New Fast-Attack Nuclear Submarines to be Named Arizona and Oklahoma

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

That may have been true before sub-launched cruise missiles. The trick is getting far enough away from where the missiles break the surface to remain undetected.

The military objective may not be to sink a carrier, only to make it stop hurting you for a period of time. Disabling a carrier puts the entire task force out of business. It is false economics to look at the cost and personnel on a carrier. You have to account for the entire task force, which probably includes some submarines. You have to wonder how sustainable the concept of a floating airport is. They are looking more like ironclads and battleships to me.

As Obsolete as a Battleship: Why Is the U.S. Navy Still Building Aircraft Carriers?

At some point, UAVs flown form half way around the world or weapons deployed from space will accomplish the mission with less risk, much faster mobilization, and lower investment. Interesting times.

I'm just a civvie, but one with an interest in history and I can't say I see things going that way anytime soon. I recall back in the late 1940s when Truman mothballed a big chunk of the USN's carrier fleet because the USAF was promising they could make armies and navies obsolete with B-36s and A-bombs. Then Korea happened and we realized our guys needed close air support and they needed it to come from some place closer than Japan that wasn't at risk of getting overrun.

Combined arms is always going to be the way to go in warfare; subs and missiles can do scary things but they're not going to replace everything a flattop can do. Carrier groups are not invincible; frankly I think one of the dumber things we do is drive them up the Strait of Hormuz within cannon-shot range of Iran every time someone in the Gulf cuts a loud fart. The idea behind a carrier is to keep it back where it can't easily get hit (or even be found in the first place; 4.5 acres of flight deck is awfully small in the open ocean) and still hit the enemy, and keep at it for months at a time. In the future that may require adding UCAVs and standoff missiles to carrier wings to keep the enemy at arm's length, and subs will become more important assets for kicking down the door and sanitizing areas. But until combat aviation itself is rendered entirely obsolete, I don't see carriers going away.
 
I echo some thoughts here that although technology has made great strides since the end of ww2, our naval tactics hasn't. We saw that napoleonic tactics did not work on the battlefields of the first world war, and we learned that the tactics of the first world war didn't work for the second world war. We have yet to face a modern peer on the seas that pose a true threat. Even the Soviets were no match for our tactics. They relied heavily on their subs. I think the British learned a very hard lesson in the Falklands, and one I hope we learn from also.

Carriers are vulnerable in their own right just like the battleships and dreadnoughts before them. However unlike the battle wagons, carriers exert a lot of firepower that goes a very long way. Carriers are "states in being" when they need to exert their presence far from our shores. Some of use here believe that the big guns of the battleships are still relevant today for a different role than what was planned. However due to missile and airplane mafia running our defense industry, we see a reliance on carriers (missile carrying aircraft) and their missile carrying escorts.

I know people that worked in the Iowa class that said modern 16" shells that were SCRAM or Sabots could reach 90 miles from the coast. Far more than the 24 miles that the guns were designed for.

I think the Navy's idea of loading up the Ohio class SSBM's with 160+ tomahawks is a great idea. I am against the idea of diesel power subs though as that is not in our interest or current defense doctrine.
 
I echo some thoughts here that although technology has made great strides since the end of ww2, our naval tactics hasn't. We saw that napoleonic tactics did not work on the battlefields of the first world war, and we learned that the tactics of the first world war didn't work for the second world war. We have yet to face a modern peer on the seas that pose a true threat. Even the Soviets were no match for our tactics. They relied heavily on their subs. I think the British learned a very hard lesson in the Falklands, and one I hope we learn from also.

Carriers are vulnerable in their own right just like the battleships and dreadnoughts before them. However unlike the battle wagons, carriers exert a lot of firepower that goes a very long way. Carriers are "states in being" when they need to exert their presence far from our shores. Some of use here believe that the big guns of the battleships are still relevant today for a different role than what was planned. However due to missile and airplane mafia running our defense industry, we see a reliance on carriers (missile carrying aircraft) and their missile carrying escorts.

I know people that worked in the Iowa class that said modern 16" shells that were SCRAM or Sabots could reach 90 miles from the coast. Far more than the 24 miles that the guns were designed for.

I think the Navy's idea of loading up the Ohio class SSBM's with 160+ tomahawks is a great idea. I am against the idea of diesel power subs though as that is not in our interest or current defense doctrine.

The problem with putting a 90-mile gun on a warship is that we're now in an era where an aircraft with a 500-mile combat radius (and potentially equipped with 250-mile range missiles) is considered short-legged; Ricky Gervais has a routine about the Falklands where he describes a "range war" as holding a midget at arm's length and punching him in the crotch. What makes carriers work is that a 50-year old carrier can still launch and land any aircraft that will fit a rather generous set of size, speed, and weight restrictions; if the Navy had decided to go all-in on the UCAV route instead of first getting its feet wet with an unmanned tanker we could have been looking at drones capable of delivering 5,000 lbs of ordnance out to 2000 miles in the very near future. The other thing is that in order to hit a target at range you have to find and fix it first, and a carrier brings its own long-range search and targeting assets to the party.

Subs have a much more range-limited set of sensors, although technology is making some steps there: Ohio Guided Missile Submarines Were Designed To Be Drone-Carrying Clandestine Command Centers
 
There is something that 90 mile gun can do that the carrier cannot, deliver that payload faster and more frequently. Think artillery, in fact the are floating artillery platforms, great for infantry support. That is why the battleships though decommissioned are not scrapped, they are kept so they can be recomissioned fairly we quickly should the need arise. Each ship/gun has pluses and minuses.
 
All four Iowa class (Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Missouri) are all decommissioned permanently. The last one (Wisconsin) was sold in 2012. Now they don't even have to be kept in a state of readiness. They welded the guns on the Wisconsin in place, and her harpoon and tomahawk missile batteries are actually homemade duplicates. Supposedly the navy demanded that sand be run through the engines to make them unusable. However I dont think that happened to any of them. Then in 2016-17 fiscal year, all 16" shells held in armory were to be scrapped.

The USS Little Rock, Texas, North Carolina, Washington, and Alabama were extensively stripped for parts in the early 80s for the recomissioning of the Iowas. So if they were low on parts when they were in their late 40s imagine how hard it would be when they are now pushing into their early 80s. Steel ages too, even if it hasnt been used.

I do feel that it is a shame that big gun platforms and the BBG/BBNG of the 60s did not pan out.
 
All four Iowa class (Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Missouri) are all decommissioned permanently. The last one (Wisconsin) was sold in 2012. Now they don't even have to be kept in a state of readiness. They welded the guns on the Wisconsin in place, and her harpoon and tomahawk missile batteries are actually homemade duplicates. Supposedly the navy demanded that sand be run through the engines to make them unusable. However I dont think that happened to any of them. Then in 2016-17 fiscal year, all 16" shells held in armory were to be scrapped.

The USS Little Rock, Texas, North Carolina, Washington, and Alabama were extensively stripped for parts in the early 80s for the recomissioning of the Iowas. So if they were low on parts when they were in their late 40s imagine how hard it would be when they are now pushing into their early 80s. Steel ages too, even if it hasnt been used.

I do feel that it is a shame that big gun platforms and the BBG/BBNG of the 60s did not pan out.

To correct that list, the remaining museum BBs besides the Iowas are the Texas (which as a pre-WWI design would be of minimal parts value and the poor old girl is not in the best state of conservation), North Carolina (one of the turrets was entirely gutted to refurbish the Iowas), Massachusetts, and Alabama. North Carolina's sister ship Washington and the two other South Dakotas (South Dakota and Indiana) were not saved for preservation and were scrapped in the early 1960s. Washington's unceremonious end was a shame, as she was the only US battleship to singlehandedly engage and sink an enemy BB (well, a WWI battlecruiser with just enough armor refitted on to be considered a "fast battleship"). Little Rock was a Cleveland-class light cruiser refitted as a missile cruiser in the 1950s (which removed three of her four triple 6-inch main battery turrets and all but one of her twin 5-inch mounts).

In reality, the recommissioning of the Iowas in the 1980s was principally a propaganda move; the Soviets had just come out with the Kirov-class missile cruiser and we wanted something bigger and more intimidating. The only real value those 16-inch guns had in the modern era was shore bombardment, and while this could be effective it put a large, expensive capital ship and about 1,800 sailors right in the preferred kill zone for mines, antiship missiles, and diesel subs (the first two of which were a serious concern in the Persian Gulf). The Iowa design in any case was considered to have sacrificed too much protection for speed at the time it was drawn up in the late 1930s; they're still arguably the best battleships the world ever saw but for a battle line unit the Navy was looking to the later Montana-class design with 33% more firepower and armor. The main reason the Iowas hung around so long in reserve was ironically enough because they were the only BBs fast enough to keep up with the now carrier-centric fleet; even at 27-28 knots the NCs and SDs were considered too slow.

Much as I do like the big gun platforms, their time came and went. Nowadays, if you park a 60,000-ton warship with minimal antiair and missile defenses (the Navy thought about adding Sea Sparrow missiles in the 1980s, but the blast effects of the 16-inch guns would have wrecked the guidance systems) within gun range of a well-armed opponent, you can expect to take a lot of fire that 12 inches of Class B armor plate might not keep out.
 
I mixed up Massachusetts with Washington. The Little Rock was stripped of her CIC equipment and parts from her 5" guns for the New Jersey. In fact they had to flood Little Rock up to her 3rd deck to get her under the bridge near Rochester.

I think gears were stripped from Texas, but my friend could have mistakenly taken all of our BB museum ships in stride as the Olyimpia isnt on that list! I know about the Little Rock as my uncle is served on her and is currently part of the organization that runs her.

I think the Iowa class despite their supposed shortcomings in armor was fully capable of taking anything modern but a modern torpedo. There are so many factors for and against big gun boats, but the Iowas have seen their times and served them wonderfully. Now it's time for them to rest. However I think the concept of them still needs to be addressed. We are not dealing with them as ironclad or as ships of the line, but a platform that is armored, provides cheap fire support, and has that spectre of power like a carrier. I think the proposals in the 1960s would work today.

Submarines despite their terrifying image cannot take on an entire battle group. That was a hard learned lesson for the Germans on both bouts and the Soviets were embarrassed (along with us) a few times around. A submarine is like a big cat; powerful, predatory, but avoids groups as it can quickly find itself at a disadvantage once it reveals itself.
 
Looks like for SSN-804 at least the Navy is going back to fish names; until one of the Ohio-class boats gets taken away I think they're out of state names.

SECNAV Names Attack Boat After WWII USS Barb, DDG for Former SECNAV Lehman - USNI News

Plenty of state names not in use, and they are not limited to Ohio class SSBN / SSGN (18 total). State names are also used on SSNs and a lonely LPD.

List of United States Navy ships named after US states - Wikipedia
 
List of United States Navy ships named after US states - Wikipedia

It is interesting how many battleships (BBs) were cancelled. It's hard to believe that the navy thought they would need about 20 more battleships even by the middle of WWII.

Naval planning must have been a total mess after Pearl Harbor. Carriers were the next big thing but are really vulnerable. Battleship big guns were of no use against aircraft and can't compete for range. Nuclear subs and the cold war weren't foreseeable. I still don't think the navy understood the importance of transporting Marines even at the end of the war. The UDT came close to getting the ax many times before Kennedy's special forces mandate.

I guess it comes down to hindsight versus being stuck in the past. I think navies are at particular risk of being stuck in the past because their career paths were tied to commanding big capital ships and more ships equals more opportunity. Not much glory being a taxi for Marines.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom