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Subject: Crazy idea to replace the battleships.
kirby1    2/10/2007 6:07:43 PM
I've definitly heard the debate between the Navy and the Marines concerning the fate of the Iowa Class Battleships. The Marines love the Sixteen inch guns, the Navy hates the battleships. They claim that its too much money, too much vessel, too much maintenance, and too much trouble. The marines look at the guns currently mounted on the Arliegh Burkes, Ticonderogas, and Zumwalt class boats, and (Just like your exe)says "Looks a little small to me." So heres my crazy, probably not logical idea for a solution. Why not highjack the turrets from the BBs, and mount two of them on a new hull? Something vaguely similar to the Admiral Sheer style pocketbattleships that the Germans deployed during world war two. All she really needs would be her two turrets, some drones for artillery spotting, and possibly a CIWS system for selfdefense. The marines keep thier fire support. The Navy doesn't have some giant WWII relics to maintain. I imagine two of these vessels, one in the pacific, and one in the Atlantic. These two boats are specifically act as an interem design until new systems come along that can sufficiently replace them (IE the electromagnetic railguns that the navy is currently experimenting with.)can replace them.
 
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B.Smitty       3/1/2007 4:47:00 PM

No the aircraft can't, or we wouldn't be using forward air controllers.


Huh? 

My father would beg to differ with you.  He flew O-2s as a FAC in Vietnam.

Nowadays he would've flown a fighter in what's known as a Fast FAC.

Did you mean Ground FACs (GFACs)? 

In any event, aircraft definitely locate targets on their own.

Think about classic or killbox interdiction missions - fly to killbox, find targets, kill, rinse, repeat?  No FAC there.

Or strategic strike missions where the weapon has to be terminally guided via laser or TV?

Or using an aircraft's high-res SAR capability to provide accuracy improvements to J-series weapons (ala GAM)?

What about using the new AESA radars on fighters to overlay SAR imagery on GMTI plots to both locate, and identify targets automatically?

What about using new downlinks on targeting pods  to provide real time imagery to Rover terminals in the hands of ground troops?

I doubt rounds fired from a railgun tens or hundreds of miles away will provide these capabilities.

So it's not fair to compare the price of aircraft and SDB to the price of railgun and munition, because the railgun can't do what an aircraft can do.




 
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Herald1234       3/1/2007 5:27:43 PM
1. You still need some kind of human observer to authenticate the target. You rarely self designate and shoot without clearing it with somebody whether its cannon fire or aircraft bomb.
 
2. The same command and control system logic is in place. I agree that it looks apples and oranges, but the means to engage requires some kind of location, identification, authentication, and authorization before you shoot, whether its aircraft or artillery.
 
3. Costs. A typical aircraft costs between 40 and 100 million dollars if it is a strike fighter. The SDB with its guidance and glide kit costs about 25 thousand dollars. The typical 64 Mjoule railgun armed destroyer[Zumwalt] is going to cost about  4 BILLION dollars. The railguns aboard will cost about 10 million dollars each. Each guided slug will cost about 15 thousand dollars. Unguided explosive filled slugs will cost about 1 thousand dollars each. The ammunition capacity assuming vircator pumped railgun charges as well as slugs will be around 1000 rounds total.
 
4. Output aircraft.1000 SDBs means 63 sorties at 25 million dollars worth of bombs+2,5 billion dollars worth of aircraft=2,525 billion dollars if you fly from a forward airbase to dump bombs 100 kilometers distant on a target-[or it could be 1000 kilometers] but the point is that you have 63 aircraft sorties to deliver a 1000 SDBs no matter what the range.
 
5. Output cannon. 1000 guided projectiles 15 million dollars+ 2 railguns at 20 million dollars=  35 million dollars.
 
What about the 4 billion dollar destroyer?
Well what about the airbase or the aircraft carrier?
 
What about the command and control? As I said, it is already there in place to locate, identify, authenticate and authorize the shoot.
 
1=1 in other words.
 
Herald.
      
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
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B.Smitty       3/1/2007 9:58:30 PM

1. You still need some kind of human observer to authenticate the target. You rarely self designate and shoot without clearing it with somebody whether its cannon fire or aircraft bomb.

Clearing a target is not the same as detecting and identifying one. 

The DD(X), by itself, has very little ability to detect and identify land targets. (limited to a few Fire Scouts, helos, and whatever they can pick up from their radar & ESM)

Aircraft, on the other hand, can and do actually find and identify land targets on their own.  And they can provide eyes in the air for a GFAC.  A railgun on a far away DD(X) can only deliver munitions.

So 1=2. 

If you want a 1=1 cost for capability comparison between aircraft and a notional railgunned DD(X), then you have to add the costs of an equivalent sensor net, multimission capability and munition flexibility to the DD(X) solution.

Plus, you're comparing aircraft and munitions that are available today with a railgun armed warship that might not see service for a decade or two

By then we may have UCAVs, even smaller but more capable munitions, airborne DEWs, a new long-ranged bomber and who knows what else.



 
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Herald1234       3/2/2007 1:27:34 AM
1. Aircraft are limit3ed by direct observer capability.
2. The same eyes that guide aircraft soda straw detail sensors also guide artillery grid plotters.
3. You are confusing tactical weapon control with strategic[operational art] control.
4. The same data networks that mass fires for a strike package against a target set would be involved in planning and allocating gunfire support to destroy that target set by direct bombardment..
5. Your only airpower advantage is RANGE as in REACH. As a cost of systems factor, artillery  is CHEAPER.

Herald




 
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B.Smitty       3/2/2007 9:33:50 AM

1. Aircraft are limit3ed by direct observer capability.
2. The same eyes that guide aircraft soda straw detail sensors also guide artillery grid plotters.
3. You are confusing tactical weapon control with strategic[operational art] control.
4. The same data networks that mass fires for a strike package against a target set would be involved in planning and allocating gunfire support to destroy that target set by direct bombardment..
5. Your only airpower advantage is RANGE as in REACH. As a cost of systems factor, artillery  is CHEAPER.

Herald





All i'm saying is a railgun-armed warship adds very little to the over-land C4ISR network. 

Aircraft can be re-tasked to FastFAC or pure recc sorties.  They can carry ordinance and targeting pods and become Killer Scouts. 

They are far more flexible. 

So it's not as simple as adding up the costs of aircraft and munitions, and comparing that to the cost of railgun plus ship plus munitions.  

The "savings" are a false economy.

 
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Herald1234       3/2/2007 3:31:40 PM



1. Aircraft are limit3ed by direct observer capability.
2. The same eyes that guide aircraft soda straw detail sensors also guide artillery grid plotters.
3. You are confusing tactical weapon control with strategic[operational art] control.
4. The same data networks that mass fires for a strike package against a target set would be involved in planning and allocating gunfire support to destroy that target set by direct bombardment..
5. Your only airpower advantage is RANGE as in REACH. As a cost of systems factor, artillery  is CHEAPER.

Herald






All i'm saying is a railgun-armed warship adds very little to the over-land C4ISR network. 

Aircraft can be re-tasked to FastFAC or pure recc sorties.  They can carry ordinance and targeting pods and become Killer Scouts. 

They are far more flexible. 

So it's not as simple as adding up the costs of aircraft and munitions, and comparing that to the cost of railgun plus ship plus munitions.  

The "savings" are a false economy.



I've argued this out with others, Smitty.
 
Aircraft have a range/reach advantage.
 
On the other hand. 
 
Artillery is all weather. You can fire it off in a blizzrd or an earthquake[As has been done in Russia and in the Phillipines in two specific examples during WW II]
Within its range a railgun ship can dominate terrain by persistent on call 24/7 denial fires-something that no aircraft can do.
 
It is also MOBILE and SELF-CONTAINED over 73% of the Earth's surface to a degree that an aircraft attached to an aircraft carrier, or an AIRBASE is not.
 
The logistics footprint is much smaller volume wise and resupply wise. Labor wise? Aircraft lose here too.[pilots and aviation munitions technicians versus auto-loaders and "wooden" bullets.] 
 
Aircraft have their place-a valuable one. But when it comes to forcible entry from the sea, that railgun destroyer is a nice ship to have when you need to pound Kharg Island or Bushwehr in a big hurry five minutes ago; or if you want to park an ABM ship along the intended ND-IV flight path aimed at Honolulu or some DF21 headed for Guam.
 
Herald
 
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B.Smitty       3/17/2007 10:22:47 AM

In the same vein, I've wondered if we shouldn't develop a 6-7" mini-MLRS/POLAR rocket.  This might let you fit 9 per VLS cell or maybe 12 per standard MLRS pod (up from 6 regular MLRS rockets). 

Given appropriately advanced propulsion, a mini-MLRS/POLAR might have a similar range to its larger cousin, with a smaller (though still significantly larger than a 155mm arty round) warhead. 

This would let you fire the same 60rnd mission with half the VLS cells (<7 instead of 15).

One could also imagine borrowing the NETFIRES, JCM or other terminal seeker technologies to provide a true precision option. 

Development could be shared between the US Army and USN.


Looks like LockMart is already working on my mini-MLRS.
Needs a bit more range before it'd be suitable for the NSFS reqs.

LockMart P44

"Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) unveiled a new missile designated P44, designed to demonstrate a long range high precision strike capability. The P44 is designed for quick precision strike against moving surface targets under any battlefield conditions without minimum range limitations. It is designed to fill the gap in the ability to effectively engage and neutralize long-range artillery, particularly mobile rocket launchers. This compact missile (7-inch (17.8 cm) diameter) weighs 220-pound (100 kg)). It will have an effective range from zero to more than 70 kilometers. It will be launched from an MLRS multiple launch platform, such as the tracked MLRS, GMLRS or therapidly deployable wheeled HIMARS platforms.

 

The missile uses a fast boost-sustain motor, and terminal seeker capable of operating under adverse weather conditions. The projected warheads for P44 are either a 28-pound Hellfire II Metal Augmented Charge (MAC) or a 17-pound shaped charge with precursor. Ten missiles can be loaded into MLRS rocket pods, stored with their wings folded. The missile uses a mature tri-mode terminal seeker with semi-active laser (SAL) for designated targets; Doppler millimeter-wave radar (MMW) for weather penetration and detection of moving targets; and cooled imaging infrared (IIR) for imaging and discrimination, augmented by Global Positioning System -aided inertial guidance (GPS-INS) for mid-course guidance and.

The missile completed its first flight February 15, 2007 launched from a surrogate HIMARS launcher. Further tests are planned in the near future, demonstrating confirming rocket motor performance, maneuvering and aeroballistics."
 
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axron27       11/2/2009 1:37:21 PM
I found this page via a Google search. I was pondering the concept of a 21st century battleship. What I ran across was a lot of pages and discussions about how big gun battleships could fit modern technology. That's not what I was hoping for. Aircraft carriers able to project their offensive capabilities far beyond the range of any gun in existence makes the old time battleships redundant and inferior, thus, not worth the expense. I was thinking more along the lines of a larger more modern version of the Russian Kirovs, in other words, a missile based battleship with more firepower and better protected than the current Ticonderoga class cruisers as well as the larger Kirovs. A ship that could be a viable and less costly replacement for the expensive and vulnerable supercarriers. The ship I'm thinking of would of course, have more SSM and automatic gun mounts than the cruisers in addition to ASW -which the old school battleships totally lacked- and AA -both missile and gun mounts-.  The missile mounts would be popup VLS. The Ship would also have much more protiction than the tin can cruisers currently in use. Lastly the ships would have nuclear propulsion. I've been a major fan of the WWII Iowa class for a long time, but the one thing that disturbed me was the 1980s modernization. What bothered me was the wasted potential of the large amounts of deck and hangar space. Even though the Iowas carried several helicopters, none of them were ASW. The installation of the Phalanx AA system provided excellent point defense but the lack of Guided missile AA made little sense to me. This made the Iowas the same liability that battleships were in both world wars. They needed huge escorts because there were certain types of weapons, like subs and massed aircraft, that the battleships had no effective defense against. These were the same weaknesses that doomed such ships in the first place. I feel that with the systems available at the time, combined with the Iowas size, a capital ship that was more independent of external support could have been achieved. At that point they might have justified their operating costs. At present the United States Navy doesn't really need capitol ships outside their carriers and ballistic missile subs. The Russian Fleet is the only potential enemy that would justify such ships and the probability of war between the US and Russia is much less than it once was. Any thoughts?
 
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axron27       11/2/2009 1:41:20 PM
I found this page via a Google search. I was pondering the concept of a 21st century battleship. What I ran across was a lot of pages and discussions about how big gun battleships could fit modern technology. That's not what I was hoping for. Aircraft carriers able to project their offensive capabilities far beyond the range of any gun in existence makes the old time battleships redundant and inferior, thus, not worth the expense. I was thinking more along the lines of a larger more modern version of the Russian Kirovs, in other words, a missile based battleship with more firepower and better protected than the current Ticonderoga class cruisers as well as the larger Kirovs. A ship that could be a viable and less costly replacement for the expensive and vulnerable supercarriers. The ship I'm thinking of would of course, have more SSM and automatic gun mounts than the cruisers in addition to ASW -which the old school battleships totally lacked- and AA -both missile and gun mounts-.  The missile mounts would be popup VLS. The Ship would also have much more protiction than the tin can cruisers currently in use. Lastly the ships would have nuclear propulsion. I've been a major fan of the WWII Iowa class for a long time, but the one thing that disturbed me was the 1980s modernization. What bothered me was the wasted potential of the large amounts of deck and hangar space. Even though the Iowas carried several helicopters, none of them were ASW. The installation of the Phalanx AA system provided excellent point defense but the lack of Guided missile AA made little sense to me. This made the Iowas the same liability that battleships were in both world wars. They needed huge escorts because there were certain types of weapons, like subs and massed aircraft, that the battleships had no effective defense against. These were the same weaknesses that doomed such ships in the first place. I feel that with the systems available at the time, combined with the Iowas size, a capital ship that was more independent of external support could have been achieved. At that point they might have justified their operating costs. At present the United States Navy doesn't really need capitol ships outside their carriers and ballistic missile subs. The Russian Fleet is the only potential enemy that would justify such ships and the probability of war between the US and Russia is much less than it once was. Any thoughts?
 
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axron27       11/2/2009 1:42:08 PM
I found this page via a Google search. I was pondering the concept of a 21st century battleship. What I ran across was a lot of pages and discussions about how big gun battleships could fit modern technology. That's not what I was hoping for. Aircraft carriers able to project their offensive capabilities far beyond the range of any gun in existence makes the old time battleships redundant and inferior, thus, not worth the expense. I was thinking more along the lines of a larger more modern version of the Russian Kirovs, in other words, a missile based battleship with more firepower and better protected than the current Ticonderoga class cruisers as well as the larger Kirovs. A ship that could be a viable and less costly replacement for the expensive and vulnerable supercarriers. The ship I'm thinking of would of course, have more SSM and automatic gun mounts than the cruisers in addition to ASW -which the old school battleships totally lacked- and AA -both missile and gun mounts-.  The missile mounts would be popup VLS. The Ship would also have much more protiction than the tin can cruisers currently in use. Lastly the ships would have nuclear propulsion. I've been a major fan of the WWII Iowa class for a long time, but the one thing that disturbed me was the 1980s modernization. What bothered me was the wasted potential of the large amounts of deck and hangar space. Even though the Iowas carried several helicopters, none of them were ASW. The installation of the Phalanx AA system provided excellent point defense but the lack of Guided missile AA made little sense to me. This made the Iowas the same liability that battleships were in both world wars. They needed huge escorts because there were certain types of weapons, like subs and massed aircraft, that the battleships had no effective defense against. These were the same weaknesses that doomed such ships in the first place. I feel that with the systems available at the time, combined with the Iowas size, a capital ship that was more independent of external support could have been achieved. At that point they might have justified their operating costs. At present the United States Navy doesn't really need capitol ships outside their carriers and ballistic missile subs. The Russian Fleet is the only potential enemy that would justify such ships and the probability of war between the US and Russia is much less than it once was. Any thoughts?
 
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