Yes, if we assume that every torpedo used the most powerful aerial torpedo developed during WWII...
The only aerial torpedo we used in quantity was the Mark XIII with a 600 pound warhead. The only other one actually used was a tiny anti-sub homing torpedo called "Homer" - you wouldn't attack any surface ship, much less a
Yamato class, with it. How many different torps did you (mistakenly) THINK we had. You really aren't building up much credibility...
...and every bomb was the largest bomb that could be carried by a WWII era torpedo or dive bomber. More likely, the bombs were 500lbs or 250lbs.
They knew they were going after the biggest battleship in the world. The bombs would be the biggest AP bombs available that would fit the planes, probably 1000lb, possibly 2000lb if the Navy had any that big, and A/C rated to launch from a carrier eck with them. What would YOU load?
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Yamato took 11 confirmed torpedoes and 2 probables with 8 confirmed bomb hits.
That isn't what the U.S. Navy Historical Center reports. It reports 10 torpedo hits and "several" bombs.
The people WHO WERE ON IT and DIDN'T DIE report my figures - since they were front row center, they "ought" to know...
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nonetheless, the bulk of the heavy AA lifting I expect to be done by the Aegis systems attached to the fleet for just such a purpose.
So which are you proposing we do, add the cost of an Arleigh Burke DDG and Ticonderoga class CG in order to provide ASW and AAW escort for the BB or divert existing ships from their current escort duties (leaving which ships unescorted?) to support a BB?
Once AGAIN, they are going to be there anyway to protect the LHA, and other components of the amphibious force the BB is providing fire support for....no extra expenditure needed.
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You DO know that during the A-bomb trials, even a NUKE failed to sink the old BBs used as targets - some only a thousand meters away!
And you DO know that without any enemy action at all one of the modern BBs we are discussing for naval gunfire support rendered itself combat ineffective through a turret explosion that the Navy still hasn't adequately explained?
Using an unapproved load with 40 year old powder that hadn't been stored properly. Guess what, playing with big guns, missles, & such is DANGEROUS. Mishaps will happen. With any system.
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To call a BB "defenseless" reveals how little you know about them.
I know enough to know that alone they are dogmeat in any modern naval combat. Of course you can surround them with exclusion zones and escorts like a CVN group; but then your battleship won't be able to get close enough to the coast to actually provide NGFS even with the currently non-existent 115nm 16" shells and certainly not with the 26nm shells.
These are the most heavily armored warships ever built - if they can't take no one can.
Read about Iowa class armor protection here For the record, I "build" combat systems in the databases for the simulations we use to train the free world's artilery officers and ncos here at beautiful Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I have to know how to model blast effects, penetration, armor equivalence, probabilities of hit, kill, pentration, AA aquisition, tracking, & engagement - and I've been doing it for nine years. Just what, pray tell, do YOU do for a living, (just so we can weigh your "expert opinion"), and whats the DSN number of the government office you occupy?
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The closest thing we can analyze is older American BBs struck by Kamikaze at 400+ MPH with a heavier airframe, more gas, and 500Kg AP bombs - this set-up I would expect to do MORE damage to a BB than a modern ASM
See some of the historical examples I've posted earlier in the thread regarding this assumption. 10 kamikaze hits failing to sink a 1,600 ton DD? For another example look at the WWII-era DD-772, this is the same destroyer class as the one mentioned above (Gleaves) but with a greater displacement due to modern naval systems. This 2,200 ton DD was eventually decommisioned and sold to the Turkish navy and renamed Muavenet. During a NATO exercise she was accidentally struck by a single Sea Sparrow missile (90lb anti-air warhead) and the resulting damage removed her from the exercise and killed 5 sailors
As I would expect - in a WAR, she doubtless would have continued to steam and fight. In a TRAINING EXERCISE, you stand down when something like that happens. Can you see the difference?
10 kamikaze hits couldn't sink her sister ship; but a single Sea Sparrow, a missile whose anti-ship capabilities are limited and designed as a secondary thought for engaging small patrol boats, disabled her.
Assumes facts not in evidence. After being struck, she didn't participate further in the exercise. No where have I read that she was incapable of moving, shooting, or communicating. "Not participating" in a peacetime training event is NOT the same as "disabled", especially in a live shooting war.
Yet we seem to be using kamikazes as proxies for modern cruise missiles and I don't think that is a fair comparison.
Only one we have - once again, what training and experience do you have to back up what you "think"?
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and are less survivable.
[inigo montoya] You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.[/inigo montoya]
See the link above...
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No - the BB can be almost 50K away WITH THE ROUNDS WE HAVE NOW and still shoot in support of the landing beach.
Rich, my original statement was that it was not fair to claim the full ordnance weight deliverable by a BB because what could be delivered and what was practical to deliver were two very different numbers. The BB can only engage targets in a 50km radius. What targets will survive multiple salvos of 16" guns? How many of them are there in a 50km radius? What will really happen is that if you could protect a BB, it would destroy all targets within its 50km radius in short order. At that point, the BB must either move (along with escorts and amphib ships) or it can no longer deliver ordnance effectively and what it is theoretically capable of doing has no practical use and isn't a useful comparison.
One of the things I was suprised to learn when I took this job is that DESTRUCTION isn't the only reason one fires artillery at things. You also shoot to SUPRESS things (like ASM launcers and air defense), forcing the other system or systems to shut down, button up, and/or move, INSTEAD of doing their job, Sometimes you want CONTINUOUS SUPRESSION. You don't always "know" when you have destroyed something, so some targets have to be re-engaged over and over, until manuever can get close enough to confirm destruction or deal with it themselves. Sometimes you need to shoot smoke to obscure the enemy - sometimes you need to deliver a minefield. There are even rounds with cameras in them to take TV pictures of the enemy and send them back to the HQ, there are cargo rounds to deliver ammo and supplies, (probably a bad example for the 16"
) illumination rounds, and even (Gd forbid) chemical rounds. Tomahawks can't do those things - planes have weather/availability/crew vulnerability issues, and thats WHY the Marines want SOMETHING to provide naval gunfire support.
This is why I felt your statements were contradictory - on the one hand you are mentioning the mobility of the BB as a benefit and on the other you are claiming it can shelter under the same umbrella as the amphibs. Those are contradictions. It can't move up and down the coast attacking targets outside of that 50km radius without leaving the umbrella. So it isn't as mobile as you state since it is tied to its escorts.
How nuch space do you think a naval task force takes up at sea when its all spread out? Aegis is supposed to prtect over a wide area - thats what it was made for. The BB moves if sae and necessary, stays with the task force if not.
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The proximate cause of almost all the disablings were torpedos, attacking under the armor belt - something an ASM can't do.
No; but they can do terminal dives through the thinner deck armor
Whats the BIGGEST warhead available on an ASM that perform such a terminal manuver? How does it compare against a 16" AP shell OR a 500KG AP aerial bomb, either of which the BBs were designed to GET HIT BY, and still be able to fight relatively unaffected?
and against the exposed Tomahawk box launchers and superstructure.
..so we loose the Tomahawk launchers - big deal. Much of the superstructure is a LOT more armored than a modern DD, as you will know after you read the link above.
As for the torpedoes, those torpedoes are a pale shadow of what even a second-tier Chinese produced SET-53 will do to a ship.
SET-53 (an anti-submarine homing torpedo - one wouldn't fire it at a BB) only has a 220 pound charge - the Iowas were built to withstand a 700 pound torpedo warhead with no ill effects, and earlier BBs suffered only slight damage from "long lance" torpedoes with almost 900 pound of explosive. Far from being a "pale shadow" they are actually much more powerful, if not as long ranged. Who fed you this nonsense?
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A problem that computers and radar have no trouble solving. Please google "2S6", or any similar AA system
Is the computer equipped to distinguish between threat and non-threat targets travelling at that speed and fire accordingly
For your googling pleasure please see "automated IFF", "air access corridor", "air control measure". I don't have time to tell you myself all that you don't know about AA systems and the means for controlling friendly air. Suffice it to say A/C are so tightly controlled that we don't even fire artillery through the airspace they are allowed to use, IF we can fire Suppresion of Enemy Air Defense missions and get them released int hte first place.
or does a human have to make a decision somewhere? Because humans have been known to freeze up in a crisis and freeze time is time you don't get to use.
As for the 2S6 integrated AAA, this is a system that claims (in advertising - remember how skeptical we are about advertising) a 65% kill probability used in conjunction with the SA-19 and assuming the target does not exceed 500m/s (Mach 2 for reference is 680.58 m/s). Let's assume the advertisers were modest and the system is good up to Mach 2. Let's assume the enemy is poor and can only lob 10 SAWHORSE missiles. How many 500kg semi-AP warheads are you going to eat?
None. It's called "layered defense", and it starts with Tomahawks, YF-117As and B-2s taking out the command and control facilities, radars, ASM launch facilities, followed by a steady stream of CAS and suppression, supplimented by the fleet CP, intermediate and close-in missle systems, (remember that mighty Sea Sparrow? If it can "disable" a destroyer, it will play hobb with a missle....), and gun systems for final defense.
Better hope they are aiming at your BB with them; because you just lost your entire escort package if they targeted your pickets instead.
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Better the BB - it can take it.
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