Big Guns Go Silent

Robert Novak has an editorial on the Navy's plan to decommission it's last two battleships, the Iowa and the Wisconsin. He's pitching a line for the Marine Corps, whose commandant General Mike Hagee told Congress two years ago that the loss of naval surface fire support would place his troops "at considerable risk." The Senate Arms Services Committee is considering a bill that would turn the two ships into museums. I was on a tour of the Wisconsin at Norfolk and I can tell you it's a hell of a ship. Very impressive, especially with the World War II veterans telling you stories on the tour about its history. What's interesting is Novak's story of an "anti-battleship bias" within the Navy, that the Navy somehow never liked the big ships since World War II and it's all a military-industrial complex plot to get funds for the next generation destroyer DD(X).

Now I don't know the Navy well enough to see if this is true or not, and I'm hoping that someone from the Navy side can clarify this story. My observations within the Pentagon were that the Navy surface guys pretty much rule over their cousins in the Navy air, shore, and submarine fleet. It somehow seems strange to think that the Navy surface community would eschew these ships.  This 2004 GAO report provides some more background. Seems that the last time the Navy used battleships was during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, then they made plans to mothball the ships. Congress intervened and told them to keep at least two ships on inactive duty while the Navy was to develop an alternative firepower solution by modifying the 5 inch guns on the destroyers. That hasn't happened yet.

These battleships are old, they're expensive to maintain, and the industry doesn't support manufacture of the ammunition for the big guns. The Marine Corps does have air support and field artillery systems for fire support. I  don't see the justification to keep battleships just so you have an option to fire on North Korean military structures, as Novak alludes. Maybe it's time for the big guns to go silent.

Comments

[John F. Opie]

Hi -

As a long-time armchair general in spe, let me add my take:

You are right.

There is a dedicated lobby for the old BBs, but at the end of the day they are too tempting a target. They are too manpower intensive for the fighting capability, and given the passive defenses (armor, lots and lots of it) and the sheer destructiveness of modern weapons, there are too many sailors put at risk.

And shore bombardment isn't enough of an argument.

I remember there was a huge discussion on this back when in the USNI Proceedings magazine called for their being striken and not even mothballed. Even mothballing them meant several $100k/year, and we simply don't have the industrial base to make most of the weaponry on board.

But not because we can't: we have much better weapons now.

And Reagan did remobilize two in the 1980s, but that wasn't as much a true committment to large surface combatants as much more a cheap way to intimidate the Soviets, who were starting to build some large surface combatants and needed to be reminded that the US had "been there, done that" in the form of the Missouri-class BBs.

But remember the fate of the Bismark and above all the fate of the Yamato. Against air power and the poor man's version, anti-shipping missiles, any really large surface combatant with a crew in the thousands that can't operate its own air force is a great way to waste money and training.

Best regards, you've got a great blog!

John

[John]

I would love to see the BBs back. I live in Tidewater, so I see the Wisconsin all the time.
However, it would be impossible to man the ships now. Too many sailors required.

I have to disagree with John Opie (above poster) about the BBs being vulnerable. Had one of the BBs been hit with what the Cole was in Yemen, I would have imagined it may have scratched the paint and nothing else.

[Rob]

The BBs wouldn't be particularly vulnerable to air attack; modern missiles don't carry enough punch to seriously hurt a ship of that size and with that amount of armor, the battleships have point defense weapons, and the battleships will never operate alone in any case. The vulnerability is from modern submarine attack.

In the end, it just seems to me to be a really expensive platform for artillery fire. The BB can do other things, such as surface warfare and cruise missile launches, but smaller, cheaper ships can handle those operations.

[John F. Opie]

Hi -

OK, here goes: BBs are actually more vulnerable to modern attack despite their heavy armor.

Remember, you don't need to sink the BB in order to disable it: all you need to do is make it blind and dumb.

Why are BBs more vulnerable? First of all, BBs can be easily found. Radar reflectors galore. Further, they are vulnerable to attack on their sensors: once blind, they are merely targets and can't fight back. None of the modern sensors are under armor, because modern sensors didn't exist when the ships were built.

What sank the Bismark? A jammed rudder. What sank the Yamato? Inability to manouver to avoid being hit. Both sank because they couldn't run away when confronted with forces that meant it was only a matter of time before their ship was lost.

While BBs have a high top speed, they are NOT easily turned or able to accelerate quickly.

One of the classic anti-shipping missile manuevers is to slow to a complete stop and then apply full forward power when the missile is within 500 meters or so. A CODAG-powered ship, which uses a coaxial gas turbine (jet fighter engine) with a diesel for slower speeds has a very fast sprint speed, allowing to move several times its own length within a very short period of time. We're talking seconds here, not minutes.

Imagine that with a BB: you literally cannot move the ship that quickly, removing one of the key defenses of modern military ships from anti-shipping missiles.

So, the BB is going to be found and it is going to be hit. Granted, modern anti-shipping missiles do not pack the warhead weight and penetrating power of a 16" gun, but there is a reason why they do not.

They don't need to.

They replace mass with velocity. An anti-shipping missile with an incoming velocity of M3.5 or so will penetrate into the hull of any modern ship; it would penetrate the hull of a BB anyplace where there isn't an armor belt. Remember that BBs are not fully armored all over, but rather only over parts of the ship, albeit significant ones. Remember that artillery duels at sea back then were more matters of luck than of terminal guidance: you had ships firing at each other over significant distances with both platforms moving. It was a lucky shot that sunk the Hood, arching in directly into one of the magazines, which were protected from direct fire, but not indirect fire. Armor was designed not to stop precision guided munitions, but rather to reduce the risk of a seriously damaging shot whilst shooting at the other guy.

Given the same level of armor and weaponry, any WW1/WW2 naval artillery battle ended up as a slugfest, with lucky shots ending the battles: even if you won, your ship was so badly damaged that you'd be lucky to be able to reenter any battle going on with any meaningful battle capacity.

Nowadays: precision guidance means that any clever enemy will program his missile to impact at any one of a dozen points where armor simply isn't there or is very thin.

And I won't even get into the problems you face if you are facing Soviet wake-tracing torpedos: you can't run from these and they are designed to cripple your steering and propulsion so as to set you up for the the killing shot. Which would be a torpedo detonating around 3 meters under your keel, breaking it and breaking with it your structural integrity.

The real point of this long screed: BBs are like the 100-ton tanks at the end of WW2 and in the first years of the cold war. Looks great on paper, with massive armor and heavy weaponry, but few bridges could carry them and they were an automotive nightmare. Sure, you could kill any other tank out there, but the other guy could outrun and outturn you, and at the end of the day manouver is everything.

John

PS: Your're both right on your points: what hit the Cole wouldn't have meant much to a BB, and no BB will operate on its own. Doesn't change a bit of what I say here: it's a weapons platform that has outlived its time.

And I've been on two BBs, and they are magnificent. The point is not to be magnificent, but to be the guy writing history. :-)

[Chad]

Sorry Mr. Opie, but I've got to disagree. All current anti-shipping missles are large enough to be targeted by the Iowa or Wisconsin's CIWS systems. Speed is not the only defense against these missles. The armor belt of the class totally encompasses the sides of the hull, therefore the only vulnerable parts would be the superstructure, and from directly above. Battleships, in current doctrine travel with a carrier group within supporting distance, an escort of anti-submarine ships, and would be less expensive to modernize both ships of the class than to produce 2 DDX class destroyers. The 5 inch guns that were to replace the big "main armament" have NOT lived up to the promised range, nor to the explosive power that was touted. In short, you still need the big boys. Oh, and by the way, the DDX is capable of 30 knots, the Iowa and Wisconsin are capable of 32 knots. If you modernized their engine rooms, they still wouldn't have the sprint speed, but like I explained, they don't really need the anti-missle manuever you described.

[Rob]

I concur with Chad. I know a bit about anti-ship missiles (although less that I should), and I suspect that you're overstating the capacity of an anti-ship missile to pick particular points upon a moving ship to strike. Moreover, I'm skeptical about the ability of an anti-ship missile to penetrate battleship armor at the vulnerable points you describe. The designers understood that particular points in the ship were vulnerable, and encased those areas with extra protection. An anti-ship missile carrying considerably less wallop than a 16", 14", or even 12" shell is going to be hard pressed to penetrate turret or barbette armor.

You're absolutely right about the torpedos, though, and the main vulnerability of the BBs would be from submarines.

[Murdoc]

In a dramatic game of Sixth Fleet (tabletop version) I (playing the Rooskies) stalked the New Jersey for AGES but finally got off a good shot and sent her to the bottom of the Med. Broke my heart.

But I won.

[Murdoc]

Oops. Forgot to mention that it was a sub that took BB-62 out. I was supposed to be supporting Rob's point.

Now he can say "See? Murdoc knows *first hand* how vulnerable BBs are to submarines!"

More in-depth analysis to come...

[Terra Incognito]

I think the more important question is, where does the Marine Corps think it will need naval gunfire support? How many opposed landings has it actually made in the last, oh, 60 years?

Given the likely roles the Marine Corps will be used for in the forseeable future, where is the real justification for keeping the BBs in service?

Come to think of it, why exactly does the Navy continue to need it's own Army?

[John F. Opie]

Hi -

Chad: Sorry, the main armor belt goes from turret one to turret three on the hull, not the entire side of the hull.

12.9" inclined 19° for a height of 38'6" is nothing to laugh at, but steering gear isn't protected.

http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/IowaClass/Armor.htm

I'll grant you your points on no BB out there on its own, but the point remains: too big a target, too attractive to take out.

John

[J Thomas]

If they do recommission battleships I hope they retrofit them for nuclear engines.

I had this image of big heavy battleships crossing the ocean at 34 knots full of fuel oil, and I just flinched.

It won't be long now beforwe we're fighting a war off our strategic reserve.