WWIIwarships(split from morons who worhsip 3.Reich)

[Sea Skimmer]

My God, you are hilarious

You made the assertation, you provide the proof.
The fact that in tests it almost always missed Mavericks. The Maverick warhead alone is bigger then the Hellfire, and its flight path is much more direct.[i/] Its ineffectiveness against the maverick led the navy and USAF looking into it as an anti ship missile. Later production models incorporated an anti ship mod which causes it to aim lower then normal was an outgrowth of this.
I'm not so sure either way on this one. Do you have any evidence? They used to. Provide evidence that they were removed.



No Mk37 directors are in evidence. They where removed and there spaces given over to the 20mm Phalanx mounts, which where them selves removed prior to this photo.

The armor of the 5" turrets is at least 3-4" thick, and the turrets themselves are large enough that a single Hellfire hit might not destroy them. We're not talking about a lot of delicate electronics here

No actually where talking about a confined enclosed space filed with exposed ammunition, crew and a lot of tightly packed machinery that doesn’t react well to being sliced through by a jet of molten copper.
The sides of the turret were armored with 9.5" of steel. Considering USN emphasis on long-range warfare when Iowa was designed, the upper armor would be similar.

The roof is 7.5 inches. Most any modern ATGW will penetrate that much armor several times over. Not sure if its Face hardened or class B but it doesn’t matter.
What, you mean the barbettes? 11-17 inches of steel? Good friggin luck.
I rather doubt that.

The USN is fairly obsessed with safety, and once you have two holes in the armor, and anything behind them destroyed, there not going to use the turrets. A face plate hit would go right into the elevation gear, and roof hits would not do good things to the ammunition handling arrangements.

Oh, at this point we're at no less than 9 missiles. These contain on average, 14.5 tons of high explosives and three nuclear warheads. There is also an even greater weight of high-grade jet fuel.

Bullshit. 4 missiles per launcher, 8 launchers. IIRC, nuclear Tomahawks were never carried on Iowas, and certainly 75% of the Tomahawks weren't nukes. Assuming all 4 missiles are conventional, that leaves over 3.5 tons of explosive (and at least that much fuel) per missile, by your logic. A Tomahawk weighs under 3000 pounds, genius.

Where the fuck do you get me saying 75% are nukes from? I said three warheads total for the entire missile load out. That’s 18.75% genius, 9.375 when the number of BGM-109 missiles is correctly placed at 32.

You are correct in part though, I had my harpoon and Tomahawk numbers reversed. I have been under the understanding that three nuclear Tomahawks where normally carried with the rest being anti ship. I'll however remove that from the equation.

16 Harpoons each with a 488 pound warhead. However a part of this is an armored casing. 250 pounds of HE is the generally accepted amount and I'm going with this. So we have 4000 pounds of HE from these. 32 BGM-109's each with 1000 pounds of HE, there is no heavy casing on these. This adds 32000 pounds of HE.

Add these together and you get 36000, devid by 2000 and you get 18 tons.

I cannot find accurate fuel load figures, but I do know that it must be greater then warhead weight.

BTW, the USN estimated that six conventional 2000 pound bomb strikes would be fatal to an Iowa. This one has a far greater weight of explosive going off on it.

I'd budget three or four missiles to set these ablaze. The resulting fires will burn out a good deal of the superstructure, and once the harpoon warheads begin cooking off, which will take about one minute, the Armored box launchers armor wont matter. Hot shrapnel and heat will ensure they go up was well.

First of all, there are 8 launchers. Second, you're assuming that a single Hellfire can penetrate a launcher (there's a reason they're called armored box launchers), let alone two launchers. Third, you're not taking into account that the armor of the launcher is going to contain the explosion and fire a fair bit. Fourth, you assume that warheads cook off - this doesn't seem to be the case, as Exocet hits in the Falklands in which the warhead didn't detonate weren't set off by the fuel fire. Fifth, you're assuming that the fires will penetrate the armored superstructure of the ship, which was designed to protect against heavy shellfire (let alone burning fluid).

Yes the reason is because of the armor, which is a couple inches thick, about 50mm. This was meant to protect aginst high caliber splinters, not direct hits by weapons which can penetrate eight times that much armor. And it will not be able to even come close to containing a blast that large. Care to provide an exmaple of a ship in the Falklands whos anti ship missiles had fires burning around them?

Now your arguing that something that can stop very large objects can also stop fluids, thus requiring a very tight seal. If the armor deck is water tight then its also going to be air tight, then so then how the fuck do the boilers get air? O yes, that would be through the countless holes in the damn thing.

There's a fair amount of fire suppression gear around these, but not nearly enough

Wow, nice support.

The fixed fire suppression equipment is meant to deal with one missile in a cluster having there sustainer motor accidentally fired before launch or a freak fire, not battle damage, internal magazines tend to have better arngments, but there are almost no vessels which could take a singficant fire reaching the main missile magazine and live.
The real work on the deck and superstructure has to be done by men with hoses. Men don't do we'll when thousands of pounds of HE are going off around them and rivers of burning jet fuel cover the decks.

and the Iowa wasn't design to have compartment sealed against fuel fires like modern warships are.

Its all on the (armored) deck!

I'm not talking about the damn armor. I'm talking about the indvidual compartments above and below it. These cant be suffcently sealed aginst a fuel fire.

The last missiles might be tossed into the area of the amidships fires to hamper damage control

Ahahahah!

used against the armored CT

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!! 17 inches of armor!

17 inches=431mm. Even a tiny manpads Stagger from the 60's that fits in a beife case can go through that.

or the helicopter might opt to sweep around and smoke permitting, take out the last three 5 inch mounts, two of which will likely be throwing ready ammo over the size to avoid it being caught up in the fire.

Right. The ammo that is under the armored deck.

Correct to a point, but small stocks of ready use ammunition are kept with the guns, and more would be brought up when the ship came under attack. Once they noticed the big fire nearby the crew would hopeful throw this into the ocean, as was standard procedure

The Iowa retains its propulsion but has its main battery and missiles out of action along with half its secondary at least and two of the CIWS mounts almost surly destroyed by fire.

Yes, because the secondary turrets are on the other side of the ship, and the Phalanx mounts are several decks above the fires.

Heat moves up, and electronics and 20mm ammunition dont respond we'll to it.

Should the fire be contained then the vessel will live and could return to the states under its own power if enough air intakes and at least one funnel live.

Meaning you lose.

I've expended a couple missiles fairly cheep missiles to cripple a rather large warship and place it in the yard for months and risked a single helicopter to do it. The vessel is no longer a factor in the war and may not be repairable at all. I've won, and I never claimed that destruction was a sure thing anyway. I said I could cripple it, maybe destroy if the fires are not contained. Your arguments to counter this seem to be biased on a inability to comprehend the penetration of modern ATGW's.

Should it spread, which given the amount of fuel and explosive where talking about, is likely, the vessel is doomed.

Great joke. You've got fluid on fire on the deck, above 5 inches of steel plate. What, the armor's gonna catch fire?

The deck, and the compartments below and around. Notice the harpoon canisters, there right next to the aft uptake, where there happens to be a quite large hole in the armor deck, one of dozens in fact, many of which can not be blocked. Anyway if the superstructure and areas above the deck are ablaze the vessel will have to be abandon. There's something called air that the crew below the decks need. When a fire is burning by the uptakes they got smoke instead, they die soon after.

This plan works we'll with the Apache, but if the Russian AT-16 really does have 10,000 and not the once reported 6,000 meter range, then it would be even more effective for this.

Why? The missiles are no harder to hit, and the range doesn't really matter.

Actually, AT-16 is significantly faster then Hellfire which allows for the shots to be fired faster.

Frankly, things have to go perfectly for the Apache, and even that is with more assumptions than Darkstar makes.

Facts actually. And ones, which you have not refuted. Instead you've used the Iowa's armor as you argument, ignoring the fact that the weapon the armor faces can pentrate twice as much as the greatest thickness on the ship.

[Stuart Mackey]

snip

Facts actually. And ones, which you have not refuted. Instead you've used the Iowa's armor as you argument, ignoring the fact that the weapon the armor faces can pentrate twice as much as the greatest thickness on the ship.

As I said earlier in this thread, Iowas are to modern warfare what a Iowa was to HMS Neptune {1909 vintage}. well maybe not that extreame maybe what a Iowa is compared to HMS Iorn Duke {1912 vintage}.

[Howedar]

You have any sources for the penetration of a Hellfire? I remember something like 6 inches of case-hardened steel.

[oberon]

Sorry but I'm too lazy to attribute these quotes; I only want to add some stuff.

Right. The ammo that is under the armored deck.

Correct to a point, but small stocks of ready use ammunition are kept with the guns, and more would be brought up when the ship came under attack. Once they noticed the big fire nearby the crew would hopeful throw this into the ocean, as was standard procedure

and that's the quote.

there are no bullets near the guns themselves. It all comes up on hoists, as needed.

the armor on the 5" mounts is 2.5" in. thick. One hit from just about anything will kill the gunners and wreck the mount.

any kind of missile hit will take a huge toll on an Iowa-class. A helo could take it out, if the ship let it get in range. Fortunately, a BB wouldn't stand alone, particularly since they are not in an AA role, and they would have some kind of picket with an assigned air boss who would take out the helo. It's not saying much to say that a couple missiles will hurt a BB a whole friggin' lot. One will cause a mass conflagration, and two will pretty much be the end of it. It'd be too much for the crew, if anything. Didyall see how iron bombs treated BBs in the era when everyone was specifically building shit to defeat BBs? I'm sorry, I thought modern weapons were better than iron bombs from WW2.

[Stuart Mackey]

snip

any kind of missile hit will take a huge toll on an Iowa-class. A helo could take it out, if the ship let it get in range. Fortunately, a BB wouldn't stand alone, particularly since they are not in an AA role, and they would have some kind of picket with an assigned air boss who would take out the helo. It's not saying much to say that a couple missiles will hurt a BB a whole friggin' lot. One will cause a mass conflagration, and two will pretty much be the end of it. It'd be too much for the crew, if anything. Didyall see how iron bombs treated BBs in the era when everyone was specifically building shit to defeat BBs? I'm sorry, I thought modern weapons were better than iron bombs from WW2.

exactly

[Vympel]

The Vikhr-M (AT-16) can penetrate 900mm RHA. Even if we arbitrarily reduce its effectiveness by half, it can still penetrate 17 inches of RHA.

Now of course, the question is; is Iowa armor superior to RHA? And superior enough that some 400mm of its armor is superior to 900mm of RHA?

[Sea Skimmer]

The Vikhr-M (AT-16) can penetrate 900mm RHA. Even if we arbitrarily reduce its effectiveness by half, it can still penetrate 17 inches of RHA.

Now of course, the question is; is Iowa armor superior to RHA? And superior enough that some 400mm of its armor is superior to 900mm of RHA?

Face Hardened armor only offers around 10% better protection against HEAT compared to RHA. The exact amount however can vary greatly, though not enough to matter for this debate, with the year it was made and by what nation. Some nations Face Hardened plating was as much as 15% better against APC shellfire compared to others. America's was better then some, but not exceptional.

[Howedar]

All right, I recalled an inaccurate effectiveness. Argument conceeded.

[oberon]

I forgot to mention the Army Stinger detachment that would be on a loaded-out BB. I also forgot, have you seen how flimsy those Harpoon racks are? I mean, they're solid enough... for a car. But some of these posts talking about the explosions cooking off missiles? What missiles? If a missile hit near one of those racks, the whole thing's going over the side, if it doesn't weld itself into the radar platform. Hi Stewart.

[Sea Skimmer]

I forgot to mention the Army Stinger detachment that would be on a loaded-out BB. I also forgot, have you seen how flimsy those Harpoon racks are? I mean, they're solid enough... for a car. But some of these posts talking about the explosions cooking off missiles? What missiles? If a missile hit near one of those racks, the whole thing's going over the side, if it doesn't weld itself into the radar platform. Hi Stewart.

The Stingers are in the hands of the USMC platoon onboard, not US army troops.

Stinger maximum range is 8000 meters, and that’s ballistic mind you. It can fly that far if you aim up 30 degrees and just let it fly but it won't have any maneuvering energy left by the time it reaches 8 klicks, and would have crashed into the sea if fired directly at a low flying target. Against a helo at say 5000 feet 7500 meters out, it would not even come close.


The Harpoon racks are actually quite strong, they have to be as each cluster weights around 5 tons and is in an area of the ship that is very exposed to the weather and rocks quite a bit. The Armored box launchers are also very well secured.

A 20 pound shaped charge is not going to blow something that heavy over the size. The first secondary explosions would engulf and detonate the other missiles in the cluster before they could go anywhere, though in reality even if they had there HE and fuel replaced with concrete they'd still at most just fall onto the deck below.

[oberon]

Maybe it was marines, but the regular Mardet didn't handle the Stingers. It was a separate detachment.

[Setzer]

Battlecruiser Scharnhorst looks pretty sweet and had a pretty good service record apart from its final mission when it was sank.

It sank on its FINAL mission? Really? I'm so glad you said that.

[Stormbringer]

Battlecruiser Scharnhorst looks pretty sweet and had a pretty good service record apart from its final mission when it was sank.

It sank on its FINAL mission? Really? I'm so glad you said that.

It's not necessarilly a given. Plenty of good warships have served only to be sent to the breakers. Look at the old Enterprise CV-6. Served out the whole of WW2 only to be sent to the wreckers yards.

[Sea Skimmer]

Battlecruiser Scharnhorst looks pretty sweet and had a pretty good service record apart from its final mission when it was sank.

It sank on its FINAL mission? Really? I'm so glad you said that.

It's not necessarilly a given. Plenty of good warships have served only to be sent to the breakers. Look at the old Enterprise CV-6. Served out the whole of WW2 only to be sent to the wreckers yards.

Or got sunk in port by bombing. That polished off about half the German surface fleet in 1945. Only two cruisers lived out the war and a handful of destroyers.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I can gurantee the Iowas have no AA other then Phalanc (how the fuck do you spell it)

[Sea Skimmer]

I can gurantee the Iowas have no AA other then Phalanc (how the fuck do you spell it)

Phalanx, some one in the USN likes Greek history. Though they did fight the first naval war so it makes sense.

[Patrick Degan]

I can gurantee the Iowas have no AA other then Phalanc (how the fuck do you spell it)

Phalanx, some one in the USN likes Greek history. Though they did fight the first naval war so it makes sense.

It's a moot question, given that the Iowas have finally been retired. We've seen the last of the battleship. There will never be another.

In any case, you can have any surface ship you like. Give me a nuclear attack submarine any day.

[Sea Skimmer]

I can gurantee the Iowas have no AA other then Phalanc (how the fuck do you spell it)

Phalanx, some one in the USN likes Greek history. Though they did fight the first naval war so it makes sense.

It's a moot question, given that the Iowas have finally been retired. We've seen the last of the battleship. There will never be another.

In any case, you can have any surface ship you like. Give me a nuclear attack submarine any day.

CAPTOR + Cluster Gulf=Very dead SSN

[Patrick Degan]

Phalanx, some one in the USN likes Greek history. Though they did fight the first naval war so it makes sense.

It's a moot question, given that the Iowas have finally been retired. We've seen the last of the battleship. There will never be another.

In any case, you can have any surface ship you like. Give me a nuclear attack submarine any day.

CAPTOR + Cluster Gulf=Very dead SSN

Stealth + Mk. 21 torpedo = Very Dead surface ship (a.k.a. Target)

[Sea Skimmer]

It's a moot question, given that the Iowas have finally been retired. We've seen the last of the battleship. There will never be another.

In any case, you can have any surface ship you like. Give me a nuclear attack submarine any day.

CAPTOR + Cluster Gulf=Very dead SSN

Stealth + Mk. 21 torpedo = Very Dead surface ship (a.k.a. Target)

Both of those mines are normaly laid by aircraft.