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The best parts of the whole movie!

 

https://youtu.be/C9Gq0DdCkwU

 

https://youtu.be/qd5MqjvhW9c

 

 

...now THAT's military MIGHT!

 

No planes dropping bombs, no missiles, just raw fucking POWER!

 

2700lbs of HE up to 24 MILES, propelled at 2500 FPS by ~660 POUNDS of smokeless propellant ...and they can destroy pretty much everything.

 

..they also had a NUCLEAR projectile that could be fired at 2,690 FPS. That's right. This thing could fire atomic bombs.

 

THUNDERSTUCK Indeed!

Edited by patriot
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They take a very large crew to run. There was some talk of refitting one or more with a reactor instead of the oil burners. That'd be cool. Think of the range!

...and they could use the fuel tanks to refuel the rest of the task force.

 

An Iowa Class Battleship as escort for a Nimitz Carrier! (They're almost the same length).  With one Arleigh Burke nevermind...redundant with the new battleship...and maybe a frigate(not needed), and 2 MH-60S Seahawks that'd be one scary ass battle group! 

 

2 ships less than a current Carrier Strike Force, greater versatility, and...... MORE POWER.

 

Or...instead of refitting an Iowa class, build the new Montana class, modernizing where needed.

 

Either way:

 

I did some bar napkin calculations, and came up with this:

Nuke power, Two Westinghouse A4W reactors, using the room freed up removing the oil fired steam plant. Tweak it for higher top speed (it'd have power to spare), upgraded electronics, use automation to reduce crew needed, etc. Of course, keep the big, nuke-spitting guns.  Ohio's got 9 of them. Montana class is designed for 12.

 

All the updates done for the Gulf war would go a long way toward modernization. Aegis system, Tomahawks, advanced imaging, etc.

 

It'd be a "super-destroyer", since we keep hearing "We don't need battleships".

 

We NEED to be the world's SOLE military superpower again.

Edited by patriot
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Not the a Nimitz, but still a fairly scary collection of hardware. Battle group Alpha, Iowa, Midway & supports.

 

Battle_Group_Alpha_%28Midway%2C_Iowa%29_

 

The numbers are kinda scary (regardless) if you convert them to handloading measurements.  Heaviest loads I ever rolled were 405 gr 45-70 using about 48 grains of powder.

 

16"/50 WWII AP 'load' burned 4.6 million grains of propellant to send a 18.9 million grain projectile downrange. 

 

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/watch-and-hear-the-last-time-the-battleship-wisconsin-f-1707956997

 

 

http://warshipsimages.com/7515/iowa-class-16-gun-vs-armor-taken-from-ijn-shinano

 

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If you ever visit DC, do not miss the museum at the Washington Naval Yard, they made 16" guns there in WWII. My dad ran the 350ton overhead crane there. Most amazing is a piece of japaneese armor 22" thick with a hole drilled throug it by a 16" AP round - broke the armor in half!

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Kinda lays to rest the whole concept of 'bulletproof'. Big, fast bullets.

 

35Yamato26InchArmorPlate.jpg

 

 

32Yamato26InchArmorPlate.jpg

That's 26" of solid armor steel from the Yamato. Punched through like it was a block of wax. Can you say "Bad day for you"?

 

The Yamato had bigger guns, but, even with bigger guns, it was no match for the Ohio Class. Nothing was.

 

Even Putin said if we brought back the Ohios, Russia would have nothing that could stand in their way.

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Just found this:

 

"All four Iowas were decommissioned in the early 1990s, making them the last battleships to see active service. USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin were, until fiscal year 2006, maintained to a standard where they could be rapidly returned to service as fire support vessels, pending the development of a superior fire support vessel."

 

They'd better get their asses moving! The mideast is about to erupt, North Korea is getting froggy too, and Putin knows Barry's a pussy.

Edited by patriot
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The best parts of the whole movie!

 

https://youtu.be/C9Gq0DdCkwU

 

https://youtu.be/qd5MqjvhW9c

 

 

...now THAT's military MIGHT!

 

No planes dropping bombs, no missiles, just raw fucking POWER!

 

2700lbs of HE up to 24 MILES, propelled at 2500 FPS by ~660 POUNDS of smokeless propellant ...and they can destroy pretty much everything.

 

..they also had a NUCLEAR projectile that could be fired at 2,690 FPS. That's right. This thing could fire atomic bombs.

 

THUNDERSTUCK Indeed!

I just watched that movie a couple days ago.  Now those are some BFGs.

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PSSSSSSSSST!

.....It was FICTION. 

 

 

I wonder where you'd want to mount the Navy's new rail gun?

 

https://video.foxnews.com/v/4034614962001/war-games-navy-debuts-new-star-wars-style-railgun-/

 

railgun.jpg?fit=5000%2C5000

 

I suggest three of them in the foremost turret.

Edited by patriot
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They take a very large crew to run. There was some talk of refitting one or more with a reactor instead of the oil burners. That'd be cool. Think of the range!

...and they could use the fuel tanks to refuel the rest of the task force.

 

An Iowa Class Battleship as escort for a Nimitz Carrier! (They're almost the same length).  With one Arleigh Burke nevermind...redundant with the new battleship...and maybe a frigate(not needed), and 2 MH-60S Seahawks that'd be one scary ass battle group! 

 

2 ships less than a current Carrier Strike Force, greater versatility, and...... MORE POWER.

 

Or...instead of refitting an Iowa class, build the new Montana class, modernizing where needed.

 

Either way:

 

I did some bar napkin calculations, and came up with this:

Nuke power, Two Westinghouse A4W reactors, using the room freed up removing the oil fired steam plant. Tweak it for higher top speed (it'd have power to spare), upgraded electronics, use automation to reduce crew needed, etc. Of course, keep the big, nuke-spitting guns.  Ohio's got 9 of them. Montana class is designed for 12.

 

All the updates done for the Gulf war would go a long way toward modernization. Aegis system, Tomahawks, advanced imaging, etc.

 

It'd be a "super-destroyer", since we keep hearing "We don't need battleships".

 

We NEED to be the world's SOLE military superpower again.

 

 

It was already sort of done with the USS Long Beach, the first and only nuclear-powered ship in the USN that was not a sub or a carrier. Number crunchers determined that it wasn't cost-effective compared to gas turbines or diesels, but one of the reasons for the LB being nuke powered was the huge electrical load of the early phased array radar it was designed to test.

 

Also if you read the Wiki entry, the LB was supposed to be missile-only until Kennedy stepped in as boss and said no Navy ship should sail without at least one big fucking gun. That's right the design was revised on orders of the president.. That would NEVER happen today.

 

I don't know how much room is freed up with boilers vs. nuclear - the reactor and containment vessel is going to be around the same size as a boiler. Both still have huge steam plants with large evaporators and condenser sets, and nuke plants also have serious cooling feedwater requirements requiring large heat exchangers.

 

OTOH with nuclear you can cut out FO tanks for everything except for emergency diesel generators.

 

In all likelihood a large battleship today would probably be powered by CODAG (probably not, gas turbines suck fuel), medium speed diesel, or diesel-electric.. If Navy is serious about their rail guns the ship would likely be diesel-electric, or at least would have one serious fucking genset, because the electrical load requirements are huge to support rail guns. D-E plants are about as efficient as things get any way, because you can connect and disconnect generators as necessary and the diesels almost always run at a set RPM regardless of load.

 

Wife's grandfather was a C/E on the commissioning of the Enterprise and said they had to scrap the electromagnetic catapult system and install a conventional steam system because even with 8 reactors the electromagnetic catapult drew too much electrical load. The EM catapult is basically a slow rail gun.

Edited by mancat
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I was wondering when someone would mention the failure of the old rail gun attempts. Also the navy Ram Gun, which is pretty neat, but impractical to field.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_accelerator

 

Basically the barrel is filled with a combustible gas. The projectile is fired into that with some conventional means. The projectile compresses the gas ahead of it, and allows it to leak behind. As the gas gets behind the projectile, it detonates, in a continuous thrust wave that follows the projectile all the way down the barrel. But it takes a stupid long barrel, so getting it on target from a mobile platform is impractical.

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They take a very large crew to run. There was some talk of refitting one or more with a reactor instead of the oil burners. That'd be cool. Think of the range!

...and they could use the fuel tanks to refuel the rest of the task force.

 

An Iowa Class Battleship as escort for a Nimitz Carrier! (They're almost the same length).  With one Arleigh Burke nevermind...redundant with the new battleship...and maybe a frigate(not needed), and 2 MH-60S Seahawks that'd be one scary ass battle group! 

 

2 ships less than a current Carrier Strike Force, greater versatility, and...... MORE POWER.

 

Or...instead of refitting an Iowa class, build the new Montana class, modernizing where needed.

 

Either way:

 

I did some bar napkin calculations, and came up with this:

Nuke power, Two Westinghouse A4W reactors, using the room freed up removing the oil fired steam plant. Tweak it for higher top speed (it'd have power to spare), upgraded electronics, use automation to reduce crew needed, etc. Of course, keep the big, nuke-spitting guns.  Ohio's got 9 of them. Montana class is designed for 12.

 

All the updates done for the Gulf war would go a long way toward modernization. Aegis system, Tomahawks, advanced imaging, etc.

 

It'd be a "super-destroyer", since we keep hearing "We don't need battleships".

 

We NEED to be the world's SOLE military superpower again.

 

 

It was already sort of done with the USS Long Beach, the first and only nuclear-powered ship in the USN that was not a sub or a carrier. Number crunchers determined that it wasn't cost-effective compared to gas turbines or diesels, but one of the reasons for the LB being nuke powered was the huge electrical load of the early phased array radar it was designed to test.

 

Also if you read the Wiki entry, the LB was supposed to be missile-only until Kennedy stepped in as boss and said no Navy ship should sail without at least one big fucking gun. That's right the design was revised on orders of the president.. That would NEVER happen today.

 

I don't know how much room is freed up with boilers vs. nuclear - the reactor and containment vessel is going to be around the same size as a boiler. Both still have huge steam plants with large evaporators and condenser sets, and nuke plants also have serious cooling feedwater requirements requiring large heat exchangers.

 

OTOH with nuclear you can cut out FO tanks for everything except for emergency diesel generators.

 

In all likelihood a large battleship today would probably be powered by CODAG (probably not, gas turbines suck fuel), medium speed diesel, or diesel-electric.. If Navy is serious about their rail guns the ship would likely be diesel-electric, or at least would have one serious fucking genset, because the electrical load requirements are huge to support rail guns. D-E plants are about as efficient as things get any way, because you can connect and disconnect generators as necessary and the diesels almost always run at a set RPM regardless of load.

 

Wife's grandfather was a C/E on the commissioning of the Enterprise and said they had to scrap the electromagnetic catapult system and install a conventional steam system because even with 8 reactors the electromagnetic catapult drew too much electrical load. The EM catapult is basically a slow rail gun.

 

I served 3 years in the Mar Det on the USS Long Beach.  I was also probalby one of the few Marine DCPO's.   During Battle Stations, the Marines manned the 5/38 guns.  I was in Sky 1, with the Mar Det Commander.  Why did it have 5" guns that were produced in 1938?  Because we didn't need power for them to operate.  We used them more then once for other then 'training'.  3 of the best years of my life, and certainly my career. 

 

The Long Beach's keel was origiinally laid to be a sister ship to the Enterprise Carrier.  But because, pound for pound, the Enterprise was the most expensive ship ever built, they shit canned it and turned it into the CGN-9.   Climbing those stairs every 30 mins really kicked my ass!   I miss her though. 

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I was wondering when someone would mention the failure of the old rail gun attempts. Also the navy Ram Gun, which is pretty neat, but impractical to field.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_accelerator

 

Basically the barrel is filled with a combustible gas. The projectile is fired into that with some conventional means. The projectile compresses the gas ahead of it, and allows it to leak behind. As the gas gets behind the projectile, it detonates, in a continuous thrust wave that follows the projectile all the way down the barrel. But it takes a stupid long barrel, so getting it on target from a mobile platform is impractical.

The old ones were a fail...but were improved. The latest iteration is pretty damned good.

 

Sea trials to commence in 2016

 

http://www.gizmag.com/us-navy-electromagnetic-railgun-sea-trials/31551/

 

 

More info on those wonderful 16" guns!

 

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.htm

 

Clip: 

 

"The Armor Piercing (AP) shell fired by these guns is capable of penetrating nearly 30 feet (9 m) of concrete, depending upon the range and obliquity of impact.  The High Capacity (HC) shell can create a crater 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep (15 x 6 m).  During her deployment off Vietnam, USS New Jersey (BB-62) occasionally fired a single HC round into the jungle and so created a helicopter landing zone 200 yards (180 m) in diameter and defoliated trees for 300 yards (270 m) beyond that."

 

How's that? Instant LZ!

 

 

...and the Mk-23 nuclear projectile: 1900lbs moving at 2,615 FPS, with a yield of 15-20 kiloton.

 

http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2532

 

 

....and what just ONE shell would do to Pyongyang and Tehran

 

 

THAT would put a stop to their shit!

 

...and with a very minimal impact on the rest of Korea and the Mideast.

 

CRAP! Tehran is too far inland. I guess they'll need to use a Tomahawk. 

Edited by patriot
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The Midway and the Iowa. Battle Group Alpha, Desert Shield.

 

battlegroup-058b.jpg

 

The USS Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955. It's hull was based on the new Montana-Class battleship design (Successor to the Iowas, sadly, never built)

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All of the above are completely weak, if the guy whose hand is on the trigger is weak or foolish about who to target and when. 

 

They don't get used, because it takes less moral courage to have a hundred inconspicuous men run in harms way to get slaughtered than to send one big shell to do the work and risk hitting someone unintended. If you make a mistake with a long range bomb, missile or artillery, the president is considered responsible. If he sends in troops and they get in an ugly massacre, then the troops are blamed for going off the leash. 

 

The predators sort of solve this p.r. problem (domestically) by sharing the blame among many people and layers of bureaucracy. For some reason a predator strike feels less to us like an act of war than a battleship barrage. On the other end, they are equally impersonal destruction.

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All of the above are completely weak, if the guy whose hand is on the trigger is weak or foolish about who to target and when. 

 

They don't get used, because it takes less moral courage to have a hundred inconspicuous men run in harms way to get slaughtered than to send one big shell to do the work and risk hitting someone unintended. If you make a mistake with a long range bomb, missile or artillery, the president is considered responsible. If he sends in troops and they get in an ugly massacre, then the troops are blamed for going off the leash. 

 

The predators sort of solve this p.r. problem (domestically) by sharing the blame among many people and layers of bureaucracy. For some reason a predator strike feels less to us like an act of war than a battleship barrage. On the other end, they are equally impersonal destruction.

Opinions are nice. I'm glad you have one. 

 

This is about 

American Military Power

 

not weak-assed politicians. We already have multiple threads on them.

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I just wanted to add a "shout out" to all the unsung heroes who support the big guns and news makers.

 

Here's to the scout planes, transport planes, freighters, tankers, lumpers and general ya-hoos who all help to keep our military running, oiled and armed!  :up:

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