Posted on 04/02/2002 9:04:18 PM PST by DieselBoy
REACTIVATE THE IDEAL SHIPS FOR COUNTERING THE TERRORIST THREAT
Dubious proposition.
Two major, but easily remediable, deficiencies could severely handicap the Navy in the present war against terrorism, a war that could be waged against “nations, organizations or persons.” With the exception of landlocked Afghanistan, waging war against suspected nations would no doubt require forced entry from the sea, which in turn would depend on adequate tactical naval surface fire support (NSFS) -- which is also essential to our “defeat of anti-access strategy.”
Surface forcible entry is an anachronism. It is NOT necessary, except in the minds of those who believe that a high friendly casualty count is a mark of warrior prowess.
(Kosovo demonstrated how bad weather could wipe out air support.)
It's been known about for years since the advent of the airplane. FWIW, some of the close air support in Afghanistan was delivered in the worst weather ever seen. In short, weather is becoming less of a barrier to CAS than it was previously.
The Marine Corps, the GAO and the Navy’s N764 (Land Attack Warfare Branch, the Navy’s lead experts on NSFS) all have stated that present and planned Navy programs cannot provide the Marine Corps (or the Army) the tactical NSFS indispensable for the success of littoral “combat tactical actions.”
"Combat tactical actions" says nothing about a requirement for battleships. It says "you have to win battles."
And N764 has stated: “Combat tactical actions are central to operational success and strategic victory.”
Wow. A statement of the blindingly obvious. However, it does not equal a battleship requirement.
In a recent interview Commandant General James Jones declared: “I know of no combat shortfall that’s more important in my book, for the Marine Corps, than bridging the gap between the absence of naval gunfire and our own organic fire-support systems.”(Italics added)
There's more than one way to skin a cat. Most of the "bridging" is already in place, and the "last mile" is in advanced procurement now. Again, it doesn't say that battleships are required.
On June 22, 2001, a presumed threat of possible terrorist attacks by bin Laden agents caused our 5th Fleet to flee from Bahrain and put out to sea. Understandably the fleet commander wanted to avoid another attack like the one that, October 18, 2000, almost sank USS Cole and cost 17 American lives. After the Cole incident, a terrorist threat also caused us to temporarily suspend sending Navy vessels through the Suez Canal. The proven vulnerability of our current warships accounts for this caution. In reference to the June 22nd evacuation, Ambassador (ret.) Hume Horan, who has long experience in the Mideast (he was, inter alia, US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia) noted, “Not our finest hour…nor very reassuring to our friends in the area who wonder about whether Uncle Sam can stay the course.”
And we came back into port.
Ships get underway all the time.
We must be able stand and visibly show our flag in the face of threats, especially in the critically strategic Mideast where terrorist threats are ever present! For this we must have ships that do not provide terrorists with psychological and political victories by having to flee from such threats because of their vulnerability.
This is a truly moronic reason for having a battleship. The terrorists will simply figure out a way to attack the ship with some other method--such as shooting up a liberty party, for instance, or sniping topside crew. Tell me the Iowa wouldn't clear out of town after a sniper incident.
Or, the terrorists could simply fight their way aboard, reach a powder magazine, force open safety interlocks with the ship's own damage control gear, and set off a bomb. Battleship sinks at pierside...
Additionally and critically important, only battleships can provide the massive, high volume, accurate, instant, 24- 7, all weather, tactical NSFS that Marines (and soldiers) must have.
"Accurate" and "battleship gunfire" do NOT belong in the same sentence.
It would have a Cooperative Engagement Capability and would enhance its support of ground forces with FIREFINDER phased array radar for counter-battery fire and Field Artillery Tactical Data System for integrating supporting fires.
Wrong answer. Phased-array radars and 16-inch gun blast do NOT mix.
In addition, it would have the latest state-of-the-art electronics.
And antiquated 600-pound steam to power same, with all of the lovely electrical fluctuations 600-pound steam ships are noted for. You'll keep the electronics shop busy fixing all the voltage-damaged electronics...
These two battleships, needed by the Navy, Marine Corps and the Army, should best be separately funded as joint “national assets”, outside the Navy’s budget and manpower ceilings, thus meeting key Navy objections to bringing back these ships.
OK, you want to engage in the same sort of budget chicanery that FReepers despise with Social Security...
No ship is invulnerable, but the battleships come closest to being so.
The battleship holds the distinction of being able to sink itself just from a single act of carelessness. No other weapons system, with the possible exception of the ICBM, concentrates that much explosive energy in one place and dares its operators to make a mistake.
The still unexplained turret 2 explosion on Iowa in 1989 (the only explosion on any US battleship commissioned since 1917) would, for example, have demolished a CG or DDG (or DD-21) and put a carrier out of commission for a very long time.
Here we go: three lies in one sentence. First, the turret explosion IS explained by two words: BAGGED POWDER. Specifically, the serious investigation concluded that the probable cause of the explosion was an overram of bagged powder which led to ignition.
Second, there was a turret explosion in 1943 aboard the USS Mississippi--rather more recent than 1917.
Third, since carriers, CGs, and DDs do NOT use bagged powder, the explosion would NOT have "demolished" a CG or DDG, nor would it have put a carrier out of commission for any length of time--because it wouldn't have happened in the first place!
There's a FOURTH lie hidden here: the author is trying to suggest that the Iowa was never in significant danger. In actuality, the ship came perilously close to sinking.
Iowa, however, deployed again within a few months after the explosion and continued to fire its six remaining 16-inch guns. It should be noted here that, according to the GAO, some seventy countries now have land/sea-based anti-ship missiles which pose a serious threat to all our other ships.
And these countries do not have the targeting capacity to attack these ships unless we're foolish enough to come up to their doorstep--like we would with a battleship, oddly enough. I notice that they don't talk about how many nations we can expect to fight have submarines and torpedoes.
Battleship critics, who have long held sway in the Navy, claim that the battleship requires too many people and too much money and, therefore, cannot be afforded. May 18, 2000, this charge was accurately countered by (now HASC Chairman) Bob Stump, who declared: “Measured against their capabilities, they [battleships] are the most cost-effective and least manpower intensive warships we have.”
"Capabilities" seems to include "the capability to have a dopey gunner's mate blow up the entire damn ship."
For at least 25 years, the extremely versatile modernized battleships could provide an invaluable bridge to future systems by coping with a wide spectrum of conflicts, all the way from using their imposing presence to keep the peace in troubled areas to providing massive fires in a full-scale war.
25 years? What, exactly, is this fool smoking? Try ten, at best. Those ships were NOT perfectly preserved, ever, and they are basically an engineering CASREP waiting to happen.
DD-21 is now in another redesign, I hear. This does not create a lot of confidence in our ability to bridge the gap, IMHO.
And reboilering, and completely overhauling the main armament to get rid of bagged powder, and, and, and, and...
Actually, the end of large-scale battleship procurement in 1943 (when the Montana-class ships were cancelled) led to this development. There just isn't a lot of call out there (read: ZERO) for 18-inch thick Class A armor. When you have only one customer for Class A armor, and they stop buying it, businesses that wish to make money will not leave the forges lying around, unused for 60 years, just on the off chance that the customer might want some more armor plate someday.
But, since you seem to advocate a nationalist and socialist industrial policy, I can see how you might get confused.
If I were the terrorists, I'd send in a suicide squad to detonate a bomb inside the forward powder magazine. That would sink the ship.
All I'm saying is that a BB is a lot more survivable than most anything else in the fleet.
Like I said: a BB is just about the only weapons system out there that concentrates THAT much chemical energy, in one place, in an easily-ignited form, and then dares the crew to make one mistake--or dares the enemy to get ONE bomb into the magazine by any means.
Since you like to use the carriers as examples, how do you think carriers defend themselves from anti-ship missiles?
By killing the archer, not the arrows.
By having a DD or CG get in the missile's way and take the hit for them.
Actually, the idea is that the DD or CG uses their own weapons suite to bag the inbound. DDs and CGs are pretty expensive, after all.
If I had to take an inbound vampire strike, I would certainly rather be on a battleship.
Of course, if I were attacking a CVBG, I'd be throwing nuclear vampires. Being in a BB wouldn't do you THAT much good :o)
Actually, it's the correct argument. A CVBG uses its dominance of the airspace around the ship to prevent the enemy's scouting forces from targeting it precisely. A BB neatly solves this problem for the enemy by driving up within sight of the coastline to do its business.
The Iowa class battleships if reactiveated would be the most difficult ships to sink in the fleet and the only ones capable of surviving near-misses by naval tacnukes of the variety you say might be used against their battlegroups.
The only defense against a nuke is to be nowhere near where it detonates. A carrier is far less likely to be in that position (the enemy will, at best, barrage fire missiles in the general direction of the CVBG and hope they're not shooting at deceptive transmitters) than a battleship (which would be within sight of the enemy-held coast).
A very long shot, IMHO.
MARDET is smaller than you think, and with some topside covering fire, they will have to wait to engage the enemy.
As for the size of the ship...that does not directly impact getting access to the magazine. Up the forward brow, forward along the deck, enter the ship, down a few decks...
A very long shot, IMHO.
About as long a shot as flying some airliners into the WTC and the Pentagon.
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