Railguns and lasers are the hottest "future weaponry" going. While everyone is seeing it as a leap into the future, I have to wonder if what we're really doing is heading back to the past.
Consider the old Iowa class battleships. Now instead of conventional guns, think about these heavily armored, extremely fast monsters with railguns and lasers instead. I'm talking about four guns fore and aft. Lasers mounted to cover all sectors and maybe backed up with rolling airframe missiles and a couple of close in weapon systems (gatling guns). Add new high performance engines and suddenly you have a super weapon.
Nothing short of the USAF's bunker buster could kill it and it would shrug off the average anti-ship missile with ease.
As a matter of fact, nothing short of torpedoes could probably cause it much pain considering the punch of weapons today.
Just kidding but it would be a helluva fight.
I think it would be cool if they made a 280mm rail gun, same caliber on the iowa class battleships. Fire those bad boys off on a modern style battleship armed with cruise missiles. Imagine firing hundreds of rounds on a beach for Marines to invade. They can't shoot down a artillery shell from a rail gun. I think it would be great to build a few modern battle ship's similar to the role of the Iowa's. They fired those guns on Iraq in 1991, rail guns that size will have better range and firepower.
ReplyDeletewe're basically thinking the same thing. i just watched a vid of the Taiwanese practicing to repel a amphibious assault. it showed them launching MLRS and tanks driving up to preprepared positions to fire at the imagined landing craft or aav's. all that made me think that a battleship sitting off shore could pick off targets one at a time while Marines were enroute to the beach.
DeleteYou know I thought the Navy was supposed to put rail guns on their new DDG-1000 destroyers. Maybe in the future they could modify/upgrade them with two rail guns.
Deletethey are but considering the mission and thinking about what they'll be facing i wonder if they'll be tough enough to do the job. if they get extended range ammunition then they'll still be in range of shore artillery. we might see some old fashioned artillery duels between DDG 1000 and shore batteries that might make the difference between winning and losing damage control parties....but the Navy is going to minimum manning so the ships might end up winning the fight but losing the battle and going to davey jones locker.
Deletehttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana-class_battleship
ReplyDeleteDesigned to replace Iowas, would of had great armor.
Battleships will comeback one way or another...
ReplyDeleteStill wondering why those IOWAS never got a proper replacement...
when needed they are allways brought back to service:Vietnam war and then in the 1980s with the fear of the soviet KIROV class...its just a matter of time until they comeback again
Armor might make a comeback, but battleships probably never will. they are graceful giants, but they just remind me that they would be DF21 bait.
ReplyDeleteWith a proven, mature laser system in place of a turret, they could protect themselves, but I don't think we'll see large ships of that size simply because they would represent too much money in one convenient target.
It would be interested to see one with a couple of laser turrets on each side, a rail gun and laser turret in front with a VLS system in place of an aft turret.
i disagree. warships are getting larger. think about it. LHD's started at 18000 tons. now we're looking at the America class going at 40,000 tons that's bigger than a world war 2 aircraft carrier! not a escort carrier but a full sized fleet carrier. add to it the power required. unless we're about to go to an all nuclear fleet (which is probably a good idea) then the power requireed to use the railguns and lasers will play hell with a conventional systems which mean much larger generators or engines.
DeleteParalus, DF-21 is over rated. We can shoot down that missile, even if we need to fire multiple missiles at it. The DF-21 is expensive and China does not have large quantities. Lasers these days are not very powerful, so I would recommend sticking to missiles/artillery until they can knock a missile out of the sky in milliseconds.
DeleteYep, lasers aren't there yet, but hopefully will be in the next decade or so.
DeleteYou might need a ship that size just to run generators for rail-guns and directed-energy weapons.
From what I can see, there are 7 battleships that are museums that might be suitable in size. All 7 classes have two turret fore and one aft.
North Carolina-class (37000 tons)
USS North Carolina
South Dakota-class (35000 tons)
USS Massachussets
USS Alabama South
Iowa-class (45000 tons)
USS Iowa
USS Missouri
USS Wisconsin
USS New Jersey
It makes for nice fantasies, but it will never happen. Neat ideas.
yeah. fantasy for sure, but a nice what if!
DeleteFantasies? The Navy has plans for future upgrades for the DDG-1000 destroyers to have rail guns. Iowa class ships would be perfect sizes. Its already happening.
DeleteTechnology evolves, electronics get smaller and more powerful. 50 years from now we will see technology we never thought would exist. What if indeed!
DeleteHm... WRT lasers... How do they work in bad weather? Would it be bad form to attack with physical projectiles under a gale? A storm?
ReplyDeleteTake care.
Also (sorry, it just gelled): with new guided munitions, 76 and over naval guns are, I think, over the horizon. How do you strike OTH with a laser? UAV mirrors?
ReplyDeleteTake care.
the lasers are for defense. the railguns are for offense. they can be used for either purpose depending on the situation. blue green lasers can be used in fog, rain or other conditions found on the water.
DeleteI'm not so sure about that use. Also... electrical storms?
DeleteAs an extra layer, sure. As a gadget, cool. I'm a bit sceptic, overall. Mind you, IL seems to have used them pretty well.
Take care
you're just being needlessly argumentative. go get a drink of whiskey, and get out of the house. you're not even making sense.
DeleteOh god. I feel like I tripped and ended up in fanboy land. Even the goddamn Yamato's couldn't take on a 1940's carrier task force. An Iowa today would be dead before it even knew there WAS a taskforce to shoot at.
ReplyDeleteIowas were armed with tomahawk cruise missiles, your crazy.
DeleteWhen the Lasers and rail guns are perfected to a viable military system, then because of the power requirements the natural shift will be to large ships probably nuclear. I think the ship killing role is going to stay with the fly boys especially considering the vision of today's battlefield eyes. Ships will be used for the blockade, escort, and power projection roles.
ReplyDeletePower projection is were the rail guns will be a game changer. Over half of the world population live within 60 miles of the shore. Railguns bring the ability to fire rounds at hyper sonic speeds (making them immune to counter measures), ranges around 600 miles inland, and the ability to make old school saturation attacks deep into enemy territory. Figure giving your ships a 200 mile buffer from the shore to give reaction time for anti ship missiles and you still are hitting targets 400 miles deep. Go look at googlemaps and 400 miles in from the shore is deadly power projection.
examples
-China sitting on the southern tip of SKorea you can hit all of NKorea, Beijing, Mouth of the Yangtze river. Sitting on E coast of Taiwan you can hammer the whole of the south china sea and deep into the Chinese staging areas.
-Afghanistan a landlocked country you could sit right off the Paki coast and hammer on Southern Afghanistan and the whole of the Warizi border lands.
Big ships will be needed for the power, heavy armor to survive close to the shore and speed to stay a moving target.
The DF-21 ship killer I don't believe is even really intended for our carrier fleet. Hitting a fast moving zigging target with heavy countermeasures both soft and hard I just don't see it happening. However using the DF-21 to close ports, deny the enemy use of safe harbors, and especially target big lumbering oil tankers. I think the DF-21 is intended to be the modern day version of the U-boat cutting the supply lines of the enemy "X island" nation, you pick the X of Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, or even Vietnam. No oil no fight.
Giving the speed of railgun projectiles, measured in kilometers per second, it may be possible to create weapon system which could defeat starting ICBM's before they left atmosphere and deploy countermeasures. One battleship with a railgun near NK in theory could intercept any kind of ballistic missiles launched from there.
ReplyDeleteOr we can have a "ballistic" artillery capable of launching projectile into orbit, and to any place on the earth... So technically it can be placed in a remote secure location and reach any target on the Earth with a volley of kinetic projectiles within minutes. Quick, effective, and environmentally friendly.