attack Japanese suicide-boat anchorages during the Invasion of Japan with the fast battleships, since air attacks had been relatively ineffective during the Okinawa campaign and destroyer raids had worked but were considered unduly hazardous in a situation like attacking the Home Islands. At least a SoDak could charge in from off-shore under cover of darkness and throw a hundred rounds from fifteen miles away, then scoot again.

edited 28th Jan '15 10:58:29 PM by Night

Go to 2:42 for some old fashion battleship action.

The US Coast Guard needs lots more ships.

I am really disappointed I didn't see Borodino blow up there, though I commend them on the quality of their CGI; Mikasa and the Borodino-class ships were recognizable.

So if I were to run a mini version of the warship of the day thing I was part of over on World of Warships, how many people would bother to read it?

I would.

I would. Especially if it has nifty historical and/or technological info.

Go for it.

Okay. I'll be starting tomorrow, so. Gotta get my lists out again.