Save the battlewagons

townhall.com ^ | April 15,2005 | Oliver North

[Zero Sum]

"There is no weapon system in the world that comes even close to the visible symbol of enormous power represented by the battleship." -- Retired Gen. P.X. Kelly, USMC

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Those words of the former Marine commandant resonate with me. In 1969, gunfire from the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) saved my rifle platoon in Vietnam. During her six months in-theater, the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns were credited with saving more than 1,000 Marines' lives. The North Vietnamese so feared the ship that they cited her as a roadblock to the Paris peace talks. Our leaders, as they did so often in that war, made the wrong choice and sent her home. Now, 36 years later, Washington is poised to make another battleship blunder.

[Zero Sum]

Oliver North doing what he does best: making good, hard sense.

[Route101]

Battleships and the silent service...we need them both!

[Experiment 6-2-6]

Unlike any other naval vessel, battleships combine survivability, speed and immediate, heavy firepower.

Well, two out of three ain't bad...

[carumba]

The Bismark was the beginning of the end for the battle ship. Argentina's General Belgarno was an example of large surface ships being large targets.

[FreedomPoster]

Precision guided munitions make BBs completely obsolete.

[jamaksin]

Or perhaps the tale of Billy Mitchell and the reason for his court martial ...

[gridlock]

Modern ships in the modern air-launched missile environment...

HMS Sheffield

USS Stark

[Robert A Cook PE]

Nope.

EVERY destroyer-sized ship, in every instance since WWII, that has been hit by even a dud has IMMEDIATELY lost at least one of three things needed to survive: Propulsion, power, or combat systems.

Every one of has the ability to survive a second hit.

(I forget the exact number of ships hit that I looked at: the number of "accidents" bomb hits, near-misses, accidental explosions, shrapnel hits, dud bombs, live bombs, dud rockets, dud torpedoes, live mines, etc. It was well over 60.

And EVERY ONE of these destroyer-sized ships was lost, was sunk, or was out of action. After ONLY ONE hit.

Almost all of those hit more than once sunk. Or had fires that put it out of action for months.

...

Now, what's really sobering is that NONE of these that had been "attacked" were hit a second time! Even in the Falklands, the Argentines were limited to only a few fighters who didn't strike twice. And even there the Brit's lost just under 1/3 of their escorts to single-hit failures that left them vunerable to a second wave - that didn't come.

And, most important, the Argentine bombs that DIDN'T explode (but STILL put the Brits out of action) were duds caused by US "forgetting" to tell the Ar. Air Force how to arm the US-provided fuses for low-level drops.

IF we had told them, six MORE Brit destroyers and frigates would have sunk. Not just been out-of-action until repairs were finished.

[Route101]

Battleships to indimidate and submarines to strike....

[Robert A Cook PE]

Er. Uhm.

Did you notice that BOTH were hit by DUD missiles?

In the Gulf, when faced with a bottom-laid (cheap) mine threat, our US Navy destroyers pulled in line BEHIND the merchants - So the mines would blow up under the merchant (and do no damage!) to the frightened and venerable "escorts" huddling in the cargo ships' wakes.

[gridlock]

...frightened and venerable "escorts"...

Either very clever or an inspired error...

[Robert A Cook PE]

8<)

And, every now and then, such wit comes upun us....

Seriously, it's sobering to realize that the nation's destroyers and frigates are so easily killed.

Our Navy has NOT been shot "at" since the days off Okinawa: It's going to be a real shock when somebody tries it.

[Strategerist]

Actually he's unfortunately full of crap on this one.

The BBs will never be back in service. They require simply enormous crews; over time that quickly costs a lot more money; you can't simply compare the cost of putting them back in service with the cost of a new DD(X). A lot of people are infatuated with the BBs on an emotional level. Put them back in service and you're going to really have to cut Carriers, subs, the F-35,or any new surface ships at all a LOT more than they've been cut already

[Toadman]

While I agree that todays technology does effect survivability (of many weapon platforms) there's a couple of factors that help compensate the BB.

Normally the ship would have air, surface, and subsurface escorts. I don't feel the ship would be any more vulnerable today than other USN Ships. In fact there's the arguement that it could be more survivable because of it's WWII era armor.

When I first joined the Service (don't ask how long ago), the Missouri was visiting San Diego. I visited and stood on the site where the Japanese surrender document was signed.

A couple of years later during Desert Storm I watched the Missouri and the Wisconsin on the firing line together!

Then about five years ago, while on vacation in Hawaii, I took my family to visit the "Mighty MO" at Pearl Harbor. So I'm definitely biased in favor of keeping and even reactivating them.

Modern technology works both ways... during Desert Storm BB's launched Tomahawk Cruise missles! If there's such a thing as rocket assisted artillery (there is), I'm sure there's miriads of things that could be done with the 16 inch projectiles - rocket assisted, gps guidance, you get my drift.

[Hardastarboard]

Oh, hell! I thought this was a thread about keeping our mother-in-laws safe from harm!

[FreedomPoster]

The Japanese battleship Yamato under attack by U.S. Navy planes in the East China Sea on April 7, 1945. She sank after being hit by 10 torpedos and five bombs. (National Archives)

[Belasarius]

I'm not recommending that we bring back the battleships. They are simply too expensive and require too large a crew to operate. Yes, they are impressive but how much should we pay for impressive?

As far as vulnerability, I don't know of any existing non-nuclear missiles that are capable of seriously damaging a battleship. They are simply not going to penetrate 16 inches of armor. I think the decks are 4 inches of armor but even then a lot of the force would be disapated.

Today's missiles are designed to destroy todays non-armored ships. When they operated most recently, the existence of battleships in our active fleet posed a problem for our enemies because they simply had nothing in the inventory that could defeat battleship armor.

They are vulnerable to torpedos but even then their size makes them significantly harder to destroy than any other modern ship. And, the Iowa class are very fast, at 33 knots.

Senior Chief Firecontrolman(SW) USN(Ret)

[SLB]

This is a hard nut to crack. The BB provides some technologies that are not in the DDX and will not be put in due to cost. Congress keeps picking that program apart just like it does all weapons programs. However FreedomPoster has shown the vulnerability of the BB is huge when compared to the DDX. My fear is the DDX will be like much of the technology in the Army's Future Combat System (FCS), too hard to get there now, but we will add it in later. Yes, and I will respect you in the morning - just another great lie that will cost the lives of the American fighting man.

[Junior]

The two surviving battleships are 60+ year-old platforms for which the support infrastructure no longer exists (that's why the Iowa was using old powder at the time of her turret explosion). They are manpower and maintenance-intensive, which means they'll soak up personnel and money the Navy does not have.

I understand the romanticism of big-gun battlewagons; however, even in their hay day they were vulnerable to enemy action (c.f. Yamato and Bismark). Technology has advanced 60 years since then.

[clee1]

Battleships are relics of a bygone era.

Too expensive, too vulnerable.

RIP, BB.