32 replies to this topic

[Zero]

I was thinking the other day.... why are carries unarmed? Seriously, why not add sixteen inch guns to those babies, just two or three to help them defend themselves? Is it structural intergrity? Or weight? If it's weight then come on... I mean these behemoths already weigh an assload, and since you're on water, the best sort of medium for big-ass guns, why don't you add them and work around it (try to increase power to engines...) Any ideas?

On top of that, aircraft run out of missiles, and their guns aren't as effective as the shells that weigh enough to crush a man. Simply put, NOTHING in this universe matches the power of good old ironsides, give them a two/three/four shell volley and enjoy the fireworks. For close range defense, it'll help if ever needed and why send out planes when you're dealing with a few terrorists on a weakass boat?

AND why not add the all important one-two punch? It comes in useful when you need to effectively and cheaply shell a beach, does it not? I love big guns, just like everyone else does, and I want a carrier (I love those babies) with one! I also want a subcarrier.... but that's for later. Anyways, maybe you can even add a few railguns, hah! What do you think?

[Warbz]

I think it's more to do with the extra cost, room required, electrics, computing etc.

[Soul]

If your talking about Aircraft carriers, they are indeed armed. However it's mainly anti-air and anti-missile defences, they rely on their escort ships like cruisers to protect them from enemy ships.

[Waris]

The same reason you don't equip a carrier with a flight deck, the planes and helos, the accomodation for hundreds of flight crews etc.

[Foxhound]

Theoretically, the CIWS turrets can be used in self defense against patrol boats and small ships (frigates, maybe) as an emergency measure. However, the only people to try to put flight decks on direct-combat oriented ships (Japan, Russia) found that they really weren't the effort, and that seaplanes (in Japan's case) or a few helicopters (in Russia's case) were simply not effective enough to make up for the wasted tonnage, space, and etc.

[CommanderJB]

The key here is AIRCRAFT carrier. Not gun carrier. It is a ship which is built for the sole purpose of holding, arming, launching, landing and supporting... aircraft. Any other weapons are purely incidental and intended to take up the absolute minimum space possible. Deck space on aircraft carriers is paramount; the larger deck you have the more aircraft can fit on it, and the better aircraft you can use. A long landing space allows the operation of heavy ship-borne fighter aircraft and more versatile platforms such as the E-2C AWACS plane, S-3 Viking ASW aircraft and other such planes that simply wouldn't fit on a smaller-deck design, as Britain found out with the Invincible-class. Why on Earth would you limit this space to put an obsolete, useless and massive 16" gun on it? The roles are mutually exclusive. A carrier operates under the heaviest of force protection and stays isolated from contact with the enemy. The only time it will approach shore is when it docks at a friendly port. It's not designed for shore bombardment! The carrier is not designed to provide itself with 'close range defence' - for which 16" guns are useless - because it has a small fleet of other ships to do that for it.
The naval gun is useless for naval combat in modern war. Missiles have quadruple its range, something like eight times the firepower and can actually take into account a moving target effectively. The only thing a large gun is good for is shore bombardment. And aircraft are ten times more versatile than either. Of course they can run out of bombs - but are they going to? No. Eighty fighters represents more anti-ship firepower than the heaviest of battleships. Not only that but they can protect you against aerial threats as well, and do so more capably than almost any missile-based SAM system.
The roles of a carrier and a battleship are mutually exclusive. There is a reason why one made the other obsolete. Any role that the carrier's air wing cannot undertake can be provided by its escort group with immeasurably more effectiveness than a large gun would ever hope to, at no cost to the carrier itself. The argument that arming carriers would result in them not needing an escort group is fallacy. Any nation large enough to build one is smart enough to realise they don't work alone and has the resources to build enough ships to protect them.

[tank50us]

if you add heavy arsenals to a carrier, it becomes known as a Battlecarrier, a hybrid with both the capabilities of a Battleship, and an Aircraft Carrier. These ships are agonizingly expensive to produce, since they have to be large, large enough for a fully functional flight-deck, while saving room for the offensive weapons. Also, BCVs are also vulnerable to Penetration bombs, (Bunker-Busters) and fires, due to their larger magazines. If you don't build the ship big enough, you will limit the number of fighters you can carry and/or the weapons you can be armed with. I can say for certain that while a BCV would be a monster to contend with, you will still need to invest allot of time and money to create a practical design, which are hard to come by these days.

And to the carrier nuts, I should point out that the most any carrier can hold is 85 combat-ready aircraft (Nimitz Class), if those planes a shot down, then what good is a carrier? If you're target is heavily defended by AA assets, and an airwing, you're not going to punch through it using JUST aircraft. You need something that fires shells at long enough ranges to decrease the chances of counter-fire. Currently, the only things in existence that can accomplish this, are naval guns, however, the largest still in service are only 5 inch guns. Now it is true that some current designs have some decent range, about 10 miles, but compare that to the MK7 16inch guns on the USN Iowa Class, and you can see the difference. The MK7s have a 25mile effective range, and I'll bet a cookie that if you hooked those guns up to a new gun directer, you can probable increase the range to 35-45 miles. While it is true that this is not the answer to targets deep in enemy turf, it does play a key role in decision making, since it forces the opponent away from the beaches, giving them less time to react to any airborne threat (namely aircraft, or cruise missiles). During Vietnam, the NVA, and VK forces refused to go within 25 miles of the coast, knowing that doing so would be a death sentence. I even knew a guy who won teh Silver Star because he called on the USS New Jersey to fire on HIS position to prevent the position from being over run (and it worked).

I would also like to point out that any, and all ships are still vulnerable to sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. During the Falklands Campaign, the British Navy lost several ships to Exocet Anti-ship Missiles, including one Destroyer, the Sheffield, which was designed for air defense to begin with (back in 75 when she was commissioned). Too be perfectly honest, it really comes down to several things, 1: the design of the ship. Did the Designers build a good ship for the role? 2: Crew Training. Has the crew been drilled to the max for any possible scenario, and have they been properly trained in damage control. and finally 3: The competency of the Captain in charge of the ship. How well has the captain been trained to handle his vessel? How long has he been in the Navy? and How long has been in charge of that ship or another like her?

I'll call it quits for that 2 cents.

[Waris]

tank50us, on 2 Nov 2008, 16:25, said:

And to the carrier nuts, I should point out that the most any carrier can hold is 85 combat-ready aircraft (Nimitz Class), if those planes a shot down, then what good is a carrier? If you're target is heavily defended by AA assets, and an airwing, you're not going to punch through it using JUST aircraft.

My planes all carry long-range Anti-Ship and ground attack missiles, they all can hit you from hundreds of kms away without getting themselves exposed to hostile AA element so why should I care? This is 2008, not 1944.

Edited by Waris, 02 November 2008 - 06:19.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Even in the very unlikely event all the aircraft on a carrier were destroyed, many carry a few ASMs.

[CommanderJB]

tank50us, on 2 Nov 2008, 16:55, said:

And to the carrier nuts, I should point out that the most any carrier can hold is 85 combat-ready aircraft (Nimitz Class), if those planes a shot down, then what good is a carrier? If you're target is heavily defended by AA assets, and an airwing, you're not going to punch through it using JUST aircraft.

Look, I know how you feel about battleships, but you've just defeated your own argument. Twice. First of all, NATO's 'Teamwork' series of exercise would disagree with you on the above point. While they had to simulate enemy missile performance, and in some cases underestimated, as soon as the squadrons from the Striking Fleet's carriers found a Soviet battlegroup, which they did at ranges of many hundreds of kilometres, that strike group shortly ceased to exist. Anti-aircraft missiles are not a complete solution to a concerted aircraft attack from multiple squadrons with dedicated weaponry (and in this case they carried only laser-guided bombs for the job, not even air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, and still sunk the enemy ships within a few sorties). Even if the group is supported by an air wing this is a deterrent to using a battleship, not an encouragement, because as World War II so amply showed battleships tend to be gigantic bomb sponges when squadrons of attack aircraft come into play. As I've said, multiple exercises have shown that SAMs (which are not fitted to battleships in any case, and would require horrendously expensive modifications and upgrades to be fitted) are not a complete protection against multiple attacking modern jet aircraft, even though they've come a long way in recent years. The only truly effective defence against enemy fighters is fighters of your own. In other words, a carrier.
For the second defeat of your own argument:

tank50us, on 2 Nov 2008, 16:55, said:

I would also like to point out that any, and all ships are still vulnerable to sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. During the Falklands Campaign, the British Navy lost several ships to Exocet Anti-ship Missiles, including one Destroyer, the Sheffield, which was designed for air defense to begin with (back in 75 when she was commissioned).

If modern shipping is so vulnerable to such weapons, why do you need guns? An Exocet has a range of approximately between 43 miles, almost double the range of an Iowa's guns, to almost 112 miles, and these are extremely dated weapons. They travel at subsonic speeds and their warhead size is only 165kg; the contemporary Soviet P-270 Moskit (one of the two unrelated missiles designated by NATO as the SS-N-22 'Sunburn') has more than double the warhead weight and travels at Mach 2.5 (and as the Sheffield showed, speed makes a massive contribution to the damage - the warhead of the Exocet that hit her didn't go off and she still sank, through the impact and combustion of the fuel of the missile alone - imagine the damage a supersonic shot would do) at a comparable range. Even this pales in comparison to the monstrous P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 'Shipwreck') with a warhead weighing three quarters of a metric tonne and cruising at Mach 2.5 out to almost four hundred miles. If you match a Kirov-class battlecruiser armed with these against the most highly modernised version of the Iowa-class there will be only one winner and it will not be the Iowa.
Now to be fair NATO carrier battlegroups were trained to defend against swarms of approximately one hundred sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, with late-version Standard missiles, Sea Sparrow variants, CIWS fire and even fighter protection forming multiple levels of defence. Disregarding that saying this contradicts your argument, a case can be made that a battleship could be defended against such weapons with sufficient support, if not a marvellously good one. Even if this were the case, why would you choose to defend a battleship that cannot retaliate until its enemies are literally right on top of it over an aircraft carrier that supports planes that can reliably find and destroy naval targets far over the horizon, provide a platform for ASW aircraft, defend the fleet against aerial attack, support radar picket aircraft that can help the entire fleet find and engage incoming hostiles far beyond the capabilities of surface radars, provide SAR capability, and generally counter any type of target save an intercontinental ballistic missile (which they're working on)? You wouldn't. Which is why people don't.
Once again I'd reiterate that I will never argue that for pounding a shoreline and coastal hostiles into so much fine red dust there never is and never will be anything better than a battleship's guns. But in a naval warfare setting they are not relevant and cannot be made to be relevant for any other role.

Edited by CommanderJB, 02 November 2008 - 21:54.

[Destiny]

Also, putting 16" guns on any side of the carrier...there's a chance it'll tip due to the recoil. In addition IF, IF the magazine was hit or something...kaboom, there goes a carrier which could've lasted longer. Also a single carrier has at least 10 times more firepower than 9 barrels.

[partyzanpaulzy]

Don't forget on Shquals! (if US Navy will attack Iran Navy which isn't probable today, but maybe 5 years after war in Syria (or Pakistan) it will be).
It's the fastest torpedo/underwater missile, highly explosive and capable to kill ship on several kilometers (10 I think), even it could cary A-warhead, 200 t TNT conventional wh (dunno how is it possible, maybe modern chemistry) or 200 t Nuke.
Russia (USSR) has invented it, sold some to China, China sold some to Iran, Iran has tested few of them.

[Rich19]

It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Despite a knife being very deadly, you'll be killed before you get close enough to use it.

[Cuppa]

tskasa1, on 31 Oct 2008, 19:39, said:

I was thinking the other day.... why are carries unarmed? Seriously, why not add sixteen inch guns to those babies, just two or three to help them defend themselves? Is it structural intergrity? Or weight? If it's weight then come on... I mean these behemoths already weigh an assload, and since you're on water, the best sort of medium for big-ass guns, why don't you add them and work around it (try to increase power to engines...) Any ideas?

On top of that, aircraft run out of missiles, and their guns aren't as effective as the shells that weigh enough to crush a man. Simply put, NOTHING in this universe matches the power of good old ironsides, give them a two/three/four shell volley and enjoy the fireworks. For close range defense, it'll help if ever needed and why send out planes when you're dealing with a few terrorists on a weakass boat?

AND why not add the all important one-two punch? It comes in useful when you need to effectively and cheaply shell a beach, does it not? I love big guns, just like everyone else does, and I want a carrier (I love those babies) with one! I also want a subcarrier.... but that's for later. Anyways, maybe you can even add a few railguns, hah! What do you think?

Because it detracts from the aircraft carrier's best ability: Launching, supporting and arming a small nation's worth of aircraft. Next, the range of any plane on a carrier in indefinately greater than the distance you can launch a shell and third, guns can run out of shells to fire too! Honestly, leave it with your sub carrier in some kind of speculative fiction.

[Foxhound]

Guns will always have their own niche in shore bombardment. Here's why I think they may remain for a long time though, and maybe even return to being the primary naval weapon: fuel concerns and railgun development. Missiles, after all, need just as much fuel as any other self-propelled munition. While this may not be a concern, say, right now, it very well could be as oil and other fossil fuels are further depleted.

[CommanderJB]

They're mostly fuelled by highly complex chemical compounds which, while partially based off fossil fuels, are much more complex to make and invlove a range of metals and other chemicals, often toxic but selected for their stability, portability and of course produced thrust. The Soviet Union in particular invested huge amounts of money into finding the optimal solid rocket fuel mixes - it's been compared to the Manhattan Project, but probably only to give an idea rather than to state that it accurately emulates the talent and funds the US put toward that program - in the early days of the Cold War and have guarded their mixtures ever since. Fossil fuel prices would likely result in more expensive production of these fuels (more expensive everything for that matter, but anyway) but it's inaccurate to say that they run on fossil fuels. Besides which you can be assured that the last people to feel the effects of oil shortages will be the military. To quote the loading screen of Frontlines: Fuel of War's Oilfield map:
"And so the people's saying grew - our last barrel of oil will be burned by a tank."

Edited by CommanderJB, 04 November 2008 - 00:01.

[Zero]

OKAY! OKAY! I KNEW all that already! That much is... obvious to say the least. Okay, firs of all, about the fictionality of carrier subs: the carrier sub is a very probable and useful weapon. There are of course, reasons we don't have them and they are:

1) First and foremost structural intergrity, building a carrier deck and storing planes on a sub would put a lot of stress and extra weight on the frame, not to mention it has to open up somewhere.

2) Landing is hard (although possible- we need to look into that more)

3) Drying the deck if it's exterior or finding a way of keeping the launch site dry if its on the inside

4) Balancing the thing

5) Keeping the aircraft carriers from being damaged by takeoff

And just so you know, these things date all the way back to WWI, during WWII the Japanese built 2/3 of Submarine Carriers that could carry light bombers, wiki it if you want to know. The Brits and other countries have also built one and the US is trying to turn its Ohio submarines into a UAV carrier. The fact we don't have one is just because we don't have the tech for it. And yes, any country that wants to have a good military must own one of these sometime in the future, as it is more likely than not that due to aircraft the future of marine warfare may be underwater as it is the best place to hide a ship. Also, the Navy despite converting the Ohios is also trying to find a way to build a good and effective sub carrier as its better to have a carrier that can hide well

Okay, now to the cannon. That much was obvious. However, why not add a few cannons (at least ONE eight inch one), after all, don't forget that aircraft take time to launch and turn around for close support, and also don't forget about stealthed ships (they are starting to look into them and make them now....). Then there's the issues of rearming and fueling and so on: they wouldn't have to be in the center, they would be positioned somewhere out of the way or the runway would work around it; and for the recoil, again, the frame would be completely worked around.

Remember, this does not mean: "Convert my carrier into a battleship," it's completely rebuilding the whole thing. Also, these things are meant SOLELY for self-defense/shelling (as a shell is WAY less expensive than the fuel and munitions for a plane AND missile as well as just the shock and awe factor you can't get anywhere else). Also, with new railgun tech the recoil and explosives used to power those babies will soon dissapear (as soon as these babies start to get upgraded and better). Also, it takes much less space to store a shell that can go up to forty miles than a missile. I also like to argue that this would not only be used as a last-resort naval defense, it would also be used to bombard shores in helping to invade beaches and even help hit bases that are far away as with Aiming systems and upgrades, these babies could very easily go up to forty- maybe fifty miles at LEAST. Also, let's see a water-skimming anti-ship missile hit an inground target.

[Waris]

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

However, why not add a few cannons (at least ONE eight inch one), after all, don't forget that aircraft take time to launch and turn around for close support, and also don't forget about stealthed ships (they are starting to look into them and make them now....). Then there's the issues of rearming and fueling and so on: they wouldn't have to be in the center, they would be positioned somewhere out of the way or the runway would work around it; and for the recoil, again, the frame would be completely worked around.

An aircraft carrier doesn't work that way. In wartime it can only function in a carrier battle group where it is supported by a large number of smalller ships in order to provide a shield between incoming enemy strikes of various nature. Why do I need a cannon of the numerous around me are equipped with at least one so that they can defend me?

Also stealth ship is not completely stealth as you might imagine: their design and build material may absorb most but not all of the radar waves. Sure it will be a little difficult to ping a stealth design ship from surface radar, but aircraft carriers can use picket radar equipped on planes and helicopters to help a battlegroup cover a large swathe of sea.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Remember, this does not mean: "Convert my carrier into a battleship," it's completely rebuilding the whole thing. Also, these things are meant SOLELY for self-defense/shelling (as a shell is WAY less expensive than the fuel and munitions for a plane AND missile as well as just the shock and awe factor you can't get anywhere else).

See above.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Also, with new railgun tech the recoil and explosives used to power those babies will soon dissapear (as soon as these babies start to get upgraded and better).

Yeah right wake me up 20 years from now then we'll continue.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Also, it takes much less space to store a shell that can go up to forty miles than a missile.

Anti-ship missiles that have way more range than 40mi is actually not that large if you care to have a look.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

I also like to argue that this would not only be used as a last-resort naval defense, it would also be used to bombard shores in helping to invade beaches and even help hit bases that are far away as with Aiming systems and upgrades, these babies could very easily go up to forty- maybe fifty miles at LEAST.

You just said "things are meant SOLELY for self-defense/shelling". OH YOU

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Also, let's see a water-skimming anti-ship missile hit an inground target.

This is what you want to see. Admitted it isn't sea skimming, but it can strike land targets and can do so from much further away than your measly 40mi gun.

Edited by Waris, 04 November 2008 - 22:07.

[Zero]

Waris, on 4 Nov 2008, 23:04, said:

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

However, why not add a few cannons (at least ONE eight inch one), after all, don't forget that aircraft take time to launch and turn around for close support, and also don't forget about stealthed ships (they are starting to look into them and make them now....). Then there's the issues of rearming and fueling and so on: they wouldn't have to be in the center, they would be positioned somewhere out of the way or the runway would work around it; and for the recoil, again, the frame would be completely worked around.

Quote

An aircraft carrier doesn't work that way. In wartime it can only function in a carrier battle group where it is supported by a large number of smalller ships in order to provide a shield between incoming enemy strikes of various nature. Why do I need a cannon of the numerous around me are equipped with at least one so that they can defend me?

However, do not forget that most warships are being rendered useless by aircraft and missiles and in the near future (50+ years) the aircraft carrier may be the only above-surface vessel left.

Quote

Also stealth ship is not completely stealth as you might imagine: their design and build material may absorb most but not all of the radar waves. Sure it will be a little difficult to ping a stealth design ship from surface radar, but aircraft carriers can use picket radar equipped on planes and helicopters to help a battlegroup cover a large swathe of sea.

Yes, but stealth, even if just limited, still goes a long way. If you can get within a few hundred miles of the carrier, you can end it all, after all, they can't shoot back in time; maybe the few aircraft that took off COULD sink the ship, but it was a relatively small price to pay for the huge cost (in crew and money) of a full sized supercarrier. Also, don't forget that you can't have choppers and planes running 24/7, at least not without SEVERELY limiting these things' range, remember, they are supposed to bring the fight to an enemy, not halfway there.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Also, with new railgun tech the recoil and explosives used to power those babies will soon dissapear (as soon as these babies start to get upgraded and better).

Quote

Yeah right wake me up 20 years from now then we'll continue.

I'll be sure to do that

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Also, it takes much less space to store a shell that can go up to forty miles than a missile.

Quote

Anti-ship missiles that have way more range than 40mi is actually not that large if you care to have a look.

They do, they also take an assload of money (Tomahawks cost over half a million a piece) to produce and the ones with the longest range and they also need time and distance to build up to their effective speeds (I think there is such a thing as minimum range but I'm not sure). Also, I could probably fit a nice collection of shells in place of that missile.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

I also like to argue that this would not only be used as a last-resort naval defense, it would also be used to bombard shores in helping to invade beaches and even help hit bases that are far away as with Aiming systems and upgrades, these babies could very easily go up to forty- maybe fifty miles at LEAST.

Quote

You just said "things are meant SOLELY for self-defense/shelling". OH YOU

Don't forget what shelling is. If you call in a barrage on a fort 100 miles inland, its still considered shelling, shelling is just a saturation of heavy arms fire, doesn't necessarily have to be beach action and if it DOES shell a deep inland target, it will be safe and out of the immediate line of fire.

tskasa1, on 5 Nov 2008, 6:46, said:

Also, let's see a water-skimming anti-ship missile hit an inground target.

This is what you want to see. Admitted it isn't sea skimming, but it can strike land targets and can do so from much further away than your measly 40mi gun.

I also stated the forty miles would be a MINIMUM, and again, those missiles cost an assload and
although they MAY have a use in deep-impact strikes, for self-defense they aren't as cost effective. Also, don't forget to take size and cost into account. It is MUCH cheaper to add as many shells as you want than to add as many missiles.

[CommanderJB]

Self-defence against what?

Ships: Use a missile. A VLS system will:
Take up far less space than a large-calibre gun turret:

And travel literally dozens of times the range depending on variant (the '40 miles' range often quoted for this gun is for a projectile which never went operational which was actually an 11" round saboted to fit the 16" barrel especially designed for extended range at the cost of a huge proportion of warhead weight). An absolute maximum of fifty miles can be imposed upon the range of such a gun. Missiles can travel out to four hundred miles. Not only that but at the maximum range for a standard projectile (~30 km) it spends almost a minute and a half in the air and has a broadside hit probability of 2.7%! A missile can home in on a target and do so while carrying a far greater warhead weight (the Soviet's P-500 Bazalt had a warhead weighing a full metric tonne - two thousand two hundred pounds), travel on a course which is extremely hard to see (modern radars can easily pick up a shell in flight and allow the ship to take evasive action, whereas a sea-skimming supersonic AShM won't even appear over the horizon until less than thirty seconds before impact, sometimes less than twenty - oh and they can be used against land targets when equipped with terrain-following radar) and far outperform a shell in every single way save price. If you want to take up laser-guided shells, extended range rocket munitions or other such advanced technologies, a sizable proportion of this last only advantage goes down the drain as well.

Aircraft: High-calibre guns are useless against aircraft. Smaller-calibre weapons can just about track fast enough and get the shell in place in time; a larger weapon wouldn't have a chance.

Submarines: Yeah, well.

Land targets: Why the hell are you defending a carrier against land targets? Or, even more absurdly, equipping it to attack land targets? What's it even doing close to shore?! Unless it's in friendly territory or using local terrain to its advantage for defence (hello, fjord strategy) then it won't even see land. It has AIRCRAFT to attack land targets at dozens and dozens of times the range, flexibility and power of any gun! And even if there is some reason why you wouldn't want to use aircraft, use another ship! If you start 'adding capabilities', to an aircraft carrier, you will detract, badly, from its original stated mission. Google the Soviet 'Kiev-class' and see what I mean.

Naval guns are not relevant to a carrier. Or any other ship save a shore bombardment vessel. They never will be either. An aircraft carrier does exactly what it says on the box. Start messing with it and you totally screw with its effectiveness. There is a reason eighty years of their use have ended them up in their current forms, and it is not because it's the wrong way to do it. They operate with a defensive screen that provides fifty times the defensive power a carrier could ever hope to give itself. Especially with a gun.

[Dr. Strangelove]

How are you battle carrier fans not getting this? With the space used by a turret firing 11" rounds at 50 km you could mount a missile that could hit anywhere in the world and deliver nuclear devastation.

[Zero]

Dr. Strangelove, on 9 Nov 2008, 2:56, said:

How are you battle carrier fans not getting this? With the space used by a turret firing 11" rounds at 50 km you could mount a missile that could hit anywhere in the world and deliver nuclear devastation.

However don't forget that they are illegal and against the UN codes and the US will probably never use nukes for first-strike ops. Also, carrying a missile like that MIGHT just damage the ship, I mean those minutemen get hot.... just saying.

All in all, I think when railguns are introduced effectively, they will open up whole new doors to the good 'ol gun. These babies will be able to send a round weighing MANY tons out several hundred miles (possibly, I say at LEAST 100) at a VERY high Mach speed, using up very little space in comparison to the guns you showed me. Also, getting rid of the VERY dangerous propellant would help boost a ships survivability by getting rid of the missiles' warheads and propellants, as the shear force of the warhead slamming into and tearing through the ship would do enough damage to cause some SERIOUS structural integrity problems with NO explosives at all.

Now, I know what you mean about distracting a carrier, but you could fit it in its own class. Also with the raillies a 5-inch gun can have the same power and distance as a 12/16-incher by boosting the power (although it would probably take an ASSLOAD of electricity to do this). This ship would be able to defend itself/attack from far away before it could be spotted without having to scramble aircraft, afterall, its better to waste a cheap shell than an expensive missile/send out an aircraft (weapons AND fuel). I'm not saying it'll replace missiles, but just like they do on the ground and air, each weapon has its own advantages, and with railguns we will only see the advantages of the guns improve, so in general, in the near future, it may be more cost-effective and effective strategically to have and use BOTH kinds of weapons.

And remember the law of morale. Wars are won and lost by it. No matter how good an army, if it has low morale it will ALWAYS lose. A bad army with good morale, however, can GREATLY increase its power and potential. Naval guns have, undoubtedly, the single biggest impact on morale of ANY weapon we know of and that's for good reason. Through time and history they have become the single most clear symbol of power, dominance, and shock-and-awe. The shear shock-and-awe of it all can cause a man to turn and run, no matter how brave, its just primal instinct. In the end I think that is just one of the very good reasons.

I'm also gonna start a new section on parts of my book that will include weapons and techs used in it, hope somebody checks it out. Should be up in around 3/4 days. I have to admit, and I'm sorry I haven't been clear up to now, but for this to be effective, it MUST include the use of railguns, as they are the only TRULY effective gun in today's modern battlefield.

[CommanderJB]

I agree, railguns are very powerful weapons. Well, actually no they're not, but they will be in about twenty-five years. They are the most relevant type of naval guns, I wouldn't disagree there. That still doesn't mean they're relevant to a carrier, for all the multifarious reasons I've already posted; what uses naval guns have are either not the job of the aircraft carrier (you cannot fit one without seriously detracting from its ability to carry out its primary mission) and covered by the escort group, or are the job of the carrier and are covered by its aircraft complement.

I would also contest that naval fire support is the single most morale-degrading weapon in the modern arsenal. Terrorism, biochemical attacks, 'shock 'n' awe' weapons such as the MOAB (which most uninformed observers believe to be a nuclear weapon upon detonation), and most especially nuclear warheads (and yes, they are unlikely to be used by the US in modern war, but that is not the same as saying they have no relevance on the modern battlefield) are extraordinarily detrimental to morale. Even strategic bombing can give that 'you're screwed' feeling by killing all your support infrastructure - and families - back home in a way that is at least equal to that of a hail of fire from a battleship's guns. Especially as they only work when you're within sight of the coast anyway, which counts for a relatively small proportion of modern engagements.

Edited by CommanderJB, 12 November 2008 - 04:39.

[Zero]

Yes, but when I say morale-degrading weapons, it is a given that I'm talking about countries and not terrorists, and most countries won't use chem/bio/nuclear weapons against the US or any other country with nukes, especially us since if we fall we can choose to fuck the whole world before we go out.... sorry but its just MAD; we go down in a blaze, the world goes down too... Also, I see your point about MOABs and such, but I have to disagree, its like our fear of the dark, through our culture and history we have been almost trained to fear guns. On top of that, I would like to say that although you CAN make MOABs, its not the same as constant fire support going on for hours/days as that would easily make a country run broke in a few days.

Like I said, I'm starting to see your point about Carriers, so make a Kiev-class-kind carrier. The ability to both attack+ defend as well as launch aircraft... although losing some the aircraft of a full-sized carrier can cause problems, in long term battles where planes are not needed, it will be more effective. After all, don't forget that the military also takes cost effectiveness into weapons manufacturing... in fact that is probably one of the biggest factors.

As for having to see the target, I say not necessarily. They can use a combination of radar and and "live feed" satellite imaging to find and hit a target. True, individual targets won't stand out and tanks and such may be hard to see. The areas that you need to see, however, are usually either a building (which are easy to see), large masses of soldiers (for shock and awe and also they are VERY easy to see) and, of course, defensive installations. On top of that don't forget that their working on smart shells for tanks and they could be applied to naval guns for only a fraction of the cost of a missile with the same effectiveness.

Also, another adv. vs. disadvantage: Shells: usually have more brute force on impact with targets, meaning more structural damage in a smaller area. Missiles: not as much brute force (for the most part) but more explosive, making much bigger AoE and making a bigger hole to let more water in, although it probably won't penetrate as deep unless its a delayed explosion (not sure how else to say it) model which will wait a little bit before exploding, allowing it to go in deeper.

Edited by tskasa1, 12 November 2008 - 19:12.

[BeefJeRKy]

What is the "long term" for battles? Most modern engagements can likely end in hours if not even minutes with planes. Also, why should the carrier defend itself? It has the escorts for that job. If they get sunk then you're pretty much fucked dont you agree?