Which ship class would have been 'the best' for 80's reactivation?

[Atomo]

We all know that in the 1980's the US Navy reactivated the Iowa class battleships.

Now, the Iowas may or may not be the perfect choice for this type of reactivation and I have seen may threads where it is mentioned that other ship classes (if still around and in good enough shape) may have been a better choice for reactivation.

What I ask is this, if the following ship classes were around* in the 1980's...

Baltimore class cruiser
Des Moines class cruiser
Oregon City class cruiser
Iowa class battleship
Alaska class cruiser

...which would be the best candidate for reactivation?
***PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE POSTING A RESPONSE***

*1. All ships to be considered (3/4 from each class) are in equally good condition (to make a level playing field)
2. All ships must receive upgraded electronics (radar, communications, automation)
3. All ships must receive Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles (2x4 Harpoon, 2x4 in ABL for Tomahawks minimum)
4. All ships must receive CIWS (type up to you, minimum 2, maximum 4)
5. Crew size is a consideration (see automation under # 2)
6. These are considered the basics, consider the time the reactivation was done and what was around to do it with (money included!) and work accordingly

Remember that the first goal is to have a ship that can dish out a lot of naval gunfire support, the secondary goal is to be a missile platform, the third goal (by quite a bit) is to have a big ship to put next to the Kirov class.
This ship will not be asked to go into a med/high threat environment alone, if that is the case it will be provided air cover or SAM support (from a DDG or FFG) so don't go nuts with point defense missiles and the like.

What do you think? Which choice is best?

I have my own favorite, which I will reveal down the road.

 

[Jim Smitty]

The Alaska cruisers where scrap in the early 60s if memory serves, so they are out. But If the scrap they would been a good choice they only had two or three years of use.

Baltimore class cruiser and the other two cruisers class where wern out when Regan start his naval built up.

The Iowa's are the best OTL choice since they would still around when Regan start his 600 ship goal.

If I would pick and if would been the Alaska class. With only three years of actie use on them they where still new for the most part. If America still had the Alaska in the 80s they would been a nice ship to be use with the Iowa's. but I dont see the Alaska's getting form into there own task forces like the Iowa's.

Alaska's first then the Iowa's the other three wear old and wearn out by this time.

 

[Atomo]

The Alaska cruisers where scrap in the early 60s if memory serves, so they are out. But If the scrap they would been a good choice they only had two or three years of use.

Baltimore class cruiser and the other two cruisers class where wern out when Regan start his naval built up.

The Iowa's are the best OTL choice since they would still around when Regan start his 600 ship goal.

If I would pick and if would been the Alaska class. With only three years of actie use on them they where still new for the most part. If America still had the Alaska in the 80s they would been a nice ship to be use with the Iowa's. but I dont see the Alaska's getting form into there own task forces like the Iowa's.

Alaska's first then the Iowa's the other three wear old and wearn out by this time.

Ok, as I state:

1. All ships to be considered (3/4 from each class) are in equally good condition (to make a level playing field)

All the ships are in reserve fleets lets say and are in the same condition as the Iowas were in the 1980's.

A bit of a cheat, but a slightly less than ASB level of possible.

 

[Bearcat]

The Des Moines, I'd say. Enough size to carry meaningful Harpoon and Tomahawk batteries and four Phalanx CIWS. The 8" guns are big enough for most fire support missions. And you could probably crew them a little easier than the Iowas in the 80s (80s peacetime crews would be smaller for DMs as for the Iowas IOTL). Too bad they were worn to a nub IOTL.

But its close with the Iowas.

Baltimores are similar but lose a lot of volume of fire with the older guns. Same with Oregon Citys.

The Alaskas are the worst of the bunch. Big crews, volume of fire support not superior to the DMs, and a turning radius of about the eastern Med. No thankee.

 

[CalBear]

The Iowas were the best ships to reactivate. If you are looking for guns, which was part of the reason, or for available space and weight to mount ASM and land attack missiles, which they were, the Iowas were not just the best choice, they were the only choice. Add in the near invulnerbility to just about anything in the Soviet inventory short of a tac nuke (or a REALLY good sub driver) and the reason that, even today, there would be a place for the Iowa and her sisters in a much expanded Navy, and the law that requires them to be kept in fullly operational condition makes a LOT of sense.

After that would be the final, best, example of the Heavy Cruiser, the Des Moines class with its superb 8"/55RF guns and 17,000 tons of displacement to handle upgraded weapons.

The quality really falls off from here on down.

Next would be Oregon Citys, since they were an improved Baltimore, followed by the Baltimores.

Dead last would be the criminal acts of stupidity that were the Alaskas. Can't manuever worth a damned (when your turning circle is LARGER than a 90,000 ton CVN that is a bad sign), crew damned near the same as the BBs, poorly protected, even in the mid 40's, no true bridge, lousy flag accomodation spaces, and the list could go on for days.

 

[DD951]

The Iowas were the best ships to reactivate. If you are looking for guns, which was part of the reason, or for available space and weight to mount ASM and land attack missiles, which they were, the Iowas were not just the best choice, they were the only choice. Add in the near invulnerbility to just about anything in the Soviet inventory short of a tac nuke (or a REALLY good sub driver) and the reason that, even today, there would be a place for the Iowa and her sisters in a much expanded Navy, and the law that requires them to be kept in fullly operational condition makes a LOT of sense.

After that would be the final, best, example of the Heavy Cruiser, the Des Moines class with its superb 8"/55RF guns and 17,000 tons of displacement to handle upgraded weapons.

The quality really falls off from here on down.

Next would be Oregon Citys, since they were an improved Baltimore, followed by the Baltimores.

Dead last would be the criminal acts of stupidity that were the Alaskas. Can't manuever worth a damned (when your turning circle is LARGER than a 90,000 ton CVN that is a bad sign), crew damned near the same as the BBs, poorly protected, even in the mid 40's, no true bridge, lousy flag accomodation spaces, and the list could go on for days.

This question came up on Navweaps a couple years ago, and Bill Jurens weighed in on this topic (including some quotes from Dick Landgraff, IIRC)- his conclusions were that the Des Moines were too small (Baltimore/Oregon City would have been worse), the Iowas somewhat bigger than optimal, and strangely enough, he considered the Alaskas to be just right from a size/operating cost standpoint. Of course, considering that it took 40 years for someone to come up with a mission that they would have been ideal for that couldn't be handled more effectively by something else in the inventory, as well as all the other shortcomings of the design, the Alaskas still count as one of BuShips cock-ups.

Because of the need to dramatically increase electrical power generation as well as other internal volume requirements, an Iowa-style modernization of a Des Moines adding Tomahawk, Harpoon, & Phalanx CWIS would have been a pretty major undertaking, likely requiring the removal of at least one main battery turret, among other things.

This article from a 1984 edition of the Naval Engineer's Journal goes into some detail about all the issues there would have been with such a modernization of the Des Moines.

 

[TheMann]

The Alaskas are the right size, but as CalBear pointed out, they are not well armored (kinda important if you are firing against shore batteries which can and will fire back), have an awful turning radius, would have required most of the same size crew as the Iowas and not hit as hard. The big ships simply work the best, and their reactivation/modernization was done fairly cheaply. I have no doubt that if we wanted to, the Navy could make the Iowas even better than they how good they are now.

 

[xchen08]

The Alaskas are the right size, but as CalBear pointed out, they are not well armored (kinda important if you are firing against shore batteries which can and will fire back), have an awful turning radius, would have required most of the same size crew as the Iowas and not hit as hard. The big ships simply work the best, and their reactivation/modernization was done fairly cheaply. I have no doubt that if we wanted to, the Navy could make the Iowas even better than they how good they are now.

That hardly matters. There are no shore batteries worthy of the name by the 80s for capital ships to trade gunfire with and the WWII armor schemes are so outclassed against modern ASMs that the whole thing is irrelevant against any sort of serious attack, and there are no more targets around that a 16 in shell can destroy but a 12 in one cannot. It's the same for the lack of a serious TDS system on the Alaskas, irrelevant by the 80s, since that of the Iowa is still not going to stop a single modern torpedo from breaking her back. And of course, we are talking modernizations so extensive that what kind of crews the ships needed in WWII is completely useless at determining the kind of crews they will need post refit. If a semi-expert has weighed in and said that a post refit Alaska would be significantly cheaper to operate than a post refit Iowa, that utterly outweights WWII numbers. Which only leaves the poor turning radius, which while a problem, is also less of one than it was in WWII, what with the futility of trying to dodge modern torpedos or ASMs.

 

[Atomo]

This question came up on Navweaps a couple years ago, and Bill Jurens weighed in on this topic (including some quotes from Dick Landgraff, IIRC)- his conclusions were that the Des Moines were too small (Baltimore/Oregon City would have been worse), the Iowas somewhat bigger than optimal, and strangely enough, he considered the Alaskas to be just right from a size/operating cost standpoint. Of course, considering that it took 40 years for someone to come up with a mission that they would have been ideal for that couldn't be handled more effectively by something else in the inventory, as well as all the other shortcomings of the design, the Alaskas still count as one of BuShips cock-ups.

Because of the need to dramatically increase electrical power generation as well as other internal volume requirements, an Iowa-style modernization of a Des Moines adding Tomahawk, Harpoon, & Phalanx CWIS would have been a pretty major undertaking, likely requiring the removal of at least one main battery turret, among other things.

This article from a 1984 edition of the Naval Engineer's Journal goes into some detail about all the issues there would have been with such a modernization of the Des Moines.

That document makes for some VERY interesting reading. It changed my perspective on what I thought was cut and dried.

 

[Atomo]

That hardly matters. There are no shore batteries worthy of the name by the 80s for capital ships to trade gunfire with and the WWII armor schemes are so outclassed against modern ASMs that the whole thing is irrelevant against any sort of serious attack, and there are no more targets around that a 16 in shell can destroy but a 12 in one cannot. It's the same for the lack of a serious TDS system on the Alaskas, irrelevant by the 80s, since that of the Iowa is still not going to stop a single modern torpedo from breaking her back. And of course, we are talking modernizations so extensive that what kind of crews the ships needed in WWII is completely useless at determining the kind of crews they will need post refit. If a semi-expert has weighed in and said that a post refit Alaska would be significantly cheaper to operate than a post refit Iowa, that utterly outweights WWII numbers. Which only leaves the poor turning radius, which while a problem, is also less of one than it was in WWII, what with the futility of trying to dodge modern torpedos or ASMs.

I agree with all your points. You can't weigh the Alaska option by WWII criteria, you must use modern criteria. ASMs, guided heavy torpedoes, lack of shore based or ship based heavy artillery all mean that the bits that didn't work in WWII make it a good shore bombardment and missile carrier in the 1980s/90s.

As to the poor turning radius I wonder what could be done with todays knowledge to correct this issue?

 

[Atomo]

The Alaskas are the right size, but as CalBear pointed out, they are not well armored (kinda important if you are firing against shore batteries which can and will fire back), have an awful turning radius, would have required most of the same size crew as the Iowas and not hit as hard. The big ships simply work the best, and their reactivation/modernization was done fairly cheaply. I have no doubt that if we wanted to, the Navy could make the Iowas even better than they how good they are now.

I thought it was done for a good price too until I saw that document. It cost as much as a frigate program, the cost of a whole new ship class to modernize 4 old battleships. OUCH.

 

[CalBear]

I agree with all your points. You can't weigh the Alaska option by WWII criteria, you must use modern criteria. ASMs, guided heavy torpedoes, lack of shore based or ship based heavy artillery all mean that the bits that didn't work in WWII make it a good shore bombardment and missile carrier in the 1980s/90s.

As to the poor turning radius I wonder what could be done with todays knowledge to correct this issue?

What could be done?

Scrap the triple damned things and build something useful. The Alaskas maneuverability issues center on the steering gear itself, mainly the use of a single rudder on a 800 foot long, 28,000 ton ship (this is a REALLY lousy idea and was a well known fact since, oh, 1911 or thereabouts). The cost of resigning the steering gear and installing new gear (which would more or less require cutting the stern of the ship off and building a new one, would be far more than the return on investment could support.

BTW: Modern ASM, except for MAYBE the P-270 Moskit, wouldn't have a prayer against the Iowa armor scheme, and not much of a chance against the earlier North Carolina class. Battleships were built with defeating 2,500 pound, 2,700 feet per second projectiles in mind. There isn't anything like them in todays world, so the weapons of today's world are not built to deal with them. You could design a missile/warhead combo to deal with a foot of steel plate Class B armor, but you would have to design it, it isn't something you can get off the shelf.

Ships today are not heavily armored because it is easier and more cost effective to defeat the weapon carrier at a distance with active measures or electronic jamming than rely on passive measures that cost a bloody fortune and require a ship 800 feet long to properly carry without capsizing. A modern CVN runs around $5 billion out the door (air wing not included), a BBN would likely run at least 50% more, maybe double the cost of a CVN (each Iowa cost $100 million in 1942 dollars or $1.5 billion in 2010 dollars), especially when you consider that you would have to build special foundries to cast the armor plate. This is one reason the USN treats them like jewels, they are almost literally priceless and are absolutely irreplaceable.

 

[xchen08]

BTW: Modern ASM, except for MAYBE the P-270 Moskit, wouldn't have a prayer against the Iowa armor scheme, and not much of a chance against the earlier North Carolina class. Battleships were built with defeating 2,500 pound, 2,700 feet per second projectiles in mind. There isn't anything like them in todays world, so the weapons of today's world are not built to deal with them. You could design a missile/warhead combo to deal with a foot of steel plate Class B armor, but you would have to design it, it isn't something you can get off the shelf.

Any missile designed to smash a supercarrier would core both the Alaska and the Iowa, and the former's heavier armor would mean nothing. A more common light weight ASM along the lines of the Exocet designed to kill completely unarmored frigates and destroyers would be stymied as well by the Alaska's cruiser+ armor as by the Iowa's battleship armor, and the Iowa's heavier armor still means nothing. And being that anti-ship missiles fall more or less entirely into either of the two categories...

Scrap the triple damned things and build something useful. The Alaskas maneuverability issues center on the steering gear itself, mainly the use of a single rudder on a 800 foot long, 28,000 ton ship (this is a REALLY lousy idea and was a well known fact since, oh, 1911 or thereabouts). The cost of resigning the steering gear and installing new gear (which would more or less require cutting the stern of the ship off and building a new one, would be far more than the return on investment could support.

What's your point? The Iowa refit was a terrible idea and the money spend would have been far better off building new as well. If however, you really must refit a WWII ship for frontline service in a modern navy, less miles on the hull and machinery plus a smaller, more economical package (though by OP fiat, only the latter is relevant) completely outweigh the near irrelevant in the modern day maneuverability issues.

 

[TheMann]

That hardly matters. There are no shore batteries worthy of the name by the 80s for capital ships to trade gunfire with and the WWII armor schemes are so outclassed against modern ASMs that the whole thing is irrelevant against any sort of serious attack, and there are no more targets around that a 16 in shell can destroy but a 12 in one cannot.

I'd be careful saying there is no targets that a 16" gun could destroy that a 12" couldn't. There may be only four inches difference in the bore, but the Iowa shell is two and a half times the weight of that used by the Alaskas. That makes a big difference in the damage caused by each individual shell. As far as AShMs go, most modern sea-skimmers (Exocet, Harpoon, C-802, Gabriel, SS-N-15) are designed to go through the side of a hull before detonating, so as to cause maximum damage. The warhead on a sea-skimmer would NOT punch the side belt armor on an Iowa. Period. They are designed through unarmored hulls, not something with a foot of steel in the armor belt. As CalBear points out, you can make a missile to kill one of the things, but the off-the-shelf stuff used by everyone is insufficient, aside from the (massive) stuff used by Russian bombers, such as the P-270 Moskit and the AS-4 Kitchen.

 

[DD951]

(snip) As to the poor turning radius I wonder what could be done with todays knowledge to correct this issue?

It would be theoritically possible to fit a larger rudder and a more powerful steering engine to compensate in order to improve the turning radius- this was done with a number of Fletcher-class destroyers that were reactivated in the 1950s, as US destroyers of the WW2 era, especially the Fletchers were known for relatively poor maneuverability. (IIRC, US destroyer designs went to twin rudders starting with the Sumners).

However, if such a refit turned out not to be practical, or wouldn't provide a sufficient improvement in maneuverability, then, as CalBear pointed out, anything else that could be done would likely involve a major rebuild of the stern that wouldn't make sense financially.

Maneuverability was one of several areas where the Alaskas got screwed up because the designers followed cruiser practice instead of battleship practice (WW2-era US cruiser designs had single rudders & the battleships twin rudders).

To provide some context for the turning radius of the Alaskas, I'll post some things about the tactical diameters (how far a ship goes to one side or the other relative to her original line of travel after performing a 180-deg turn of various WW2-era US warships tommorow after I have a chance to go through the data in my copies of several of Friedman's design histories.

 

[xchen08]

I'd be careful saying there is no targets that a 16" gun could destroy that a 12" couldn't. There may be only four inches difference in the bore, but the Iowa shell is two and a half times the weight of that used by the Alaskas. That makes a big difference in the damage caused by each individual shell.

You missunderstood my point. Of course a 16in shell does more damage. The question is if there are any targets nowadays where a few more 12in shells (and the Alaska's guns are a good bit faster firing than the Iowa's) wouldn't do just as well. What with there being no more battleships or protected coastal batteries to shoot at where the signifcantly greater single hit damage and penetration of the 16in matters. A MBT hit by a 12in is every bit as dead as one hit by a 16in.

As for the rest of your post, already covered in my previous post.

 

[CalBear]

Any missile designed to smash a supercarrier would core both the Alaska and the Iowa, and the former's heavier armor would mean nothing. A more common light weight ASM along the lines of the Exocet designed to kill completely unarmored frigates and destroyers would be stymied as well by the Alaska's cruiser+ armor as by the Iowa's battleship armor, and the Iowa's heavier armor still means nothing. And being that anti-ship missiles fall more or less entirely into either of the two categories...

Really?

Do, please, tell me of any Soviet ASM warhead designed to defeat better than a foot of Class B armor, then defeat an addtion 3-6" of armor on the next deck that was deployed in 1983 (or even today).

Better than that, tell the USN. Because they are totally unaware of it.

ASM are not magic, they are simply projectiles, even the heaviest of which would, if fired at at least half of their designed range would weigh less than 1000 pounds upon impact (with half that being the warhead), and are mostly built of aluminum alloy compared to the hardened steel capped AP shells that the Iowas (and Alaskas for that matter) were designed to defeat. The Iowas were, based on post WW II testing, capable of defeating the 3,000 pound 460mm AP round fired by the Yamato. An ASM isn't more of a ordeal than that, even with a shaped charge or EFP warhead on the missile. Shaped charges and EFP are great against tanks or single layers of armor, not so good when you are dealing with multiple armored regions spaced 10-15 feet apart which makes the shaped charge pretty much worthless.

What's your point? The Iowa refit was a terrible idea and the money spend would have been far better off building new as well. If however, you really must refit a WWII ship for frontline service in a modern navy, less miles on the hull and machinery plus a smaller, more economical package (though by OP fiat, only the latter is relevant) completely outweigh the near irrelevant in the modern day maneuverability issues.

You really do like ships that were utterly worthless when constructed, and would not have improved with age don't you?

BTW: The Alaskas were not more economical than the Iowas, not in any practical sense. This is especially true once you account for the additionally effort that would have been required to provide the CB with a useful bridge and flag area, not to mention the likelihood that it would have been necessary to remove her aft turret to accommodate the added topside weight of the new systems (even the BB only had a little over 120 tons of spare weight left, and that was after removing four twin 5"/38 turrets.

In 1983 the Iowas complement was 1,563 according to Janes (roughly the same as during Vietnam), the Alaskas complement was as many as 2,200 (accord to DANFS) during her period in commission, I would expect her complement in the 1980s would be in the area of 1,300-1,350 so even crew cost difference would be insignificant.

I have to wonder how you can possibly compare the destructive capacity of a 406mm 1,900 pound HC shell, with 153 pound of explosive filler and a 305mm 940 pound HC shell with 76 pound of explosive filler and reach the conclusion that there is no difference in effect on a soft target, or that a 2,700 pound AP shell would not have better performance against a hard target than a 1,140 pound shell when both shells have the same starting velocity.

 

[CalBear]

You missunderstood my point. Of course a 16in shell does more damage. The question is if there are any targets nowadays where a few more 12in shells (and the Alaska's guns are a good bit faster firing than the Iowa's) wouldn't do just as well. What with there being no more battleships or protected coastal batteries to shoot at where the signifcantly greater single hit damage and penetration of the 16in matters. A MBT hit by a 12in is every bit as dead as one hit by a 16in.

...

And a bunker that is pock marked by a 1,140 pound 12" shell is a grave when penetrated by a 2,700 pound 16" shell. A 16" shell is around 2.4 times more effective than a 12".

You don't use a 16" gun to plink tanks, although you can do a job on a column of them with a salvo, you use it to destroy bunkers or lay down massive amounts of shrapnel and blast damage. A 16" HC shell will kill unprotected personnel at 150 yards from pure blast effect and will create a crater about 25 feet deep.

 

[xchen08]

Really?

Do, please, tell me of any Soviet ASM warhead designed to defeat better than a foot of Class B armor, then defeat an addtion 3-6" of armor on the next deck that was deployed in 1983 (or even today).

Better than that, tell the USN. Because they are totally unaware of it.

Instead, they are designed to gut supercarriers twice the size with Kevlar over the vitals. Either that, or they are designed to penetrate targets with no armor at all. Not to mention with the dependence of modern warships on impossible to armor sensors and shock sensitive electronics, mission killing the ship is easy with ASMs whether it penetrates or not. And for that matter, what exactly do you think takes more time, money, and effort: refitting a warhead that can punch through battleship armor even onto lighter ASMs, or refitting the battleship in the first place?

ASM are not magic, they are simply projectiles, even the heaviest of which would, if fired at at least half of their designed range would weigh less than 1000 pounds upon impact (with half that being the warhead), and are mostly built of aluminum alloy compared to the hardened steel capped AP shells that the Iowas (and Alaskas for that matter) were designed to defeat. The Iowas were, based on post WW II testing, capable of defeating the 3,000 pound 460mm AP round fired by the Yamato. An ASM isn't more of a ordeal than that, even with a shaped charge or EFP warhead on the missile. Shaped charges and EFP are great against tanks or single layers of armor, not so good when you are dealing with multiple armored regions spaced 10-15 feet apart which makes the shaped charge pretty much worthless.

Hmm, guess what you'd have to get through on a supercarrier to sink it? Multiple armored regions, or decks/bulkheads that would function as same, and a hell of a lot more spaces than an Iowa. And a single Hellfire to the bridge and a few rockets to the antennae or a handful of light ASM hits to the superstructure would render an Iowa just as helpless as they would to an Aleigh Burke anyway.

You really do like ships that were utterly worthless when constructed, and would not have improved with age don't you?

You really do like making utterly irrelevant arguments and pretending they relate to the actual topic under debate, don't you? Whether or not the ship is worthless at construction is entirely irrelevant to its useability by the 80s. All the construction costs, development costs etc are already sunk, and near all the weaknesses have been rendered moot.

BTW: The Alaskas were not more economical than the Iowas, not in any practical sense. This is especially true once you account for the additionally effort that would have been required to provide the CB with a useful bridge and flag area, not to mention the likelihood that it would have been necessary to remove her aft turret to accommodate the added topside weight of the new systems (even the BB only had a little over 120 tons of spare weight left, and that was after removing four twin 5"/38 turrets.

A semi-expert has been cited claiming that the Alaskas would be more economical. Cite your own sources demonstrating they would not be or demonstrate such yourself. I only commented to point out that your obsession about the Alaska's admitted failures as a WWII warship are almost all irrelevant to a refitted ship in the 80s.

I have to wonder how you can possibly compare the destructive capacity of a 406mm 1,900 pound HC shell, with 153 pound of explosive filler and a 305mm 940 pound HC shell with 76 pound of explosive filler and reach the conclusion that there is no difference in effect on a soft target, or that a 2,700 pound AP shell would not have better performance against a hard target than a 1,140 pound shell when both shells have the same starting velocity.

And I have to wonder how you, an erudite and generally thoughtful poster could have failed so thoroughly at reading that you think that was the comparison I made.

And a bunker that is pock marked by a 1,140 pound 12" shell is a grave when penetrated by a 2,700 pound 16" shell. A 16" shell is around 2.4 times more effective than a 12".

You don't use a 16" gun to plink tanks, although you can do a job on a column of them with a salvo, you use it to destroy bunkers or lay down massive amounts of shrapnel and blast damage. A 16" HC shell will kill unprotected personnel at 150 yards from pure blast effect and will create a crater about 25 feet deep.

And why exactly are you trying to pot a heavy bunker with battleship shells? That's what a guided bunker buster bomb is for, you know, something that was developed between WWII and the 80s. Modern day shore bombardment insofar as they are useful at all, is against targets where an equal weight of 12in shells is equally effective as 16in, ie unprotected personel or vehicles in the open, or dug in in light bunkers and trenchworks, or simply as covering fire to keep people's heads down. At least until those fancy guided shells and hypervelocity railguns finally show up, and the Iowa didn't exactly get either.

 

[TheMann]

Instead, they are designed to gut supercarriers twice the size with Kevlar over the vitals. Either that, or they are designed to penetrate targets with no armor at all. Not to mention with the dependence of modern warships on impossible to armor sensors and shock sensitive electronics, mission killing the ship is easy with ASMs whether it penetrates or not.

Which is ireelevant to the discussion because that's true to all of them. And your ignoring CalBear's point about the fact that an Iowa class is all but imperverious to the all but the largest anti-ship missiles, which are only in use in a very small handful of nations. Against the defenses used by most nations, the Iowas are virtually imperious. Now, using torpedoes could be a major problem, but that would be for any vessel, and your comments about maneuverability being irrelevant are wrong here. And for the record, an ASM that bounces off the side armor of a vessel is not going to create enough shock to damage electronics. Battleships were designed to take abuse. The Iowa, which was anticipated to go against Bismarck and Yamato, is going to able to take a lot more than an Alaska. The Alaskas were designed and built as cruiser killers, and couldn't take anywhere near the hammering an Iowa could.

Hmm, guess what you'd have to get through on a supercarrier to sink it? Multiple armored regions, or decks/bulkheads that would function as same, and a hell of a lot more spaces than an Iowa. And a single Hellfire to the bridge and a few rockets to the antennae or a handful of light ASM hits to the superstructure would render an Iowa just as helpless as they would to an Aleigh Burke anyway.

If you can get close enough to hit the bridge of a ship with a Hellfire or hits antennas with rockets, you've got a shitload more problems than any ship can handle. CVNs do not have much armor at all. It was a crucial difference between British and American carriers in WWII - British carriers had armored decks, American ones didn't. The idea was to make it tougher in battle, but the British realized quickly that a couple inches armor on the flight deck wouldn't do much more than add topside weight. The decks and bulkheads on an Iowa are far more effective than on a carrier, because the spaces on a carrier are, by necessity, considerably bigger. You're points are irrelevant to the discussion.

You really do like making utterly irrelevant arguments and pretending they relate to the actual topic under debate, don't you? Whether or not the ship is worthless at construction is entirely irrelevant to its useability by the 80s. All the construction costs, development costs etc are already sunk, and near all the weaknesses have been rendered moot.

The maneuverability problem is not moot. The fact that the Alaskas would require probably 80-85% of the Iowas is not moot, either. The comments about the Alaskas were with regards to a size/operating costs point of view. In that regard, it's relevant. But the Alaskas, as CalBear rightly points out, were not good vessels. They were big cruisers which didn't function particularly well in their role, and even in the 1980s still had major problems. As you point out, the costs of development are all sunk on all the vessels. The costs of modernizing them will be about the same in every case, and the cost of operating an Iowa over an Alaska will be only about 15-20%, if that much. Then you have the additional problem that only two Alaskas were completed, as opposed to four Iowas, and two ships is not enough to satisfy a demand for fire support vessels.

And why exactly are you trying to pot a heavy bunker with battleship shells? That's what a guided bunker buster bomb is for, you know, something that was developed between WWII and the 80s.

Bunker buster bombs cost a lot of money. Battleship shells are cheap. And whereas bunker-buster bombs can only be carried in groups of maybe six or eight at a time before the planes carrying them have to return to base for fuel and weapons, the Iowas can drop 18 shells a minute on that target until its destroyed or the ship runs out of ammo.

Modern day shore bombardment insofar as they are useful at all, is against targets where an equal weight of 12in shells is equally effective as 16in, ie unprotected personel or vehicles in the open, or dug in in light bunkers and trenchworks, or simply as covering fire to keep people's heads down. At least until those fancy guided shells and hypervelocity railguns finally show up, and the Iowa didn't exactly get either.

Guided shells exist today - its called the Excalibur, and its used by the US military, along with those of Canada and Australia, in Afghanistan right now. And as CalBear also points out, the 16" guns do considerably more damage to open ground than the 12" guns of the Alaskas, and it couldn't shoot very much faster. (3 rounds a minute under ideal conditions, as opposed to 2 rounds a minute for the Iowas.) You do the math and you realize that the Iowa could put more ordinance on a target than the Alaskas. And that's assuming that the Alaskas keep their third turret, which considering the weight issues the Iowas had to face, is not a given. The difference in displacement between the two classes at full load is nearly 24,000 tons, and the Alaskas did not have adequate flag facilities, which both classes would need as they would almost certainly be used as flagships.