US Battleships in T2K

[pmulcahy11b]

The last use of a US Navy Battleship was (IIRC) was the USS Missouri during the Gulf War in 1991. If we posit (as many here seem to do) that Desert Storm and Shield did occur in the T2K v2 and 2.2 timelines, the US Navy may have one or more of these vessels on active duty during the Twilight War (whether they were sunk is fodder for another post). It's what I imagine, anyway.

For that matter, do any other countries in the Twilight War have such ships (or their version thereof) in service (again, whether they got sunk or not during the War)?

[Matt Wiser]

Paul, did you check Grimace's fanzine? The naval stuff I did earlier is there, and it does include the battleships and the two Des Moines-class gun cruisers.

[Adm.Lee]

The last use of a US Navy Battleship was (IIRC) was the USS Missouri during the Gulf War in 1991. If we posit (as many here seem to do) that Desert Storm and Shield did occur in the T2K v2 and 2.2 timelines, the US Navy may have one or more of these vessels on active duty during the Twilight War (whether they were sunk is fodder for another post). It's what I imagine, anyway.

For that matter, do any other countries in the Twilight War have such ships (or their version thereof) in service (again, whether they got sunk or not during the War)?

I always figured that at least one, and probably 2-3 of the Iowa class were recommissioned during the Twilight War. The other one or two would have been kept for spare parts to keep the others running. I really don't think the tourist BBs (North Carolina, Alabama, Massachusetts) would be considered worth the effort, except as more parts storage or training. The Texas, certainly not! Post 1999, if these are still afloat and given power and fuel sometime, they would make great accommodation hulks for a thousand or so souls.

Ditto for the heavy cruisers of the Des Moines class. Three were active in Vietnam, Newport News was scrapped in 1993, but the other two were still in mothballs. I think I saw them in Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1994?


No, I don't think there were any other battleships existing in the 1990s.
{Scan of wikipedia}
Soviets: scrapped all of theirs between 1947 and 1956, it seems. They did keep 13 of the Sverdlov-class cruisers with 6" guns through the late '80s, but all were gone by 1991 IRL. It's believed that they were kept around in the faint hope that once the American carriers and subs had been defeated, there could still be a role for an all-gun ship. Maybe if the USSR is still breathing in 1992, these would have been saved? Exception: the Kutuzov, now a museum ship in Novorossysk. There's a candidate for a late-war revival in the Black Sea Fleet?
Germany, Japan: all their BBs were gone by 1946. About half of Italy's made it into the 1950s.
France scrapped their last two in 1966 and 1970.
The Royal Navy cut up the Vanguard in 1960.
The Turkish Yavuz Sultan Selim, more famous as the SMS Goeben, made it to 1973.
Argentina, Brazil and Chile each had a very few BBs, all were gone by 1960.
Spain lost its last two in its civil war.

There are some other museum ships around, but I'd think those aren't worth the trouble, since I'd bet nearly all of them were decommissioned in the '50s, and most of them might be even older than WW2. Example: HMS Belfast, turned into a museum in 1978.

I think that's everyone?

I love battleships, can you tell?

Allow me to quote from the novel Ghostrider one, by Gerry Carroll (1993). "The battleships have all been mothballed again now and it doesn't seem the same anymore. When one sees a battleship steaming along, one is seeing Navy and all that that has meant through the centuries. There is no weapon on earth that will make a little tinpot dictator sit up and take notice like a battleship slowly cruising off his coast well out of pistola range with her guns trained on his presidential palace. It sort of gives him a little peek at his relative importance in the grand scheme of things. If that peek stops one firefight, however small, or saves one life, or ensures the fairness of one election, then the battleship has earned her keep."

Well-spoken for a brown-shoe, don't you think?

[Grimace]

That is a very good, very pertinant, and altogether saddening quote from that book. :( I miss the old battlewagons.

[Raellus]

Going by the v1.0 timeline, even if the first war against Iraq didn't happen, the Iowas might still have been around by the time the Twilight War began in '96. Since in the v1.0 timeline, the Cold War never ended, the USN had reason to keep the Iowas around. Perhaps they were no longer on active duty c.'96, but I would fathom that they would still have been on the books and could have been returned to service relatively quickly. They may not have been the most practical vessels in the modern world, but they had their uses and a certain prestige value as well. All my old Cold War naval warfare books from the '80s like to compare the Iowas and the Kirovs. It's apples to oranges, of course, but I think the USN liked to dispute the claim to having the largest, most powerful surface warfare vessels afloat. In my T2KU, all of the Iowas were in active service at some point during the Twilight War.

[Legbreaker]

If we posit (as many here seem to do) that Desert Storm and Shield did occur in the T2K v2 and 2.2 timelines...

It absolutely did in 2.2.
http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=3109&highlight=timeline

Requiring a crew of approximately 1800 men, would they be all that useful in most theatres? Take Europe for example, how much of the fighting took place within the 40km range of the 16 inch guns? Sure, the Iowa class carried Tomahawks, but at half a million a pop, they're a bit too expensive to fire off in bulk.
We also know Battleships where already obsolete as a concept by WWII, so they'd be of limited use in naval actions - smaller and cheaper destroyers, both in currency and manpower, offer a greater flexibility on the whole.

However, their usefulness in amphibious operations can't be denied. If they were recommissioned, it's extremely likely they'd be attached to support the Marine units in the Middle East and Korea (the North Sea and the Baltic might be a little "hot" for them especially after the 1997 battles destroyed pretty much all the available escorts). The Middle East and Korea were basically second class fronts with second class enemy units compared to Europe so I see their survival and usefulness as at least vaguely plausible.

[dragoon500ly]

Iowa would most likely have served as a training ship/spare parts hulk, her number two 16-inch turret was never operational again after the breech explosion.

The USN planned to use the battleships to support amphibious operations or as part of a Surface Action Group targeting Soviet warships. New Jersey (and Iowa) were assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and Wisconsin and Missouri were assigned to the Pacific Fleet. It would be possible to see New Jersey and/or Wisconsion in the Middle East with Missouri off Korea.

[Raellus]

I can see an Iowa class supporting amphibious/ground operations in Scandinavia. I can also see it getting caught up in one or two of the fleet battles in the Norwegian/North Sea. I'll bet that an Iowa could take quite a bit of damage before sinking. Perhaps after taking a couple of SSMs, her captain ran her aground to keep her from sinking. A partially submerged/exposed Iowa-class battleship with at least one functioning turret would be an interesting setting for an encounter or PC FOB.

[HorseSoldier]

Going by the v1.0 timeline, even if the first war against Iraq didn't happen, the Iowas might still have been around by the time the Twilight War began in '96. Since in the v1.0 timeline, the Cold War never ended, the USN had reason to keep the Iowas around.

+1. The BBs got recommissioned as part of the Reagan-era build up, so even without the '91 Gulf War they'd have been on the books and in the ver 1.0 alternate history the unrest in the Middle East before the Sino-Soviet war kicked off would have provided ample employment opportunities for them.

I can see an Iowa class supporting amphibious/ground operations in Scandinavia. I can also see it getting caught up in one or two of the fleet battles in the Norwegian/North Sea.

The Norwegian front is probably the best venue in the European theater for a battleship to make a contribution as a fire support asset, at least until the fighting moves into Finland. Given the road network in Norway any Soviet attempt to move south would provide lots of serious targets for 16" naval gunfire as long as the NATO side of the naval fight could maintain enough superiority to keep ships in close to the land front.

[Raellus]

The Norwegian front is probably the best venue in the European theater for a battleship to make a contribution as a fire support asset, at least until the fighting moves into Finland. Given the road network in Norway any Soviet attempt to move south would provide lots of serious targets for 16" naval gunfire as long as the NATO side of the naval fight could maintain enough superiority to keep ships in close to the land front.

I can conceive of a naval engagement brought about by the success of an Iowa's 16"ers against Soviet ground columns in Norway- it's such a hinderence to the road-bound Red Army that the Soviet navy is called on to sally forth in an attempt to eliminate or drive off the battleship task force, leading to a major surface action. I'd love to wargame some naval battles in the Norwegian/North Sea. I almost got the latest iteration of the venerable Harpoon series for my PC but I just don't have the time to play with it- and if I create the scenario, playing it out wouldn't be as satisfying.

[Adm.Lee]

I can conceive of a naval engagement brought about by the success of an Iowa's 16"ers against Soviet ground columns in Norway-

That reminds me of something I read in one of the Horatio Hornblower novels. He was commanding (IIRC) a 74-gun ship of the line off the Spanish coast when they spotted a French cavalry brigade moving along a coastal road, with bluffs behind them that prevented their escape. It was target practice, essentially.

USS New Jersey in the Norwegian Sea might play hide & seek among the fjords, like the Germans did with Tirpitz in WW2. Sure, a big missile could sink her, but it would be a bear to get a clear line of attack to her. If she survived to 1998, she'd be pretty dominant until she ran out of fuel.

[Legbreaker]

The Norwegian front is probably the best venue in the European theater for a battleship to make a contribution as a fire support asset, at least until the fighting moves into Finland.

In my mind it's the only place they could have been used to any real effect. The supporting ships were basically all gone by June 1997 so it would be suicide for them (if any survived that long) to sortie into the Baltic, or even just cruise around in the North Sea within useful bombardment range of the coastline. Given the likely heavy use of sea mines by the Pact, going into the shallows without minesweepers, etc would be pure idiocy!

In my mind, if any survived beyond June 97, they'd have quickly been reassigned to the other "secondary" fronts where the threat to them would have been greatly diminished. From memory, we can find one in the Gulf as per the RDF book?

[Targan]

I've held off from commenting on this discussion but I feel compelled to point out, they use sooooo much fuel. Even if a couple of the Iowa class survived, that's a massive commitment of scarce, oh-so-precious diesel. I know it's tempting and attractive to have these gods of war still roaming the high seas at MilGov's behest late in the Twilight War but the logical part of my brain suggests to me that their fuel requirements would render the Iowa class battleships all but unusuable in a mobile role from '98 onwards.

[Legbreaker]

Very good point that. Between fuel requirements, 1,800 crew, limited ammo (how many 16 inch shells are going to be available after 97 anyway compared to smaller guns), and battle damage/wear and tear, any hulls still floating aren't going to be of much use.

Just the crew alone could be better used to (for example) create two new infantry battalions, or the supporting elements of an entire pre-war brigade, perhaps even division. And what about food? Men on the ground can grow their own given time and a suitable patch of dirt - it's a bit hard for ship borne crew to do that...

However, in late 1996, early 1997, provided the manpower can be found, it's my opinion all four battleships might see at least limited action somewhere. As the war drags on, it's likely they will be stripped of crew and equipment rather than be repaired, with those resources sent to smaller ships, the marines, or even logistical units behind the lines.

[Panther Al]

Very good points on Manpower and Fuel issues, but there is a couple of countervailing points:

The steam plants in those ships used bunker oil - not diesel. Bunker oil is also considered garbage production in modern refining compared to the higher grade fuels: in essence, its the leftovers after making good fuel as far as I can tell by reading up on it. So fuel will be scarce yes, but it won't be anywhere near as bad to source it as it would be the high test. Even better; the engines that burn it - particularly the ones built in the first half of the 20th Century, such as those in the Iowa's, are sufficiently crude that in a pinch it could use the raw stuff at the cost of decreased efficiencies, more maintenance, and much more pollution (IE: Very a dark exhaust plume).

As far as maintenance on the plants go, as long as they can get raw materials, a majority of its power plant (That is, the small(er) parts that typically break now and then) can be supported by the on board machine shops.

Compared to the other ships in the Navy, the Iowa's was maintenance nightmares yes: but thats because of old simpler equipment. Once the nukes fly however, the high tech supply line that the newer ships require more than air will dry up - but the simpler, older equipment (less the upgraded electronics such as the radars and such) on the Iowa's can still be made with relative ease in small to medium sized machine shops either afloat in depot ships or the smaller ports that didn't get nuked.

And while yes, that manpower can be used elsewhere, but will it be worth it?

In 2000, in a perverse way, the Iowa's might become the most seaworthy and available ships in the fleet because of its maintenance intensive but simple nature.

Of course, that leaves ammo.

This is actually the larger problem, but not for the reasons you think.

Producing the shells is easy: all you need is a casting shop, of which there is thousands in the US, to cast the shells. It's the boomenstuff that is the problem. But not as large or insurmountable as it sounds. If the US industry can supply small arms with the newer fancier powders for rifles and machine guns, as well as the courser stuff for mortars and tube arty, then they can easily provide the propellent (a even larger and simpler powder to manufacture - again due to the age of the basic design of the gun) for the 5" and 16" guns. Explosive filling is the handicap though. Good news though can be found here: The stuff used in Mortars could be used in the 16" shells as it is sturdy enough to handle the (relatively) lighter impulse of the propellant as it launches the rounds out the tube - and the 5" shells can use the same stuff they are filling howitzer rounds with.


And yes, the actual impulse delivered to the shell of a 16" gun is actually lighter than that of a 5" or 155mm shell. Larger amount of powder yes, bigger boom, oh hell yeah... but the scale of it actually works for us for the same reason Dr. Bull twigged on to the idea that the Superguns he made could actually loft fragile satellites with a powder load that can only be described as massive. Thats the reason he made them for Iraq: the money he was to be paid for them he was already planning spending on building a 60" Supergun to loft communication and other sats into orbit with. An lifelong desire he picked up when he worked on the HARP project, which was *almost* able to put a round into orbit. The gun? A 16" gun that was in stocks as a replacement for wrecked guns from battle damage on the Iowa's and was declared surplus at the end of the war.

In short:

Are the Iowa's the end all be all?

No.

Are they a massive drain on resources, both pre TDM and post?

Oh hell yes.

But can they be supported after the TDM when the supply of high tech parts and high end fuels are scarce at best and non-existant at worst?

Yep. The only ships in the fleet save perhaps, the old Knox Class Figs.

[Targan]

Very good points on Manpower and Fuel issues, but there is a couple of countervailing points:

The steam plants in those ships used bunker oil - not diesel. Bunker oil is also considered garbage production in modern refining compared to the higher grade fuels: in essence, its the leftovers after making good fuel as far as I can tell by reading up on it. So fuel will be scarce yes, but it won't be anywhere near as bad to source it as it would be the high test. Even better; the engines that burn it - particularly the ones built in the first half of the 20th Century, such as those in the Iowa's, are sufficiently crude that in a pinch it could use the raw stuff at the cost of decreased efficiencies, more maintenance, and much more pollution (IE: Very a dark exhaust plume).

As I said in my previous post, I had held off on making a post in this thread. I've learned the hard way that 9 times out of 10, the knowledgeable people here will find some gaping flaw in whatever I post. However, in this case I had looked around on the interwebs shortly after this thread started, and found in the Wikipedia article on the Iowa class, this:

Iowa class battleship (From the section "1980s refit") Plans for these conversions were dropped in 1984, but each battleship was overhauled to burn navy distillate fuel and modernized to carry electronic warfare suites, close-in weapon systems (CIWS) for self-defense, and missiles.

It's common knowledge that most diesel engines will burn lower grade fuels, at least for a while. I haven't searched exhaustively enough to be sure but I would assume that even after the conversions, the Iowa-class battleships were still running steam turbines and it was just the boilers that were converted (I'm happy to be corrected on this) so converting them back to burning lower grade fuels probably wouldn't be a huge deal. Still, I can't help but wonder why any conversion was necessary at all, for boilers to burn diesel instead of bunker oil. So maybe they really did swap the boilers and steam turbines for gigantic marine diesel engines?

In any case I just wanted to show that I'd put some thought into my comments before I made them :D

[dragoon500ly]

The engines on the Iowa class are the same geared turbines that they were built with back in the 1940s. The boilers were modified to burn NDF.

The major part of the rebuild was to modified their armament, electronics, air conditioning plants as well as to install some automated systems in an effort to reduce their crew requirements.

[Legbreaker]

What's the absolute minimum crew needed for an Iowa class? Guessing three shifts (more likely I'd think there were just two per day with everyone on duty during combat) that brings us down to 600. Remove some of the "excess" crew such as laundry staff, perhaps medical, QM staff, chaplain, etc and we might have half that many (mind you, I'm just stabbing in the dark here).
Even at those low numbers (and combat ability would be SEVERELY curtailed) in my mind at least, 300-400 able bodied men still have a greater utility on shore in other roles.

Regarding fuel consumption, this site is very informative. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/Fuel/Fuel-BB.html from "page 79" (near the bottom).

[Olefin]

We know that at least one battleship was in the Twilight War as its in the Gateway to the Spanish Main

Page 18

The war did have some effects on Grenada. The tourists have
stopped coming, the freighters have stopped coming, and the
tankers have stopped coming. There was a brief flurry of military
activity early in the war as U.S. military aircraft bound for the
fighting in Africa and the Mideast made stopovers en route, and
a U.S. Navy battle group built around the USS New Jersey met
and sent to the bottom a Soviet battle cruiser that had been rampaging
in the South Atlantic sea lanes. The citizens of St.
George's had a front row seat to one of the last gun duels between
rival warships in the 20th century


Thus we know by canon that that the USS New Jersey was in the war for sure - and if New Jersey was in the war, then Missouri and Wisconsin were in for sure and most likely Iowa as well

As for shells - there was a lot of 16 gun ammo still available for the battleships as well as 5 inch for their secondary guns - so ammo isnt a problem

The real thing to look at would be barrel life - you can only shoot so many shells thru the gun barrels before they need to be replaced - and even if there are replacements available (there were as far as I know but not sure where they were) you need an active Navy Yard that can take battlehships to do the replacement

And they would have been of huge use - in fact you can tell they must have been used elsewhere because they arent in Iran - i.e. Korea, Europe, etc.. took first priority so Iran only got the Des Moines class instead of a battleship

As for where - Scandanavia of course, off of Italy, possibly in the Aegean against the Greeks, the Baltic and Korea of course

and their engines can burn bunker oil - you dont need refined products for their engines - you could take it straight out of a oil well and a BB would run on it

as for other gun ships - possibly Massachusetts and Arkansas - they used parts from them for the Iowas so they might have been able to get one of them going as well -

as for other battleships - how about Japan? Mikasa was preserved in working condition including her engines and guns - all she needs is ammo - and her hull is in good order as well

there are other WWII gun ships left as museums as well

HMAS Belfast was in the UK in London - possibly the Brits may have moved her to Portsmouth

USS Little Rock is in Buffalo along with USS The Sullivans (DD)

Several WWII era DD's are still active in that time period, mostly with Latin American navies (Mexico has at least one Gearing DD still in commission today)

[Olefin]

As for manpower - with many more modern ships either sunk or looking at maintenance issues from their high tech gear breaking down the USN may have more than enough manpower to keep at least one BB fully manned even as late as 2000

they have the manpower for the Des Moines class off Iran - and she is not exactly a low manpower ship either

especially as the manpower assigned to one Nimitz class carrier could man Iowa or Missouri several times over

[Legbreaker]

When a ship goes down, so does a lot of it's crew, far more are lost than say if an infantry brigade is destroyed - it's very hard to drown on dry land.

[Targan]

and their engines can burn bunker oil - you dont need refined products for their engines - you could take it straight out of a oil well and a BB would run on it

I don't doubt this point, especially pre-modification. They had boilers to generate steam, which powered steam turbines. I'm no steam engineer but presumably these sorts of boilers can be powered by a variety of liquid fuels. My guess is that until the 1980s the Iowa-class BBs were run on heavy, low grade bunker oil. So why were they converted during the 1980s to burn navy distillate fuel? Obviously if the existing burners and boilers could already handle the slightly more refined and processed navy distillate fuel a conversion wouldn't have been necessary. Did the conversion make it any harder to go back to using low grade bunker oil? Was the conversion itself in any way complicated or requiring of complicated components? Was it for some odd reason like pressure to make the older USN vessels less polluting? Was it to improve their fuel efficiency/range?

These questions probably aren't important to the original discussion but I haven't been able to glean the answers with Google-Fu so far.

[Legbreaker]

My understanding is the older engines were able to burn "bunker oil" which is thick, tarry, and very, very sticky. It requires heating to be applied to the fuel in the storage tanks, just so it can be pumped through the lines to the engine.
My guess is as part of the effort to reduce the crew by approximately 900 men (from pre 1980's refit) this heating system was removed. If so, the ship(s) would no longer be able to utilise this type of fuel - the boilers could probably still burn it, but pumping it from the tanks would be impossible.

[Olefin]

There is probably a lot of manpower available from ships that are damaged, non-operational or been sunk and the crews abandoned ship

Take a look at a carrier - if even 1/3rd of the crew survived a sinking you are looking at 1600 men or so

And ships dont go down with everyone aboard that often - and reading the canon I dont get the impression of a nuclear war at sea - i.e. its not nuclear torpedoes and bombs taking out ships,its good old fashioned torpedoes, guns and missiles

plus keep in mind how many old timers there are out there that can be pressed into service on various ships (especially given the prospect of being able to be properly fed as compared to being a civilian)

so manpower wont be the issue here - if anything they probably have more men then they have operational ships to put them on

[Olefin]

We know the BB's were active during the war (thats canon for at least one BB for sure) - the real question is are they still active and are any still afloat, as was dealt with in the 1st article of the fanzine

[Legbreaker]

Correct, it is very unlikely nukes were used in any great numbers at sea since sea power on all sides had been virtually destroyed by the time they started to see use in China.

How many life boats does a warship carry? How long could the people in a life boat expect to be at sea before they were found and rescued? Not everyone is going to die in the first half hour of a sinking, many, many more may survive, perhaps wounded, and die later before ever seeing land again - it's not like a full scale air/sea search and rescue operation is going to be able to be mounted while the enemy are still a threat.

We also know navies on all sides were decimated and virtually eliminated relatively early in the way - by June 97. Tactical nukes began to see use a month later, strategic nukes a couple of months after that. Why would any navy carry on a wide scale recruiting/recall campaign when they didn't have ships? Wouldn't the army have a greater need for and ability to actually use the manpower?

Those recruits which were called up might well see a large number of desertions the moment word of nukes was heard. Most people wouldn't want to be caught in a military training facility if they thought it was about to be turned to glass! Once the nukes died down and the military began to be perceived as an easy way to a free meal, the ability of any navy of any nationality to put recruits to use was virtually gone.

We also know from the Last Sub trilogy that skilled naval personnel where in extremely short supply - Milgov threw a lot of resources into scouring continental USA for crew and came up very short...

To be blunt, it's just not logical for military leaders to try rebuilding a navy when a) the army needs the manpower more, and b) there's next to no enemy naval forces to worry about. Resources are limited. They must be used to best effect.

[Olefin]

The USN is expert in search and rescue as well as recovering sailors from ships that have been abandoned. If anything taught them the importance of that it was WWII and the level of ships they lost in that conflict.

And keep in mind - shattering a fleet is not sinking all its ships - the Japanese fleet was shattered at Leyte Gulf in WWII - but even after that they still had battleships, cruisers and destroyers afloat in considerable numbers

you can see that even in the modules and Challenge magazine articles - even as late as early 2001 between Iran and Cape May/Norfolk/Going Home you have several DD's,frigates, a baby carrier and at least two cruisers still afloat and still very much in commission along with an SSN

and we dont have any idea from a canon standpoint what there is off Korea for instance or what got out of Pearl before she got hit

[Olefin]

Found a reference where it says they retained their old 600 psi boilers.

Still not sure what changes were made to burn distillate fuel but they may still be able to burn the black oil, but would mean they need to take on more oil than with the distillates, which provided better fuel economoy.

the quote is from

http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/american&military_history/World's%20Fastest%20Battleships.pdf

When the four IOWA Class battleships were re-commissioned between 1982-87, they retained their old 600 psi boilers while switching from Navy Special Fuel Oil to Distillate Fuel.

As to their effectiveness as warships - lets give this quote as to what the Soviets thought of these ships

"You Americans do not realize what formidable warships you have in these four battleships. We have concluded after careful analysis that these magnificent vessels are in fact the most to be feared in your entire naval arsenal. When engaged in combat we could throw everything we have at those ships and all our firepower would just bounce off or be of little effect. Then we are exhausted, we will detect you coming over the horizon and then you will sink us."

-Soviet Fleet Admiral Sergei I. Gorshkov,1985- Quote after watching the Iowa in a NATO exercise

[Raellus]

The surface action I mentioned would have occured pre-exchange.

If an Iowa survived past '97-'98, I could see it being used as a fixed long-range artillery battery. In WWII, the Germans uses a couple of large surface warships as floating batteries in their defense of East Prussia and the Baltic shelf during the last few months of the war. These vessels probably wouldn't have survived long at sea, but close to shore, under the protection of additional AAA, they provided very effective heavy long-range fire support to the hard-pressed German ground forces in the "fortress" cities of Danzig, Gydnia, and Konigsberg- in some cases decisively, prolonging the duration of the defenses.

I can see an Iowa doing much the same thing in northeast German or northwest Poland. It would be beached/moored close to friendly-controlled shore and out of range of enemy artillery. Since the ship would no longer retain its mobility due to a lack of fuel and/or because of mechanical problems with its engines, much of the crew could be removed to shore (likely farmed out to a nearby man-power starved ground unit). Only enough crew to effectively operate its guns and power them would remain aboard. An Iowa could really strengthen a shore-based cantonment. Even once the 16" shells are gone, its 5" batteries should still be able to provide local fire support for nearby ground forces.

[Olefin]

A great place for that would also be Korea - there are places her guns would basically deny the North Koreans or Soviets any ability to use coastal roads -
would have been a great ship to use during the retreat from the Yalu to give a bastion of safety for US and South Korean units that were retreating

[Tegyrius]

The real thing to look at would be barrel life - you can only shoot so many shells thru the gun barrels before they need to be replaced - and even if there are replacements available (there were as far as I know but not sure where they were) you need an active Navy Yard that can take battlehships to do the replacement

I'm not 100% sure on barrels, but most of the other turret machinery was handled by Naval Ordnance Station Louisville in the 1990s.

- C.

[bobcat]

actually i hate to disagree with Admiral Gorshkov but there is a reason the ground forces are still trained to coordinate naval gunfire from the old battle ships. we KNOW how devastating that power can be when wielded properly. my theory is these old gun boats would mostly be used in Korea where they can support the majority of the ground combat.

(personally i still wish they would have taken the Missouri up the Tigris to deal with a few IED factories during the surge. show AQI a real explosion:D)

[Panther Al]

My understanding is the older engines were able to burn "bunker oil" which is thick, tarry, and very, very sticky. It requires heating to be applied to the fuel in the storage tanks, just so it can be pumped through the lines to the engine.
My guess is as part of the effort to reduce the crew by approximately 900 men (from pre 1980's refit) this heating system was removed. If so, the ship(s) would no longer be able to utilise this type of fuel - the boilers could probably still burn it, but pumping it from the tanks would be impossible.

I would actually say the old preheating equipment is still there: I don't have anything that says yes or no on that, but I have three datums that make me go with this:

First up is the amount of work to strip it all out (A coworker is a ex Navy Nuke who is pretty sharp on all the various sorts of systems the Navy uses is my source) is no small thing: a lot of work, time, and holes to be cut into things to get it all gone. Thats the sort of work that would take too much time and cost to pull off... especially since you just have to never turn it on and you are good to go.

Second, When they recommisioned the New Jersey in the 80's, the budget for the job was considered very low (350 Million - less than the cost of a new Perry Class fig). And they then came in *under* budget. That to me says that since they did a massive electronics upgrade, with radars, CIWSs, Harpoons, and Tomahawks, thats where the bulk of the money went - which might also help with reducing the manning that they managed to a degree since they stripped out a lot of the secondary AAA systems.

And third, they used a lot of the black gang crew off of the Sacramento and Camden (Which used the exact same propulsion plant of the Iowa's) to get the New Jersey staffed, and then later on the rest in the 80's.

Now, this isn't set in stone, but I think its a pretty good argument to say that it would still be able to fuel the BB's with bunker fuel or cruder.

[dragoon500ly]

New Jersey had been refitted for the Korean War as well as for Vietnam, by the 1960s, she had only her 16-inch/5-inch batteries, her light aa had been stripped. She also had a fairly extensive rebuild of her electronics suite for Vietnam. Her Regan-era rebuild was to emplace Tomahawk/Harpoon and CIWS and update her electronics. She had been modified to butn NDF back in the 1960s. The primary drive for that portion was to insure that the fleet only had to transport one type of fuel for the ships. According to a couple of Navy types in my office, the conversion from bunker to NDF involves burner plates and injectors, the supposed figure for the New Jerey refit was roughly 250,000 dollars. I'm checking the Congressional Records from that time to see if there is a detailed breakdown of the budget.

[pmulcahy11b]

Paul, did you check Grimace's fanzine? The naval stuff I did earlier is there, and it does include the battleships and the two Des Moines-class gun cruisers.

I'm so behind on my reading it physically hurts.

[mikeo80]

(personally i still wish they would have taken the Missouri up the Tigris to deal with a few IED factories during the surge. show AQI a real explosion:D)

Or, my favorite thought, park the Missouri off of Somalia. Pirates? What Pirates? A few well placed 16" in the pirate docking areas.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj-15O-BTDw

Well, you get the picture.... :D

My $0.02

Mike

[HorseSoldier]

As for manpower - with many more modern ships either sunk or looking at maintenance issues from their high tech gear breaking down the USN may have more than enough manpower to keep at least one BB fully manned even as late as 2000


Once we're talking the 2000 time frame, though, the collapse of good lines of communication and just plain spotty communications themselves are going to come into play. MilGov and CivGov's biggest problems don't involve a lack of resources in an absolute sense, they involve a lack of an ability to move, manipulate, and mobilize those resources effectively across a nation that has collapsed into lawless chaos outside of tiny military zones of control.

[Olefin]

Their areas arent that tiny - MilGov controls a big piece of Colorado, plus a lot of Kansas and down into Oklahoma, from Cairo IL down to Memphis TN, a good piece of Louisiana and a pretty big piece of CA, plus the big areas in the Northwest - thats a lot of territory when you add it up, bigger than most European countries in peacetime - and now they have the Ozarks as well

and I dont use HW and Kidnapped as canon (most likely most dont actually) -
and one place they could get manpower is from all the sailors who manned the Omega evac fleet plus guys who can get retrained from Omega - between all of them (and a good amount of them had to be sailors stranded in Europe when their ships either were sunk, damaged beyond repair or just plain out of fuel) you could easily man a battleship

[The Rifleman]

Their areas arent that tiny - MilGov controls a big piece of Colorado, plus a lot of Kansas and down into Oklahoma, from Cairo IL down to Memphis TN, a good piece of Louisiana and a pretty big piece of CA, plus the big areas in the Northwest - thats a lot of territory when you add it up, bigger than most European countries in peacetime - and now they have the Ozarks as well

and I dont use HW and Kidnapped as canon (most likely most dont actually) -
and one place they could get manpower is from all the sailors who manned the Omega evac fleet plus guys who can get retrained from Omega - between all of them (and a good amount of them had to be sailors stranded in Europe when their ships either were sunk, damaged beyond repair or just plain out of fuel) you could easily man a battleship

Also the museum BBs North Carolina, Masschussets and Alabama do not share the same main armament as the Iowas due, however all of the other spares including the secondary armament is the same. Some parts were taken from them to refit the Iowas in the 80s and frankly, although I could see looters boarding the ships to take some limited machinery, a lot of it is useless to them. For example, turret rings, breech blocks, 5" barrels... there are piles of scrap metal everywhere, why go through the aggravation of trying to carry away a 90 ton gun director?

[natehale1971]

Before the Battleships where retired, there was a move to turn them into half-deck carriers that would be equipped with attack helios and harrier jumpjets so they could be used to support amphibous operations... I remember this since i was in the Navy at the time. And our gaming group inculded an Operations Specialist and a Gunner's Mate whom both joined the Ike thanks to their getting recovered after the turret explosion... and they were always talking about the future of the battleships in the future.

And when we played T2k they were talking about how quickly the mothball fleet could be rembilized, and which ships would be first on the list for refit and refurbishment.

[Legbreaker]

...how quickly the mothball fleet could be rembilized, and which ships would be first on the list for refit and refurbishment.

In theory.

Reality would be significantly different given it's not just the mechanicals which need a quick wipe and oil change, but a whole new crew of 1,800 or so (per ship) which need to be found and trained, not to mention the shore bound support crew, replacements for battle casualties, etc, etc, etc. And all this with the background of WWIII ramping up and a serious shortage of the necessary materials and components in the face of competing priorities.

Not saying it can't be done, but there are some serious hurdles to overcome along the way.

[natehale1971]

In theory.

Reality would be significantly different given it's not just the mechanicals which need a quick wipe and oil change, but a whole new crew of 1,800 or so (per ship) which need to be found and trained, not to mention the shore bound support crew, replacements for battle casualties, etc, etc, etc. And all this with the background of WWIII ramping up and a serious shortage of the necessary materials and components in the face of competing priorities.

Not saying it can't be done, but there are some serious hurdles to overcome along the way.

yup, very true. we had an idea for a navy national guard type organization that would provide the bodies if another global war was to come about. Heck the idea of shore bound support crew, and other personnel coming from retirees and navy vets sine they (and other branches retirees and vets) are a resource pool that would be extremely valuable and should be used when the time does come... and the government plans on using them, it's why Defense Department Employees & Vets are not bound by the crazy rules and regs that FEMA has for the way they will do things during the martial law during national emergencies such as WWIII would bring about.

[natehale1971]

I also forgot to inculde Coast Guard personnel as a resource that would help with the bodies to crew the vessels brought out of the mothball fleet. There was a report that was written about that... i just can't remember where I read it.

[pmulcahy11b]

I also forgot to inculde Coast Guard personnel as a resource that would help with the bodies to crew the vessels brought out of the mothball fleet. There was a report that was written about that... i just can't remember where I read it.

I get that all the time...random flashes of memory. I think my mind stores away obscure facts, that may be useful later. Meanwhile, I can walk out to the living room and forget why by the time I get out there...