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Can the USA build Trump's battleships or not.

Bill D

Diamond
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Location
Modesto, CA USA
Trump has said he wants to bring back the battleships. Can the thick armor plate still be rolled in the usa? how about 14 or 16" gun barrel's?.
He will probably go for coal fired rather then foreign oil or nuclear to help the miners. They could be based near the Mexican border to repel immigrants. instead of the wall.
Bill D.
 
I think we probably have enough barrels for a full suite of 16" guns. These were originally made around the end of the First World War, saved, some put into the Iowa-class ships, and unless there's been a "spring cleaning" at the Armory the rest are probably still in storage. Barrels alone, however, don't make a battleship.

The problem with WW2 style battleships is that they are only good against equal or lesser enemies, and nobody is fielding any equal battleships to shoot at. Even over-the-horizon shots from 16" guns do not represent a very significant projection of firepower. Today you would build a cruise-missile and ECM platform, possibly with some anti-satellite capability, not a gun platform. And the heavy armor belt is almost pointless against airborne, submarine, and high-tech shaped charge missile threats which respectively hit above, hit below, and readily penetrate the armor belt. Look at aircraft carriers. They project force tremendously further, but have to be accompanied by an entire task force for protection because the threats are equally tremendous.

The Iowas were extremely fast and nimble and handled extreme weather better than many smaller ships. You'd probably want to trade the weight of armor for even greater speed, so you'd end up with similarly long, relatively narrow ships.

I admire the Iowa ships very much, but they simply don't have any role today except for pounding shorelines of countries that can't shoot back. That is substantially all they did during the Korean War, and they did a bit more of it during the Vietnam War.

Nostalgia is not a basis for any good military doctrine.
 
Nostalgia is not a basis for any good military doctrine.[/QUOTE]

Kind of like the high tech sensor arrays the Democrats want vs Trump's no tech wall.
 
Might add a drone launch and guidance platform as well. A modestly sized boat, equipped with drone-delivered small nukes or just nuclear waste or biological agents, could do a lot of damage on the coasts and even inland waterways.

Same drones would likely be carrying drugs from wherever they're harvested or made if we manage to close off ports of entry. A kg. of fentanyl is apparently worth $1 million. A $2000 drone can carry a few kg. of that several miles across a border. With serious money and intent, that drone could be bigger, fly faster and farther, and be programmed to ignore whatever limits are likely to come.

Best situation on the drug front is we spend as much to discourage drug use as pharma companies spent promoting it. Best situation on the battleship front is that we get back to scenario planning and not build things like trenches, battleships, and probably even jet fighters. Probably don't need a military parade, either.
 
Trump floated this idea in 2015, and military historians shot him down pretty quickly.
thickness of armor is immaterial against a torpedo that detonates under the keel, and modern supersonic missiles can penetrate battleship armor. So making huge thick armor doesnt protect you.
and 16" guns have a range of about 25 miles, while cruise missiles that can sink a battleship can travel hundreds, even thousands of miles.

So, first day of battle, your $10 Billion dollar Battleship sinks after being hit by a couple of $1 million dollar cruise missiles.
The only way we could ever pay for a fleet of those is to cut the taxes of Apple and Facebook, then the huge increase in prosperity would allow us to build 20 of em...
 
I think we probably have enough barrels for a full suite of 16" guns. These were originally made around the end of the First World War, saved, some put into the Iowa-class ships, and unless there's been a "spring cleaning" at the Armory the rest are probably still in storage.
There were 22 in storage in Nevada, 14 were cut up and scrapped in 2011.

There are a few floating around as display pieces, plus the 3 dozen on the 4 mothballed BB's.

IIRC, a couple were cut up and used as casings in the development of the GBU-57 "Bunker Buster".
 
This is a interesting topic now. The new ships would likely use missiles, lasers, and rail guns. The thick steel would probably not be used in favor of other substitutes being 1/2 inch thick! That is hard to imagine. The thought is that such a platform eases the whole Carrier force concept using layers of ships for the integrity of the carrier group.

I suppose if we want to do this we could. Lots more discussion must happen first.
 
Trump floated this idea in 2015, and military historians shot him down pretty quickly.
thickness of armor is immaterial against a torpedo that detonates under the keel, and modern supersonic missiles can penetrate battleship armor. So making huge thick armor doesnt protect you.
and 16" guns have a range of about 25 miles, while cruise missiles that can sink a battleship can travel hundreds, even thousands of miles.

So, first day of battle, your $10 Billion dollar Battleship sinks after being hit by a couple of $1 million dollar cruise missiles.
The only way we could ever pay for a fleet of those is to cut the taxes of Apple and Facebook, then the huge increase in prosperity would allow us to build 20 of em...

The military is actually working on long range munitions projects. They currently are wanting to deploy a long range 155mm with a range of 75mi.

The goal is to increase range and be able to deliver the same effect at distance as the current non-nuclear cruise missiles.

I suspect that they are only a couple of years away as they are starting to get quotes on the equipment to manufacture the new artillery. Much of this is being designed to be retrofitted onto the existing under-carriages of existing artillery to reduce the costs and speed deployment.

As far as if a battleship would be practical in this day and age, I think you need to change your assumptions of what a new battleship would look like. It is not necessary to use the armor plating to protect the ship as there are better and cheaper technologies today that will give superior results.

Having large 16in. or larger barrels is not necessarily the only way to deliver the desired payload and destructive force.

A lot of this might sound like pie in the sky, but I seriously do see the possibilities of relatively cheap, low tech munitions delivered at an extended distance being very practical.

A cruise missile technology has many advantages when used against a specific target. The downside is cost per unit and the limited number that can be available in a given time window. In essence a prolonged attack by an enemy will overwhelm a cruise missile weapons system if enough low value targets are presented. The slow bleed scenario that is often used by inferior forces.

In comparison if you can deliver a low cost munition at a long range with a rapid delivery for an extended period of time, you could feasibly control a battlefield for a long duration without stretching the available resources.

This gets back to the problems of our current Mideast situation in that we are encountering hostile forces with relatively low technology that are able to take out high-tech aircraft.

Sometimes being able to throw rocks at the enemy is the best solution.

Now the big question is if the military can keep technology creep out of this.
 
Lol. We will not be building new battleships. We don't have the money to build the ships we really need, let alone a new class of BB that the Navy doesn't want.

We need new SSN'snd Boomers, not obsolete surface combatants that have no place in a modern OOB.
 
Lol. We will not be building new battleships. We don't have the money to build the ships we really need, let alone a new class of BB that the Navy doesn't want.
Who cars what the Navy wants ? All they are good for is crashing into cargo ships. Fuck em.

At least battleships looked cool. It's all a giant stupid waste anyhow.

We need new SSN'snd Boomers, not obsolete surface combatants that have no place in a modern OOB.
We don't need new ones, the old ones work fine, but other than that, agreed. Keep the subs and scrap the rest of this worthless shit. And drown the entire braindead ignorant paid-killer army like a bunch of unwanted kittens.

Now we have enough money to fix the broken US society. Or maybe even let people keep some of it.
 
There were 22 in storage in Nevada, 14 were cut up and scrapped in 2011.

Yep, DEMIL on site prior to removal. I always assumed those barrels were intended for the Battle Ships Illinois and Kentucky (along with some spares) which were canceled after the war and scrapped out some years later.
 
I read, probably here, that the Arizona spare barrels were out being touched up wehn it sank. they are still in the backyard of some naval facility on the east coast. At Lawrence Berkely lab we had sections of BS armor plate being used as retaing walls to hold up the hill side. It was brand new straight pieces for a cancelled ship. It was acquired as nuclear shielding. but it was not flat enough to stack without gaps that particles or rays could get through. No way to flatten it cheaply enough.
Bil lD
 
Submarines are less obvious targets than battleships. Coal fired, steam powered, submarines would strain current technology, but would be a damn good thing in a steam-punk universe.
 
I read, probably here, that the Arizona spare barrels were out being touched up wehn it sank
The barrels have separate liners, which are shrunk-fit together. I'd have to go back and re-read some of my books on the Iowas, but IIRC barrels are swapped out at major maintenance intervals (so many shots using such-and-such a type of propellant). The deinstalled barrels go to an armory to have the liners replaced, and then go into the spares inventory. The ship is out of commission for a relatively short time, as it only needs a barrel swap, not the liner replacement, to be ready to go again.

The original soaking pit for barrel/liner installation and removal was somewhere on the east coast (again, IIRC). I don't remember if they established a 2nd facility in Hawaii or the west coast, or if all the barrel refitting was done at the original facility.

BTW, the propellant was pretty basic gunpowder, in silk sacks. A full charge was six sacks. The Navy was able to cut liner wear to about 1/4 of the original rate by adding titanium dioxide and wax ("Swedish Additive") to the propellant.
 
The barrels have separate liners, which are shrunk-fit together. I'd have to go back and re-read some of my books on the Iowas, but IIRC barrels are swapped out at major maintenance intervals (so many shots using such-and-such a type of propellant). The deinstalled barrels go to an armory to have the liners replaced, and then go into the spares inventory. The ship is out of commission for a relatively short time, as it only needs a barrel swap, not the liner replacement, to be ready to go again.

The original soaking pit for barrel/liner installation and removal was somewhere on the east coast (again, IIRC). I don't remember if they established a 2nd facility in Hawaii or the west coast, or if all the barrel refitting was done at the original facility.

BTW, the propellant was pretty basic gunpowder, in silk sacks. A full charge was six sacks. The Navy was able to cut liner wear to about 1/4 of the original rate by adding titanium dioxide and wax ("Swedish Additive") to the propellant.

Sfriedberg -

I'm going to assume Navy operates much the same as Army tube artillery (and tanks for that matter), which I do know. You have it correct - tube wear is a combination of the type of round fired and the powder charge (in a bag, or semi-fixed system as compared to fixed, where you cannot vary the powder charge). Keep a log, when the equivalency number hits a certain value do certain inspections, if problem found or you hit the magic number swap out the tube. Goes for depot rebuild as you say,if a liner type, or scrap if not.

Been too may years (50 in April, to be exact) but the last time I was actually at the Watervliet Arsenal (north edge of Albany, NY) they still had a shop that was maintained as were the only lathes capable of building the 16 inch tubes - and the machine tools were old iron. At that time they did all the heat treat on Army gun tubes and I cannot recall if they did Navy but I'm thinking they probably did if the machining was there. Lathes probably long gone by now. In the 90s, if my memory is correct, some efficiency geniuses wanted to scrap the whole facility as there was no longer any need, nor would there ever be, for gun tubes. End of life would buy from a facility - IIRC - in Austria. Fortunately that never happened.

Have not talked to a couple guys I knew who worked there for years so don't know their current capabilities.

Dale
 








 
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