USS Iowa

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Well in the case of the USS Stark, it penetrated a grand total of 3/4" of normal hull plating before stopping.

As designed.

Could you clarify your point here, because the one Exocut that hit the ship's hull, appears to have done so entirely sucessfully.

A lookout spotted the first Exocet just seconds before the missile struck, tearing a ten-by-fifteen-foot hole in the warship's steel hull on the port side before ripping through the crew's quarters.

http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id344.htm

In other words it easily penetrated the ship's armor and expended the rest its force in the interior of the ship.

Actually, I think I just figured out where your confusion came from.

At 2110, the second Exocet missile hit Stark in the same location as the first. The first missile which did not detonate, instead disintegrated, parts of which passed through the starboard side of the ship at frame 172. The warhead was found later on the second deck at frame 171. The second missile exploded about three feet inside the skin of the ship.

http://www.dcfp.navy.mil/mc/museum/STARK/Stark3.htm

The missile that only penetrated 3/4 of the ship's normal hull plating absolutely did not work as designed. It simply failed to detonate. The other missile easily penetrated well into the ship's hull and did a large amount of damage.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Patroklos
The reason there is no armor there is because there is nothing to protect. in other words, a hit there would leave all weapon/sensors intact.

From your source...

So yes, the superstructure is not only protected, but...

If you note carefully what exactly was armored, its EXCLUSIVELY the command and firecontrol portions of the battleship's guns. None of the sensors are armored. Basically what would happen is the essentially entirely exposed radar and communications dishes and antenae will get completely destroyed by a hit from an anti-ship missile in the right place. This would make weapons such as the ship's Harpoon Anti-ship missiles completely useless. While I suppose the Iowa could take advantage of the portible communications equipment available today so that they could still communicate to some degree with the outside world, the overall loss of communications would still severely impede its effective opperations. Its main guns would also completely lose the benefits of radar assistance when firing. While this may not be such a big deal given the Iowa is going to realistically need to almost completely rely on other escorting ships for protection anyways, this also means the ship is not entirely limited to visual range in targetting any naval vessals with its main guns.

[Kuciwalker]

Why couldn't the guns get targeting data from another ship?

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Why couldn't the guns get targeting data from another ship?

If the ship's communication gear is shreded as well, I believe current US naval communications would be essentially confined to walkie talkie or cell phone type communication. In order to accurately hit an enemy ship with its main guns, the Iowa gunnery crew ideally needs both the target ship's exact current position, exact current heading, and as close to accurate a current speed estimate as possible among other things. If you're looking at communicating via walkie talkie, this information first has to be read off a screen by the ship with the still functioning radar, then coveyed to the fire control crew which has to actually manually imput all of this in their fire control computer which will try to calculate where the ship will be by the time the ship's shells reach their targets, as well as attempting to estimate the amount of time it took to actually receive that information and actually put it in the computer.

Now keep in mind that if the incoming ships knows its under fire, or about to be under fire, from a battleship, its not going to head in a straight line, but quite frequently vary its course a bit as it somewhat randomly zig zags in the direction it want to go, at just as fast a speed as possible. The problem is this delay to imput this information on the computer significantly adds to the already measurably significant delays for the ship's 16 inch shells to travel such as long distance. If ship has altered its heading at all during this period, those shells are going to miss for sure. Furthermore, any miscalations of the target's heading and speed are going to be magnified by this greater delay. While it might be possible to still hit the target, most targets for which hitting them beyond visual range matters are going to be trying to reach a range from which they can fire their anti-ship missiles or torpedoes and then immediately turn around to get away. This means the Iowa Class Battleship is going to have a limited amount of time during which it has a chance to hit its target.

Furthermore, I was assuming perfect reception above, but all the armor in a battleship could block reception in the fire control room. This would mean an additional substancial delay as someone has to be on the deck of the ship receiving the information which then needs to be conveyed down to the ship's fire control room. At a minimum it heavily reduces the effectiveness of the Iowa's guns in beyond the horizen combat.

[Kuciwalker]

If the ship's communication gear is shreded as well, I believe current US naval communications would be essentially confined to walkie talkie or cell phone type communication. In order to accurately hit an enemy ship with its main guns, the Iowa gunnery crew ideally needs both the target ship's exact current position, exact current heading, and as close to accurate a current speed estimate as possible among other things. If you're looking at communicating via walkie talkie, this information first has to be read off a screen by the ship with the still functioning radar, then coveyed to the fire control crew which has to actually manually imput all of this in their fire control computer which will try to calculate where the ship will be by the time the ship's shells reach their targets, as well as attempting to estimate the amount of time it took to actually receive that information and actually put it in the computer.

Or the computer can just be hooked up directly to this walkie-talkie or cell phone type communicator. Just build it into the gun.

[Mordoch]

On the Exocet's ability to penetrate steel armor, even former US Navy Secretary John Lehman, a proponent of keeping the two Iowas in active reserve, says that the Exocet is capable of penetrating through 2.75 inches of armor.

http://www.leavenworth.army.mil/milrev/English/JulAug01/ralph.htm

This means its going to penetrate the Iowa's initial deck layer for sure, and obviously this is with the current warhead which isn't designed with armor penetration as a priority.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Or the computer can just be hooked up directly to this walkie-talkie or cell phone type communicator. Just build it into the gun.

You're talking about some significant additional expenses in reactivating the ships since this system doesn't currently exist. You're probably talking about a custom designed military speced part that needs to directly interface and convey the precise data to the ship's targetting computer. There also is going to be a real risk of these remote communicator's or at least the port they go into getting destroyed by one of the incoming anti-ship missiles.

One of the most likely biggest expenses would be the following though. Current systems are almost certainly designed to provide a rather high bandwith and rather information intensive targetting data to other ships in the area which have large antenae or dishes to pick up the signals, especially since its probably designed to potentially give targetting data to hit incoming missiles or aircraft. You would need some significant reprogramming if not ouright redesign of these communications systems to provide a less data itensive stream of data to this portible communicator that the communicator could sucessfully pick up. Doing this for all the ships that you could see providing this data for the Iowa Battleship in combat could be expensive.

You could add this feature, but it would further raise questions of the cost effectiveness of doing this to the Iowa Class Battleships in the first place.

[Kuciwalker]

You're talking about some significant additional expenses in reactivating the ships since this system doesn't currently exist. You're probably talking about a custom designed military speced part that needs to directly interface and convey the precise data to the ship's targetting computer.

If you've got cell phones you've got internet, if you've got internet it's relatively simple to hook two computers together.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
If you've got cell phones you've got internet, if you've got internet it's relatively simple to hook two computers together.

The question is whether the other ship is designed to transmit its information on a cell phone frequency, otherwise this wouldn't work. Furthermore, actual cell phones are probably a bad idea to use for this communication because not only are there still many areas of the world without effective cell phone coverage, but in many locations the only available cell phone towers would be controlled by the country being attack who could easily shut them down. Now Satellite cell phone's might be an option, but there is a question if they have the exact capabiliites needed here or you would need a custom mod. Furthermore, some custom mods definately need to be made to ensure data integrity, you don't want the enemy to be able to spoof the signal and provide false targetting data. "Fire at the Aegis Destroyer next to you!"

I think when all these modfications are added up, you're not looking at that cheap a cost.

[Kuciwalker]

The question is whether the other ship is designed to transmit its information on a cell phone frequency, otherwise this wouldn't work. Furthermore, actual cell phones are probably a bad idea to use for this communication because not only are there still many areas of the world without effective cell phone coverage, but in many locations the only available cell phone towers would be controlled by the country being attack who could easily shut them down.

Yes, yes, I wasn't suggesting that someone just plug in their cell phone, but clearly local communications with nearby ships could be maintained (and as you mentioned, through satellites global communcations as well). And I thought programs to encrypt and transmit exactly this sort of information already existed.

[BlackCat]

Kuciwalker may sometimes get lost between his bathrooms, but in this case he is right.

A cannon ship whatever size don't need it's own way to measure a target - that can be fed from whatever source available. Calculations may be more complex, but can actually be done with paper and pencil - no advanced and costly systems are nessecary. Though, computers is nice because they can make the boring calculations quick.

I actually have an idea of the calcultions nessecary - I have served in an artillery battery,

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Calculations may be more complex, but can actually be done with paper and pencil - no advanced and costly systems are nessecary. Though, computers is nice because they can make the boring calculations quick.

I actually have an idea of the calcultions nessecary - I have served in an artillery battery,

You would want to avoid pencil calculations if all possible here though. When talking about a moving target that keeps on changing its heading, the additional delay is unacceptable.

[Kuciwalker]

Handheld calculators can easily perform the required calculations.

And they can be programmed so that the actual user just has to punch in a few numbers anyway.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Mordoch

You would want to avoid pencil calculations if all possible here though. When talking about a moving target that keeps on changing its heading, the additional delay is unacceptable.

Oh, and what did they do in WWII ? Do you really think that they only fired when the target was in sight and didn't move ? No, they where both able to move, concider the opponents movement and fire with these movevements included in shoot orders.

There are no complicated things in this, just a lot of calculations that computers make easy.

[Kuciwalker]

Each battleship has two turrets, right? So at a cost of about $200 you could provide both battleships with a backup targeting system consisting of a cheap graphing calculator with a small program to do the calculations on it.