USS Iowa

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Wrong, but you are unaquanted with shipboard firefighting so I can see why you would come to this conclusion. Fuel is one of the most destructive things about a missile hit, but it depends on where it is. In the Falklands and on the Stark, the fuel was so damaging because the missile pentetrated the skin and poured the fuel into the interior. Fuel burning on the weatherdecks would be bad, but would most likely not render the ship incabable of combat.

And how much heat do you think it takes to melt through a foot, in most places two, of steal? Assuming of course they didn't activate their topside sprinklers...

You find me a tank with 2 feet of armor anywhere. Of course it is possible to make a missile that could do it. It would probobly be very expensive and not worth it when most of the other combatants have no armor.

You appear to be making a major false assumption on how the ship's deck armor works. The initial layer of armor is a mere 1.5 inches of steel thick.

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

The second layer is a much more substancial 6 inches in some places, but you're already talking about the fire burning is a confined space where it traps the heat of the fuel fires. You're not talking about immediately running into 2 feet of armor where the antiship missile will hit.

As as the comparison to tank armor, modern tanks do not rely on simple solid steel armor plate like the battleships used to. They rely on sophisticated schemes like chobham armor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour

The frontal armor of most modern main battletanks is significantly in excess of 1,000 mm of rolled steel armor. This is around 3 &1/3 feet of steel armor! This is the type of armor that modern anti-tank heat warheads have to defeat. When talking about an anti-ship missile, warhead designers have a larger missile to work with. I see a warhead design for the subsonic missiles being something along the lines of an initial smaller heat warhead at the tip of the missle to penetrate the initial deck armor, a second heat warhead to deal with the remaining significant armor, and a delayed fuse high explosive warhead set to explode inside the ship. Iowa Class Battleships are not even close to being as invulnerable to anti-ship missiles as you seem to think.

[Mordoch]

Of course 6" of armor makes even a Harpon useless.

The thing is the initial layer of armor is a mere 1.5 inches thick.

Even when talking about 6 inches of armor, one of the existing missiles the battleship could end up dealing with is the Moskit, which is a much larger supersonic missile which can hit the ship's deck armor going around mach 2.5. Things get much worse with any modifications made to existing anti-ship missile warheads to deal with the reactivated battleships.

[:) Smiley]

Armor aside, how accurate are the guns? Would they still be politically acceptable in today's climate of minimizing civilian casualties?

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Smiley
Armor aside, how accurate are the guns? Would they still be politically acceptable in today's climate of minimizing civilian casualties?

Not very at all by modern standards. Basicly they can be used in areas where civillians are evacuated and its just military personel left, otherwise you're looking at substancial civllians casualties from shots that go astray. The relative innacuracy of its 16 inch guns also means that the battleship has to be careful when providing friendly fire support, because it can end up causing friendly fire casualties as well.

[Mordoch]

[SIZE=1]
This is patently false, even looking at a picture let alone stats tells you this.

Its possible that the Iowa armor scheme was dramatically different than the South Dakota's, but I know at least the South Dakota had light enough armor in the superstructure that both HE and AP shells mostly passed through doing little damage in one engagement.

A bomb striking the unprotected ends of the ship could easily pass out the bottom without detonating

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-070.htm

While I'm still looking for an additonal source to absolutely confirm this, it looks like people's assumptions that the Iowa's deck armor existed throughout the ship in roughly equal strength is quite wrong.

Despite the fact that horizontal protection was often spread over several layers, it remained concentrated over the vital spaces and thus was in keeping with the “all or nothing” idea. A bomb striking the unprotected ends of the ship could easily pass out the bottom without detonating.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-070.htm

In other words, the armor is most likely insufficient to stop anti-ship missiles at the ends of the ship. While this would probably not sink it, it could do massive damage that would be extremely expensive to repair.

[Patroklos]

In other words, the armor is most likely insufficient to stop anti-ship missiles at the ends of the ship. While this would probably not sink it, it could do massive damage that would be extremely expensive to repair.

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...

systems located outside the citadel such as the turrets, conning tower, fire control, directors, etc. are armored extensions of the citadel.

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

With this in mind, the deck and side armor is designed to defeat the armor piercing shells fired by a ship mounting equal armament at these same ranges.

...able to defeat a 16 inch armor piercing shell. There is no offensive naval system with the penetration of a 16 inch AP shell, an few with the explosive power. You can modify all you want, but it will be for naught.

The deck consists of three parts, the bomb deck, the main armor deck, and the splinter deck. The bomb deck is 1.5 inches STS plate, the main armor deck is 4.75 inches Class B armor laid on 1.25 inches STS plate and the splinter deck is 0.625 inches STS plate. The bomb deck is designed to detonate general purpose bombs on contact and arm armor piercing bombs so they will explode between the bomb deck and the main armor deck. Within the immune zone, the main armor deck is designed to defeat plunging shells which may penetrate the bomb deck. The splinter deck is designed to contain any fragments and pieces of armor which might be broken off from the main armor deck.

I don't know how much space you think exists between these layers of armor, but not much. And since the armor was designed this way to PREVENT damage and is a battle proven method, I don't see why you think this is a hinderance to DC efforts.

It hardy matters, 1.5" of armor would defeat a Exocet by itself.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Patroklos
It hardy matters, 1.5" of armor would defeat a Exocet by itself.

I'll cover this when I have more time, but you're simply clueless. The lowest end estimates I've seen are that the Exocet can penetrate through that much armor, the higher ones go as much as 6 inches.

[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.

And we were having a reletively civil exchage, no need to get pissy.

[Dr Strangelove]

I don't think that modern naval missles are specifically designed to penetrate armor as no modern vessels have armor. It's been assumed that it's impossible to sufficiently armor a ship to protect it from nuclear weapons. The tests in the pacific showed that battleships would still float after a near detonation of a nuclear bomb, but the raditation penetrating the hull was stilll enough to kill the crew.

[Patroklos]

Conventional and Nuclear players are not participating in the same game.

Nukes **** everything up.

[Kuciwalker]

Couldn't you radiation shield most of the ship?

[Patroklos]

Do a degree. The Arleigh Burke clas has a Collective Protection System (CPS) that keeps all CBR contamination out of the ship. Eventually though we would have to leave the area.

However, we would be more than capable of continuing the fight for days before that.

Assuming we don't get destroyed in the blast of course.

We are the only current ship class with this protection.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Mordoch

I'll cover this when I have more time, but you're simply clueless. The lowest end estimates I've seen are that the Exocet can penetrate through that much armor, the higher ones go as much as 6 inches.

This is just simply wrong. Sorry, but the exocet is not designed to be an armour piercing weapon. It is designed to be a penetrating weapon, but that function totally fails when placed up against armour plating. The truth is that an exocet would leave nothing more than a black spot where it impacted on most areas of The Iowa class Battleships.

It is also true that the armour configuration for the Iowa class was completely redesigned from the armour on the South Dakota class.

You must remember that these ships were designed to defeat hits from 2500 pound armour piercing shells. The exocet has nowhere near that destructive capability. Not to mention the fact that the Battleships were designed to trade these kinds of blows for hours while in close combat.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Smiley
Armor aside, how accurate are the guns? Would they still be politically acceptable in today's climate of minimizing civilian casualties?

Their are two main changes in the fire control in the Iowa classes from their WWII-Vietnam era.

First, They were upgraded on targeting by the addition of an rpv (remotely piloted vehicle) for target identification and ranging.

Second, Computer systems were added to calculate gun placement for firing on these targets.

In Gulf War I, The Wisconsin and Missouri fired over a million pounds of ammunition from their 16 inch guns with incredible accuracy. Every fire support mission they were called upon to perfom resulted in complete accuracy and total destruction of the targets. Several of these were in close support of Marine units.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I don't think that modern naval missles are specifically designed to penetrate armor as no modern vessels have armor. It's been assumed that it's impossible to sufficiently armor a ship to protect it from nuclear weapons. The tests in the pacific showed that battleships would still float after a near detonation of a nuclear bomb, but the raditation penetrating the hull was stilll enough to kill the crew.

With the thickness of armor we are talking about here I think everybody not actually above deck would be substantially shielded from the radiation. I imagine the crew might survive much as an urban resident in a fallout shelter might survive a nuclear strike. Probably the real problem was that the blast wave and heat seriously compromise everything from bow to stern on the ship that was directly exposed to the nuclear detonation. That's a lot of repairs.