aircraft v battleship

[b-1]

i understand this is a site about ww2 aircraft but i must ask question i think of all air and naval lover is should the airplane replce the battleship

i think no u can never replace the battle ship with and aircraft or a aircraft carrier. yes the plane can attack farther away and are more accuret with there shot but when u have a 16" round falling nere or on a target u dont need to be that accuret and at a lesser cost then a missle of even some bomb and in the long run it will cost more in some case's. i dont get the same feeling when i see and military aircraft as i do with a battle ship i have no words for it but i see some face's that mite help[:0][8D]:D

[Red Admiral]

The only current use for a Battleship would be in shore bombardment NGFS, to which they are hugely unsuited.

You want a cheap and simple monitor like this that can give the same capability for far less cost.

http://uboat.net/allies/warships/photos/br/hms_terror.jpg

[simon]

Why shouldn't the aircraft replace the Battleship? With air-to-air refueling they can stay aloft as long as the crew can pilot them, they are faster, much quicker to deploy, much more versatile in terms of the targets they can attack and much, much more economical.

Considering the aircraft of WWII, OK mid flight refueling wasn't a factor back then but the accuracy of a carrier squadron of dive bombers or torpedo bombers was greater and generally more devastating than a salvo of even the largest battleships.

There's good reasons that no battleships have been built since WWII, economy, deployability, versatility and vulnerability.

[b-1]

i understand what every is saying. there is no reson to build a battleship when u have 3 iowa class ships and many more mothball.the money that would take to build the attack aircraft of to day is much more then a shell would cost on a battle ship. i understand that u would need to train crew, get the ships fit for see and load them up will supplies. this would at least be in the millions of dollers. u can shoot down a plane many times but i have never read about a shell that falled to hit land or nere is naval target. we must not for get about intimidation i im not intimidated by a carrier but when u see the supperstructer of a battleship with its guns and missle all over the place the is what intimidating is all about.

[GregP]

Anyone not intimidated by an aircraft carrier may soon wind up on that carrier's target list. When they do, they'll get VERY intimidated VERY quickly. All it takes is for a carrier to take some notice of you as a threat.

Make no mistake, any carrier today is considerably more powerful than a WWII battleship ever thought of being. Of course, it SHOULD be since the weapons are computer operated. But the point is that any carrier can throw a huge weight of weapons at a target compared with a battleship.

Consider the most powerful battleship of WWII was the Japanese Yamato. Her main guns were nine 18.1-inch guns of 45 caliber and she could throw a broadside weight of 28,971 pounds (13,141 kg)for a maximum range of about 45,960 yards (about 42 km). To accurately hit anything, the range of engagement was much closer to 30,000 yards (about 27 km).

Let's put this in perspective. An average F-18 can haul about 17,000 pounds (7711 kg) of external ordnance. Let's round this down to 15,000 pounds for the sake of argument. That means that only two Super Hornets could more accurately hit the target a LOT farther away with more ordnance, strafe it when they were done, and then fly AIRCAP for the other two Super Hornets to do it again. And that's only one flight patrol of four Super Hornets.

The next most powerful battleships of WWII were the US Iowa-class battleships and they could throw a boradside weight of 24,300 pounds (11,022 kg) a distance of 42,345 yards (38.7 km). To accuratelty hit anythiong, they were limited to about the same range as the Yamato, and preferred it to be a bit closer. Preferred range was about 25,000 yards. Again, two Super Hornets could do more damage and be called off in-flight, and rerouted to a more pressing target.

And that is why there are no more battleships.

[simon]

quote:Originally posted by b-1

i understand what every is saying. there is no reson to build a battleship when u have 3 iowa class ships and many more mothball.the money that would take to build the attack aircraft of to day is much more then a shell would cost on a battle ship. i understand that u would need to train crew, get the ships fit for see and load them up will supplies. this would at least be in the millions of dollers. u can shoot down a plane many times but i have never read about a shell that falled to hit land or nere is naval target. we must not for get about intimidation i im not intimidated by a carrier but when u see the supperstructer of a battleship with its guns and missle all over the place the is what intimidating is all about.


..and I've yet to hear of a bomb or missile that failed to hit the land or sea, doesn't make it accurate though. It is also worth pointing out that Prince of Wales and Repulse weren't intimidated by aircraft, and probably remained that way right up to the point that they went under the waves sank by aircraft alone.

Would you feel as intimidated by the superstructure of a Battleship if it had been sank 500 miles before you'd even seen it?

Make no mistake, Battleships are big, they're huge infact and they are intimidating, but being intimidating didn't stop Yamato and Musashi being sunk by carrier aircraft.

Why do you say you are not intimidated by an aircraft carrier? Have you ever been bombed by carrier aircraft? Have you ever been shelled by a Battleship? Unless you can answer "yes" to both you cannot judge which is the most intimidating.

To be honest, having seen a car-ferry up close that's intimidating, heck a passenger train doing 100mph 6ft away from you is intimidating, doesn't make it a particularly potent weapon of war though.

[R Leonard]

The funny thing about battleships is that, while, true, they can pile a lot of iron on a beach, they are really designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to poke holes in the other guy’s battleships. To do so you have to get close enough to do it. In the face of attack aircraft it simply can’t be done, witness Yamato. Even when they are close enough to engage an enemy with direct fire, they are notoriously inefficient ship killers. If you were to drag out the reports on how many rounds were expended versus the number of hits achieved in any given action, you would be amazed. Even against land targets there is an efficiency problem. In forays against coastal targets in the Japanese home islands in the summer of 1945, various battleship bombardment groups were only able to achieve a 7 to 10 percent accurate hit score against unmoving factory buildings. 2nd Fast Carrier Task Force staff viewed these raids, for which they had to support with CAP aircraft in case the Japanese decided they wanted to contest the appearance of these behemoths off their coasts, as make-work for the black shoes.

Carriers, on the other hand, have the ability to reach out well beyond gunfire range and deliver killing blows to any size enemy ship, from battleships on down. The down side to carriers is that they require escorts to provide AAA and submarine defense coverage. Such escorts need to be relatively speedy and heavily armed for the purposes intended. Cruisers, especially of the AAA type, and destroyers fit the requirements nicely. In terms of efficiency, the general calculus for air delivered attacks against capital ships, worst case scenario, would be something like 18 dive bombers should be able to achieve at least five hits and in the process lose six planes. While losses would be unpleasant and sad, the increase in effectiveness is evident. Add in a near simultaneous torpedo plane attack and some fighters for AAA suppression and distraction and the odds get even better.

As WW2 went on, in the USN, battleships were primarily relegated to two roles, (1) anti-aircraft platforms for protection of carriers from air attack, or at least, against the leakers who got through the CAP; and (2) bombardment of landing areas. One of the nice things, from the carrier drivers’ point of view, about using battleships as AAA platforms was that they were also bomb magnets, often distracting attackers from what should have been their primary goal, hitting the carriers . . . not to mention the amount of AAA they could throw out. As a shore bombardment element, they were reasonably effective, but there were two major drawback. First, to perform this mission they were required to be HE heavy in their load out and thus insufficiently supplied with AP rounds in case things went in the toilet and the bad guy’s battleships made an appearance. While this was never a real operational problem, certainly the black shoes were aware of it. For example at Suriago Straits, Oldendorf’s battleships were able to muster enough AP to be effective against the advancing Japanese, but only because he had enough ships available to make out a decent load out when all were combined and the manner in which the Japanese made their advance. Fewer battleships and it could have got dicey if the Japanese had decided to be real persistent and a little more coordinated. The second problem was a simple artillery problem. You can’t easily hit what is sheltered on the reverse slope. 16 inch battleship guns do not really lend themselves to indirect fire, infantry based mortars are much more efficient. Further for an enemy ground force, just being outside the range of these big guns makes them immune. Aircraft, on the other hand, for obvious reasons, can deal with these problems much more effectively and have the added advantage of loiter time. There is also the simple fact that air delivered ordnance had greater explosive power than gun delivered. It was an unhappy truism for those involve in amphibious operations that, while certainly impressive, pre-invasion bombardments tended to be not as effective as appearances might lead one to believe.

It was already apparent to the USN before the US even entered the war that the carrier was going to be the weapon system of choice vice the battleship. This is readily observable in the construction programs. After Pearl Harbor, there really wasn’t a sudden epiphany of “oh, crap, our battleships have been wiped, guess we’ll have to resort to carriers.” It was well recognized in the US Navy that the fleet carrier was not only faster than all of the existing battleships, but also a more versatile striking platform. Of those battleships not at Pearl Harbor, speed-wise, only North Carolina and Washington even came close with rated top speeds of about 27 knots. A Yorktown class carrier could easily beat that. Doesn’t seem like much, but when moving at top speed under combat conditions, that means the carrier could eventually out distance the slower battleship, conceivably making it superfluous. The older battleships, including all of those at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, were lucky to crank out 21 knots maximum on a good day.

The easiest illustration of this is Enterprise and Saratoga going out in November 1941 to ferry aircraft to Wake and Midway. In both cases, it was decided to leave the battleships behind as they would not contribute to the operations and would only serve to slow down the task groups.

A similar example of the deliberate decision to leave battleships out of the equation was Nimitz’s decision to leave his available battleships in the vicinity of the west coast of the US during the Midway operation. While, to an extent this was to appease the Nervous Nellies in Washington, he also knew that they would be of little value in what was sure to be a pure aircraft carrier engagement. Their presence would have merely served to slow down the carriers, dilute his available escorts, and force the carriers to provide protective CAP when there was painfully none to spare.

New battleships authorized after the expiration of the Naval Limitation Treaties and completed were as below. Note that all were started before the US entered WWII, and indeed, four of them before WWII even started in Europe.
North Carolina, laid down 27 October 1937
Washington, laid down 14 June 1938
South Dakota, laid down 5 July 1939
Massachusetts, laid down 20 July 1939
Indiana, laid down 20 November 1939
Alabama, laid down 1 February 1940
Iowa, laid down 27 June 1940
New Jersey, laid down 16 September 1940
Missouri, laid down 6 January 1941
Wisconsin, laid down 25 January 1941

Authorized, pre-war, but never completed, or, in most cases, never even started, battleships are listed below. It should be kept in mind that some of these were to be replacements for such obsolescent battleships as Arkansas, New York, and Texas all of which served through the war.

Illinois (laid down 6 December 1942, canceled 12 August 1945)
Kentucky (laid down 7 March 1942, suspended 17 February 1947, canceled 1958)
Montana (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
Ohio (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
Maine (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
New Hampshire (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)
Louisiana (not started, canceled 21 July 1943)

Significantly, once the war started for the US, no new battleships were completed that had not already been started prior to 7 December 1941, and after some 18 months of war, all new planned battleship construction was canceled, and neither of the two battleships started after Pearl Harbor were completed. Further, no other new battleships were authorized.

On the other hand, there were authorized prior to the US entry in to WWII thirteen Essex class carriers. Authorized in June 1940 were three: Essex, Bon Homme Richard -renamed Yorktown, and Intrepid. Another ten (Kearsarge - renamed Hornet, Franklin, Ticonderoga, Randolph, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Hancock, Bennington, and Boxer) were, a month later, authorized. After the US entered the war an additional 19 Essex class carriers were authorized between July and September 1942. Of these six were canceled on 28 March 1945, as they were never started, and the under construction Reprisal and Iwo Jima were canceled on 12 August 1945. In all, twenty four Essex class carriers were completed. Off the top of my head, fourteen of them saw combat service in WW2. Also constructed were another 9 CVLs and, without counting fingers and toes, about 99 CVEs.

So, just on the basis of construction authorizations and the eventual outcomes of those authorizations, with 13 Essex class carriers authorized before the US entered the war, the argument could be made that the aircraft carrier was already on its way to becoming the leading capital ship of the USN before battleship losses and damage in the Pearl Harbor attack.

It all boils down to a matter of reach and deliveries. Carriers, with their main battery being the air group, could reach out farther than the battleship by a order of magnitude. Carriers could repeatedly deliver more ordnance, with greater variability of ordnance type (ever see a battleship that could fire a napalm round?) thus fulfilling a wider variety of missions, with greater accuracy, and hit targets sheltered from the direct fire of the battleship.

The load out capabilities of modern strike aircraft when coupled with ordnance technologies such as laser target designation have only served to raise the importance of air sourced attack systems and one of the most efficient is the aircraft carrier. It is unlikely that one would ever see a division of Marines ever again storming a beach, and even if they were to do so, modern aerial delivered weapons system to pave the way are far more efficient and effective than poking holes in the sand with 16-inch rounds.

Rich

[Red Admiral]

quote:the money that would take to build the attack aircraft of to day is much more then a shell would cost on a battle ship. i understand that u would need to train crew, get the ships fit for see and load them up will supplies. this would at least be in the millions of dollers. u can shoot down a plane many times but i have never read about a shell that falled to hit land or nere is naval target.

Of course an aircraft costs more than a shell, but the aircraft costs far less than the battleship needed to actually carry the gun+shell into position. The aircraft can do it faster, more accurately and far cheaper. Todays anti-air weapons work fine against shells. I did a little comparison a few months ago of the OTO 76/62 vs. 16" shells.

"16" shell travelling at about 500mps after being fired from 30.000m. Open fire at 5000m with two barrels. 10s before hitting. 40 76mm shells in the air + 6 127mm shells. A tight salvo of shells mean few alterations in train/elevation. Not much time lost there. I don't think much would get through that. btw, the 127mm gun can engage targets out to 70km."

Thats against an Italian Audace class frigate. The Davide shells now being introduced give even more capability. Sub calibre guided projectiles from a 76mm gun.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by Red Admiral

quote:the money that would take to build the attack aircraft of to day is much more then a shell would cost on a battle ship. i understand that u would need to train crew, get the ships fit for see and load them up will supplies. this would at least be in the millions of dollers. u can shoot down a plane many times but i have never read about a shell that falled to hit land or nere is naval target.

Of course an aircraft costs more than a shell, but the aircraft costs far less than the battleship needed to actually carry the gun+shell into position. The aircraft can do it faster, more accurately and far cheaper. Todays anti-air weapons work fine against shells. I did a little comparison a few months ago of the OTO 76/62 vs. 16" shells.

"16" shell travelling at about 500mps after being fired from 30.000m. Open fire at 5000m with two barrels. 10s before hitting. 40 76mm shells in the air + 6 127mm shells. A tight salvo of shells mean few alterations in train/elevation. Not much time lost there. I don't think much would get through that. btw, the 127mm gun can engage targets out to 70km."

Thats against an Italian Audace class frigate. The Davide shells now being introduced give even more capability. Sub calibre guided projectiles from a 76mm gun.


But will the heavy iron 16" shell be affected in any way by this barrage?

[Red Admiral]

OTO-Melara thinks so.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by Red Admiral

OTO-Melara thinks so.


Hmmm ... isonitrile gloves prevent sticks in hospitals. We've talked about using them when handling snakes ... in theory, but nobody is very keen on letting something poisonous chew them through one of these gloves.

Also your 16" is likely to have friends arriving in close formation ... AA uses proximity fuses and fragmentation, for a 16" it would need to be solid (? AP) shot and very accurate.

I do not wish to be part of the trial team.

[Lightning]

Hi All,

I'm fully aware that after the Pearl Harbor attack, the aircraft carrier supplanted the battleship in importance, but I think there was never a more beutiful site than a battleship on the high seas. I was never lucky enough to actually witness this, but the photos and films I have seen bear this out. ...Just a thought.

Regards,
Lightning

[Tony Williams]

There seem to be two separate arguments running here, concerning WW2 experience and what might be useful today.

In WW2 the aircraft carrier was clearly a more versatile weapon system than the battleship, but the big guns still proved useful in shore bombardment in support of amphibious landings, where the targets were by definition within gun range. Guns could carry on pounding away at night and in bad weather, when attack planes were useless. And the shells were immune to AA fire from the defenders. The shells may not have been that accurate, but frankly air attacks weren't either, with average miss distances for bombs measured in hundreds of feet even for tactical fighter-bombers.

Nowadays the effectiveness of planes has increased dramatically - they can hit point targets as easily at night as in the daylight (although may still be limited by bad weather). However, they remain vulnerable to AA fire. Furthermore, if we were still using big guns they would be very different to the WWW2 variety. Just look what's happening in the current development of ammo for 5" naval guns - very long range (60+ miles) plus precision guidance to strike within a few feet. Note that the next planned US destroyer - DDX - will have two new 155mm guns specifically for shore bombardment, with a range of over 100 miles. Scale up the capabilities of such ammo to 16" guns and you have an awesome potential.

Still not worth building new battleships, of course. Ultimately, though, we may get powerful naval rail guns able to accelerate projectiles electromagnetically to extremely high velocities. Then all bets are off...

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk