Armageddon???? - Part Eighty One Up

[The Duchess of Zeon]

North Carolina is the only North Carolina class battleship in existence. The others are South Dakota class.

[Sea Skimmer]

Unfortunately, the best I can tell is that you're going to be able to cobble together a force of 4 Ticonderoga-class CGs of the first flight (non-VLS), 4 Spruance-class destroyers, and 5 or 6 OHPs, as well as, most interestingly, 5 Belknap class CGs which are stored at Suisun. They were given NTU and then almost immediately decommissioned, and might be quite viable additions to the fleet again.

Only two Belknaps are left as far as I can tell, USS Jouett and USS Horne. They’ve been out of service since 1993-94 and are already stripped, its probably not worth the protracted yard effort to bring them back.

I was thinking we might see Ranger on top of that, and if you really wanted to we could probably cannibalize three of the Iowa's to restore one to service, but apparently Ranger isn't in as good condition as I thought (I know America and Independence are total write-offs, as is JFK), and I don't see much point in reactivating a single Iowa--nor does Stuart.

America was blown to pieces and sunk in 2005 for tests of supercarrier survivability.

They'll be solid anti-aircraft artillery platforms, if nothing else. I wonder how many 40mm bofors we can pile on the ships before they head in to deal with harpies? Same thing with the AORs--everything that goes through should have its decks festooned with 3in/50's and 40mm's.

Not as many as you might hope; modern warships generally have much more top weight for the size then WW2 warships did, before we started massively increasing automatic weapons batteries. This means they have less margin for those additions without adding permanent ballast.

A real priority is going to have to be arming every last tanker, freighter and transport in Military Sealift Command. Those ships are absolutely vital, and yet as it stands the only armament any of them has is a few .50cal machine guns bolted on when they head for the Middle East.

Given the threat of Kraken attacks, and the expense of homing torpedoes I’m sure someone will quickly develop a hydrostatic fuse for existing mk80 series aircraft bombs to convert them into depth charges. I wouldn’t be surprised if such a design already exists on paper in real life.

Littoral Combat Ship will probably be redesigned into a much more useful and sane project. Something like a 28 knot high endurance diesel electric patrol ship intended for mass production above all else. Armament would be 2-3 single 57mm guns, some lighter automatic weapons, depth charge racks and RAM launchers employing some kind of simplified missile that can guide on Harpies.

[Col. Crackpot]

North Carolina is the only North Carolina class battleship in existence. The others are South Dakota class.

brain fart. I knew that.

[Stuart]

Mamie is in rough shape. All of her guns from breeches to barrels are filled with concrete. All but one of her engine rooms were scrapped for parts. She has lots of cleaned up spaces which serve well as a museum ship. I think as far as the North Carolina's go, you're best going with the class' namesake. Still, you are dealing with a hull and superstructure over 70 years old.

She isn't rough, she's probably in the best condition of all the battleship memorials but none of them are worth refitting. New Jersey and Missouri are effectively unarmed; when they were stricken they were ordered demilled and by the time that was countermanded, 3/4 inch angle irons had been welded inside the breeches of their guns. That damage is irreperable, the guns are gone. Iowa and Wisconsin are in better shape and technically could be brought back in about a year or so but it just isn't worth the effort.

Top priority is getting the unrep fleet built up and arming the ships witha s many auto-cannon as can physically be stuffed on board. Time to by shares in Oerlikon, Bofors and Oto-Melara.

[gtg947h]

New Jersey and Missouri are effectively unarmed; when they were stricken they were ordered demilled and by the time that was countermanded, 3/4 inch angle irons had been welded inside the breeches of their guns. That damage is irreperable, the guns are gone.

And what Godforsaken piece of McNamara ordered that?

[Bayonet]

In other words, your ethics are subjective, inconsistent and non-utilitarian.

It's perfectly utilitarian. Our side wins, therefore our side survives. Can't get much more utilitarian than that. I don't have much use for abstracts, when it comes to our survival.

Short of survival, I propose the "Improved Golden Rule." Do unto Others as They would have done unto Them. Preying upon sentient creatures is more or less dirty pool. The trick is defining what are sentient creatures. This is the dilemma the Baldricks have got themselves into. Their cattle suddenly turned out to be, not only sentient, but meaner than they are.

I weep for them [Crossing fingers behind back.] but it's a situation we should probably keep in the back of our mind.

But once the shit is in the fan, it may be war to the knife and knife to the hilt. In that case, I lose interest in morality. It's back to Our Side Wins. That's the basic law of Darwinism. Win or die.

[Stormbringer]

New Jersey and Missouri are effectively unarmed; when they were stricken they were ordered demilled and by the time that was countermanded, 3/4 inch angle irons had been welded inside the breeches of their guns. That damage is irreperable, the guns are gone.

And what Godforsaken piece of McNamara ordered that?

Some one with the sense to realize that it was time to retire them for good?

They're big, impressive ships but in actuality their day is passed. The kind of threat that would both justify their reactivation and actually give us the time to do so is virtually non-existent. In that light, the games being played with their status were a waste of money and the USN simply doesn't really have the cash to play them. By demilling them for good it effectively ends a lot of unfunded Congressional games.

[Bayonet]

“He fought at Prokhorovka. With the Panzers, Heer, not SS.”

Galkin nodded. Odd coincidence. “My father also fought at Prokohorovka. And later.”

There was a long silence, neither man quite certain what to say next.

Our firm had a number of former WW-II German military personnel.

A bunch of years ago, at an annual golf outing, two guys were teamed in a foursome. One had been in the 82nd ABN, and had jumped into St. Mere Iglese. In conversation, it turned out the other had been in the Wehrmacht, and had been defending the town. The ABN Trooper had been hiding under the church so prominently portrayed in The Longest Day He never knew about the Trooper hanging from the steeple; he was busy.

The more they talked, the closer the American and the German came to each other. They never actually decided whether they had been firing at each other, but they could each visualize exactly where the other was.

Suddenly, they both broke off the conversation and decided they had urgent business with the bartender.

[Stuart Mackey]

New Jersey and Missouri are effectively unarmed; when they were stricken they were ordered demilled and by the time that was countermanded, 3/4 inch angle irons had been welded inside the breeches of their guns. That damage is irreperable, the guns are gone.

And what Godforsaken piece of McNamara ordered that?

Some one with the sense to realize that it was time to retire them for good?

They're big, impressive ships but in actuality their day is passed. The kind of threat that would both justify their reactivation and actually give us the time to do so is virtually non-existent. In that light, the games being played with their status were a waste of money and the USN simply doesn't really have the cash to play them. By demilling them for good it effectively ends a lot of unfunded Congressional games.

Lol, and demilitarising them wasn't a political game?
Having worked in a museum doing that is a disgrace, and it sounds like spite given the nature of the NFS debate, and it didn't have to be done.
That aside there is no need for such vessels in a navy IRL, nor in this fiction, imo, existing systems are working very well and money and resources should be put into much more of what works well now, rather than old systems that have no visible purpose other than to look cool.

[Stormbringer]

Lol, and demilitarising them wasn't a political game?
Having worked in a museum doing that is a disgrace, and it sounds like spite given the nature of the NFS debate, and it didn't have to be done.

Of course it was a political move, did I say it wasn't?

That said, I wouldn't consider the historical loss that great. The chances of the guns being kept in working order is virtually nil. None of the SoDaks or the North Carolina have operational guns either. It's shame but it was necessary to end the rather pointless and expensive demand from congresscritters and battleship fanboys to keep the hope alive. I doubt it was spite. The intention, I think, behind spiking the guns like that was simply to end the rather pointless debate and attendant (unfunded) requirement to keep the ships in reserve. Having seen the die hards in action, it was going to take something as pointed as that to actually end it.

[Bayonet]

I think we're going to have to do an Armageddon Blooper Thread. Completed with deleted scenes

You're having WAY to much fun, here.

Not that I'm complaining.

[K. A. Pital]

Restoring battleships is worthless.

Also, I'd love to hear just why Kirovs are of any use in Hell - large, um... "naval demons" as targets?

Because they are dedicated ship killers intended to sink heavy opposing ships with missile fire, but not small human-like targets and such

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Only two Belknaps are left as far as I can tell, USS Jouett and USS Horne. They’ve been out of service since 1993-94 and are already stripped, its probably not worth the protracted yard effort to bring them back.

Damn. Can you identify the ships in this image, then?

I just think it's a pity the reserve fleet has vanished so rapidly to the point we might as well not have one at all.

The AORs, are, granted, more important.

I suppose the hulls would, even if the other systems are removed, though, still be valuable for the fact that they're fast enough to cover the carriers and can be crammed full of anti-aircraft artillery. I mean, against harpies, wouldn't the ideal ships really be the Atlanta and Worcester CLAAs?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I wonder if some of those old hulls like the surviving old cruisers/destroyers that might be available--including museum ships--might be useful simply by virtue of being fast. Do they really need electronics and so on against harpies? This may be the singular argument for USS Iowa and Wisconsin--and it means not reactivating the big guns--there's no real point for them. The only purpose for reactivating them would be to park 120 x 40mm bofors and 60 x 20mm Oerlikon along with some 5in/38cal next to a carrier in Hell.

If the ships are overweight, you can chop antennae and other things off them, with small, short-range datalinks to the modern ships being relied on. It's quite possible that some of the fast AORs and so on might have to be used in the same role, and I wonder if some extremely fast civilian ships (of which there are unfortunately not many) could also be used for the role.

The Cyclone class Patrol Craft should probably go into mass production, it could probably have its armament increased to 4 x 40mm in two twins and 10 x 20mm singles in place of the current two 25mm, two 40mm grenade launchers, 5 x .50cal and 2 M-60s, if the aft boat crane and Zodiac was also removed--the design after all at 331 tons is the size of some WW1 German GTBs. Might be able to churn a fairly large number of them out in short order, and use the older ships as gunboat tenders--a possible role for some of the elderly combatants that can still be knocked back into shape to at least make steam.

The problem is really one of simply getting as many autocannon as possible into defensive lines around the carriers.

I wonder if we'll be buying back or at least integrating into the groups some old destroyers sitting around rusting from South America? Anyway, it's basically a situation of Anything to add more antiaircraft firepower.

[Hawkwings]

Restoring battleships is worthless.

Also, I'd love to hear just why Kirovs are of any use in Hell - large, um... "naval demons" as targets?

Because they are dedicated ship killers intended to sink heavy opposing ships with missile fire, but not small human-like targets and such

You forget, in the very beginning, second chapter in fact, a submarine kills a swimming Herald with a pair of torpedoes. I'm sure there will be large swimming demons around.

[fb111a]

Only two Belknaps are left as far as I can tell, USS Jouett and USS Horne. They’ve been out of service since 1993-94 and are already stripped, its probably not worth the protracted yard effort to bring them back.

Damn. Can you identify the ships in this image, then?

I just think it's a pity the reserve fleet has vanished so rapidly to the point we might as well not have one at all.

The AORs, are, granted, more important.

I suppose the hulls would, even if the other systems are removed, though, still be valuable for the fact that they're fast enough to cover the carriers and can be crammed full of anti-aircraft artillery. I mean, against harpies, wouldn't the ideal ships really be the Atlanta and Worcester CLAAs?

The 76mm guns used on the Perry-class frigates would be nice if you could mass them (say in triples). They'd make a nice wall of lead.

We used to be able to put 24 40mm Bofors and 16 20mm AA guns on a World War II-era Portland-class cruiser. A present-day Burke-class destroyer's not much smaller.

Also, I'd probably fit as many M2 and M60 machine guns as possible on the ships.

[Dargos]

Damn. Can you identify the ships in this image, then?

I just think it's a pity the reserve fleet has vanished so rapidly to the point we might as well not have one at all.

The AORs, are, granted, more important.

I suppose the hulls would, even if the other systems are removed, though, still be valuable for the fact that they're fast enough to cover the carriers and can be crammed full of anti-aircraft artillery. I mean, against harpies, wouldn't the ideal ships really be the Atlanta and Worcester CLAAs?

I think I recocgnize a few Knox class frigates...the Battleship is an Iowa class and I think it may be the USS Iowa.

::edit::
Here is a link to an inventory pdf as of May 2008. Hope it helps.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Damn. Can you identify the ships in this image, then?

I just think it's a pity the reserve fleet has vanished so rapidly to the point we might as well not have one at all.

The AORs, are, granted, more important.

I suppose the hulls would, even if the other systems are removed, though, still be valuable for the fact that they're fast enough to cover the carriers and can be crammed full of anti-aircraft artillery. I mean, against harpies, wouldn't the ideal ships really be the Atlanta and Worcester CLAAs?

I think I recocgnize a few Knox class frigates...the Battleship is an Iowa class and I think it may be the USS Iowa.

More than a few seem to have a twin-arm launcher forward and a gun aft, however, which the arrangement of a couple 1960s guided missile ship classes as I recall. I wonder if this satellite photo hasn't been updated in a while? But google seems to insist it's fresh. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any Knox's, though it looks like one of the twin-arm Ticonderoga's is there, but that's to be expected. A Spru-can or two as well. Not sure about a few of the others. I think that's a Tarawa with a flat deck, and that is, in fact, USS Iowa. Plenty of UNREP, though.

[Dargos]

Damn. Can you identify the ships in this image, then?

I just think it's a pity the reserve fleet has vanished so rapidly to the point we might as well not have one at all.

The AORs, are, granted, more important.

I suppose the hulls would, even if the other systems are removed, though, still be valuable for the fact that they're fast enough to cover the carriers and can be crammed full of anti-aircraft artillery. I mean, against harpies, wouldn't the ideal ships really be the Atlanta and Worcester CLAAs?

I think I recocgnize a few Knox class frigates...the Battleship is an Iowa class and I think it may be the USS Iowa.

More than a few seem to have a twin-arm launcher forward and a gun aft, however, which the arrangement of a couple 1960s guided missile ship classes as I recall. I wonder if this satellite photo hasn't been updated in a while? But google seems to insist it's fresh. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any Knox's, though it looks like one of the twin-arm Ticonderoga's is there, but that's to be expected. A Spru-can or two as well. Not sure about a few of the others. I think that's a Tarawa with a flat deck, and that is, in fact, USS Iowa. Plenty of UNREP, though.

According to the inventory(see above link I edited in) There are no real combat ships stored at Suisun other than the Iowa. So either Google maps is way out of date or the offical inventory is wrong.

::edit:: screw it. heres the link again to the inventory so you don't have to scroll around looking for it.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

[

According to the inventory(see above link I edited in) There are no real combat ships stored at Suisun other than the Iowa. So either Google maps is way out of date or the offical inventory is wrong.

I'd lean toward the former, but I'm not sure MARAD has control over all the ships there.

[JBG]

Thomas Jefferson

I think that Jefferson has never been used because he was not great to the navy. I seem to remember one past president has certainly been excluded for reasons like that.
At least the RN does not name its capital ships after politicians, thank heavens (no pun intended).

Indeed, the British have always had much better sense when it comes to naming warships (just forget about the stereotype perpetuating HMS Pansy).

LOL, yes Stuart the flower class given the wartime requirement for lots of hulls came up with some interesting names for tough little ships. Azaelia was my favourite. When it came to big, seriously potent ships, names like "Invincible", "Furious", "Warspite" were used!!!

As to US ship naming conventions, I am reminded of Rickover's comment when asked why the Los Angeles class was named after a city rather than a fish, said:

"Fish don't vote"

Rickover didn't start the process but certainly he let the cat out of the bag.

Jonathan

[JBG]

I wonder if some of those old hulls like the surviving old cruisers/destroyers that might be available--including museum ships--might be useful simply by virtue of being fast. Do they really need electronics and so on against harpies? This may be the singular argument for USS Iowa and Wisconsin--and it means not reactivating the big guns--there's no real point for them. The only purpose for reactivating them would be to park 120 x 40mm bofors and 60 x 20mm Oerlikon along with some 5in/38cal next to a carrier in Hell.

If the ships are overweight, you can chop antennae and other things off them, with small, short-range datalinks to the modern ships being relied on. It's quite possible that some of the fast AORs and so on might have to be used in the same role, and I wonder if some extremely fast civilian ships (of which there are unfortunately not many) could also be used for the role.

The Cyclone class Patrol Craft should probably go into mass production, it could probably have its armament increased to 4 x 40mm in two twins and 10 x 20mm singles in place of the current two 25mm, two 40mm grenade launchers, 5 x .50cal and 2 M-60s, if the aft boat crane and Zodiac was also removed--the design after all at 331 tons is the size of some WW1 German GTBs. Might be able to churn a fairly large number of them out in short order, and use the older ships as gunboat tenders--a possible role for some of the elderly combatants that can still be knocked back into shape to at least make steam.

The problem is really one of simply getting as many autocannon as possible into defensive lines around the carriers.

I wonder if we'll be buying back or at least integrating into the groups some old destroyers sitting around rusting from South America? Anyway, it's basically a situation of Anything to add more antiaircraft firepower.

That is a particularly good idea. Gunboats, FACs, large patrol craft and the modern small corvettes would be cheaper and faster to produce to get some bang for the buck rather than restoring BBs to service or completing the two CVNs on the slips. Though, god would I find two modernised and equipped appropriately for this war BBs in service most, most impressive!

In any event, Stuart knows modern naval capabilities backwards so any scenario will work!

For a naval force flying creatures are a known significant risk. The attributes of the kraken are unknown. Perhaps, at the outset SKs and SKNs should be sent in first to scout, identify and analyse the kraken ( let alone studying the water and coastlines etc ) before assets of the extent of CVNs are sent through. Modern subs are excellent sensor platforms and apart from obvious weaponry such as torpedoes and missles the active sonar has been shown to be most effective.

Jonathan

[Stuart Mackey]

That said, I wouldn't consider the historical loss that great.

That depends on the time period, now, in fifty years, 200 years from now.

The chances of the guns being kept in working order is virtually nil.

Why not? ? not like its that hard to do.

None of the SoDaks or the North Carolina have operational guns either.

So ruining one lot of weapons is an excuse to ruin another lot? you dont preserve history by doing that.

It's shame but it was necessary to end the rather pointless and expensive demand from congresscritters and battleship fanboys to keep the hope alive. I doubt it was spite.

Bollocks. See below

The intention, I think, behind spiking the guns like that was simply to end the rather pointless debate and attendant (unfunded) requirement to keep the ships in reserve. Having seen the die hards in action, it was going to take something as pointed as that to actually end it.

They wanted to end the chance of one faction nicking the money for their pet project or future project, and some ones pet project had to die. So yeah, it was spite, they did it because they could. They were not coming back, their was no money, it was not necessary.

[JN1]

Rickover didn't start the process but certainly he let the cat out of the bag.

JBG, when I was tweaking the USN ORBAT for TLW I took great pleasure in giving traditional names to the additional Seawolf SSNs, and doing the same to carriers. I assigned some of the presidential names (Carter, Bush Snr, Ford) to escorts.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm sure there will be large swimming demons around.

We should use the most primitive depth charges, methinks, and use hordes of BDKs and similar class ships, destroyers mostly, to deal with them.

The Kirovs are overkill, but sending the ships is warranted in case there's something yet bigger in hell that we don't know about.