Why does modern naval doctrine completely exempt any armor or sizeable guns? Yes, I know missiles exist, but hear me out. In the 70s through 90s, it made sense not to armor a warship. One hit to the RADAR is a combat kill anyways, and you can't armor RADAR.
But the modern battlegroup is datalinked out the ass. If you lose your radar, you can still fire on solutions provided by any other ship nearby, or your aircraft, or drones. There's a myriad of distributed sensors on the battlefield. But warships themselves remain squishy. It wouldn't be hard to armor the vitals of a Burke against smaller antiship missiles, but because of their destroyer lineage there is no such armor.
Furthermore, modern conflicts are often fought in restricted waters like the Strait of Hormuz, and begin within visual range thanks to strict rules of engagement. It's entirely possible the first shot fired at an Iranian naval vessel will be from a Burke's 5" gun. So why not two 5" guns? Why not an 8" gun? And if we expect conflict in gun range, why not armor against 5" shellfire?
and by battleships I really just mean lightly armored large destroyers with one or two more guns than usual, so "bring back light cruisers, which the burke already is anyways" is more accurate, but "bring back battleships" is better bait
Mason Gutierrez
>wars are often fought in restricted waters like the Strait of Hormuz kek
Leo Powell
Can I get a quick rundown as to why the US phased out battleships? I'm not a Navy autist so all I really know is something something aircraft carried something Yamamoto super heavy battleship. Are they really that useless?
The only possible modern naval conflicts are either against shitholes like Iran and North Korea, where light armor might actually be useful and engagements will be at short range, or against China, in which case all bets are off because the last peer to peer military conflict at sea was the Pacific Theater of WW2
Brandon Robinson
The explosive payload of you average AShM is well beyond anything you could reliably armor against. The weight that would be added by armor is better spent on added radars, missile interceptors, and CIWS.
Isaiah Brown
This
Angel Campbell
do you realize that iran just seized an oil tanker from a british company, in the strait of hormuz? Like an hour ago.
Daniel Harris
The Iowas were really fucking expensive because they used massive steam plants that required literally thousands of crew to operate, the guns required hundreds of crew each, and so on. And everyone else got rid of battleships, so a 16" gun way well overkill.
They weren't replaced by modern, automated battleships because again, nobody else had anything worth shooting 16" guns at.
What I'm postulating is that a modern, highly automated cruiser, basically a Burke or a Tico with a pair of 6" guns and a few inches of belt armor, would actually be worth building.
Sure, I'm not saying we try to bring back 12" thick steel belts, and certainly not over the entire ship. 4" of composite armor over the vitals, and increased gunnery capabilities, are what I'm asking for. A Granit will fuck up anything it hits. But a Harpoonski or Exocet might be stopped.
Yeah
Jeremiah Lee
basically this, it's like trying to tank an untankable hit.
Ian Morris
generally, once a vehicle has been unarmored to zero in anticipation for a peer conflict they end up vulnerable to threats never considered in a asymmetrical battle, so some armor to combat stuff like mines and IEDs
Parker Barnes
Exactly! Consider American antiship capabilities. Harpoons fired from ships and planes, Naval Strike Missile which is basically just a stealthpoon, Tomahawks which are fat and slow, but America DOES widely field a supersonic antiship missile. The Standard 2. It retains antiship modes. Presumably China will have a similar capability. And that size of warhead CAN be armored against.
Levi Cox
not every threat is a massive plane sized multi-ton soviet death missile though, see current naval thinking emphasizes "if you get hit ur fucked lol" but that's not as true as it once was
Ryder King
Also why are there no destroyer sized destroyers anymore
Lucas Bailey
>smaller destroyers / frigates with plenty of point defense >a few larger, armored, burke sized destroyers / cruisers for area air defense and line of sight surface engagement with 6" guns >massive fleet submarine building program because the best counter to a sub is more subs >ford class carrier doing it's thing, but also with hundreds of radar picket drones for distributed sensing Convince me this isn't better than the current "lots of burkes and a supercarrier" doctrine
John Martinez
>But a Harpoonski or Exocet might be stopped. youtu.be/IUZu8bvxJs4?t=91 I have slight doubts about that.
James Stewart
It would certainly do a number on the upper hull and superstructure of the ship, but she wouldn't have sank if her vitals were armored. The missile "penetrated as deep as the ship's galley", but a galley kill is not a combat kill. It's a very dramatic explosion, but high explosives are not known for breaking through several inches of plate.
Camden Hall
>Regardless, the impact of the missile and the burning rocket motor setSheffieldablaze. Some accounts suggest that the initial impact of the missile immediately crippled the ship's onboard electricity generating systems, but this only affected certain parts of the ship, which caused ventilation problems. The missile strike also fractured the water main,[19]preventing the anti-fire mechanisms from operating effectively, and thereby dooming the ship to be consumed by the raging fire.
This would not have happened in an armored ship. Losing power and water because "armor is for plebs" doomed the ship.
Dominic Hill
Most USN ships have some degree of armor (mostly kevlar for fragmentation) around vital areas. Just look at how well OHP's could take a hit.
Jeremiah Price
Forgot to link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hazard_Perry-class_frigate#Durability >On July 14, 2016, the ex-USS Thach took over 12 hours to sink after being used in a live-fire, SINKEX during naval exercise RIMPAC 2016. During the exercise, the ship was directly or indirectly hit with the following ordnance: a Harpoon missile from a South Korean submarine, another Harpoon missile from the Australian frigate HMAS Ballarat, a Hellfire missile from an Australian MH-60R helicopter, another Harpoon missile and a Maverick missile from US maritime patrol aircraft, another Harpoon missile from the cruiser USS Princeton, additional Hellfire missiles from an US Navy MH-60S helicopter, a 900 kg (2,000 lb) Mark 84 bomb from a US Navy F/A-18 Hornet, a GBU-12 Paveway laser-guided 225 kg (500 lb) bomb from a US Air Force B-52 bomber, and a Mark 48 torpedo from an unnamed US Navy submarine.[10][11]
Gavin Sanchez
Because it’s a hell of a lot easier, faster, and cheaper to develop and field a AShM with a larger warhead than it is to up-armor a warship. Therefore, the balance of power will always favor the attacker. Which is why it’s better to focus on soft- and hard-kill missile defense systems that can more easily be retrofitted onto existing hulls.
Levi Robinson
>Why does modern naval doctrine completely exempt any armor or sizeable guns?
because missiles exist
>Yes, I know missiles exist
apparently not because you seem to think boats still shoot at each other with guns instead of missiles
Anthony Russell
this thread is as retarded as saying "Why don't boats still have armories full of cutlasses and flintlocks to repel bands of pirate boarders?"
because it's 2019 and we kill pirates with deck-mounted machineguns or autocannons, not swords. just read a book for once in your life, will you?
Noah Wright
if boats don't come within gun range why do iranians keep getting within gun range
Jace White
>I didn't read literally anything in the OP or any of the follow up arguments and responses: the post Why don't you read a thread before replying for once in your life?
Elijah Powell
try reading my posts
Jose Johnson
try reading MY posts nigger
Robert Scott
Because they know they won’t be shot at.
What happens in peacetime is not what will happen in wartime
Mason Sanders
Because we call destroyer-sized destroyers frigates or corvettes, because the meaning and role of destroyer has divulged significantly from what it was historically.
Jack Cook
Why do battleship threads attract such retardation? Is it because you have to be 14 to think big-gun battleships still have a role today?
It attracts the same kind of autism as mech threads. I.e. >wouldn’t it be cool if X existed?
Jeremiah Edwards
did you miss this post or are you just here to ree
Tyler Moore
It’s still retarded. Actually, it’s even more retarded since battleships have the armor and guns to not be totally useless. Only mostly
Aiden Thomas
Name one (1) thing a 16" shell can do that an 8" shell can't with modern ammunition and versus modern threats
Nolan Jones
LoadsaHE. Not that it matters, since a “Light Cruiser” is still more retarded than a battleship. Which, the implication is that battleships are still retarded.
Michael Jenkins
>since a “Light Cruiser” is still more retarded than a battleship most "destroyers" today are basically cruisers in size and function
Chase Richardson
But they don’t have armor and 8” guns, which is what cruisernigger wants. Which is retarded
Robert Wilson
8in gun improves range and power over a 5in, or even 6.5in gun, without greatly increasing cost
could significantly increase ability to support ground operations, especially in asymmetric warfare where missiles are too costly and the ship is not in major danger from counter missiles the extra range and larger frafg can also increase increase AA power you dont give up missiles to equip it either
