Iowa Class Battleships - Battleships capture the imagination. Before aircraft carriers replaced them, battleships were symbols of great power status. The last US-built battleship, the US Iowa class, is the most iconic. The powerful-looking but smooth-lined Iowa class served in World War II and was retired three times to serve as big guns in the US Navy. If we brought them back today, what would they look like?
Hidden in the text of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, commonly known as the defense budget, was a unique provision: The text directed the Navy to maintain in the Navy's inventory at least four Iowa-class ships in good condition, with logistical support and existing naval firepower equal to or greater than the firepower of two warships. Active to keep warships in service and register ships until certified by the Secretary of the Navy. The Iowa and Wisconsin were finally delisted in 2006, after the Secretary of the Navy announced they were no longer needed, citing the upcoming thirty-two Zumwald-class destroyers.
Iowa Class Battleships
Now, eleven years later, the Navy receives only three of the thirty-two Zumwald destroyers, and the long-range attack missile was specifically designed.
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And two 155-millimeter guns are canceled due to high costs. In addition to the shortage of naval guns, there is a renewed shortage of naval guns. Can the Iowans make a comeback, reinforced with new and powerful weapons?
When laying the groundwork for a warship upgrade, four things must happen for any upgrade to be successful. The Iowa-class battleships were designed in the late 1930s, and a lot has happened in the last eighty years. First, ships must be highly automated. The ships were originally operated with a crew of 2,700, later reduced to 1,800. The United States Navy is no longer an enlisted service, and in an all-volunteer navy, personnel costs are a significant expense. Prime candidates for automation are old mechanical systems, such as three sixteen-inch gun turrets, each with over a hundred crew, and power plant and engineering.
Second, warships would return to the field as firepower shifted from gunfire to electricity. The ship will need its full power to operate the new generation weapon systems on board. A nuclear power plant can provide power in the megawatt range while requiring less manpower to operate it. An alternative solution is the electric propulsion system that powers the Zumwald class, providing even more power, albeit on a larger scale.
Third, warships must be capable of sinking ships at least two hundred miles away and striking land targets eight hundred to one thousand miles away. At 887 feet long, these tanks are prime targets for land-based and sea-based anti-ship missiles and have a fair chance of operating beyond their range. While the range of anti-ship missiles will continue to increase, the long-range strike capability will continue to be useful against other targets, including island forces, air bases, and enemy ships.
Iowa Class Battleship Hi Res Stock Photography And Images
Fourth, warships will be purely offensive weapons designed to attack land and sea targets. They will not have advanced radar systems on board and will not be equipped with standard family missiles or jump into the ballistic missile defense zone. They need to contribute as much offense as possible to justify their presence.
A reactivated warship does not replace a carrier – the two work separately but cooperatively. The long-range firepower of a guided-missile warship can suppress enemy air defenses and allow carrier aircraft to freely capture enemy territory. In return, the carriers will provide anti-submarine and anti-aircraft defenses to the warship.
The development of the Iowa-class warships will evolve from battleships (BBs) to guided-missile battleships (BBGs). We will begin by funding the development of a sixteen-inch high-velocity guided projectile modeled after the HVP round currently being developed by BAE Systems. In that round, all naval ships and destroyers were armed with the 127-millimeter Mk. 45 gun, and the 155-millimeter gun on Zumwald destroyers had a range of over a hundred miles. It is not known how far the sixteen-inch high-velocity shell can go, but similar performance to the 155mm version does not seem unreasonable.
If a signal is received from the Pentagon, the ship's main battery can be reduced to a higher capacity. An aft sixteen-inch gun turret was to go to give the ship long-range strike power. We put the 320-470 Mk field in its place. 41 types of vertical missile systems allow for an all-out attack: long-range anti-ship missiles with a range of over two hundred miles and tactical Tomahawk missiles with a range of a thousand miles. Long-range missiles will also be welcome additions to the BBG's new arsenal, and can even be stored in a deck-mounted armored box launcher if required.
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The remaining five-inch gun turrets on the port and starboard sides of the Iowa classes are obsolete. Solution: Tear down the turrets and replace them with a pair of railguns. Four railguns would help compensate for the loss of the rear sixteen-inch turret, increasing the battleship's firepower against land targets.
BBGs are not completely defenseless: four upgraded Phalanx CIWS guns were installed in the early 1980s. In their place, we could install defensive laser weapons with a range of a hundred kilowatts, fed energy from nuclear reactors, or Searam Point Defense Missiles.
BBGs retain their helipads. The warships rely on cruiser and destroyer escorts to intercept air and surface threats, and target P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, MQ-4 Triton drones and other unmanned aircraft, and submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles. Unlike the Vought OS2U Kingfisher seaplanes that flew the Iowas in the 1940s, TERN tailsitter drones can land warships vertically and provide an organic, long-range reconnaissance capability as an external option.
The result of this change is the BBG, which can sink any enemy surface action group defending an enemy island or coast, and then engage access/area denial targets such as anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missile batteries, radars, air bases, etc. and other enemy targets. Once secure enough to close within a hundred miles of the enemy's shore, sixteen-inch guns with high-velocity projectiles swung into action, accurately destroying half a dozen targets at once.
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The Iowa-class battleships will be museum pieces for the foreseeable future. However, if you've got the will and the funding, you can do some interesting things with them that can fit holes in the US Navy's power very well—especially in engaging and sinking enemy ships. Although no comeback is possible, it's always good to dream.
In 2009, he co-founded Japan Security Watch, a security and defense blog. You can follow him on Twitter: 12.2" (310mm) of Class B armor tapers to 1.62" (44mm) below the belt waterline, 19 degrees of camber and 0.75" (19mm) STS support
17" Class B + 2.5" STS/7.25" Class B/9.5" Class A + 0.75" STS/12" Class A (432mm + 64mm/184mm/241mm + 19mm/305mm) Tower Front/Roof/Side/Rear
17'11" (5.5 m) 0.625" lower armor belt, 0.625" and 0.875" (16 mm, lower armor belt, 16 mm and 22 mm) bulkheads deck out-to-deck with 4 bulkhead cavity-cavity-liquid-liquid Torpedo Protection It is designed to withstand an explosive charge of 700 lb (318 kg) and withstand underwater projectiles.
File:an Aerial Starboard Side View Of The Iowa Class Battleship Wisconsin (bb 64) Being Towed
17,600 - 31,200 yards (16,100 - 28,500 meters) vs. 16"/45 (406 mm) light shell or 23,600 to 27,400 yards (21,600 to 25,000 meters) 16"/50 (406 mm) heavy shell.
All but Iowa were equipped with 20x4 40mm and 49x1 20mm guns. The Iowa differed somewhat throughout the war in its light anti-aircraft weaponry.
1945-1944: Light anti-aircraft armament increased to 20x4 40mm guns and 49x1, 8x2 20mm guns except Iowa. Iowa increased to 19x4 40mm gun and 52x1, 8x2 20mm gun.
The Iowas were completed at the Navy Yard in 1943-44 and were the best battleships ever built, and certainly the best American battleships. Design studies began in January 1938 and took full advantage of the escalator provisions of the Naval Armament Treaties, which allowed for 45,000-ton battleships with 16" (406 mm) guns. And limiting their design was the requirement that they be able to do this. Smaller ships were to be designed with suitable external belts to fit through the canal. Given the opportunity, the decision to use an armored belt was encouraged internally.
Iowa Class Battleship 3d Model
The earlier North Carolina and South Dakota classes were designed to take advantage of the 16" gun escalator rule, but not the 45,000-ton displacement escalator rule. The Navy was remarkably successful in meeting its design goals with 35,000 tons. Arguably the most cost-effective warships ever built. As for the Iowas, The question facing naval designers was how to use the extra 10,000 tons.
Two schools
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