Do Battleships have a futue?

[Jack_www]

Yavoon some times I make typos ok. I dont pick on anyones grammar, and I can assure you that I am a real person. Carries and cuirse missles can out range a battle ship by far, and the curise missles can carry nuclear warhead and are pecision guided weapons, very accurate. They phased out battleships for a reason and they are not as cheep as you claim they are to be.

Aircraft Carriers can project force almost anywhere on the earth and are a moblie airfleid. IF you got the money, they money is spent much better on Carriers then on Battleships.

BattleShips where used for bombarding bunkers and other fortified postions on the coast, and now with the bombs the US has, these bombs can do the job. Also US strategy is to move inland fast, not wait around, which carriers fit this role more nicely. And because of battleships limmited range, the are useless once your forces are far inland, while carriers are still usefull.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by yavoon
there are many many situations where we could use battleships w/o fear of them being sunk.

Against a modern nation, your Battleships are just bit floating targets. Against Iraq/some Latin American/African nation, maybe you don't have to worry about that sort of thing. Against France? Against Russia? You're only going to be adding a nice new landmark on the bottom of the ocean.

[Jack_www]

Even Iraq could possibly get the anti ship missles and sink a battleship.

[Dis]

uhh we have no battleships in the U.S. Navy

[Zylka]

Serious consideration:

A remote controlled battleship showdown would be the biggest treat for masses of fireball awed Americans along the shores of San Fran, etc.

I'm not going to deny that making these beasts remote controllable for battle wouldn't cost millions... but c'mon! Sometimes you've just got to spoil your people

[Dis]

in any case- since I'm too lazy to read the thread.

Using them as a tourist attraction would also be expensive.

In order for them to be cost effective, the entire interior would have to be redesigned. And the engine rooms would have to be replaced. It can be difficult finding replacement parts for that stuff. The Navy can sometimes get them made if need be, but civilians cannot do that.

They should remain as is: tourist attractions that will never move again.

[Zylka]

Seriously

Why could they not make great llittle coral reefs, for diving attraction? A remote control battleship fight in San Bay would not only be 10 times better than any airshow gone wrong, or the most destructive monster truck show ever - it would simply send a sincere message to the rest of the world...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Most aeroplanes have became missile launching platforms. So you can do away with the planes and just launch them missiles.

You lose a lot of payload by having the missle carry itself all the way to the target. The plane has much better mileage.

[Sikander]

While the era of the Missourri class battleship is over, I think that there may still be some life left in warships whose primary armament will be guns. Imagine a very long rail or chemically propelled gun built perhaps along the entire length of a ship. Perhaps two per ship side by side. They would launch their ordanance very high into the air, and many many miles inland (depending on the tech, the range might be truly astounding), where the warheads would be terminally guided by satellite to their targets. No planes, no pilots, no problem.

[Az]

I was thinking along the lines of Railguns as well, but I don't think they should be THAT long.

I think they'll be mounted on turrets similar to the main guns of today, but they'll extend from both sides, in order to create bigger barrel length.

[Zylka]

No one knows of the political message I was hinting at, right?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sikander
You lose a lot of payload by having the missle carry itself all the way to the target. The plane has much better mileage.

Why? The planes only act as a launching platform, nothing more. Granted, these plaforms are reusable, but they are also very expensive, and can easily be destroyed. And if you want to put in stealth ability, this limits the amount of munition they can carry further.

An advantage of planes have is they can drop bombs, which are a lot more effective in terms of destruction/mass.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Azazel
I was thinking along the lines of Railguns as well, but I don't think they should be THAT long.

I think they'll be mounted on turrets similar to the main guns of today, but they'll extend from both sides, in order to create bigger barrel length.

I'd have to sit down with a physics guru in order to decide how long they should be, but it would be my intention to make them shoot several hundred miles. This makes them a competitor with the carrier group as far as power projection goes, and at a fraction of the cost per ton of ordinance delivered.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Azazel
I was thinking along the lines of Railguns as well, but I don't think they should be THAT long.

Railguns, are they those Gaussian rifle things? If so, you need very long barrels.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Why? The planes only act as a launching platform, nothing more. Granted, these plaforms are reusable, but they are also very expensive, and can easily be destroyed. And if you want to put in stealth ability, this limits the amount of munition they can carry further.

An advantage of planes have is they can drop bombs, which are a lot more effective in terms of destruction/mass.

If you are using a solid fueled missle which has plenty of range to reach its target, then you may as well launch it without the aircraft. But the warhead is going to be smaller than it could otherwise be if you used a plane to haul it closer to its target and reduced the fuel in the missle, replacing it with more warhead. Just as you can get more warhead on target with a glide bomb than any missle, you can get more warhead on target the less the missle is filled with propellant rather than payload.