NationStates Jolt Archive

A Primer on Naval Strategy

Introduction

As the NationStates world becomes more and more ultra-modern with the Doujin-class still being considered a benchmark that all other ship classes that follow are compared with and with later ships that make the Doujin as out of date as a wooden sailing frigate, why should we bother writing about naval strategy? The simple answer is that no ship or no number of ships, no matter how impressive-sounding a country’s naval complement is, can mask a country that doesn’t know how to use its navy. While there are threads devoted toward overcoming nearly-impossible odds when you’re on the battlefields with your main battle tanks and your artillery pieces, there isn’t a similar thread regarding naval battles that I am aware of. This thread, co-written with Praetonia, is an attempt to begin the dialogue regarding naval combat. While I don’t claim to be the greatest admiral afloat; in fact, I readily admit I wouldn’t even be a seaman in most navies; I have had some success as a naval combat RPer. Praetonia is also a highly-accomplished naval RPer and the combination of our skills and knowledge may help even more experienced naval RPers ply their craft more skillfully.

Naval Organisation

The first thing you must do when you get ready to establish your naval presence on NS is to determine what kind of country you are. As basic as this sounds, you need to figure out if you’re going to RP as an island country or as a country with a limited coastline. If you’re a landlocked country, there’s no sense in even reading this far. But if you have a significant coastline or you’re an island, a powerful navy is absolutely essential. Notice that I didn’t say a large navy was essential. I’m not suggesting that you take a page out of the United States in 1807 by drydocking all but a handful of ships. But pure numbers alone do not make you a great naval RPer.

What’s the difference between a large navy and a powerful navy? A large navy can be anywhere from 5,000 ships or more (this is not establishing an arbitrary figure; this is just giving you an example), but if most of the ships are small patrol ships or are poorly-designed or underarmed, a well-balanced navy with 1,000 well-built ships is going to have a field day with it. More to the point, a 5,000 ship navy that is poorly-conceived going against a well-balanced and well-organised navy is going to be a paper tiger. Know the saying “the bigger you are the harder you fall?” That’s what will happen.

The second thing to keep in mind when it comes to organising your navy is to consider what you want your fleet to accomplish. If you want your fleet to defend your coastline against a would-be threat, you will need a different type of navy from one that is intended to project power throughout the world. For instance, a nuclear power attack submarine is often the boat of choice for many attack missions, but a diesel-electric boat is actually quieter than a nuclear powered submarine. Not only that, but Dutch diesel-electric boats often penetrated American ASW screens and “hit” aircraft carriers during combat exercises. As a result, if you’re planning littoral warfare operations, you will likely need diesel-electric boats. Not only that, but the surface ships you would need for those operations will have to have low draughts (or drafts for any Americans who read this) since littoral combat takes place in shallow waters by definition.

Aircraft Carriers

If you’re planning to establish naval and air presence in a particular region, you’ll most likely need to have aircraft carriers for the task. They are the modern-day capital ships in most of the RL world’s predominant navies. They can project your country’s air power like no other ship and are often the vanguards of any country’s fleet. As such, they are the most important ships in your fleet and any navy commander realises that he must keep his aircraft carriers afloat at all cost. However, most aircraft carriers are built with very limited self-defence weaponry, and sometimes they only have CIWS (Close In Weapon Systems) for last-ditch defense in the event a missile gets past its escort squadron. As a result, the aircraft carrier is very vulnerable and an escort is essential. The Soviet Union had converted cruisers serving as aircraft carriers and they often carried a strong independent armament, so escorts were usually a good idea, but not nearly as essential as they were for American or allied carriers.

Battleships

Arguably the most controversial ship class when discussing the modern navy, the battleship is either admired as a harbinger of immediate doom for any enemy with its large, fearsome guns or is reviled by many so-called modern navy aficionados who argue that the battleship is obsolete in today’s “modern navy.” Does the battleship need an escort? Yes. Battleships are known for having limited or poor AA defences and would need to be modified with new ASW systems to face today’s submerged threats. However, as I mentioned earlier, the aircraft carrier also needs an escort. In addition, one half hour bombardment by a refit Iowa-class battleship actually costs about the same amount as two aerial strikes from an aircraft carrier’s jets. A modern-build battleship is estimated to cost about $3 billion U.S., approximately the price of a light aircraft carrier. Also, no ship in today’s navies and no ship currently in the plans for future navies carries the cachet of a battleship. Anti-surface missiles including ASuW missiles can be shot down and missiles such as the commonly-used Harpoon are often designed to penetrate no more than approximately four inches of steel armour (approximately 104 mm) before their explosive effects cause their damage. Built to withstand the 16” shells it fires, the Iowa-class battleship can shrug off a “modern” anti-shipping missile.

Escorts

What kind of escorts does an aircraft carrier or a battleship need, you ask? Bear in mind the various roles that ships are expected to play. If you want a ship that can deal with general threats or focus on ASuW combat, a GP (general purpose) destroyer or a cruiser may be your best option. To protect your aircraft carrier against attacks from enemy fighters or bombers, you will need AA destroyers or cruisers (the U.S. Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers or the Royal Navy’s upcoming Daring-class destroyers are two good RL examples of ships devoted to AA combat). For ASW warfare, most modern navies use frigates to deal with those submerged threats. They would often carry towed sensor arrays and passive or active sonar to detect enemy submarines. If you put together a good combat squadron, you would likely need at least two or three ASuW cruisers, five AA destroyers, and 8-10 frigates. If you’re sending a squadron into an area where you expect mines, mine hunters and minesweepers are an important part of your naval arsenal.

Littoral Warfare Operations

There's been some request for a more in-depth discussion of littoral warfare operations in this thread, as the first two posts mostly dealt with so-called blue water naval operations. There are some major differences with so-called brown water navies that I'm going to address with this post.

Number one, those uber large SDs you built or bought are worthless in a littoral combat situation. In fact, many of your battleships, cruisers, destroyers and even some frigates aren't going to be able to handle the shallow depths where littoral warfare takes place. They may be able to provide longer-range coastal bombardment, though anything smaller than a heavy cruiser would get into range of many RL weapons batteries.

Thus, you're going to need ships that are built specifically for littoral warfare. What kind of brown water navy do you need? There are specific vessels that have been built for riverine operations that are either intended to get special forces onto land so they can go do their jobs or provide covering fire against insurgents. Examples of RL river gunboats include one made by aircraft manufacturer Sikorsky (http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/boat2.html) that carried a 105 mm howitzer as its main armament and was built to get where it needed to go fast and it was intended to provide gun support for troops in a river environment.

Another example of river vessels used in Vietnam included the return of the monitor. That's right, the monitor (http://www.rivervet.com/monitor.htm). We're not talking about the monitors of the post U.S. Civil War period that were designed to serve as coastal defence vessels, though you can see the lineage if you look at a picture (http://www.rivervet.com/images/monitor3.jpg) closely enough. Those monitors were conceived to serve as "battleships" of a brown water fleet. Their role was to bombard enemy armies and fortified positions. They were built when the U.S. Navy determined they didn't have adequate fire support that could get into the shallow waters near Vietnam.

Logistics

I know The Evil Overlord might have “talked your cyber ear” off about logistics as it pertains to ground combat, and perhaps The Macabees did the same, but naval battles fought without logistics are lost battles. You will need to have fuel, food, ammunition, uniforms, and other stores made available to you, particularly in combat situations. That’s where fleet replenishment ships, tankers, submarine tenders, and other non-combatants play a vital role. If you suffer heavy losses, you’ll need a hospital ship for those times when standard shipboard medical facilities (“sickbays”) are overtaxed. The hospital ship is the floating hospital that can help nurse your own wounded or another country’s injured back to health.

We hope this guide to naval combat has been useful to you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

A Portrait of a Future War

Introduction

NationStates has, almost since its conception, been in a constant state of Cold War. Whether this is through the mighty power blocs, or in a more unilateral sense by developing new weapons, every nation in the world is, consciously or not, preparing for a future great war of epic proportions. Whether or not this war will ever occur, I do not know; what I will do, however, is attempt to paint a portrait of the naval side of this hypothetical Great War.

Despite the numerous naval combats and conflicts that have occurred in NationStates, since the rise of the Super Dreadnaught and mass-market NS-designed vessels, there has not been a major naval battle between two great fleets both employing Super Dreadnaughts and a large number of NS-designed vessels. NationStates naval combat has reached an important turning point at which the technology has, to some extent, eclipsed the knowledge of strategy. The last major naval conflict in real life was World War II, and the thinking that was successful then has endured even to the present day and has been ported in NationStates warfare. As I will explain later, I do not believe that this will result in success.

6:00

Huge battlefleets, each consisting of at least 2,500 advanced vessels, several full airwings and super dreadnaughts are the order of the day. In this hypothetical war, two face off against each other across the vast expance of ocean necessary to keep each safe from the weapons of the other. Satellite-based attacks would most likely be launched against both fleets, although in this war we can only assume that the majority of the satellite capability of both sides has been destroyed by massed ASAT attack, and each fleet is blundering towards the other through a haze of ship and aircraft based radar.

Both sides are confident of victory and both want a quick, decisive battle which will wrest them control of the waves and, hence, the war. Both fleets, upon receiving positive contacts, make their way towards each other at the maximum sustainable speed. Within a few hours, limited attacks are made using ballistic or semi-ballistic missiles aimed at super dreadnaughts and carriers. These, firing at such long range against prepared SAAM defences, are unlikely to achieve a great deal. A few lucky hits may be scored, but this will neither provide a decisive victory early on, nor will it deter either side.

10:00

The two fleets are getting considerably closer. Both will inevitably be forced to launch aerial raids against the enemy fleets whilst they are not able to strike with guns or missiles. Tactics in NationStates has leaning increasingly towards massed swarms, and this is what we see our two adversaries do. A vicious aerial battle will take place some way between the two fleets, and bombing raids will inflict damage against the enemy, although at a horrendous cost.

Long since the days of the supremacy of the aircraft, vessels filled to the brim with SAMs and SAAMs spell the end, in my opinion, to the massed fighter attack. Such attacks are possible, and will undoubtedly cause damage to their targets, but they will sustain terrible casualties in doing so. Our fleets have air-defence fighters of their own, backed up by ship-borne SAMs, and enemy casualties are likely to be heaviest within the first few minutes of the short battle.

Survivors, I am sure, will limp back to their fleets as soon as they have dropped their payloads. If the aircraft are successful in their efforts, then the enemy vessels will also take heavy casualties, but the defending fleet has a clear advantage that was never the case before. Still no decisive outcome has been reached, and it is likely that the most important vessels (as I will go on to explain) – the battleships and cruisers – will have sustained the least damage of any other class.

12:00

As the two fleets are beginning to close, super dreadnaught artillery will open up at long range, followed by that of battleships. This fire is likely to be inaccurate, but devastating. Unless one side has a significant advantage in numbers of SD guns to bring to bear, most of the super dreadnaught fire will be concentrated on the enemy super dreadnaughts, and the enemy fleets will not yet begin to feel the pinch.

15:00

The two fleets have now closed to general use SSM range. This is where the true horror of the battle will begin to become apparent. Both fleets will launch thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of missiles at each other in an attempt to destroy the enemy fleet outright. All battleship and super dreadnaught fire will also be in play by this point and with ever increasing accuracy.

Still, the dominance of the missile, too, is overrated. With modern SAAM systems looking at an intercept rate of 95%, a 1,000 missile strike would yield a mere 50 breakthroughs, 45 hits and, against armoured NS ships, kills in single figures. To gain a hit for each ship in our hypothetical fleet taking the strength to be the bottom figure of 2,500, a total of 50,000 missiles would have to be fired. This, still, is unlikely to yield many hits on capital ships, which will be located at the center of the air defence networks and any hits which are scored are unlikely to do considerable damage.

By this point, the outer submarine picket is likely to be completely annihilated, and the second ring of ships also taking heavy casualties. These casualties, however, are against escorts which, as I will explain later, are not the most important in the battle to come and mostly used to defend against threats which are not immediately present or have already passed.

16:15

The missile attacks have come and gone and both fleets are still very much in the game. With each fleet having taken equally horrendous damage to escorts and at so close a range, neither are likely to attempt an escape, even if their commanders thought it possible. Now is the time for the gun to come into its own.

At relatively close range and with the now long-running battleship and super dreadnaught duels coming to a conclusion, heavy gunfire will be withering. The result of the final stages of the battle, between heavily armed and armoured capital ships, has partly been decided, but will also rely on the specific circumstances and tactical ability of the commanders.

It is also at this point that any remaining aircraft, refueled in the intervening time, will be deployed to try to tip the balance. At relatively close and decreasing range and with the missile arsenals of many vessels spent, the aircraft will become much more confident to move in against the capital ships.

18:00

The battle has been going, in one way or another, for 12 hours now. The sea is littered with debris and stained by oil as far as the eye can see. Neither side dares stop or risk further men and aircraft attempting to rescue survivors and their chances are limited. Aircraft, gunfire and torpedo attacks are finally beginning to take their toll on the capital ships, with their escorts more or less obliterated. The battle is as good as decided, and the defeated fleet will either attempt to flee under gunfire or surrender. This is very much up to the nation involved, with different nations responding in different ways, but the chances of escape are, I believe, not all that bad.

The enemy are also exhausted and beginning to run out of ammunition. The long range missiles are gone and many of the super dreadnaughts with their large caliber guns, pounded by multiple vessels as high-priority targets, will be nothing more than blazing wrecks above the waterline. The battle has been bloody and neither side wish it to continue. Nevertheless, the victors will have a massive advantage of naval superiority, and the defeated party will have lost too many ships to recover from this devastating blow any time in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

I see this type of battle in Napoleonic terms. Large missiles and heavy, large caliber guns are akin to cannon – large, slow and inaccurate from range, but devastating close-in where the enemy doesn’t have a chance to react. Regular SSMs are most definitely muskets. Commonly mistaken for the largest source of casualties, these weapons are extremely effective against a poor or ill-disciplined navy, but against a well trained, well equipped navy will not provide victory on their own, merely thin the enemy numbers.

Guns are bayonets, and musket butts. Widely viewed as inferior weapons of a by-gone era, these are instead the primary cause of enemy casualties and at the close ranges required. The gun-battle will be relatively short, and devastating for both sides. Fighters are cavalry. When used in massive swarms against a well prepared enemy, as is so often the fashion in NationStates, they will be easily beaten off with horrific casualties whilst causing a small amount of damage most certainly not justifying their high cost to build. Used, however, against a broken or exhausted foe in small, fast squadrons, they can be deadly and perhaps even decisive.

As I said in the Introduction, this may or may not be an accurate picture of the battle that has not yet occurred, but I believe it is a very probably one, and just as the way WWI pitted armies with new and largely untested equipment against each other, will be horrific in its destructive power and will most likely provide an unwelcome conclusion to both sides, although a slightly more unwelcome conclusion to one.

TAG

Excellent works, Sarzonia and Praetonia.

TAG

Brilliant work

Excellent work, however, if I may venture an opinion.

Most point-defence and anti-missile systems are over-rated. Official figures always state something like 95%, but under combat conditions the actual rate is likely to be much lower, particularly with the swarms of missiles that you mentioned.

Good job guys!

Nice work! Sarz, get on AIM.

ooc: wow... hmm... i wonder if that battle will ever be fought.

But I think one good point should be brought up: the concept of reserves. Say, at 20:00 hours, both the frontal fleets are decimated from hours of fighting. Suddenly, Side A throws in a whole, fresh supply of super-dreadnoughts just as Side B is reeling. Side B would fall back, in disarray, perhaps even lose one of its precious super-dreads. A single SD loss would be devastating to the fleet involved. Not only is it a big investment in monetary and human terms, but the sheer morale loss of losing one of those would crush any player's hope of winning.

Of course, a very good parallel to your naval battle of the future would undoubtedly be the battle of Jutland, fought in 1916 between the dreadnoughts of Britain and Germany. It was probably the first, and last, big engagements where battleships were the primary ships afloat. In the whole course of the battle, which pitted more then thirty dreadnought type battleships against one another, not a single dreadnought was lost I think, though the lighter armored battle cruisers suffered horribly. Either way, neither side won the day. Probably, any mass super-dreadnought battle will just be a drawn out slogging match that will end either in one side tiring out retreating or super-dread firing an IGNORE shot. I can't really see a conclusive outcome coming of a super-dreadnought battle, unless someone gets wise and lures the superdread fleet over a minefield, destroying the escorts, and subsequently launches a quick, though small scale, air raid aimed at destroying the superdreads with powerful bunker-busting type bombs. It could happen, I guess.

bump

Do you guys have any info on littoral combat? So far, this only talks about blue water. But it's awesome, good job stressing the value of naval air power.

TAG! Excellent!

Added to the Collection of Military Guides/Strategies. Nice work!

Bookmarked.

I need to remember this for my comeback...

Tag. Trully brilliant.

absolutly brilliant

That's ONE interpretation =) But nicely done, fellows.

Do you guys have any info on littoral combat? So far, this only talks about blue water. But it's awesome, good job stressing the value of naval air power.I'll add something on littoral warfare in an update to the intro post. I focused on blue water first because that's where I saw many of the most noticeable problems with NS naval roleplaying.

Fantastic piece of work, guys.

If I may, I'd like to throw something else into the mix. Your "inspiration" for this battle analysis seems to come from WWI and WWII, where, as you correctly stated, most navies were based around huge battleships and dreadnoughts, as most large NS navies tend to be. What do you think about a scenario involving large numbers of long range bombers? This was the situation throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where a huge Soviet Naval Aviation force was based at Kola, consisting of Badger and Backfire long range bombers. It was widely regarded at the time that the greatest threat to allied shipping lanes in the atlantic (and therefore US-European supply routes) in the event of a western-Soviet conflict came from Soviet Naval Aviation and the Red Navy's submarine arm, not the surface fleet. I am of the opinion that most NS nations concentration on SDs and bigger and bigger battleships could be overcome by investing in a well equipped and well trained Long Range Naval Bombardment force.

I think the problem with that strategy lies in the construction of the superdreadnaughts. The trimaran hulls and the enormous armour protection schemes of the SDs make them very hard to sink with missiles. The most effective defences against the SD are tungsten rods firing down at nearly Mach 30 from space or some other kinetic energy round. The only other thing that would be effective is a tactical nuclear weapon. If you're facing an enemy who's crazy enough to retaliate with greater than equivalent force, you've just touched off a massive nuclear war.

Besides that, bombers such as those are going to need fighter escorts or they're going to have to be fighter-bombers, but those tend to lean more heavily toward either being fighters or bombers and most likely don't perform both roles as well as a specialised fighter or bomber would.

A large number of long range bombers would be intercepted by the equally large numbers of fighters onboard carriers... I'm not saying it wouldnt work, but it wouldn't be decisive unless the fleet had an inept EAW system, or a massive technological disadvantage. What a lot of people dont seem to realise is that an sea more than any other theatre, NS isn't real life with more guns, it's NS.

Exactly what Praetonia said. This isn't "modern warfare" in the sense of 2005 weapons and doctrine. This is a whole different animal.

One example I can give is looking at NS-designed warships. With countries that dwarf China's population, have economies that put the United States to shame and enough resources to give entire planets a run for their money, warships and other weapons systems are similarly increased in capability, weapons loadout, etc. A Ticonderoga-class cruiser may be at least adequate for RL navies, but would be woefully underequipped for NS warfare. For starters, the Tic is a AA cruiser and only fits that classification because it has fleet command capabilities. Otherwise, it's an overgrown destroyer. Secondly, American ships and others throughout the RL world have very thin armour in an effort to get more hulls in the water and allow for less expensive repair. As a result, anti-shipping missiles like the Harpoon and even the Exocet can wreak havoc upon "modern" warships. Look at the attack on the USS Cole and before that the USS Stark.

In the NS world, you will need to have much tougher armour to withstand the barrages of enemy missiles, guns and other weapons. Secondly, you will need to arm your ships nearly as well if not better to have adequate deterrents to your enemy's ships. What passes for "today's" technology can be woefully out of date in many of the better NS designs.

Excellent piece. I'm a gonna'add this to my "Subscribed" threads-even without a single deep, warm-water port. (Warm-Water=not frozen more than half the year)

Good points by both authors. I have continually lamented the US Navy's tendency to live on past glories (being ex-US Navy myself). The last major naval engagement in RL was actually a technical loss for the US Navy, BTW (the Imperial Navy inflicted a lot more damage than it received, and one entire Nipponese strike force was completely undetected by the Americans. It was blind luck and poor communications that made the Imperial Navy break off the attack).

Strategy determines Tactics. Tactics affect logistics. Logistics shapes strategy.

Tactics- Operational (short-term) decision-making designed to maximize your advantages and take advantage of your enemy's weaknesses. Putting a significant portion of your fleet out where the enemy can strike at it, while the bulk of your fleet is waiting to attack when the enemy has expended its striking power is an example of this.

Strategy- Long-term decision-making designed to maximize your advantages and take advantage of your enemy's weaknesses. The US island-hopping campaign in the Pacific Theater of WWII was a tactic designed to bypass enemy strongpoints and build airfields by which the US could dominate the skies over a significant portion of the Pacific, which would eventually allow unrestricted aerial bombardment of Nipponese cities. See the difference? The strategy was to reduce Japan's ability to wage war. This involved isolating Nipponese garrisons where they couldn't be profitably destroyed, cutting the Nipponese home islands off from their sources of supply, cutting the Imperial Navy's Sea Lines of Communication, and somehow getting strategic bombers within useful range of the Nipponese home islands in order to destroy Nipponese war industry.

I'm using WWII Pacific Theater references to fit in with the tenor of the thread, but the basic terms are interchangeable with every branch of service and every war.

Another part of strategy- already mentioned in the first post- is the design of your Navy. First, you must develop a Naval Doctrine. The US Naval Doctrine involves (among other things) support for allies, protecting Sea Lines of Communication, strategic deterrence, and power projection. What do you want your Navy to do? This will determine your Naval Doctrine and your strategy. Make your own decisions. If you aren't interested in power projection, only coastal defense, then you'll need a lot fewer carriers and a lot more anti-air/anti-surface/antisubmarine platforms, for example.

BTW, I have developed tactical doctrines to deal with many of the issues raised by Praetonia in his first post here. Anyone with a little understanding of the realities of modern naval warfare can come up with similar tactics- or even something completely new.


Naval Logistics.
I've dinged quite a few people on this over the last couple of years, but still almost everyone drops the ball, here. If you want to be able to project power across an ocean (or lake, river, small puddles, etc), you have to be capable of getting your power (troops, aircraft, surface guns, SSMs, etc) to where the enemy is. Everything will have to be carried by ships or aircraft- and few aircraft can carry more than one main battle tank at a time. So most of the equipment will have to be carried by ships.
This thread ( http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=275828 ) covers many of the problems in supplying troops (with some commentary about navies as well).

The general rules listed in that thread apply to ships at sea. It takes fuel to move ships through the water. Those of you who are now saying, Aha! My whole fleet- down to the lifeboats- is nuclear powered! Ha! are forgetting that ship-based aircraft need fuel to fly. Trucks, tanks, and other vehicles also require fuel (and it's different from aviation fuel). Some emergency equipment onboard most ships also requires fossil fuels. So, you have to carry fuel with you- even if your ships are nuclear-powered.

You have to have some way of getting troops across the ocean, too. Flying them across is possible, but flying their vehicles and most other heavy equipment is either impossible or impractical. Also- as noted earlier by the authors- it is ridiculously easy to shoot down aircraft, especially big, slow, heavily laden transports. So most of the troops will be carried across the ocean onboard ships.

My logistics thread lists common crew sizes for several types of ship. Each member of the crew will need to eat; drink; take showers; change and wash clothes; and sleep during the voyage. Every member of an aircraft detachment (which will include 10-30 additional people per aircraft as ground crew) will also do these things. So will all of the troops in those troop transports. Unless you plan on stopping the fleet for lots of pizza three times a day (rarely practical in the middle of an ocean and never practical in wartime), you'll have to have space for all that stuff onboard each ship. Tonnes of food and other supplies required for living will need to be carried just to get you to where the enemy is. These supplies will be consumed fairly rapidly, so you'll need to resupply fairly often. I haven't even talked about ammunition yet.

The reason guns are still in use aboard modern naval vessels is the fact that it is extremely difficult to re-load missiles at sea. A US Navy Ticonderoga-class cruiser (the so-called Aegis cruiser) carries about 120 missiles in its vertical launch bay. Once those missiles are fired, the ship has to pull into a Naval Weapons Station to re-load the launch bay. Since the ship is considered an All-aspect platform (it is equipped to deal with air, surface, and subsurface threats), quite a few of those 120 missiles will be something other than SAMs. Each SSM (in various configurations) will replace a SAM in the VLS. This problem exists for every modern warship in RL. You have to balance the weapons load-out for the ship before it leaves port for combat.

This means that an air-defense ship that expends all of its SAMs to defeat an aircraft or missile attack will be extremely vulnerable to further attacks. It would be useless for its primary fleet air-defense role, and have to resort to shooting down individual missiles with point-defense systems (CIWS, RAM, etc). Submarines are even worse. Most modern RL submarines only carry (at most) a dozen torpedoes. After they get fired, the boat has to go back to port to get more (or hook up with a surface ship equipped to re-load torpedoes. This type of ship is called a sub-tender).

Back to guns. You can carry more ammo for a surface gun system than for missiles, but this ammunition is also in finite supply. Worse, the ammo has to be stored in armored bunkers within the ship, lest some lucky enemy shot set your own ammo off and vaporize your ship. Unless you develop some clever means of getting around it, all of the really large-caliber guns will also have separate propellant. The 16-inch guns on the US Navy's Iowa-class battleships do not use big 16" diameter bullet-shaped cartridges. What actually happens is the warhead gets loaded into the firing chamber, after which several bags (weighing 50 kilos or so each) of gunpowder propellant are loaded in behind the warhead. These propellant bags need to be stored separately from the warheads, BTW. One good bit about most guns systems is that you can re-supply that sort of ammo at sea.

So now your Navy needs to have some means of getting around all the problems I've listed, plus a few others. Several RL navies use standardized surface guns to cut down on the logistical problems involved in gun ammunition, but there's very little you can do about aircraft and ground vehicle fuel but carry it aboard ships that travel along with the fleet. Ditto for food. Drinking water can usually be made from seawater aboard ship, but only in open waters. Trying to make potable water from a waterway filled with silt, oil, or any number of contaminants will either ruin the water distillation equipment and the ship's engines, or make the crew very sick.

I forgot to talk about landing craft. A great many people whose militaries I have critiqued had completely forgotten about them as well. How many troops will your landing craft carry? How many landing craft will your amphibious ships carry? The big RL US Navy amphibs only carry 2 or 3 LCACs (Landing Craft, Air Cushion- the US Marines assault hovercraft), each of which will only carry one tank or 50 or so troops. Guess what? All of those landing craft will need petroleum products to operate. That fuel has to be carried on the ships as well. How many troop transports do you have? What about Amphibious assault ships?

Let's see: Spare parts have to be carried for every ship, plus specialized repair ships will need to accompany the fleet to take care of problems the ships' own crews can't. For long voyages, the ships will need to re-supply two or three times before they get where they're going. That means you'll have to have supply ships either accompanying the fleet or meeting the fleet at strategic intervals underway. The US Navy in RL spends a lot of effort on what they call sustainability. During the war in Afghanistan, one US aircraft carrier spent 7 months continuously at sea, making air strikes throughout Afghanistan for most of that time. It was tough on the crew psychologically, but the planes had plenty of fuel, ammo, and spare parts; the crew had plenty of food; and the carrier kept sailing and fighting without letup.

So before you start talking about your uber l33t mega navy and how powerful it is, start looking into how long you can keep the ships at sea. My Navy has more than 2000 ships, but most of them are support ships of various sorts. I can keep battlegroups in combat in various parts of the world for a long time- thanks to the large number of support ships and strategically located logistics support bases outside my home territory. You'll need to think about that sort of sustainability when you start thinking about naval strategy and tactics. Which means you have to deal with logistics at some level.

As I've said before elsewhere, the reason to pay attention to this stuff is to enhance the quality of the roleplay. Instead of the enemy fleet staying off your coast indefinitely, you and the enemy can roleplay his efforts to resupply his ships and your efforts to screw those plans up. Remember that the first casualty in any conflict is your warplan. Remember also that amateurs study tactics, but Generals study logistics ... and so do Admirals.

Welcome to my world.

one thing I would like to see more of is piracy anonymously attacking a nation saves the war but you still get spoils and also when a nation is at war it doesn’t want to have to use most of its navy escorting

Thanks for the illuminating post TEO. It's great to have someone with real naval experience offering his expertise.

and... bump!

bump

Very good point about logistics. Many of the better NS role-players do pay lip service to logistics, but all too often shore support and port systems are forgotten. Many navies seem to be woefully understaffed.
Firstly, just like armies, navys also need their own cooks, clerks, policemen and security personnel. This would add at least a few thousand to most navy's personnel.
Secondly, in port, vast numbers of dockers, stevedores and engineers are needed. You could say that a navy would only use civilian ports or employ civilian port workers - fine, as long as you don't mind spys and sabateurs having access to some of your best kept naval secrets. This could easily double the size of many navies.
Thirdly, what makes you think each ship or sub only need's one crew? It is standard practice in the Royal navy (UK) for submarines to have two crews (known as port-crew and starboard-crew). This enables one crew to be either in training or on leave, allowing each sub to be on permanent duty. I myself have extended this practice to all the ships in my NS navy.
Hope you all find this of use.

You know... and this is a tangent, of course... I've never understood the whole point of 'super dreadnaughts.' Everyone has them. How super can they be? It gets even worse with future tech space navies with their mega-super-hyper-battleship classes. What's wrong with just "battleship," does the word not convey a sense of OMGHUGENESS enough, and if so why does that matter?

You know... and this is a tangent, of course... I've never understood the whole point of 'super dreadnaughts.' Everyone has them. How super can they be? It gets even worse with future tech space navies with their mega-super-hyper-battleship classes. What's wrong with just "battleship," does the word not convey a sense of OMGHUGENESS enough, and if so why does that matter?

A lot of it can be traced back through real life history to the early naval races in the late 19th/early twentieth century. It really is a matter of prestige - "mines bigger than yours, and I've got more of them!". In my opinion its a bit of a silly attitude, but there we go.

Actually, the origin of the term came from the HMS Dreadnaught back around 1906, which was the first major battleship to carry the same size main guns (most of the previous battleships had a few 12 inchers or less and more secondary guns of around 9.2 inches). Within a few years, some ships were built that were what could be described as superdreadnaughts back then. Obviously, then, the term superdreadnaught isn't just a NS convention.

Large battleships are there as symbols of prestige and power. It all goes back to the days when ships were sent to "show the flag."

Actually, the origin of the term came from the HMS Dreadnaught back around 1906, which was the first major battleship to carry the same size main guns (most of the previous battleships had a few 12 inchers or less and more secondary guns of around 9.2 inches). Within a few years, some ships were built that were what could be described as superdreadnaughts back then. Obviously, then, the term superdreadnaught isn't just a NS convention.

Large battleships are there as symbols of prestige and power. It all goes back to the days when ships were sent to "show the flag."

HMS Dreadnought was different in two respects. Firstly, she was the first ship to use steam turbine engines rather than straightforward steam engines, meaning she could outrun any major and most minor naval vessels from around the world. Secondly, she used a revolutionry new gun arrangement. Most battleships of the time had only two or three gun turrets, each with two large caliber guns. One would be forward and one aft, with a possible addition in the centre raised. This gave 6 guns firing in each direction. HMS Dreadnought used 8 turrets. One forward and one aft, with each side of the centre structure having three turrets, with the one in between being raised. This meant that she could fire 10 guns in any direction. On her launch in 1906 she made very other vessel at sea obsolete, and sparked a naval arms race between great Britain and Germany.

A lot of it can be traced back through real life history to the early naval races in the late 19th/early twentieth century. It really is a matter of prestige - "mines bigger than yours, and I've got more of them!". In my opinion its a bit of a silly attitude, but there we go.

No no, I'm not questioning that. But what about the NAMING... the making up of new names which mean nothing. You know like superdreadnaught, which the HMS Dreadnaught was not classified as. At least not that I can find. Similarly with megadreadnaughts and everything else. "My ship has a bigger name than your ship!" There is no prestige to be had in just coming up with dumb sounding names, real or otherwise. Especially when everyone has them! And everyone CAN have them. Blah.

No no, I'm not questioning that. But what about the NAMING... the making up of new names which mean nothing...OIC.

I think it goes back to the prestige factor when it comes to names like superdreadnaught or battleship. People like to say "I have a superdreadnaught." "Oh yeah, well I have THREE," and so on. It's all about who has the larger metal penis and who can RAWRR the loudest.

No no, I'm not questioning that. But what about the NAMING... the making up of new names which mean nothing. You know like superdreadnaught, which the HMS Dreadnaught was not classified as. At least not that I can find. Similarly with megadreadnaughts and everything else. "My ship has a bigger name than your ship!" There is no prestige to be had in just coming up with dumb sounding names, real or otherwise. Especially when everyone has them! And everyone CAN have them. Blah.

This is my whole point. Someone decided that they wanted a ship bigger than a Dreadnought so came up with "Superdreadnought", a term now quite commen in these forums. And I totally agree with you, it does just spark an arms race, as sooner or later, everyone has them, and then they have to go to the next level - hence "megadreadnought", and other such silliness.

Bloody brilliant!

~ Romandeos.

Do you guys have any info on littoral combat? So far, this only talks about blue water. But it's awesome, good job stressing the value of naval air power.I just re-read my introductory post and I briefly touched on littoral combat. However, it does merit additional discussion and I'll be glad to work something up for that.

I just re-read my introductory post and I briefly touched on littoral combat. However, it does merit additional discussion and I'll be glad to work something up for that.

Pardon my newbishness... but what exactly is Blue Water and Littoral?

Arggh! I'm saying that coming up with new names for these things is NOT an arms race! Otherwise... blam, my frigates are all UBER DREADNAUGHTS! Prestige!? None that I see.

If you think you'll get prestige just for making silly names for battleships, you won't. Maybe for having larger battleships, but the names are irrelevant as there is no standardization internationally.

I'd love arms races and such, but I don't think anyone takes the time to RP them. Coming up with new stats with larger numbers and different names and posting them is not RP.

Blah whatever, I'm future tech, I see the same thing with TFU's eighty bajillion population galactic empire with hundreds of thousands of dollars per capita GDP. It's called, pointless wank.

Pardon my newbishness... but what exactly is Blue Water and Littoral?"Blue water" refers to deep sea naval operations (mostly your standard-issue naval battles, patrolling, etc.), while "littoral" refers to shallow waters (usually coastal). It's sometimes referred to as "brown water" to mark the contrast between traditional blue water operations and the specialist roles of the littoral warfare units.

Dreadnaughts were only about 180m or so long and Super Dreadnaughts were only about 220m long. What are you on about?We're talking about NS warfare, not RL.

Dreadnaughts were only about 180m or so long and Super Dreadnaughts were only about 220m long. What are you on about?

As Sarzonia said, this is NS, not real life, a mistake I myself have made in previous comparisons.

The only part of my description that is wrong was the number of turrets. The rest is bang on the money. Whilst I don't mind criticism or corrections (read any of my posts) I'd appreciate it if you could keep your comments to just that, and not be so rude.
You also got the placement of said turrets incorrect, and also the number of guns that can be brought to bear in any particular direction wrong. And Im not being rude, just putting your facts straight. Dont take it offensively.

You also got the placement of said turrets incorrect, and also the number of guns that can be brought to bear in any particular direction wrong. And Im not being rude, just putting your facts straight. Dont take it offensively.Perhaps you didn't intend for it to be rude, but asking someone "what are you on about" can be considered rude, especially in the context. There are ways to correct faulty information without making someone look like an idiot.

Feline Catfish: The comment about you being rude had to do with your comment of "What are you on about?" This is nowhere near severe enough that I'm going to take official action against you, but try to be aware of these things.

/me claps his hands twice for attention.

Okay, back on-topic, people. Dreadnaughts, you were talking about Dreadnaughts.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
NationStates Game Moderator

My aplogies for almoest ruining a very worthwhile thread. My posts have been deleted/edited. It would be appreciated if Feline Catfish did the same.

Nice thread, simple enough for the casual observer to be interested in reading it and taking some note but also not too badly skimping on some of the finer points that the more informed readers might be aware of.

I look forward to a section on littoral combat.

EDIT: For those supremely interested it might be worth getting a copy of Red Storm Rising, I can only comment on my views of the book being a good read but also on that of an uncle of mine, who served for a few decades in the Royal Navy as a Chief Petty Officer and ended up serving onboard Ganges, his view was that it was an accurate depiction of naval combat at least of the time it was written. Plus it’s quite enjoyable to read.

May I say, an excellent book and a good research tool for cold war naval combat - its exactly where I based my earlier comments about naval aviation from.

There used to be a fairly good thread (many, many moons ago) about battleships, with in-depth commentary about whether or not they were worth the time and effort to build, crew, and maintain them.

The US Navy was the last modern navy to employ battleships, and there are none currently in service. The battleship's demise in RL was largely the result of accounting, the advent of long-range guided missiles, and the rise of the aircraft carrier. Note that the US Navy didn't say the ships were useless, just not worth the cost and manpower. Since they were essentially talking about WWII-era surface gun platforms, they were essentially correct.

The issue is slightly different in NS- or should be- since most players with BBs build them from scratch, with modern equipment and (usually) nuclear power plants. Sadly, all too many players just copy diagrams from the WWII-era vessels and inflate the dimensions (and gun sizes). This brings them right back up against the cost-benefit analysis the US Navy went through on the BBs. Making heavily-armored ships with big steel penises ... sorry, I meant guns ... is flattering to the ego, but they aren't that useful- even in NS, where modern warfare is rare and most conflicts are reduced to WWI-style battles. Practically no one RPs naval gunfire support (largely because most wars start with OMFG ILAND 100329477623945932747 TANKS ON YUR BEACHES YURDED!), and ship-to ship surface gunnery battles should be supremely rare in a missiles-rich environment like NS.

That said, the battleship is not necessarily dead. If you change the focus of the vessel and build in the proper capabilities, the BB can make a comeback. Most RL modern ships are lightly-armored in comparison with the ships of WWII- mainly because surface gun battles are rare. In the technological duel between ship armor and missile lethality, the missile currently has the edge. It would be very difficult to put enough armor on a destroyer (for example) to do much good against most anti-ship missiles. Even if you could armor a destroyer to give it effective protection against modern ship-killing missiles, you'd necessarily reduce the ship's speed and fuel economy to the point where oar-driven galleys could outrun them. This is why modern RL warships concentrate on missile defenses (which are not nearly as effective as most players in NS think, but that's another rant).

Now, if you put a nuclear power plant in a battleship, give it a lot of armor (not necessarily as much as a WW II BB, but more than modern RL ships), load it up with missiles and missile defenses, and add a few smaller surface guns with long range capability, you might get a platform capable of effective combat in a modern warfare RP. My BBs' largest guns are roughly 12 inch, and there are only 6 per ship. The guns are used mainly for long-range bombardment of shore targets (because it is really tough to get within effective surface gun range in an NS naval encounter). My ships are slightly larger than the Iowa-class US BBs, and smaller than the Yamato. They are also loaded with air-defense missiles, point-defense gun and missile systems, and scads of SSMs.

They have a tremendous offensive punch (SSMs), excellent defensive capabilities (SAMs, CIWS, RAM, etc), and enough armor to improve survivability when something gets through the defenses. Due to several technological tricks I have used to reduce weight, they can keep up with carriers. Their primary role is air-defense. The guns give them a secondary purpose of shore bombardment. They aren't kilometers long, and there isn't enough room onboard for a really effective ASW suite, so they still require escort ships (another matter most would-be admirals on NS neglect- yet another rant). That sort of battleship might survive a US Navy-style cost-benefit analysis. I seriously doubt whether many of the BBs I have seen touted on the forums would do as well.


TEO

+tag+

My only problem with this is that lets say a force of SD's matches up against a group of guided missile cruisers, aircraft carriers, and destroyers. As long as the fleet 1. stays out of range of the SD cannons 2.receives adequete supples 3. maintans air air cover, they can move around in an arc blasting the SD's into oblivion with concerntrated missile launches without ever exposing themselves to the devastating cannon fire, rendering the Battleships useless.

My only problem with this is that lets say a force of SD's matches up against a group of guided missile cruisers, aircraft carriers, and destroyers. As long as the fleet 1. stays out of range of the SD cannons 2.receives adequete supples 3. maintans air air cover, they can move around in an arc blasting the SD's into oblivion with concerntrated missile launches without ever exposing themselves to the devastating cannon fire, rendering the Battleships useless.

Which is largely the point of my long-winded rant. BBs can be useful in a modern-warfare context, provided they are not used solely as surface gun platforms.

There are a few potential problems with your scenario- it assumes that the BBs are only using WWII-era surface guns (which is a good assumption for most players on NS). It also assumes that the BBs have no escort ships (another good assumption), and remain relatively stationary. You're quite correct: under those circumstances, the BBs will eventually be rendered harmless by concentrated missile fire.

Another major weak point in many players' concept of a battleship (which I neglected to mention earlier) is the fact that the BBs are vulnerable to modern submarines. Few battleship designers give any thought to ASW capabilities, and are largely relying on the ship's armor to protect them from torpedoes. Many modern RL torpedoes do not actually make physical contact with the target ship. Instead, the torpedo passes beneath the ship and detonates. The vacuum resulting from the explosion usually cracks the keel of the target, which will probably sink the stricken vessel- and will cause multiple casualties among the crew even if the ship does not sink. Taking a quick look at histrical battleship armor, I note that the so-called torpedo belt is actually an extra-thick band of armor just below the waterline to defeat contact-fused torpedoes. The keel is essentially unarmored.

Even assuming the keel was reinforced to withstand the attack I just described, there are no practical means of protecting the screws from the force of a torpedo explosion. A large underwater explosion near the screws will probably damage the screw blades (and jam them into unwanted positions, if they are variable-pitch) and almost certainly blow out the shaft seals. There would be serious flooding into the aft machinery spaces of the ship. This would (1) slow the ship down, (2) cause lots of collateral damage as the equipment in the machinery spaces stopped working due to electrical problems, further reducing the ship's fighting capabilities, and (3) could possibly end up sinking the ship.

There would also be a lot of damage to the rudders, BTW, which would very likely ruin any chance of maintaining a steady course (and remember that Bismark was run down and destroyed by the British because an air-dropped torpedo damaged the rudders).


TEO

Excellent posts so far. In regards to the BB's vulnerability to submarine platforms, it still depends on not only the escorts, but also the formation of the battlegroup and how fast the battlegroup actually travels. While things like sea-based (such as the placement of subs and pickets tens to hundreds of nms from the core of the formation) and air-based (things like S-3B Vikings) patrols are cruical for ASW operations, lighter/smaller but faster battleships (or for the matter, battlecruisers) always has the upper advantage than slower and heavier battleships in avoiding submarine attacks, as they can travel faster (thus forcing the sub to travel faster to catch up and get a firing solution, making noise) and also maneuver better in emergency situations (which is cruical considering that most subs use Target Motion Analysis for targeting, which tracks the target based on coordinates/bearings data extracted from passive sensors, and that torpedoes are still not too maneuverable in a way). Though the heavier battleships does have an advantage in the form of armour, point-defence anti-torpedo systems (both those systems in NS and concepts in RL), and others (for example, ASW mortars can also mess up the sonar or wake homing seeker of a torpedo if the wire is broken), they are still the last-resort solutions rather than actually preventing such submarine attacks to happen.

So in conclusion, bigger, heavily-armoured, and better-armed battleships (aka dreadnaughts and SDs in NS) does have their own disadvantages, and they are not the "invincible monsters" that some believes. HOWEVER, defeating them still requires careful planning (instead of depelting your whole missile cells without any results), although it can be done against something as large as a SD. One of the cruical points that many ignores is while emptying your whole VLS system onto the hull of the SD might be nice (though questionable in its effectiveness), it would be more efficent if you target things such as the sensor systems on the SD (radar/IR/LADAR/whatnot), weapon systems (including light-armoured secondary guns and VLS cells), and aircraft (assuming that a SD would have an fixed-wing aircraft complement, exploding munitions and burning jet fuel are not good). This is further made possible by the use of modern targeting/guidance packages, which can target a specific area of the vessel instead of the hull or deck as a whole.

So in conclusion, bigger, heavily-armoured, and better-armed battleships (aka dreadnaughts and SDs in NS) does have their own disadvantages, and they are not the "invincible monsters" that some believes. HOWEVER, defeating them still requires careful planning (instead of depelting your whole missile cells without any results), although it can be done against something as large as a SD. One of the cruical points that many ignores is while emptying your whole VLS system onto the hull of the SD might be nice (though questionable in its effectiveness), it would be more efficent if you target things such as the sensor systems on the SD (radar/IR/LADAR/whatnot), weapon systems (including light-armoured secondary guns and VLS cells), and aircraft (assuming that a SD would have an fixed-wing aircraft complement, exploding munitions and burning jet fuel are not good).

Exactly right. Note that I rarely refer to destroying a warship. It is far more practical to accomplish a mission-kill: rendering the ship unable to perform its primary function.

Damaging a ship's radars, weapons directors, and other equipment is far easier than blasting the vessel itself into scrap metal (although you were quite correct in stating that the latter is usually the preferred option for many players). Given the fact that it should be difficult to get into effective gun range in modern naval combat RPs, destroying a BB's ability to fight effectively at missile range would count as a mission-kill.

With the exception of General Belgrano, few warships have actually been sunk as a result of modern naval combat. The attack on USS Starke by the Iraqis in the 80's revealed how tough it is to destroy a modern warship, despite the previously-noted tendency toward lighter armor (or no armor at all, in many cases). The Exocet missile which hit Starke did accomplish a classic mission-kill, as did the attack on the USS Cole. Neither ship was in great danger of sinking, however. Cole was back in action in just over a year.

Mission-kill is easier and just as militarily effective as physically destroying the enemy ship. For one thing, there are few practical means of putting armor onto radar systems. It doesn't matter much how thick the armor on the ship's hull is if the missiles attacking the ship are aimed at the superstructure.


TEO

bump

Hmmm...

TEO: I tend to think of 'Battleship' in the modern context as an extra-heavy escort for the Landing Support ships, rather than as a dedicated surface ship-to-ship combatant. You can do the same shore-bombardment job with missiles, but big guns are cheaper-per-shot. For antishipping work, I tend to think Missiles and torpedoes are better choices for most of the reasons you've outlined. I'd add something to your specs, though- assuming adequate antimissile defense, and adequate antisub capability with your escorts, a Battleship may be a good EW and C3 centre for a task-group. Esp. one using either efficient turbine power, or nuclear power.

I'm curious though: shouldn't large assets (even Battleships) be run in 'packs'? Unless you're doing WWII era commerce-raiding, It would seem to me that a lone warship (of any type) is just begging to be gang-banged. I don't think (when I do my navy up) I'm going to have a lot of room in my organizational chart for solo-operators, a ship alone is too vulnerable even at sea in the era of sattelite recce, long-range missile and bomber formations, GPS, and other modern systems that can even map the ocean floor by measuring wave-height.

The way I'm figuring it, if you run something in the neighbourhood of groups of five (one capital ship, five smaller ships, ten destroyers) on the surface with sub support beneath, and an average frontage of five to ten Nautical Miles between, you can put up quite an antimissile/AAA envelope, and your antiship weapons can fire "in support" and in-volley. I just don't see a lone warship as being all that useful-even one that combines the assets of a Cruiser and Carrier in a single package.

How many UnRep/Tenders would you need for a group like that, how do you protect them (so your sailors don't run out of beans and bullets), and what do you suggest for rapid resupply of a task-force at sea? How often would you, say, (using modern ship designs to make it easy) need to rendezvous each vessel with a supply boat, presuming the following:

1 Battleship (of some kind, presume slight efficiency advantage over the Iowa-class)
1 Large carrier (Forrestal or similar)
2 small carriers/LHA/LHC (Helo flattops)
5 Cruisers (Probably Ticonderoga or similar)
10 Destroyers
20 Frigates
5 Subs (Probably Diesel-electrics or small nuclear-powered attack models)

How many supply/support vessels do I need for this layout, and what kind of escorting forces do you recommend to make sure the supplies actually get where they're going? Further, presuming 1980-1990's era tech, how much actual coverage is this group going to provide. I'm planning one of the Helo flattops to be a mobile ASW base using helos and VSTOL jets (Most likely Harriers or a variant, though an ASW modded Osprey looks interesting too.)

The following is something I wrote in a few minutes of boredom regarding the composition of a carrier task force:

Composition of a Task Force (using RL navies as a base)
1 Aircraft Carrier (kept in the rear to protect against an aerial attack
1-2 cruisers (Ticonderoga-class cruisers for AA use)
2-3 destroyers (Arleigh Burke-class destroyers)
3-4 frigates (Oliver Hazard Perry-class for ASW warfare)
1-2 attack submarines (Los Angeles-class typical)

As you can see, this is a force of roughly eight-12 ships. An aircraft carrier is generally only armed with the most basic self-defense weaponry and is extremely vulnerable, so these ships are essential for escort duty. There is a noticeable tendency among some of the less-experienced NS ship designers (and even some more-experienced ones are guilty of this, too) of trying to design multi-role vessels. The problem with a multi-role vessel is the ages-old saying: “Jack of all trades and master of none.” A multi-role vessel can fill the roles it is expected to, but without specialization, it is unable to perform any of them particularly well.

However, multi-role vessels can fulfill the needs of countries that can’t afford to have one ship for ASW combat, one ship for AA warfare, and yet another ship for ASuW purposes. The problem is that on any ship, even a wanked NS vessel, there are limitations such as storage space, potency of weapons, etc. that a designer has to take into account. Ships run out of weapons if they fire them enough. Not only that, but they have to have space for fuel, food, clothing, etc. And they have to accommodate their crews and officers, not to mention equipment required to sail the ship. Getting a headache yet?

A vessel optimized for a specific role, such as ASW frigates or AA destroyers are better equipped for the specific roles they are intended to fill. Instead of having to accommodate space for anti-aircraft radars, ASW equipment, and ASuW weapons, the ship would then be freed to house more and better equipment to fill its specified role within the fleet. Besides that, having specialists who focus on the role required of the ship means the crew can be more capable of performing its necessary functions.

Why is that important? Imagine having your ship lose 2/3 of its crew in a fierce battle. Now imagine that your ship is a multi-role vessel and you’ve just lost all but one of your sonar operators and your sonar equipment is taken out because you don’t have any redundant systems backing it up so you can have other systems in there. Now imagine you come across an SSN that’s out for blood. Your ship is toast.

Now, imagine a AA destroyer that’s damaged defending an aircraft carrier from aerial attack. The destroyer has a better chance of being able to perform its duties, albeit in a weakened fashion because it has more equipment on hand to do its job since it doesn’t have to worry about the multiple roles that other ships would have.

The above task force breakdown I posted is my idea of what a RL task force might look like. This doesn’t take into account the logistics needed, such as replenishment ships, tankers, submarine tenders, hospital ships, etc. that are often neglected in NS naval warfare, but are essential to the successful operation of any naval task force.
If I were to optimize the above-mentioned task force for NS combat, I wouldn’t use American ships for starters. American ships are decent at best in RL terms but are absolute crap in NS terms. Why? They’re lightly armed compared to the needs of NS combat for starters. Secondly, their skins are incredibly thin and a Harpoon or even a Exocet missile can do some serious damage to them. Also, many NS navies have technologies that either don’t exist now (roughly in the 2010-2020 range, for instance) or aren’t being used widely even if they could be used today. In addition, the battleship or the superdreadnaught is much more important to the NS navy. There is extensive debate on the merits of the battleship compared to the aircraft carrier. I won’t get into great detail for the RL task force, but I will say that I would include at least a handful of battleships to provide additional protection in a NS task force.

The reason to include a battleship (preferably something that fires at least 20 inch guns) is simple: Battleships are some of the best ships for the land attack role because it is very difficult to shoot down a shell from a naval gun, whereas it is possible to shoot down missiles. In addition, a battleship in a NS navy is bound to be very well armoured, meaning that it can withstand a pounding that would send many other ships to the bottom. Even in a RL sense, an enemy firing a Harpoon or Exocet missile at a Iowa-class battleship would discover that the missile will have a hard time penetrating the thick armour of the Iowa. And for NS purposes, an Iowa may as well be a light, pop gun wielding ship!

Conversely, it is foolhardy to send a battleship without escort ships or aircraft in a similar vein as it is foolish to send aircraft carriers without escorts. Number one, the battleship does not have a strong AA battery since it is not designed to deal with aerial threats as its primary mission. Number two, a common strategy against large capital ships in NS is to send submarines after them, usually because many surface ships are vulnerable to submerged attacks on their keels. Number three, aircraft allow you to spot an enemy’s aerial threat and deal with it before the enemy’s attack squadrons start honing in on your large hulks of metal.

To be honest, I'm kind of digusted at the 1-upmanship going on in NS, where everybody is trying to develop bigger, better, and uber'ized ships every month. We might as well call the navy of NS, like Doujins and such, as post-modern tech.

I do realize the whole "My boat must be better than yours, so I can fight off dogpiles!" or "I'm invicible with my uber-navy! RAWRRR!" crap, However, that raises a serious problem, that can actually be used to an advantage. You see...

I believe that soon, we'll have ships with 40 inch guns, 10 meter thick hull armor, 3 million ton displacement, etc. Once these ships are developed, the "enemy" will have to pour a lot of resources into that one mega-ship, leaving it with a greatly reduced conventional navy, like subs, carriers, destroyers, etc. Then my or other sensible NS'er conventional navy will tear the NS'ers navy to pieces because of the lack of sufficient protection from other ships and support roles.

I am currently in the process of developing my own navy ships, and I am going to make it a point to not go overboard or uber-ize it. I am going to try to make it as realistic as possible, yet have enough DEFENSE to not be sunk in 1 hit from these NS "cheater" ships.

Example...

My ship will have:

18 inch guns (realistic)
80% more armor compared to Iowa / Yamato ships (un-realistic, probably only un-realistic part of my ship)
Normal crew of roughly 3,000 - 4,000 men (realistic)

and so on...

Standard NS'er ship will have:

30 inch guns (un-realistic)
50% more armor compared to Iowa / Yamato (semi-realistic)
Crew of only 1,500 - 2,500 men (semi-realistic)


Get the picture?

Sharina: I'm afraid that I'll have to disagree with you on the subject of the actual utility of the large, heavy command battleships (my term for "super-dreadnaughts"), as most of the times you won't find faults in the concept, but rather how one would use it in battle and elsewhere. With the development of many these vessels, it depends on who is developing them, though through my observation a lot of these battleships originates from requirements, not some urge to have the "biggest ship in NS" (though this do apply in some cases), thus you cannot blame every SD-maker in NS of the same wrongdoing.

I'll have to also disagree with your claim that heavy command battleships/SD will greatly reduce one navy's capabilities. That said, it still depends on the actual mission of the navy. For my navy, which is geared to the defence of allies and fulfilling alliance obligations, we do have some large command battleships (including two that exceeds the 3 million tone line), but it still does not mean that we'll be depelted of things such as submarines and escort vessels. Since (as said) the effectiveness of these vessels still depends on how one uses them, for us pretty much their only role is large command platforms, with a secondary surface bombardment capability - thats it. We still have a medium-sized force of carrier battle groups and "fire support groups" (my name for battleship-oriented BGs), and a large force of small attack craft and conventional submarines, with a large force of replenishment, amphibious, transportation, and mine warfare vessels to support them.

As well, I'll have to disagree with your rather flawed portrait of the "standard NS Navy ship". Though indeed there are many dreadnaughts/large battleships, you cannot overlook the existing medium-sized battleships (what I refer to as BBs in the 100,000-400,000ton range) and carriers. Furthermore, just because that the 30 inch gun will have many disadvantages does not mean that it will be unfeastible scientifically, given that the two words has drastically different meanings. With the armour, you'll probably see much more than that given the advanced armour schemes and materials used in NS, while to be truthful I have rarely came across a SD that has the crew that you mentioned.

Though admittingly there are people who uses these ships as the "undestructable monsters of NS", branding them as "cheater ships" is a greatly flawed exaggeration as often people overlooks the fact that it is not the size, but is the employment of them thet is the problem.

Omz, thanks for your critique.

To clarify my position on Superdreads and stuff, hopefully to answer some questions and clear up any confusion.

1. I believe that the Superdread race won't stop. Everybody will continue to try to out-do each other in building Superdreads, as in my previous example of 40 inch guns, 10 meter thick armor, multi-million ton displacement, etc. Yes, the concept of superdreads are for command + control, with protection for the commander of the navy. However, this "arms race" in superdread design and usage will only result in a waste of resources and material, as I will explain later.

2. I apologize for not being clear about the "depeleted" issue. Allow me to clarify. Superdreads will use up a lot more resources, finances, and material than a regular carrier or battleship.

Here's an example... Assume Nation A + B have the same naval budget.

If Nation A decides to build Superdreads, and Nation B decides to forego Superdreads in favor of other ships.

Nation A's navy:

10 Superdreads
10 carriers
20 battleships
40 cruisers
80 destroyers
50 submarines

Nation B's navy:

40 carriers
80 battleships
160 cruisers
320 destroyers
200 submarines


See the difference? A single superdread can cost upwards of 150 billion, while a carrier or battleship would cost 3 - 5 billion. That's a huge difference, as a matter of fact, I can construct and maintain approximately 30 - 50 carriers / battleships for a single superdread.

30 carriers x 5 billion = 150 billion
50 battleships x 3 billion = 150 billion
1 superdread x 150 billion = 150 billion

Therefore, I believe that Superdreads are a colossal waste of money and resources when I can easily have 30 - 50 carriers / battleships instead. The damage from 30 - 50 carriers / battleships would far outweigh the damage of the superdread, and a superdread can't hope to stand up aganist 30 - 50 ships. The sheer firepower would cause castropohic damage to the superdread's "above-hull" meaning radar arrays, gun turrets, heliocopter pads, missile bay doors, sensor suites, small CIWS turrets, etc.

This is what I meant by "deplete". If you put your money and resources towards superdreads, you will have less resources and money overall to use for other ships. You'd lose 30 - 50 carriers / battleships, or 100 destroyers / cruisers to construct a superdread instead. Even in NS, budgets are finite, meaning you can only construct, maintain, and crew so many ships before your money, resources, and population runs out.

The adage, "Quantity over quality" wins out on this one. I'd take 50 battleships over 1 superdread any time of any day.



Finally... I guess I did go overboard with slamming "NS ships", its mainly because I'm getting quite sick of NS'ers trying to do tank +1, fighter +1, ship+1 over each other. People are trying to develop uber-tanks that have 10x better armor than M1A1 Abhrams or Challenger II tanks, fighters that can cruise at mach 2+ and engage in mach 2+ dogfights, etc.

If this keeps up, all those uber-ized crap will be considered too farfetched, and thus slammed with "GODMOD!" or "IGNORED!" not from me but other realistic NS players as well.

What's next? 60 ton tanks with a 175mm cannon going 100 MPH? Fighters that can engage in combat at mach 7+ with armor plating? Superdreads with 50 inch cannons and 10 million tons displacement?

See what I'm getting at?

With the numbers, though indeed it would require a lot more resources to build SDs, numbers are numbers - that's it. You cannot use numbers to compare something when the two are designed for different missions, roles, and are intended to fulfill requirements. Just because that they will take a lot more resource to build doesn't mean that they are not cost effective as something that will fit a navy's requirements, even if that means reducing the number of small vessels/battlegroups. Furthermore, you would also have to factor things in such as maintenance, repairs, crew requirements, and supplies, which will mean that a lot more carriers or battleships will also cost a lot more money in the long term than dreadnaughts, though I'm in no way making a direct comparison of the two. For our navy, while indeed we have undergone a 600 vessel decrease in order to allocate enough budget to purchase new "heavy command battleships", that doesn't mean that our navy is degraded in performance just because the number has decreased, as numbers and mission requirements and effectiveness are two different things. You simply can't say that "30 Nimitz carriers-" or "50 Iowa battleships will replace a superdreadnaught", as they are all designed for different tasks and will play different roles in one's navy.

With the superdreadnaughts, though I'm not an expert, the technologies used on them hasn't been proven to be unfeastible, unlike the tanks and aircraft you mentioned. With the ships, the resources are there, and the primary reason of why you won't see such vessels in RL is because they are 1) takes up a lot of resources thus too cost ineffective, and 2) they do not in any way fit the requirements of navies around the world. However, at the same time, it also somewhat applies in NS, and one of the primary obstacles is the astronomical amount of resources and materials that would be needed by a ship that is any larger than a (let's say 1,000,000-4,000,000 ton) "superdreadnaught".

I see your point Omz, and I can understand where you're coming from.

As far as I understand it, Superdread's role is Command + Control. It can also bombard shores, take down battlecruisers and battleships, and serve as a floating fortress to protect the commander of the navy and his/her tactical staff.

However, if I give up a superdread for 30 carriers, I'd be able to bombard and attack more targets. I'd be able to launch far more air missions, and put up far more air defense via fighters and CIWS systems. I'd also be able to field more aircraft aganist the enemy, a necessity in the NS world where it's normal for thousands of planes, tens of thousands of missiles, and such. Having more aircraft carriers can give me more defense aganist those threats than a single Superdread.

If I gave up a superdread for 50 battleships, I'd gain far more shore bombard capability, CIWS defenses, and firepower to use aganist conventional naval ships.

The same can be said if I gave up a superdread for 50 submarines, 100 destroyers, or 80 cruisers. I'd be basically getting 5 - 10 extra specialized ships for the price of one superdread.

I give up 1 superdread. I get the following...

5 carriers ($25 billion)
10 battleships ($30 billion)
20 cruisers ($30 billion)
40 destroyers ($30 billion)
20 submarines ($30 - 40 billion)

For the price of 1 superdread at $150 billion.

That "package" gives me versatile ships of each class and duty like CIWS duty, Electronic Warfare duty, ASW duty, Air-power duty, etc. I can put up more of a fight with that "package" than I could with 1 superdread.

Yes, but a Superdreadnought has one thing that those other things don't.

REALLY HUGE GUNS.

That and most SDs carry enough anti-ship missiles to wipe out entire surface fleets in addition to those really huge guns.

Yes, but a Superdreadnought has one thing that those other things don't.

REALLY HUGE GUNS.

That and most SDs carry enough anti-ship missiles to wipe out entire surface fleets in addition to those really huge guns.

Ah, but you're overlooking volume and reunduancy.

With 50 - 100 ships in my "Package" in my previous post, I would have more volume to launch missiles and such, so I should have comparable or slightly better amounts of missiles spread out throughout my "Package" than in a superdread. I also can employ far more CIWS systems, reducing missile damage considerably.

So...

1 SD is just 1 ship. If it goes down from a concentrated attack, you're so out of luck. Your missiles, CIWS, armor, etc. go down to the bottom of the sea. However, with my "Package" even if a few ships are sunk, I'll still be able to launch missiles, aircraf, etc. aganist the enemy without 100% loss (like if it was a 1 SD).


One more thing, the SD can only have so many "Big guns 0f d00m" while I'll be able to employ easily 10x - 20x more guns than the SD. You don't need 30, 40, or 50 inch guns in naval warfare, as it is overkill. All I need would be 18 inch or 20 inch guns at most to do damage and shore bombardment.

100+ guns of 20 inch diameter (spread throughout my 20 battleships in my "Package") would easily engage more targets and do more culumative damage than 20 guns of 30 inch caliber, or 10 guns of 40 inch caliber. (on a single SD)

IMHO I dont beleive either one of you is peticularly incorrect on this point. It really comes down to personal prefference and doctrine on force projection.

IF your going against a smaller nation (smaller being a relative term really..) thousands upon thousands of ships is -to say the least- going to be highly intimidating as well as being able to provide excellant offenisve capabilities. However if your going against another nation with thousand upon thousands of ships a few dozen more is not going have much of an effect...

BUT... if you have an equal number of vessels -for most intents and purposes- plus a Super Dreadnaught (I always though Siege Dreadnaught would have been a more interesting term) with superior C4I and offensive capabilities, now youve got a psychological, and possibliy a logisitcal advantge due to more centralized command structure.

This is not to say that an SD is not a HUGE investment -and possibly large risk investment at that- but its also a matter of national pride, a motivational image within a fleet, and political 'lever' that is hard to ignore, and overall usually one very well protected ship.

I Personally am not a big fan of SD's but I can rationalize the thought behind them. I dont ever intend for Mekugi to field them however being that A) My budget couldnt handle one and B) I really dont see the need for something that big in my strategy...

I think it comes down really to the circumstances of deployment, and personal and political doctrine.

*shrug* Just my thoughts on the matter.

Regardless, you fail to realize that superdreadnaugths are still different from vessels such as aircraft carriers and smaller battleships, which means that a direct comparison of them would be illogical at best, as you'd be making a comparison that is equivalent to comparing computers to PDAs. While carriers and battleships all have their own advantages, the individual requirements of different navies would require the capabilities that a super-dreadnaught/heavy command battleship has, thus discrediting the superdreadnaught as a "cost ineffective" vessel is often faulty thinking, depending on the actual requirements and purpose of the said navy. Neither can you compare "one superdread to x submarines and x destroyers", as keep in mind that those vessels are vastly different in mission, purpose, and capabilities. With that logic, then we can say that the USN could just replace each of their Nimitz CVN with 10 or even 20-50 small fast attack craft and corvettes. But why aren't they? Mission requirements and roles.

MP: "Big guns", though big, doesn't mean anything unless one uses them correctly. The statement of "enough ... missiles to wipe out entire surface fleets" can be easily countered, as in this case you are assuming that the opponent is just going to stay at one location, with ships organized in great disarray (as opposed to be in formations) without any coordination, and attack only using missile saturation tactics. Similarily, guns of large calibre does have various advantages both logistically and tactically in a war, though overall they are a great psychological weapon, and delivers a huge payload as well.

Mekugi: This is why I'm specifically stating that it still depends on a navy's roles and the government's foreign and home policies, though in this case I'm making a point against the allegations that the SD is useless in general. For our navy, we had been without SDs for more than a year since they were introduced, until recently when we purchased a few to act as heavy command platforms for our commanders at sea. This all comes to a price however, with the reduction of our navy's numbers in general, the slowing of army developments, and the reduction of the force of the Omzian Air Force's Strategic Air Command.

Hmm...

I'm getting a little confused, honestly.

I believe that if I gave up trying to construct / develop SD's, that means I'll be able to concentrate on more "mission specific" ships and in quantity. Recall my example "Package"...

5 carriers ($25 billion)
10 battleships ($30 billion)
20 cruisers ($30 billion)
40 destroyers ($30 billion)
20 submarines ($30 - 40 billion)

I can execute air missions such as bombing raids, air superiority, recon, etc. via my 5 carriers. I can use my battleships as multiple / reunduant "Command + Control", use the 20 cruisers for missile strikes or AEGIS duty, employ the 40 destroyers for escort and anti-sub missions, and finnaly, use my 20 subs for raiding and torpedo missions as well as sneak missile attacks.

With that, I can gain a wide more variety of missions that can be done by a floatilla of these ships. Theyw ill be able to do far more, and do far more specific missions than a single super-ship can. Can a SD do all these missions with high proficiency? I don't think so. They may be able to do the "Command + Control" thing well, but not with aircraft or anti-sub warfare.

"Jack of all trades, master of none" applies here.


Whats more, if the SD is sunk, your screwed. Your pride and massive resources will go down to the bottom of the sea. You'll lose a lot of missiles, sensors, command + control, etc. causing sigificant loss to your navy's combat strength. However, if I choose to produce carriers, battleships, destroyers, etc. instead of the SD, then if a few of these ships are sunk, my navy wouldn't suffer as terribly as if the SD was sunk.



Finally, when it comes to a prolonged war, either offense or defense, with mounting losses on each side. The side who goes for SD's will lose. It's because I'll be able to produce more ships than him, thereby overwhelming his fleet. When the "enemy" is busy trying to build massive 2 million ton ships, I can mass produce dozens of smaller ships. When the enemy finally finishes his SD, I'll have pretty much destroyed much of his navy via numerical superiority.

A relatively sensible analogy would be the USSR versus Germany in WW II. Nazi Germany had best tech and weapons, but got overrun by Russia who had second rate tech and weapons because Russia could mass produce their stuff faster and "more numbers" than the Nazis could.

Sharina -

If I park a SD in your waters - with escorts - it's a "I'm big enough to support THIS" message. Political.

If I get to place my SD in terrain which favors it (such as "offense can only come from these directions" which reduces numeric superiority), I can hold off and beat on more ships.

And my SD can be placed so that sinking it screws up your ability to use your harbor.

It's all a matter of "what was this designed to do", not "Gee, thats huge".

100+ guns of 20 inch diameter (spread throughout my 20 battleships in my "Package")

FREUD! And oh no, Sharina hates arms races that result in impractical weapon systems. Because those don't happen in real life or anything <COUGH*T-28*COUGH>.

Also, what is with this insane idea that all wars will boil down to basic attrition so having your millions of low-grade ships in the hopes that a big combatant will get worn down is an effective tactic? If you don't mind appalling morale, high rates of desertion and defection and having to build a new fleet every week, go ahead, but tenth-of-a-trillion ship that lasts for ten engagements is worth the same as a silly lil' mass fleetwank boat with a lifetime measured in hours.

Further, what's with this air that everyone's tactics have to be sensible? Real-life militaries adopt stupid weapons and tactics all the time [Bat-bomb, dog-mine, SA-80, the Sherman, the Sheridan, and so on]. The insistance that everyone run a military which does everything strait-laced and sensible flies in the face of everything we can see about the development of military technology throughout history. No insane pet projects kept on because of someone high up's ego? No bad tactics that have never been revealed in combat? No, let's all run taskforce vanilla with our MASSIVE TROUSER FLEETS instead!

Because, y'know, we wouldn't want imaginative RP getting in the way, now would we?

I do not believe that Praetonia's scenario is quite correct...

IMHO, it would run more like this (Assuming one side acting exactly as Praetonia thinks they would):

6:00

Indeed, the low orbit satellite networks are mostly down, and orbital attacks lack accuracy, anyway, which results in orbital strikes being a negligible problem.

One fleet is indeed a combination of several thousand combat vessels, acting together, in order to achive maximum protection from their opponent's submarine/ aircraft/ missile attacks.

The other fleet is somewhat more scattered.

Missile attacks start. The producers of the first fleet's superdreadnaughts somehow failed to account for the idea that people might actually think that SDN's should be crackable with long range guided weapons, too.

Sea-skimming missiles coming in with Mach 3, sufficiently constructed and fielding sufficient KE to crack the monstrous armour in question are shot down, unfortunately, not even remotely all of them, as some naval engineer forgot to realise that SDN development is not the only thing people have done. Missiles have been developed further, too.

This is, however, a minor problem.

The major problem is the existence of clean fusion bombs. Lets all remember, this isn't a skirmish, this isn't a limited conflict. With NS-sized nations and alliances clashing, we have this wonderful ww1 scenario. Total war is declared, and SDNs, carriers and the likes burn out, unfortunately being engulfed in the fireballs of said nuclear weapons detonating.

10:00

Air strikes begin. Having seen the nuclear attacks, the first fleet will now, naturally, attempt to strike back with comparable means. A full strike against the opponent's population centers is not advisable, though. Sure, low orbit is cleaned, but in the world of SDN's, SDI networks exist. In higher orbits ASATS don't reach (After all, IRL, the lack of moeny is a problem. Just like it with with SDNs. Otherwise... Deal.). Besides, there is a little difference between nuking a fleet and nuking population centers.

Unfortunately, the destruction of several carriers of fleet one results in fleet two having something resembling air superiority.

What follows are terrible waves of aerial attacks. And again, fleet one failed to account for the sheer capacities of modern weapons. Sure, their opponent is scattered, and waves of airplanes can overwhelm them with ease...

Until some crazy fifties project of the US is used, and anti-air missiles with warheads in the singledigit- to doubledigit kilotons, featuring minimal fallout, turn the approaching threat into scrap metal.

Meanwhile, fleet one is further decimated due to even more nuclear tipped missiles, this time air-launched, hitting it. Many missiles are shot down, sure, so are many planes.

But in the end, fleet one is further weakened, while fleet two can live on, having suffered vastly less losses.

12:00

The battle is effectively over. The SDNs, being primary targets, are basically down. Of course, fleet two is less calibre-oriented, and as such, doesn't really have the same conventional firepower the SDNs would have over this distance. The battle continues pretty much the same way it did before.

15:00

The slaughter begins. Indeed, thousands of missiles are launched. Fleet two, being vastly less concerned with minimum-yield weapons, and prefering the sheer capacities of aforementioned nukes, slaughters its opponent.

IF said opponent was insane enough to keep coming, rather than running.

The battle is over.

Of course, this is assuming that one side is insane enough to ignore the technological capacities outside the SDN sector. The actual scenario is vastly simpler:

Total war isn't declared. Any attempt to conquer an entire nation is doomed to begin with. All a conflict can be is a limited battle over some minor issue, where neither side is threatened.

What does this mean?

It means that fleets of thousands of ships wont be used.

It means that SDNs, even in a non-total war, where nuclear assaults are less likely, will suffer from aforementioned armour-piercing missiles (I'm not quite certain just how all the SDN fans out there believe they can develop überships of doom without anyone thinking of simply going with supersonic cruise missiles. Too expensive IRL? Yes. Worth the money in NS' SDN world? Why, yes.).

And then the question becomes simple: Is the SDN worth all the money when one can just go with normal battleships, which would mean more targets for an equal amount of missiles, the numbers becoming a damage-restricting feature? Again, yes.

And just to make this perfectly clear: Assuming that you can upscale ships and conventional guns to no end while claiming that one cannot do so with normal long ranged weapons (I.e. missiles) is Excessively stupid.

Oh, and assuming that your opponent wont resort to nuclear weapons when you're fielding ships that can, apparently, not be sunk in another manner (Without suffering ludicrous casualities) is equally stupid.

Truly great, great work. SInce Riconiaa is an island nation, this wonderful work of naval strategy and fleet-handling is a vital lot of knowledge to have.

A few points:

1) You nuke my superdreadnaught, I nuke your whole navy. You nuke my whole navy back, I nuke your whole nation. Nuclear oblivion. Not quite as good a strategy for protecting someone's nation as you seem to believe.

2) Mach 3+ cruise missiles are a possibility, but not at long range and very few would get through the layers and layers of defences and anti-missile systems to actually strike the SD. Even if they did, KE weapons have a very narrow area of effect. WWII AP shells were the same. They'd probably get through your armour, but what would they do then? Ships have never been sunk to such weapons, only damaged. I should also point out that with a strike of 1,000 missiles (with your mach 3+ KE missiles that should be $1 - $3bn yielding only 50 hits (not enough to destroy an SD) and taking up a dozen or two destroyers worth of missile space, it's not such an excellent idea.

3) You seem to ignore the use of large numbers of SAMs against these massive plane swarms, instead choosing to just say "Well I nuked all their carriers and they didnt nuke my carriers at all." and "Well their SDI I wont mention, but mine is still there. Pwned." You also ignore the fact that no one launches 1 or 2 missiles in a nuclear strike, they launch thousands, and unlike KE missiles 50 nukes is enough to destroy much of your nation.

4) You also seem to think that my entire post was about the ub3rz0rz1337ness of SDs, and not about what it is actually (just maybe) about - fleet combat.

5) Yes you can upsize missiles, but then you end up with ballistic missiles, which are extremely hard to launch from ships as they're huge and are relatively easy to shoot down either with the satellites that you assert will still exist (at least for "your" side) or SAMs and SAAMs from ships. They're also extremely expensive, more expensive than an SD for what they do, as you need hundreds - thousands of them.

1) You nuke my superdreadnaught, I nuke your whole navy. You nuke my whole navy back, I nuke your whole nation. Nuclear oblivion. Not quite as good a strategy for protecting someone's nation as you seem to believe.I would argue that there is a distinct difference between nuking a military target and a civilian target. Incidentally, past events seem to suggest that it is indeed the target, not the weapon, that decides upon the response.

Of course, that is your perogative, but, apparently you didn't read my whole post. This is why the scenario of a super-battle is unlikely in the extreme to begin with.

Not to mention that I also mentioned SDI in high orbit (You know, an orbit an ASAT launch doesn't reach. Technically speaking, the satellites would thus start blowing each other up. The one who has some remaining can start nuking crap), and when you can build SDNs, you can build those, too. As a result, strategic nuclear deterrence doesn't exist anymore, and as such, tactical use becomes more likely, as the retaliation risks are suddenly limited.

So, yeah, actually, the problem has been addressed in my first post.

Even if they did, KE weapons have a very narrow area of effect.Uhhh... KE to get through the armour. There would still be a sizeable warhead. IIRC, modern, chemical explosives can manage about 1.5 times the yield of TNT, with the same mass. Sounds bad enough from where I am standing.

) You seem to ignore the use of large numbers of SAMs against these massive plane swarms, instead choosing to just say "Well I nuked all their carriers and they didnt nuke my carriers at all." and "Well their SDI I wont mention, but mine is still there. Pwned." You also ignore the fact that no one launches 1 or 2 missiles in a nuclear strike, they launch thousands, and unlike KE missiles 50 nukes is enough to destroy much of your nation.Uh, no, I didn't. I am still accounting for rather high casualities on both sides (Including SAMs), and I did rather explicitly say some carriers, not all of them. But a little numerical superiority is still a superiority. As for SDI, see above. Incidentally, SDI doesn't play a role for tactical nukes on the battlefield (It would have a hard time targetting through the atmosphere, over the distance, through rain and clouds), it is only a safety precaution to prevent an ICBM strike as retaliation to tactical nukes on ships.

And I seriously doubt that 50 nukes getting through would do excessive damage to the average NS nation. To my nation they would (Simply because I'm having the population density of Hongkong, times 5, assuming NS population stats, and half the population density of Hongkong, assumign the population I RP having), but iirc, most other largish NS nations are continent sized. Try a couple thousand.

4) You also seem to think that my entire post was about the ub3rz0rz1337ness of SDs, and not about what it is actually (just maybe) about - fleet combat.I will admit that my post sounded somewhat like it, courtesy of Doujinwank. Can you accept the idea that I'm actually referring to fleet combat when it comes to your post, and to ub3rz0rz1337ness of SDs when I get of a tangent?

5) Yes you can upsize missiles, but then you end up with ballistic missiles, which are extremely hard to launch from ships as they're huge and are relatively easy to shoot down either with the satellites that you assert will still exist (at least for "your" side) or SAMs and SAAMs from ships. They're also extremely expensive, more expensive than an SD for what they do, as you need hundreds - thousands of them.I wouldn't think so. 1. SDI has serious troubles intercepting low-altitude missiles, simply because the atmosphere screws with targetting, and targetting missiles fired from moving targets is horrible to begin with. And again, a stormy day, and you're fucked.

2. I don't see why, but I will admit that I'm not a missile engineer. But generally speaking, I don't see why a guided missile shouldn't be upsizeable to the size of, say, a heavy bomber (Well, admittedly, launching such from a ship would be a problem). Not that it would be necessary to go to this extreme.

ooc: Well, DA, yes SDI has trouble intercepting low altitude missiles, but you're forgetting about theater defense SAMs.

Also, most players don't RP with "N00ks" in regular fleet actions such as this (with the exception of maybe you and Belem.) No one really uses WMD because simply, the minute a nuclear cherry bomb is detonated is the minute half the world plunges into nuclear war.

1) You nuke my superdreadnaught, I nuke your whole navy. You nuke my whole navy back, I nuke your whole nation. Nuclear oblivion. Not quite as good a strategy for protecting someone's nation as you seem to believe.

Following the exhaustive inquest and study of the wreck necessary to determine the difference between thousands of tons of high-grade ammunition exploding and a tactical nuclear weapon, you mean? Do you think ships have mystical nuke detectors to figure out what warheads are being fired at them?

Let's not even mention that an internal low-yeild detonation would gut the ship while almost all fallout and hazardous effect was contained by her own outer armour...

Further, in the age of effective NMD that Superdreds belong in, MAD is a ridiculous policy.

I would argue that there is a distinct difference between nuking a military target and a civilian target. Incidentally, past events seem to suggest that it is indeed the target, not the weapon, that decides upon the response.

Of course, that is your perogative, but, apparently you didn't read my whole post. This is why the scenario of a super-battle is unlikely in the extreme to begin with.
Oh I dont disagree that a super-battle is unlikely, but as I said in my post it was only concerned with what I believe said superbattle would look like if it happened. If I dont think that it will happen then why did I write it? Because Im interested in what it would look like if it did. If you arent interested in that then no one is forcing you to read it.

As for nuclear retaliation - this is an IC decision based on the realisation that if the navy is destroyed then Praetonia loses any ability to defend itself. Therefore, if someone were to nuke the navy then it would be exactly the same as nuking the capital / other major cities.

Not to mention that I also mentioned SDI in high orbit (You know, an orbit an ASAT launch doesn't reach. Technically speaking, the satellites would thus start blowing each other up. The one who has some remaining can start nuking crap), and when you can build SDNs, you can build those, too. As a result, strategic nuclear deterrence doesn't exist anymore, and as such, tactical use becomes more likely, as the retaliation risks are suddenly limited.
I dont see how destroying SDI systems makes nuclear deterrance disappear... if anything it makes it more of a deterrant. Please explain...

Uhhh... KE to get through the armour. There would still be a sizeable warhead. IIRC, modern, chemical explosives can manage about 1.5 times the yield of TNT, with the same mass. Sounds bad enough from where I am standing.
So you want a mach 3+ missile with a huge range (ie that can hit an SD from outside its own gunrange) that also carrier a sizeable warhead... right... Such a missile would be massive (I dont know if you could even fit it into most ships) and extremely expensive.

Uh, no, I didn't. I am still accounting for rather high casualities on both sides (Including SAMs), and I did rather explicitly say some carriers, not all of them. But a little numerical superiority is still a superiority. As for SDI, see above. Incidentally, SDI doesn't play a role for tactical nukes on the battlefield (It would have a hard time targetting through the atmosphere, over the distance, through rain and clouds), it is only a safety precaution to prevent an ICBM strike as retaliation to tactical nukes on ships.
You miss my point. You're saying that "my" fleet would not fire back at all at yours. Regardless of SDI, you assume you are the only one who is firing and has the ability to fire tactical nukes, which is not the case. In all honesty, this whole situation is unfair simply because you're taking the actions of my fleet in one scenario, putting them in a different scenarion and assuming they would be exactly the same, which they wouldnt.

And I seriously doubt that 50 nukes getting through would do excessive damage to the average NS nation. To my nation they would (Simply because I'm having the population density of Hongkong, times 5, assuming NS population stats, and half the population density of Hongkong, assumign the population I RP having), but iirc, most other largish NS nations are continent sized. Try a couple thousand.
50 missiles with, say, a modest 5 MIRVs each = 250 warheads. Assuming they were relatively large (say 1mt) that's 250 major cities gone. Your capital, all your large cities, all your fleet bases, all your military bases all your airforce bases. You have no military left, you've lost all your industry and all your mining. Your entire economy if gone. While I agree, I have wiped out every single one of your citizens or saturated your entire nation with overlapping blast radii, for all practical intents and purposes your nation is dead. And Im not just launching 1,000 missiles, I'm launching 5,000+.

I will admit that my post sounded somewhat like it, courtesy of Doujinwank. Can you accept the idea that I'm actually referring to fleet combat when it comes to your post, and to ub3rz0rz1337ness of SDs when I get of a tangent?
I can accept that. Everyone seems to be highly charged on SDs... overly so in my opinion. Whilst I disagree with you that they can be easily killed, an SD certainly isnt a fleet-in-a-can as some people thing it is, and they most certainly *can* be killed. Only they can be killed in the same way as the Bismark... after destroying all its escorts and then spending hours and hours of pummelling it with every weapon known to man. Nuking them generally gets you nuked back, and achieves next to nothing. For nations that take navies extremely seriously (like mine) it might even get your population centers nuked (I generally wouldnt do that just for an SD, but for a whole fleet, maybe...).

I wouldn't think so. 1. SDI has serious troubles intercepting low-altitude missiles, simply because the atmosphere screws with targetting, and targetting missiles fired from moving targets is horrible to begin with. And again, a stormy day, and you're fucked.
A lot of thse problems are overcome by having hundreds of radar arrays, airborne radar etc which a large fleet would have, and also extremely advanced computer systems (you can fit a small supercomputer into a ship the size of a Doujin. I admit they aren't perfect, but they would kill a hell of a lot fo yuor missiles. Another thing, RAMjets dont really work at low altitudes. You'd be extremely lucky to get mach 3+ on a seaskimmer, and the missile would be expensive as hell. Generally if you want a fast, (SC)RAMjet missile it needs to fly at high altitudes where the air in thinner, and that makes them easily detectable.

2. I don't see why, but I will admit that I'm not a missile engineer. But generally speaking, I don't see why a guided missile shouldn't be upsizeable to the size of, say, a heavy bomber (Well, admittedly, launching such from a ship would be a problem). Not that it would be necessary to go to this extreme.
Yes you can upsize them to stupid degrees, but the bigger they get the easier they are to target and destroy, the slower they go and the ahrder it is to get them airborne. Think Saturn V (have you ever seen it in person?) A bloody massive rocket just to launch something that weighs maybe 2 - 3 tonnes. And ship-launched missiles can only get to a certain size before you physically run out of space in the ship. The Russians have got there already. The Kirov Class Battlecruiser has slanted missile tubes that run the entire length of the ship to launch the Shipwreck missile. And that's a battlecruiser.

EDIT: As much as I enjoy debating this Im a little too tired for it right now. If you reply again and I dont respond until later tonight / tomorrow then dont be offended.

Also, most players don't RP with "N00ks" in regular fleet actions such as this (with the exception of maybe you and Belem.) No one really uses WMD because simply, the minute a nuclear cherry bomb is detonated is the minute half the world plunges into nuclear war.You mean, because simply, they are incapable of dealing with the NS world they way it is, an excessively armed, constantly close-to-exploding world that requires thought and diplomacy while accepting the fact that WMDs are present, thus effectively forcing either 1. in a pre-effective NMD era a careful policy rather than insta 'RAR! WAR!' policies, or post- effective NMD, accepting the widespread use of tactical, clean nuclear weapons, this forcing entirely new tactics (I.e. widespread, deconcentrated forces cheap enough to make tactical high-yield weapons cost-inefficient, massive assaults replaced with taking out tiny, strategic spots with pretty much nothing in between and the likes).

All of this being supposed to be developed into a naval strategy, naturally. But I do not believe that such a naval strategy involves fleets of several thousand ships clashing.

As for nuclear retaliation - this is an IC decision based on the realisation that if the navy is destroyed then Praetonia loses any ability to defend itself. Therefore, if someone were to nuke the navy then it would be exactly the same as nuking the capital / other major cities.
Following this logic, you would also nuke your opponent when he destroys your fleet with conventional means.

Extending this logic, it means that he can nuke, anyway, since there is nothing preventing it, and, as a further extension, since you nuke, anyway, he doesn't need to bother with your fleet, he can simply crash your entire nation with a strategic strike.

On the other side, if someone nukes your navy without resorting to nuking your entire nation, it suggests that he does, indeed, only want to kill off your ability to stage offensive operations, and by way of removing your defensive abilities, force you to accept $Agreement, quite possibly without losing your sovereignity, since this would most likely not be acceptable to you, and eventually result in a strategic nuclear strike (Indeed, I'm of the decided opinion that a postmodern scenario between equally capable nations cannot result in one nation being entirely defeated. A compromise is inevitable.)

You miss my point. You're saying that "my" fleet would not fire back at all at yours. Regardless of SDI, you assume you are the only one who is firing and has the ability to fire tactical nukes, which is not the case. In all honesty, this whole situation is unfair simply because you're taking the actions of my fleet in one scenario, putting them in a different scenarion and assuming they would be exactly the same, which they wouldnt.Doubtlessly correct. Of course, I do believe that my last lines kind of noted that such a scenario wouldn't happen.

The thing is, in a nuclear scenario, the SDNs don't actually manage to fire, they are killed off beforehand. If the opponent is smart, anyway.

And oddly enough, this kind of defeats the point. Sure, one might lose a bunch of planes, but ships do tend to be more expensive than planes, so this is acceptable.

And generally speaking, a fleet intending a massive nuclear assault is supposed to be better prepared for it than an opponent expecting a conventional battle. So, while the advantage wouldn't be as excessive as in the scenario I made (A mildly non-serious one), it would still be there.

50 missiles with, say, a modest 5 MIRVs each = 250 warheads. Assuming they were relatively large (say 1mt) that's 250 major cities gone. Your capital, all your large cities, all your fleet bases, all your military bases all your airforce bases.In an asia-sized nations, with hundreds of cities in the 1mio+ range, with hundreds of military bases.

You would take out, what? 1/8 of the nation's population, at best. More likely 1/16 or less. Even less of its military, assuming that you concentrate on the population.

And modern thermonuclear warheads tend to be pretty clean, so until you want to be dirty, fallout is a minor issue.

In no way a nationkiller. A serious annoyance, yes, but one recovers.

It's odd, how nukes are underrated as a tactical, and overrated as a strategic weapon...

Naval Strategy.

Remember that? It's in the title, for those who've forgotten. This is supposed to be a discussion of naval strategy. We got into the discussion about battleships because they're part of the discussion on naval strategy.

I'm not going to go into details about various strategies and naval doctrine. These are personal decisions that you should make. My decisions (based on my particular circumstances within the game as well as my own prejudices and RL experience) will probably not suit you very well. If you aren't happy and comfortable with something, you will probably do a poor job of writing about it. Your navy. Your strategy. Your choice.

Naval strategy is shaped by your nation's naval doctrine. If you are an island nation (or a nation with a large coastline), your naval doctrine should probably be based on the fact that your nation requires a large navy for defense, protection of sea lanes, and power projection- more or less in that order. Nations with only modest access to the sea should be thinking more in terms of power projection and protection of trade routes with a smaller navy. These decisions on your naval doctrine will help you when it comes time to develop a strategy. What do you want your navy to do? How does your navy accomplish this task?

Defining what you need the navy for will determine the type of navy you build (or buy). Let's say that you want to focus on power projection. That presumes amphibious assault vessels and aircraft carriers. Both amphibs and carriers require extensive arrays of escort ships (assuming you care about the survival of the ships, crews, and troops), as well as logistics support vessels. You'll need to design (or buy) the types of escorts you think you'll need.

Expecting to fight an enemy with lots of aircraft? You'll need air-interdiction ships armed with tons of SAMs and massive electronics suites. Dealing with an opponent who specializes in submarines? Better have lots of ships with small flight decks for ASW aircraft and high-quality sonar systems. Attacking an enemy with hundreds of SSMs? You'll need even more air-interdiction ships. Worst of all, planning on a war with someone who has a lot of everything, and almost all of it is state-of-the-art? Pray a lot, and get lots of everything- you'll need it.

Note that all of the above are required merely to get your carriers and amphibs into striking range, and protecting them while they do their jobs. That's the doctrine and strategy part of the exercise. Since doctrine and strategy are not easy to think through in advance, few players pay much attention to them. Players with little skill or experience in thinking about doctrine and strategy run the risk of getting annihilated when they encounter someone who has the skill and/or experience. This helps explain why there are few naval combat RPs worth reading. The other side of the coin are the players who obsess over the subject. They have committed to memory the most minute details of their fictional military forces, and write insanely long posts filled with technobabble. Damned few players enjoy reading that sort of thing.

The reason to pay attention to strategy is to make your military RPs more believable and (more importantly) internally consistent. Your strategy need not be the same (or even similar) to anyone else's. Nor do you need to stick with a strategy forever. Circumstances change, and your strategies should adapt to match. Paying attention to detail (within reason) helps make your military RPs more enjoyable to read. Having a consistent naval strategy- based on your personal choices- makes it easier for you to write naval combat RPs as well.


TEO

Very good. Now explain the network of a Naval Battle group in an operation or war??

Sharina -

If I park a SD in your waters - with escorts - it's a "I'm big enough to support THIS" message. Political.

This may be effective on smaller nations, of 100 million or less. However, for bigger nations, that message has little to no meaning.

In fact, if this were to happen to me, I'd just laugh because I'll immediately know I'd have more ships than the enemy due to the fact that he wasted his resources on a single ship instead of spreading out his assets.

"Put all your eggs in one basket" applies here. I'd prefer to have many ships, which would be far harder to eliminate 100% than 1 big expensive ship.

If I get to place my SD in terrain which favors it (such as "offense can only come from these directions" which reduces numeric superiority), I can hold off and beat on more ships.

I admit that can happen. However, I can counter this. Send kamikaze bombers like Japan aganist the SD. I'll be successful at this because in this scenario, the SD won't be able to have support ships defending it in a narrow channel or terrain as opposed to wide open seas.

Whats more, the narrow terrain will reduce the number of ships that can defend and support the SD significantly, due to the SD's massive bulk and size. A 1/2 mile long ship in position such as the naval battle between the US and Japan (which damaged / sunk the Yamato or Musashi, can't remember which ship, or where the battle was exactly located).

Conversely, if the SD and "pals" are in open water, and the other player is stuck in narrow terrain, there's a way out. Use suicide hydrofoil ships. Send them flying at 40 - 60 knots into the open sea, filled with explosives. Then they ram into the SD or other ships, damaging their turrets and such. Or use missiles and/or massive rocket launchers instead of explosives. It'll ruin the turrets of the SD and its escorts.

Hydrofoils are pretty fast, difficult to track with big guns, and can out-manuever torpedoes. Missiles designed to slam slow moving naval targets would have a difficult time tracking extremely fast ships.

And my SD can be placed so that sinking it screws up your ability to use your harbor.

Easy solution. Have multiple harbors in the nation. Also, a person can RP their harbors to be artifical ones 1 mile deep or something.

It's all a matter of "what was this designed to do", not "Gee, thats huge".

Yes, I realize that. However, 90% of NS'ers think SD's are the be-all, end-all of navy warfare, and they expect their SD to win naval wars singlehandedly. They also wank their SD's as well, which is one of the things that annoy me, making me not like SD's in RP's. Many people would go "Oh! I have 10 SD's. Now lay down and die, your navy can't win! HAHAHAHA!"


FREUD! And oh no, Sharina hates arms races that result in impractical weapon systems. Because those don't happen in real life or anything <COUGH*T-28*COUGH>.

Yes, I hate arms races when it turns RP's into wankfests. "OMG! My ship is better than yours! Post losses now!" then "Only 1 battleship was damaged and 100 men died." then "Only 100 men? Losses must be higher! IGNORED!"

If arms races were done realistically, without god-modding, wankfests, or "Magically know secret IC" then I'd be more inclined to go along with it.


Also, what is with this insane idea that all wars will boil down to basic attrition so having your millions of low-grade ships in the hopes that a big combatant will get worn down is an effective tactic? If you don't mind appalling morale, high rates of desertion and defection and having to build a new fleet every week, go ahead, but tenth-of-a-trillion ship that lasts for ten engagements is worth the same as a silly lil' mass fleetwank boat with a lifetime measured in hours.

Sadly, the majority of war RP's in NS end up becoming WW I style battles of attrition.

I can use my many navy ships with tactics, like pulling off far more pincher attacks, encirclements, etc. than the enemy because I have more ships to sacrifice / lose than he does.

Also, if my nation is under invasion, morale and desertion won't be much of an issue, as everybody will be fighting for their own homes and families. Do you think a democratic people with right of speech, freedom, etc. would want to live under a oppressive government? Extremely unlikely.

RL example: Would the people of the USA want to live under the Taliban or North Korea's rule? I don't think so.


Further, what's with this air that everyone's tactics have to be sensible? Real-life militaries adopt stupid weapons and tactics all the time [Bat-bomb, dog-mine, SA-80, the Sherman, the Sheridan, and so on]. The insistance that everyone run a military which does everything strait-laced and sensible flies in the face of everything we can see about the development of military technology throughout history. No insane pet projects kept on because of someone high up's ego? No bad tactics that have never been revealed in combat? No, let's all run taskforce vanilla with our MASSIVE TROUSER FLEETS instead!

Because, y'know, we wouldn't want imaginative RP getting in the way, now would we?

I am all for tactics. However, we have several huge problems with this.

1. God-mod.
2. Magically knowing secret IC stuff.
3. Cheating
4. Reading your enemy's "secret" posts

The only way to truly have tactics would be to have the RP done by 3 people. 2 sides and an "arbiter". Each side sends their movements to the "arbiter" who then writes them down (first person's movement, then the enemy's movement in anticipation of the first person's movement).

Very much like playing a video game like Civilization or what-not, where you cannot see / read / predict what your enemy will do. However you can here at NS solely because it's all written down, even "Secret IC" stuff.

Small nations would abuse this if they were being invaded by much larger nations. Then the invasions would turn out into INGORE-fests and accusations of cheating.

However, my hat goes off to the rare few and in-between RP'er who actually doesn't take advantage of text based RP to magically counter their enemy's movement and tactics. Those are the people I respect, and they know who they are.

Very good. Now explain the network of a Naval Battle group in an operation or war??

The concept of the Naval Battle Group (using the US Navy model, with which I am most familiar) is fairly simple. The execution is far more difficult. The role of the Battle Group is simply to get the primary platform (aircraft carrier for carrier BG, battleships and other surface gun platforms for Surface BG, etc) into striking position and protect it there.

For a carrier battlegroup (using the US Navy model), this requires a functional strike group (up to four carriers) protected by one or two guided missile cruisers per carrier, up to ten all-aspect destroyers, a handful of frigates for outer air/ASW pickets, at least one attack submarine, and several supply ships- especially oilers. Contrary to what you may have seen on TV or in the movies (in fact, forget everything you've ever seen on TV or in the movies), these ships are rarely very close to each other. The carriers and supply ships are usually in the center of a huge circular formation of warships- all of whom are positioned to protect the ships in the center.

Sentry Operations:

Sentry (or picket) ships are typically frigates (mostly guided-missile frigates) and older destroyers. Their primary task is detecting potential threats (air, surface, and sub-surface). To that end, they can be up to 100 kilometers from the center of the battlegroup. Information from the picket ships' sensors is relayed by satellite to the ship in charge of the sentry operation (usually a Ticonderoga- class guided-missile cruiser). These pickets typically alternate between air searches and passive-sonar submarine searches, often spending as much as 1/3 of their time engageed in slow-speed sonar searches. With the battlegroup covering a circle up to 200 kilometers across, the sensors of the picket ships are covering huge swaths of territory (an area up to 1000 kilometers across)- all of which is coordinated by the picket command ship.

The next line of defenses are the newer, Arliegh Burke- class destroyers. These ships employ the same type of high-tech sensor/command system (called Aegis) as the Ticonderoga cruisers. Their purpose is to maintain battlegroup security within the ring of picket ships and assist the pickets when needed. These new destroyers are considered all-aspect platforms- they can detect and engage targets on, under, or above the ocean. Any threats that get by the picket ships should be detected by these vessels.

Nearest the center are the guided-missile cruisers- each of which is usually responsible for a different aspect of battlegroup security. The cruisers are not quite as good at ASW operations as the destroyers or frigates, but are usually better at anti-surface and anti-aircraft operations. Their job is to prevent anything from damaging the carriers.

The carriers themselves take part in battlegroup security. Each carrier usually has several air-superiority aircraft aloft at all times. This Combat Air Patrol (CAP) serves to protect the battlegroup from enemy aircraft. Part of that job is the protection of the support aircraft which extend the area covered by the battlegroup's sensors by an additional 100 kilometers (or more).

For a surface action battlegroup (SAG), replace most of the carriers in the above paragraphs with battleships (or the equivalent). You ought to keep at least one carrier with the battlegroup for additional security. The US Navy doesn't play around with SAGs much anymore. For game purposes. You'd probably be better off with a few additional frigates and fewer destroyers. Before you ask, yes. Battleships require escort ships. Period. Full stop.

For amphibious assault battlegroups, you'll need even more escorts. You'd be better off with a couple of carriers and maybe a battleship, too. The difference between an amphibious group and the others is the fact that any carriers and battleships in the group are there to support (and protect) the amphibs. The escorts would probably need more ships with surface guns as well, to assist with supporting the troops ashore. Some of the amphibs will be small aircraft carriers (largely for helicopters and other vertical take-off aircraft), which simplifies ASW operations but complicates the overall defensive picture.

Remember that each type of battlegroup is going to cover a huge amount of ocean. This sort of organization works best in the relatively uncluttered open ocean. During actual landings, for example, the amphibs (and their landing craft) will be exposed to enemy fire despite the best efforts of the escorts to protect them. Remember also that the escort ships are expendable. For a battlegroup, the primary platforms are the most valuable ships in the water.


Hope this answers your question,

TEO

The concept of the Naval Battle Group (using the US Navy model, with which I am most familiar) is fairly simple. The execution is far more difficult. The role of the Battle Group is simply to get the primary platform (aircraft carrier for carrier BG, battleships and other surface gun platforms for Surface BG, etc) into striking position and protect it there.

For a carrier battlegroup (using the US Navy model), this requires a functional strike group (up to four carriers) protected by one or two guided missile cruisers per carrier, up to ten all-aspect destroyers, a handful of frigates for outer air/ASW pickets, at least one attack submarine, and several supply ships- especially oilers. Contrary to what you may have seen on TV or in the movies (in fact, forget everything you've ever seen on TV or in the movies), these ships are rarely very close to each other. The carriers and supply ships are usually in the center of a huge circular formation of warships- all of whom are positioned to protect the ships in the center.

Sentry Operations:

Sentry (or picket) ships are typically frigates (mostly guided-missile frigates) and older destroyers. Their primary task is detecting potential threats (air, surface, and sub-surface). To that end, they can be up to 100 kilometers from the center of the battlegroup. Information from the picket ships' sensors is relayed by satellite to the ship in charge of the sentry operation (usually a Ticonderoga- class guided-missile cruiser). These pickets typically alternate between air searches and passive-sonar submarine searches, often spending as much as 1/3 of their time engageed in slow-speed sonar searches. With the battlegroup covering a circle up to 200 kilometers across, the sensors of the picket ships are covering huge swaths of territory (an area up to 1000 kilometers across)- all of which is coordinated by the picket command ship.

The next line of defenses are the newer, Arliegh Burke- class destroyers. These ships employ the same type of high-tech sensor/command system (called Aegis) as the Ticonderoga cruisers. Their purpose is to maintain battlegroup security within the ring of picket ships and assist the pickets when needed. These new destroyers are considered all-aspect platforms- they can detect and engage targets on, under, or above the ocean. Any threats that get by the picket ships should be detected by these vessels.

Nearest the center are the guided-missile cruisers- each of which is usually responsible for a different aspect of battlegroup security. The cruisers are not quite as good at ASW operations as the destroyers or frigates, but are usually better at anti-surface and anti-aircraft operations. Their job is to prevent anything from damaging the carriers.

The carriers themselves take part in battlegroup security. Each carrier usually has several air-superiority aircraft aloft at all times. This Combat Air Patrol (CAP) serves to protect the battlegroup from enemy aircraft. Part of that job is the protection of the support aircraft which extend the area covered by the battlegroup's sensors by an additional 100 kilometers (or more).

For a surface action battlegroup (SAG), replace most of the carriers in the above paragraphs with battleships (or the equivalent). You ought to keep at least one carrier with the battlegroup for additional security. The US Navy doesn't play around with SAGs much anymore. For game purposes. You'd probably be better off with a few additional frigates and fewer destroyers. Before you ask, yes. Battleships require escort ships. Period. Full stop.

For amphibious assault battlegroups, you'll need even more escorts. You'd be better off with a couple of carriers and maybe a battleship, too. The difference between an amphibious group and the others is the fact that any carriers and battleships in the group are there to support (and protect) the amphibs. The escorts would probably need more ships with surface guns as well, to assist with supporting the troops ashore. Some of the amphibs will be small aircraft carriers (largely for helicopters and other vertical take-off aircraft), which simplifies ASW operations but complicates the overall defensive picture.

Remember that each type of battlegroup is going to cover a huge amount of ocean. This sort of organization works best in the relatively uncluttered open ocean. During actual landings, for example, the amphibs (and their landing craft) will be exposed to enemy fire despite the best efforts of the escorts to protect them. Remember also that the escort ships are expendable. For a battlegroup, the primary platforms are the most valuable ships in the water.


Hope this answers your question,

TEO

In all the shoutng about nukes, Super-Dreadnoughts and number-wanking, nobody answered my question. :(

WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT RATIO? Assume a large Amphib group for the sake of the excercise. How many support-role (UnRep, Oilers, Tenders) vessels per:

Capital ship (the big, important ones, like Carriers, Battleships.)
Amphib Transport ships (LHA's, LHC's)
Submarines (Attack subs)
Cruisers
Destroyers
Frigates

Presume six to nine months at sea (or longer) with at least eight months of the year where going home isn't an option for the surface-combatants (ports are iced up back home-no warm-water ports that are deep enough to shelter a major vessel...)

Presume Modern-Tech, no postmodern or Futuretech involved, and presume "Real Life" scale equipment for ease-of-excercise. Yes, I know I'm being a pest about this, but I did up my army pretty easily using a 10/1 support-to-combatant ratio, and I'm having a devil of a time figuring out what a good logistical background for my Navy would look like (I don't have much experience designing or playing Naval games, and I want a Navy that at least 'looks' feasable.)
These threads are for people like me, who want to do good rp's with little experience in the naval setting.

When do we get to the littoral combat perspective?

In case nobody realied this isn't a talking shop about your views just the views expressed in the statements made by Sarzonie and Praetonia, if you don't agree just run along because it just makes things all cluttered and disruptive.

The Evil Overlord, perfect...Thanks bro. I never a "genius" in Naval Warfare.
What about the future Fleets. like CVN-21 Carriers, DD(X) Destroyers, CG(X) Cruisers, Littoral Class.

Here's what my Roman Carrier Battle Strike Group looks like:

10 CVN-21 Carriers
10 CG-47+ Ticonderoga Cruisers
10 NSSN Virginia Submarine
10 DDG-51+ Arleigh Burke Destroyer
10 DD(X) FCS Destroyer
10 SSN Seawolf Submarine
10 SSGN Ohio Class Submarine
5 AOE-6 Fast Supply Ship
10 Arsenal Ships

Is this pretty powerful??

Sharina, most people generally use SDs as difficult to destroy capital ships. From what I have observed, the main killers in NS naval warfare are huge clouds of SSMs and torpedos.

And 10 SDs can be easily beaten back by stripping off their outer submarine pickets, then sending hunter-killer subs loaded with 1000mm torpedos to break their keels.

Sadly, the majority of war RP's in NS end up becoming WW I style battles of attrition.Given that NS resembles the ~ 1900 situation in europe (On a vastly larger scale) this is entirely realistic, though.

Also, if my nation is under invasion, morale and desertion won't be much of an issue, as everybody will be fighting for their own homes and families. Do you think a democratic people with right of speech, freedom, etc. would want to live under a oppressive government? Extremely unlikely.

RL example: Would the people of the USA want to live under the Taliban or North Korea's rule? I don't think so.You would be surprised. As famous as the Russian/ French/ Jugoslavian resistance in WW2 became, the majority kept quiet. Suddenly going 'Every man is a hero, every knife is a weapon!' is a national suicide and rather unlikely to happen.

I am all for tactics. However, we have several huge problems with this.

1. God-mod.
2. Magically knowing secret IC stuff.
3. Cheating
4. Reading your enemy's "secret" posts

The only way to truly have tactics would be to have the RP done by 3 people. 2 sides and an "arbiter". Each side sends their movements to the "arbiter" who then writes them down (first person's movement, then the enemy's movement in anticipation of the first person's movement).This is why you interact with people who want interaction, rather than trying to force interaction. It's the solution for pretty much all problems.

Seeing as competitive RP tends to, well, fail, due to NS' inherently consensual nature...

Small nations would abuse this if they were being invaded by much larger nations. Then the invasions would turn out into INGORE-fests and accusations of cheating.WOOO! INSULTING ALL PLAYERS WHO FOUND THE GAME LATER THAN YOU DID! WAY TO GO!

Given that NS resembles the ~ 1900 situation in europe (On a vastly larger scale) this is entirely realistic, though.

Agreed. The sad part is that most war RP's end up being wars of attrition, throwing soldiers into meat grinders, WW I style. I haven't seen much of any good war RP's with strategy and tactics. 90% of the war RP's here in NS are basically about who has more soldiers to overwhelm the enemy's "meat-grinder" then magically regenerate all of the player's soldiers in time for the next war.

I'd be a very happy man if I get to see and/or participate in RP's that actually take strategy, like pincer attacks, ambushes, supply lines, logistics, etc. as wars should actually be fought.

You would be surprised. As famous as the Russian/ French/ Jugoslavian resistance in WW2 became, the majority kept quiet. Suddenly going 'Every man is a hero, every knife is a weapon!' is a national suicide and rather unlikely to happen.

Hmm... The Japanese fought like hell, and even its citizens were prepared to fight the USA if an USA invasion of Japan happened, and no nukes were dropped aganist Hiroshima and Nagaski. Many Japanese soldiers fought to the last man, and committed kamikaze runs aganist the USA even though Japan was losing aganist the USA.

That aside, do you seriously think people who grew up with a lot of freedom, like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of clothes, and so on would just roll over for the invaders (assuming the invader is a dictatorship, Taliban-like, or oppressive)?

If the invader is a nation that outlaws free speech, bans all religions, forces their views upon people, etc. at penalty of death, like the Roach-Busters nation... People would fight to the death to protect their freedoms rather than live under a government such as Roach-Busters.

If people grew up in Roach-Busters, they'd be used to the oppression. However, the nation being invaded would not, and they would be fanatic in fighting aganist the oppression that they would suffer if they submit to the invaders.

Conversely, if a "freedom" nation invades a nation of oppressed people, the oppressed people would be more receptive towards freedom.

This is why you interact with people who want interaction, rather than trying to force interaction. It's the solution for pretty much all problems.

Seeing as competitive RP tends to, well, fail, due to NS' inherently consensual nature...

Agreed.

However, in some cases, people force interaction via warfare. Look at the AMF / CTP issue and the FC issue.

WOOO! INSULTING ALL PLAYERS WHO FOUND THE GAME LATER THAN YOU DID! WAY TO GO!

I never said "All smaller players".

What I meant by that... let me give an example.

100 million nation being invaded by a 3 billion nation. The 100 million nation would use all the dirty tricks it can use to stay alive aganist such an overwhelming "bully".

Some RP'ers do magically use / know their enemy's "Secret IC" stuff. Then use it aganist the enemy, and most of the time it results into IGNORE-fests. This is quite common when small nations defends themselves aganist "OMG-Mega-Nation" like 3+ billion population nations (The several huge nations who are blatant warmongers).

Hmm... The Japanese fought like hell, and even its citizens were prepared to fight the USA if an USA invasion of Japan happened, and no nukes were dropped aganist Hiroshima and Nagaski. Many Japanese soldiers fought to the last man, and committed kamikaze runs aganist the USA even though Japan was losing aganist the USA.

That aside, do you seriously think people who grew up with a lot of freedom, like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of clothes, and so on would just roll over for the invaders (assuming the invader is a dictatorship, Taliban-like, or oppressive)?

Japan at the time was an expansionist empire headed by a non-democratically elected Emperor. In fact, the only people who pulled 'fighting to the death' in WW2 on anything resembling a national level were the Japanese, Germans [see Berlin] and Soviets, none of which were countries with high degrees of personal / political freedom.

Compare that to Belgium, France and suchlike which did, and you should realise you cannot use real-life examples to support your claim. You have a very unrealistic view of human nature.

Japan at the time was an expansionist empire headed by a non-democratically elected Emperor. In fact, the only people who pulled 'fighting to the death' in WW2 on anything resembling a national level were the Japanese, Germans [see Berlin] and Soviets, none of which were countries with high degrees of personal / political freedom.

Compare that to Belgium, France and suchlike which did, and you should realise you cannot use real-life examples to support your claim. You have a very unrealistic view of human nature.

I cited the Japanese example as evidence that such behavior *is* possible.

The scenario I had in mind for such a situation of "Freedom VS Oppression" is based off NS. I am sure many of you are aware of Roach-Busters and his legendary oppression. Lets take him for example...

His nation *kills* anyone who does even the slightest thing as yawning in a classroom, or saying "Generalissmo J.L. sucks!" and so forth. Now, a freedom / liberal nation would refuse to submit to *that* particular type of oppression where even the slightest offense means death.

Ditto for democratic or "civil-rights lovefest" nations resisting Doomingsland, AMF, or other nations who go far beyond the opression of RL nations like Taliban. Opression 10x or 100x worse than the Taliban is commonplace in NS, and that is where I'm coming from.

If the oppression gets so bad / terrible, then even people who don't do anything (everyday people) will be forced to take action, out of digust and common sense.

Yes and that happened in Nazi Germany when they started carting off Jews, didnt it? And it happened in Soviet Russia when millions of people disappeared in the night and were never seen again? Im afraid it just doesn't work. If you oppress people well enough then they cant break out of it. Throughout history, there have never been successful popular uprisings unless the populist side is allowed to grow a significantly strong base or the dictatorial government is weak.

Yes and that happened in Nazi Germany when they started carting off Jews, didnt it? And it happened in Soviet Russia when millions of people disappeared in the night and were never seen again? Im afraid it just doesn't work. If you oppress people well enough then they cant break out of it. Throughout history, there have never been successful popular uprisings unless the populist side is allowed to grow a significantly strong base or the dictatorial government is weak.

Ah, but there's a couple of issues with that scenario.

First, these things were happening to the nations own citizens, not foreign citizens, or foreign nation doing it to invaded nation's citizens.

Second, my soldiers and people would be like this...

"I have a choice.

1. Fight and die to preserve my freedom and my family.
2. Desert Sharina, and then die if I do a small mistake aganist the occupation authorities.

The nation of Roach-Busters is invading Sharina. If Roach-Busters is victorious, millions of Sharina people will die for yawning in Roach-Buster's classrooms, die for helping Shoosbans, die for saying Roach-Busters sucks, and die for every little offense imaginable.

If I fight and Sharina wins because I made a difference, then millions of Sharina people will not die because of Roach-Buster's atrocious 'death-penalty' laws for the tiniest of offenses."

See what I mean?

Sharina, it doesn't work like that and you know it. In reality, the situation is vastly more grey than you've portrayed it. There is, for instance, the equally persuasive argument, "do I go to the front and risk being killed, or do I risk not going there and attempt to stay alive under the enemy's occupation? Given the relative certainty of being killed or wounded during a high-intensity war, not a few people would choose the latter option, in spite of patriotic feeling - human survival instinct will override almost anything else, because that's what we're good at doing. Also, I should add that people often value freedom less than their nation's safety. Despite what the arrogant Benjamin Franklin proclaimed (from his pleasant and safely grand house in the US) people will sacrifice liberty for their country's safety; that means that they may "arise to mortal fight" for a fight to the death, or surrender to preserve their nation's population, industry etc. Don't overestimate the power of liberty. As I say, "there's no use being free if you're dead."

GMC: I don't doubt that you'd have seen exactly the same resistance in Britain, had the Nazis invaded from France.

People will just say:

"Right, I better not help Shoobans or criticise Roach-Busters and then I wont get brutally tortured and murdered."

There will be a resistance, yes, but it wont be the whole populace by any means.When it's actually you with a rifle against your head, or being jabbed with a bayonet, you're going to do whatever they bloody well tell you to.

I understand where you are coming from, DPUO and Praetonia.

I can see a good number of my populace doing the exact things you say, "self-preservation" and "better do what the enemy says", if the invader is a reasonable-minded nation. A nation that doesn't execute people for the smallest of mistakes would be recieved much better by the invaded populace than nations like Roach-Busters and Doomingsland.

Suppose Sharina was an all-Shoosban nation? Roach-Busters and Doominsgland executes Shoosbans randomly and for fun, so if a Sharina-Shoosban nation is invaded by Roach-Busters or Doomingsland, there is no guanatree that Sharina-Shoosbans would live even if they followed every law of the invader. Simply because they'd be executed at random. Nothing they can do, except fight back.

Another example... there are NS nations that oppress invaded people badly enough that the risk of staying alive under the invader's rule would be far more problematic and risky than going in combat and dying for Sharina.


Yet one more example... in NS, people can model their society in a variety of ways. I can model a Japanese "Bushido, die before dishonor" society with a democracy government. Or I could RP as an alien species with a different "species nature" than human nature.

There are also ways to indoctrinate your citizens into full loyalty in NS. Stage false demostrations of my own soldiers dressed in enemy uniforms massacring civilians to boost Sharina's anti-enemy sentiment. Or I could fake broadcasts from the invader nation to make them much more terrible and demonic than they actually are. I can make my Army, Navy, and Airforce fight harder and more ferciously via propganda and indocrination such as these.


I guess the whole series of arguement posts I've made this past night is to show that I truly believe that the morale / desertion / loyalty issue brought up by GMC Military Arms earlier last night can be easily fixed and modified in warfare.

GMC: I don't doubt that you'd have seen exactly the same resistance in Britain, had the Nazis invaded from France.

I don't either, but we never got a chance to find out.

Thankfully.

I guess the whole series of arguement posts I've made this past night is to show that I truly believe that the morale / desertion / loyalty issue brought up by GMC Military Arms earlier last night can be easily fixed and modified in warfare.

Hardly. If you have hopeless equipment compared to the enemy, your troops will find it demoralising. Do you think Allied tank crews were ecstatic about having to troll around in useless Shermans that were built so that they could beat superior German armour by pure attrition? If you adopt a strategy that involves sheer brute force numerical superiority, those numbers won't like it, because they will know that likely as not they're going to get killed.

Hardly. If you have hopeless equipment compared to the enemy, your troops will find it demoralising. Do you think Allied tank crews were ecstatic about having to troll around in useless Shermans that were built so that they could beat superior German armour by pure attrition? If you adopt a strategy that involves sheer brute force numerical superiority, those numbers won't like it, because they will know that likely as not they're going to get killed.

Correct, I won't dispute that point of lower tech = bad morale.

Assuming I am at roughly equal tech level as the enemy, which is pretty common in NS despite the constant "military +1" going on, this morale issue with technology won't be a problem for me.

If I fight a nation that uses Superdreads, I can overwhelm the Superdread's escort with my numerical superiority by me using money + resources to build more "regular" ships than expensive SD hulks. Then once that is done, I can overwhelm and destroy the SD.

Assuming the SD is escorted by 4 carriers, 8 battleships, 16 cruisers, 32 destroyers and 16 submarines. That's a total of 77 ships (including the SD). Now I can field roughly the same escort, PLUS the 50 - 75 extra ships instead of a SD of my own. That means I'll be able to attack the SD's escort with 2 ships of mine for each 1 of theirs, on roughly equal tech levels.

Suppose I lose 1/2 or even 2/3 of my fleet to destroy the SD's escorts, that leaves the SD sitting in the center. I still have 30 - 60 ships to throw aganist the SD. I'll be throwing enough shells, missiles, and kamikaze attacks to disable the SD's gun turrets and missile bay doors, greatly weakening the SD's firepower. Then I chip away at the SD's armor, or try to capture the SD (it can't fight back if its guns are disabled).

SD player loses.

Not even a single German Panzer tank can stand up aganist 30 - 60 Sherman tanks all at once. ;)

Do you know what'll happen to the morale of your fleet when they see their ships being obliterated, scattered like ninepins in front of their eyes? 'Cos I don't expect they'll be so happy as you are to blithely assume their sacrifice is a skilled employment of attritional warfare...

Do you know what'll happen to the morale of your fleet when they see their ships being obliterated, scattered like ninepins in front of their eyes? 'Cos I don't expect they'll be so happy as you are to blithely assume their sacrifice is a skilled employment of attritional warfare...

Ah, you're forgetting... the enemy will be suffering this as well.

The morale gain from watching your enemy lose his stuff would offset the morale loss from having your own ships blow up.

Suppose this...

1 enemy Superdread fight Sharina Fleet
4 enemy Nimitz Carriers fight 8 Sharina Nimitz Carriers.
8 enemy Iowa Battleships fight 16 Sharina Battleships
16 enemy AEGIS cruisers fight 32 Sharina AEGIS cruisers
and so on...

Until it ends up somewhat like this... 3 carriers, 5 battleships, 14 cruisers, and 25 destroyers fighting the enemy SD (either destroy or capture it) out of a pre-battle total of 150 Sharina ships.

Having 30% - 50% of my fleet intact after a battle (including final assault on SD) would be great, whereas if I had a SD instead*, and fighting enemy with exact equal numbers it would be somewhat like 90% - 95% casaulty rate on both sides. More morale loss from a 95% loss than for a 50% - 60% loss.

* = like this..

1 enemy Superdread fight 1 Sharina Superdread
4 enemy Nimitz Carriers fight 4 Sharina Nimitz Carriers.
8 enemy Iowa Battleships fight 8 Sharina Battleships
16 enemy AEGIS cruisers fight 16 Sharina AEGIS cruisers

(90% - 95% loss in this scenario, as opposed to 50% - 60% loss in scenario where Sharina has no superdread)

Faulty logic. No battleship (in the sense in which most people use it) could safely go up against an SD and her escort group with a numerical ratio as low as 2:1. The SD's escort group would probably contain as many battleships as you propose to use there in any case, but aside from that, you clearly don't appreciate what the big ships are desgined to do.Furthermore, if you think you can afford to just idly throw in men and ships into a meat grinder and assume that they'll receive a morale boost from the knowledge that they're gradually picking apart the enemy, you've another thing coming. Have you never read the battle reports from Allied commanders in Normandy concerning Tiger and Panther paranoia? Sure, they were picking apart the Germans bit by bit; didn't mean they were petrified of coming across a Panther, a Tiger, or a dug-in 88. Your men will not simply accept blithely being thrown into battle against all odds for the sake of attrition. They don't care about attrition, they care about themselves, their friends, their families, not your "master plan" for victory, and if they can't see themselves getting out of the action alive, they will not fight effectively, because they will be too busy trying to stay alive. Also bear in mind that losing that much of your fleet will likely cripple your flexibility and ability to deploy forces effectively.

Faulty logic. No battleship (in the sense in which most people use it) could safely go up against an SD and her escort group with a numerical ratio as low as 2:1. The SD's escort group would probably contain as many battleships as you propose to use there in any case, but aside from that, you clearly don't appreciate what the big ships are desgined to do.

In this scenario, I am using the abilities and specialization of ALL my ships, along with defenses. I'll be using carriers and subs in conjunction with the battleships to do the damage.

I'd have 2x the aircraft carriers than the enemy's escort, thereby granting me 2x the airpower to deploy aganist the enemy escort. I can put up 2x the fighters to shoot down the enemy's fighters, and then use my bombers to help my battleships, cruisers and subs devastate the enemy fleet.

Ditto for anti-sub and anti-air capabilities. I'd have more AAA and ASW than the enemy's escort does. This means I'd be able to "absorb" more damage than the enemy escort ships (not counting the SD).

In addition, my extra AAA and ASW defenses will offset the SD's firepower considerably. I'd be able to shoot down the majority of the SD's missiles and such, as I can use 3/4 of my whole floatilla's AAA to manage the escort's attacks while devoting the other 1/4 towards the lone SD.

My battleships will be able to engage the enemy's battleship, firing 2 salvos for each of the enemy's 1. Add in extra air support provided by my extra carriers, and its a done deal.

Just a remainder, all these "extra ships" come from the money and resources I saved by not building a SD of my own. I divert these money + resources towards building more regular ships.

Your men will not simply accept blithely being thrown into battle against all odds for the sake of attrition. They don't care about attrition, they care about themselves, their friends, their families, not your "master plan" for victory, and if they can't see themselves getting out of the action alive, they will not fight effectively, because they will be too busy trying to stay alive. Also bear in mind that losing that much of your fleet will likely cripple your flexibility and ability to deploy forces effectively.

I am aware of that fact.

However, owing to my 2x fleet numbers, I'll be able to put up 2x the defense. I'd have 2x more AAA and ASW defenses, ensuing more of my people stay alive in combat. My extra defenses can absorb much of the SD's damage potential, leaving my "double-sized" flotilla to destroy the enemy escorts.


In addition, the enemy will lose ALL of his fleet, including the SD while I only lose 1/2 of my total flotilla. If we scale it up to include the entire navy of both sides, it'd still be the same. I'd be at 1/2 naval strength while the enemy would be at 5% or 0% naval strength, allowing me to dominate the enemy's seas unquestioningly.



One last thought....

This would be analog to 40 Shermans fighting aganist 20 Shermans and 1 Panzer tank.

Not 40 Shermans fighting 20 Panzers. (This would mean 40 regular ships fighting 20 SD's)

Sharin, the point that you miss is that nations that use SDs (take me as an example) cannot be overwhelmed by the manufacturing capabilities of a nation like yours. I have a much stronger economy than you, and of that I spend more on the navy. Frankly, wars arent point matches and never have been. You cant say "OMG SD is 100,000 I get 1010 bazillion DDs for that!!" It's all based on what you can build, and right now I have the industrial base and the money to build more and better ships you and SDs on top of that.

Yes, I am aware of that, Praetonia.

You can outproduce me, but by a slight margin. You have approximately 700 million more people than me, and 700 billion more dollars in defense than me (I have $9 trillion total and you have $9.7 trillion total). We also have roughly the same GDP, $36,000 per capita.

We also need to take into account who's attacking and who's defending. If I am the attacker, you can easily win the war, as I'd have to travel to your lands and region to wage war aganist you. But on the other hand if you are the one who is attacking me, I can force a stalemate.

You can produce more ships, but these ships would have to travel huge distances (assuming we fight in NS Earth). I can quickly produce littoral combat warships, and have far shorter supply lines, as well as have the support of land based stuff in my lands. I'd have my land-based aircraft and cruise missiles to help my navy defend aganist your SD's and slightly superior manufacturing capability.

However, if we play on a regular Earth, we will have to worry about resources. I may be rich in steel and ship-building resources while you may not. Or it could go the other way around.

Finally, there may be other nations my size that employ SD's or try to build their own SD's. In addition, when Sharina hits 2 billion, then 3 billion and so on, by that time there will be more nations using SD's (storefront bought or custom developed). In addition, older nations tend to die out due to loss of interest, or other reasons. By 2006 - 2007, the 2003 and 2004 nations like ourselves will be as rare as a 2002 nation is right now. In other words, Sharina will be like you or AMF in population and manufacturing capability sooner or later.

In short, there are other factors to consider besides manufacturing capability.



I still believe that the only way to defeat a SD is to employ numerical superiority. Otherwise I'd have to wank-up some farfetched laser beam weapon of d00m to counter the SD, which I don't want to do.

Yes, I can use tactics, but sadly, in 90% of war RP's here in NS, tactics are noticeably absent.

.This would be analog to 40 Shermans fighting aganist 20 Shermans and 1 Panzer tank.

Not 40 Shermans fighting 20 Panzers. (This would mean 40 regular ships fighting 20 SD's)

Someone doesn't know his Panzer from his Tiger...Mind you, the real equal would be 40 Shermans fighting 20 Shermans and a P-1000. Doesn't sound so simple anymore, does it?

Sharina, you’ve got some warped views on humanity, I mean its true people would resist an invader however simply stating that a free people will suddenly feel the need to fight to the death.

Of the few real-life examples of free nations being invaded by a dictatorial state there wasn’t a mass uprising, regular army units fought and they were joined by a minority because civilians don’t fight wars and considering they didn’t think themselves suitable for combat they’re not going to be much use. my prime example for this being the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, you could also use the Hungarian Uprising in a manner. However there is the old adage of “A hero is just a coward that got cornered.” this isn’t a universal law, nor is it a law of the majority but really just the minority.

If you consider losing 50% at minimum of your combat force a good turn of events in a single encounter then you’ve got some warped views on people. Watching comrades get killed, ships sunk and being trapped in frantic combat against a force that’s tearing you up just as much as you’re trying to fight back.

Heroics aren’t typical, that’s why they’re heroic because its an act beyond the norm of humanity, you can only expect the minority to resist as most will be afraid, fleeing and generally trying to avoid being raped* by advancing soldiers, beaten or humiliated.

*Just an extreme example, depends on how pissed off as a nation they’ve become.

(...)
Well I dotn RP earths (well in the sense of a main nation being there), because they're unimaginative and there's no way they could support a NS nation. I should also point out that since my nation is navally-oriented (being an island) I'm likely to spend much more on the navy than you (your economy is also completely ridiculous, having a government budget larger than your GDP, but thirdgeek is screwed up and everyone accepts it anyway so...). I also doubt that any ships you can quickly build will make any difference. Satnding navies are all that's likely to count, and there I would have a clear advantage.

Someone doesn't know his Panzer from his Tiger...Mind you, the real equal would be 40 Shermans fighting 20 Shermans and a P-1000. Doesn't sound so simple anymore, does it?

P-1000? I don't think I've heard of that tank before.

If you meant Panzer 1000 as in the 1000th "revision" of the Panzer tank, that isn't a viable comparison. A Panzer-1000 or Panzer-M (using Roman number) would be FT, with laser cannons and hover ability and the like.

SD's are *not* that much advanced over conventional warships. SD's are made up of the exact same material as normal navy ships. SD's are made of steel, titanium, kevlar, ceramics, aluminum, etc.

SD's gun turrets would be made of the same steel, titanium, etc. as a normal battleship's gun turrets. No matter how advanced or uber the technology is, it is only as good as the materials that comprise it. I can take out the SD's turrets, rendering its "shell" firepower useless. Then I damage the missile bay doors, rendering the SD's missile firepower useless.

Steel is stell, no matter whatever wanked technology lies below or above it. Steel of a uber-tech tank or navy ship can be just as easily destroyed as steel of a low tech tank or navy ship. The only difference is that SD's employ thicker armor than normal ships. That means more steel to "eat through", but again, steel is steel.


Once again, all I have to do is screw up the SD's gun turrets and missile bay doors, then the SD is an useless hunk of scrap metal during battle. No matter how much you armor the turrets, I can always send missiles and kamikaze planes right into the gun muzzles and turret barrels, destroying the gun armatures and such. This means the SD can't fire their 30 inch cannons.

Same for missile doors. I can warp the metal, making it extremely difficult, or impossible for the doors to retract into the ship, therefore all the missiles behind the jammed missile door = stuck. The only way to fix that is to go back to dry-dock or back to your nation to repair it.

The SD's firepower is incapicated, which allows my "double-size" navy to pick apart the enemy escort ships (all non-SD's).




You guys say that I have a warped sense of humanity. I call it being realistic. Throughout history, many wars were fought with horrifying losses for each side. Generals sit behind their desks or thrones and look at war as simple statistics.

Here in NS, we are limited to text based roleplay. Bringing emotion of real war and morale issues would be very difficult to pull off with mere words and prose. So in a sense, when we all engage in warfare, we become like these generals who sit behind desks, regarding all warfare as simple math and statistics.



In all honesty, the SD issue has bothered me, not because of its size and firepower, but the way most NS'ers view it. Most NS'ers view SD's as god's gift to NS, and that a SD can take on 100 navy ships without being sunk. That seems somewhat like a god-mod, doesn't it? People tend to think that SD's automatically win wars, in the same way that people believe 100 million man armies automatically win wars.

...

You realise that a direct hit from a 12" gun against an SD turret would just bounce off? So would a 16" shell... an 18" might have a chance of doing something...

The ship can also fire from well outside your range with shells that will destroy an ordinary battleship in two or three. Throwing hundreds of ships at something will fail.

Well I dotn RP earths (well in the sense of a main nation being there), because they're unimaginative and there's no way they could support a NS nation. I should also point out that since my nation is navally-oriented (being an island) I'm likely to spend much more on the navy than you (your economy is also completely ridiculous, having a government budget larger than your GDP, but thirdgeek is screwed up and everyone accepts it anyway so...). I also doubt that any ships you can quickly build will make any difference. Satnding navies are all that's likely to count, and there I would have a clear advantage.

Understood.

My Navy budget and resources may not be as much as yours, Praetonia. However, this is compensated by a larger airforce and Army than yours (proportionally). So if a war ever happens between me and you, and you're the one invading me, I can use my land based aircraft and cruise missiles to pound your fleet, evening the odds considerably.

It is conventional wisdom that defenders enjoy a substantial advantage over their attackers, if the attacker crosses great distances to attack. This is due to short supply lines, better logistics, more "popular support", fortifications, defender knows their own terrain, etc. than the invader.

So it's a good chance that in a 1 vs 1, we'd end up in a stalemate, Praetonia, should Sharina be the defender and Praetonia the attacker. This stalemate situation will only become more likely as we grow "older". When you hit 3 billion population, I'll be at 2.3 billion. Then in the far future, if we do become 10+ billion nations, a 700 million difference is gonna become pretty insigificant.

...

You realise that a direct hit from a 12" gun against an SD turret would just bounce off? So would a 16" shell... an 18" might have a chance of doing something...

Yeah, agreed.

There are ways, however. Use acidic or chemical compounds to corrode the armor, then subsquent smaller shells will have a better chance of penetration.

[quote]The ship can also fire from well outside your range with shells that will destroy an ordinary battleship in two or three. Throwing hundreds of ships at something will fail.

Ah, three simple solutions.

1. Aircraft
2. Missiles.
3. Jig-saw movement of ships. Far harder to hit an evading target than a target sailing in a straight line.

Im not saying you'd lose extremely quickly in a war, Im saying that the kind of nations that use SDs already have massive navies and dont need any more conventional fleets, submarines etc to pad them out. I think part of the problem is that lots of nations are starting to think that building an SD is a prerequisite to military power, which it isnt. A lot of the smaller nations making SDs dont have the industrial base or the money to do so and they really shouldnt.

P-1000? I don't think I've heard of that tank before.

If you meant Panzer 1000 as in the 1000th "revision" of the Panzer tank, that isn't a viable comparison. A Panzer-1000 or Panzer-M (using Roman number) would be FT, with laser cannons and hover ability and the like.

No, I mean this. Was suggested in June 1942 and initially taken up, then cancelled when Albert Speer made the engineers involved go and work on something sensible. By this time a mild steel prototype turret had been built, which ended up in the Atlantic wall.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/GMC/1000_1.jpg

The P-1000 Ratte was to have been armed with a pair of 280mm naval guns in a Scharnhorst / Gneisenau turret with the middle gun removed. In addition, it would have had a 128mm cannon, eight 20mm Flak 38 AA guns and two 15mm Mauser MG 151/15 machine guns. It would have measured 35 x 14 x 11m, and been powered by U-boat engines developing 16-17,000 horsepower, giving it a top speed of 40 kilometres per hour [!].

As an SD compares to a normal ship, the P-1000 compares to a Sherman.

Im not saying you'd lose extremely quickly in a war, Im saying that the kind of nations that use SDs already have massive navies and dont need any more conventional fleets, submarines etc to pad them out. I think part of the problem is that lots of nations are starting to think that building an SD is a prerequisite to military power, which it isnt. A lot of the smaller nations making SDs dont have the industrial base or the money to do so and they really shouldnt.

Exactly.

Glad we could finally agree on something, Praetonia. :D

Heh. Thanks for the info, GMC.

I had no idea such a tank was concieved. The biggest / baddest WW II tank I knew of was the Maus, which could knock down buildings, IIRC.

280mm Navy guns on a tank? Heh, the thing must have weighed 500 tons or more.

Heh. Thanks for the info, GMC.

I had no idea such a tank was concieved. The biggest / baddest WW II tank I knew of was the Maus, which could knock down buildings, IIRC.

280mm Navy guns on a tank? Heh, the thing must have weighed 500 tons or more.

1000 tons, that's what 'P-1000' referred to. And there was a bigger one suggested, the P-1500, armed with the 80cm 'Dora' cannon, though it never left the drawing boards. Artist's impression of that here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/GMC/p1500.gif).

In all the shoutng about nukes, Super-Dreadnoughts and number-wanking, nobody answered my question. :(

WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT RATIO? Assume a large Amphib group for the sake of the excercise. How many support-role (UnRep, Oilers, Tenders) vessels per:

Capital ship (the big, important ones, like Carriers, Battleships.)
Amphib Transport ships (LHA's, LHC's)
Submarines (Attack subs)
Cruisers
Destroyers
Frigates

Presume six to nine months at sea (or longer) with at least eight months of the year where going home isn't an option for the surface-combatants (ports are iced up back home-no warm-water ports that are deep enough to shelter a major vessel...)

Presume Modern-Tech, no postmodern or Futuretech involved, and presume "Real Life" scale equipment for ease-of-excercise. Yes, I know I'm being a pest about this, but I did up my army pretty easily using a 10/1 support-to-combatant ratio, and I'm having a devil of a time figuring out what a good logistical background for my Navy would look like (I don't have much experience designing or playing Naval games, and I want a Navy that at least 'looks' feasable.)
These threads are for people like me, who want to do good rp's with little experience in the naval setting.


There are a ton of variables implicit in your question, but I'll try to avoid falling into the minutiae trap. I'm assuming that you've already read my Logistics thread.

First, here is a post on that thread by Trostia, which gives a lot of the basic information you need:


Here's some facts and numbers and statistics.

Your average US Armor division will require 1135 TONS of ammunitions per DAY. It will also require 467 tons of fuel and 73 tons of food, not to mention 74 tons of spare parts and replacements. Per day.

US Infantry division will require 1309 tons of ammo, 461 tons of fuel, 79 tons of food, and 65 tons of spare parts, daily.

On average, every American soldier operating outside the US requires 100 pounds of supply per day. Thats 100 pounds/soldier/day. A sailor requires 400-600 pounds per day, and airmen require up to 1000 pounds of supply per day.

These numbers can be cut to soldier: 50 pounds, sailors 300 pounds if they're just sitting there and not fighting or doing much except maintaining unit strength.

To move a ton of material 100 km by train requires 14 ounces of fuel, while a large ship takes about half that. Compare these with your average truck, which uses 1% of the weight of supply for fuel for each 100 km traveled. Aircraft take about 2-5%. Helicopters, the preferred all purpose cargoe carriers in war, take up to 10% of their cargo weight for each 100 km. Even using animals or manpower has the same cost as aircraft due to the food.

In a land combat situation in foreign territory where supply is key, on average 10 tons of supply per each man is kept on hand as 30-90 days of reserves. To make it all worse, ammunition and fuel are both perishable. To say nothing of what the enemy does to your gigantic supply lines.

One sortie (flight by any one aircraft on a mission) requires 10-20 tons of supply, and usually about half a million dollars if its a combat mission.

Also, cost. Jeez. A ton of conventional ammunition costs about $8500. A ton of missile munitions costs over $600,000. Consuming at least 1000 tons a day, and with your average ton of munitions in general costing $40,000+, a US division costs at least $50 million per day just for munitions. Intensive combat, of course, can up daily munitions expenditure to 5000 tons. Fuel costs about $1000 per ton.

Currently, aircraft cost an average of $1200 a pound, armored vehicles average $25/pound, and ships $70/pound. Not to mention 2-4 times their initial cost for maintanance during their 10 or 20 year peacetime life. Missiles cost something like $12000 per pound. Satellites (and most space ships, I'd guess) cost $10,000 per pound to build and $3000/pound to lift into orbit.

To raise a mechanized infantry division, the total cost if hardware, weapons, equipment (not including recruiting and training): $4,519,000,000. Thats four and a half billion dollars.

So there's a reason we're all giving these numbers, its not just to be realistic, but to show that most nations cant AFFORD their stated military numbers. I often see things like divisions with 2000 tanks, too, which is silly and would bankrupt their nation shortly after war breaks out, if not before. Same with spaceships.... even assuming a country has the technology and manufacturing ability. No WAY can giant space ships exist in large numbers, even if you have a Frightening economy, 100% tax rate, and every bit of your budget goes to defense. Period.

Same with huge fleets of huge aircraft carriers. While you're spending all your money on giant floating targets, I'm building advanced anti-ship missiles that can be launched from land based aircraft or cheap missile boats.

Anyway, I'd just like to say in defense of any future military actions I (my nation is Santa Barbara) might take that according to the UN, I spend more on the military than all but 12 nations in the entire world. That means I am free to have, for example, a Space Division with huge operational and purchase costs, vast amounts of military manpower, etc. But to actually use my entire military in combat would quickly bankrupt me. There just isn't enough money, even with 1 billion people. So I don't want to see people fighting me with like 50 million troops, because I could destroy just a few of your supply ships or aircraft or hit your supply line and STARVE about half of them very quickly. So think about that


By the way, these numbers were gotten from "How to Make War" by James F. Dunnigan. Third edition. The numbers are slightly out of date, about ten years. However, don't expect things to be easier now, in fact at the rate things are going in the real world, costs and logistics problems are only going to get MUCH harder as time goes on. Smaller militaries are the norm anill pretty much have to be from now on.

Now let us make some assumptions to get rid of as many variables as possible. We will assume that a carrier battlegroup has the same supply requirements as an armored division, with an additional 50% fuel usage. We will further assume that your amphibious unit has a carrier battlegroup as an integral part of the amphibious organization. We will also assume that the ships of the amphibious group are a fairly exact equivalent to an armored division for supply requirements. We're also assuming that your amphibious force includes one armored and two infantry divisions.

So:

Amphibious unit (ships and crews only) will need 614 tonnes of supplies/day (not including ammunition).

Integral carrier group (including air detachment) will need 847.5 tonnes of supplies/day (not including ammunition).

Embarked armored division will need 193.7 tonnes of supplies/day (assuming they use relatively little fuel while aboard ship and not including ammunition)

Embarked infantry division will need 190.1 tonnes of supplies/day (same assumptions as armored division). Since there are two infantry divisions, we double that and get 380.2 tonnes/day.

Underway, and not including ammunition, your unit will require 2,035.4 tonnes of supplies- mostly fuel- every day. Assume that each supply ship can transport 20,000 tonnes of supplies. You would therefore be completely emptying a supply ship in less than 10 days. This means that a nine-month deployment would use up more than 27 supply ships- assuming you weren't doing any shooting during that time.

During and after an amphibious assault, we add ammunition expenditures to the list. The troops and their equipment are ashore, and they're using 3753 tonnes of ammo every day, in addition to their normal supply usage of 1824 tonnes per day. Your ships supporting the assault are using 1928.5 tonnes of regular supplies plus 2270 tonnes of ammunition per day. This means that every day of combat ashore will use up 9775.5 tonnes of supplies- mostly ammunition and fuel. This will empty a supply ship every two days.

Again, I'm keeping it simple to avoid getting mired in the details. Most supply ships carry only fuel, or ammo, or general supplies, so the math gets more complicated. Using the rough numbers I have listed, you will see that you'll need more supply ships than combatants for a nine-month deployment if there is any fighting involved at all. Each day of combat is the equivalent of 5 days of normal operations from a supply standpoint.

Since you probably won't be involved in combat operations the entire time, we'll assume that only one month (30 days) will involve combat. That month of combat will use up 293,265 tonnes of supplies (slightly less than 15 supply ships). The remaining 240 days of non-combat operations will use up 488,496 tonnes of supplies (just under 25 supply ships). The entire deployment will therefore completely empty 40 supply ships.

It is completely impractical to send 40 supply ships to war in one big group. Your best bet is therefore to send only a few with the fleet (enough for one month of non-combat operations) and arrange for fresh supply ships to meet the fleet at opportune times. Now we start to get deep into the logistical quagmire.

Rather than getting bogged down in the intricacies of fleet movements and supply and maintenance schedules, simply announce that most of your navy is made up of supply ships and escorts for them. Until and unless you get involved in a major naval combat RP, this will be sufficient for most players. Once you start getting into the nitty-gritty of naval combat, you and your opponent will have to establish the rudiments of a re-supply schedule, to allow for the possibility of attacking your enemy's supply chain.


Hope this helps,

TEO

Thank you for answering my question, TEO. :)

*another vote for Stickydom*

My question is what was naval RP like before we created the Doujin?

My question is what was naval RP like before we created the Doujin?

You think the Doujin was the first Fleet Centrepiece Combatant on NS?

And since this is already linked in one of Euroslavia's stickies, there's no point in sticking it.

You think the Doujin was the first Fleet Centrepiece Combatant on NS?

And since this is already linked in one of Euroslavia's stickies, there's no point in sticking it.

No, GMC, you created the first if I remember right. However, unlike your creation, the Doujin caught on like a wildfire. Probably because I introduced her to International Incidents, and not on NationStates (although I did make a few posts, they never went anywhere;).

No, GMC, you created the first if I remember right. However, unlike your creation, the Doujin caught on like a wildfire. Probably because I introduced her to International Incidents, and not on NationStates (although I did make a few posts, they never went anywhere;).

Actually, I believe the first was something called a 'Reich-Class Superbattleship.' First I ever saw, anyway.

Largest ship anyone's ever claimed was some preposterous fifteen mile long carrier. Everyone laughed and ignored it.

More to the point, I never spent any time waving my 'creation' around, so it wasn't that likely to be taken up by others.

Actually, I believe the first was something called a 'Reich-Class Superbattleship.' First I ever saw, anyway.

Largest ship anyone's ever claimed was some preposterous fifteen mile long carrier. Everyone laughed and ignored it.

More to the point, I never spent any time waving my 'creation' around, so it wasn't that likely to be taken up by others.

Are you implying that I waved the Doujin BBCN around? If you are, then I'm guilty as charged :fluffle:

bump

I have just purchased 20 F-22 Frigates! :mp5:

I have just purchased 20 F-22 Frigates! :mp5:

ok?

What is an F-22 Frigate?

ohhh why its our newest invention

Its almost untraceable on Radar and it has the newest missiles!

It was purchased under the arms for peace slogan ;)

ohhh why its our newest invention

Its almost untraceable on Radar and it has the newest missiles!

It was purchased under the arms for peace slogan ;)
...right...

PakCafe, your posts in this thread have been spammy. Please delete them.

Littoral Warfare Operations
There's been some request for a more in-depth discussion of littoral warfare operations in this thread, as the first two posts mostly dealt with so-called blue water naval operations. There are some major differences with so-called brown water navies that I'm going to address with this post.

Number one, those uber large SDs you built or bought are worthless in a littoral combat situation. In fact, many of your battleships, cruisers, destroyers and even some frigates aren't going to be able to handle the shallow depths where littoral warfare takes place. They may be able to provide longer-range coastal bombardment, though anything smaller than a heavy cruiser would get into range of many RL weapons batteries.

Thus, you're going to need ships that are built specifically for littoral warfare. What kind of brown water navy do you need? There are specific vessels that have been built for riverine operations that are either intended to get special forces onto land so they can go do their jobs or provide covering fire against insurgents. Examples of RL river gunboats include one made by aircraft manufacturer Sikorsky (http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/boat2.html) that carried a 105 mm howitzer as its main armament and was built to get where it needed to go fast and it was intended to provide gun support for troops in a river environment.

Another example of river vessels used in Vietnam included the return of the monitor. That's right, the monitor (http://www.rivervet.com/monitor.htm). We're not talking about the monitors of the post U.S. Civil War period that were designed to serve as coastal defence vessels, though you can see the lineage if you look at a picture (http://www.rivervet.com/images/monitor3.jpg) closely enough. Those monitors were conceived to serve as "battleships" of a brown water fleet. Their role was to bombard enemy armies and fortified positions. They were built when the U.S. Navy determined they didn't have adequate fire support that could get into the shallow waters near Vietnam.

also generally useful are the USN Cyclone class patrol ship

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=2000&ct=4

and a good hull for conversion to something more impressive is the MK V special operations craft

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=1700&ct=4

and of course the LCAC could be extensively outfitted as a PC, and the USN even used a few Ground effect (hovercraft) in combat operations in Vietnam with some success. A number of navies still keep a few around as landing craft but they would be ideal for shoal waters, as well as operating in swamps and marshes (extending the reach of the fleet as it were)

a lot of navies keep Soviet era missile boats and PT boats around, although the Israeli Saar and Improved Saars are much more capable.

For inshore submarine warfare, small is often better. For future tech (near future that is) I came up with this design

SFA1 Sealion Fast Attack Submarine (small) 100 tons, 90 feet long, 10 feet beam, Fuel Cell with sufficient endurance for 16 hours, Speed 60 knots (submerged), 10 knots surface, water jet engines with auxiliary propeller for confined space maneuver, maximum depth 2 miles Defenses: Very low observable radar / sonar signature / thermal signature, 4 disposable decoys Weapons: 4 Torpedoes (external mounting)(generally either 4 ASW or 2 ASW and 2 antiship) Crew: 2 (1 pilot, 1 system operator)

its also useful for mine warfare operations

*bump* for comments/feedback

*bump*

About what you call the weakness of anti-ship missiles-

You say that they are 95% accurate. Many SAM systems achieve about that rate in tests. The French Crotale, specifically, achieved a 90% kill rate against missiles in tests. But you must remember that weapons almost always are significantly less effective in war, where greater wear and tear, ECM, clever tricks and more are present. I would give the accuracy figure in wartime conditions for the most modern SAMs against cruise missiles at around 70%, although this is a very controversial subject.

Also, you have to remember rate of fire. Sure, the advanced AEGEIS cruisers can fire off all their missiles in 30 seconds, but the Perry class, for example, can only track one missile at a time. Very few navies today have AEGEIS-type cruisers, and would have trouble firing off all, or even most, of their SAMs against a concentrated attack.

Modern (1980s-ish American models like TASSM and Harpoon) cruise missiles can be reporgrammed for a diving attack to penetrate the weaker top armor of a ship. If you fire thousands of pounds of high explosive at any ship, it will cripple its senors, weapons and fire control systems even if the ship still floats. The British did not actually sink the Bismarck, but pounded it for hours until it turned into a massive inferno and incinerated. Concentrated attack from a few dozen cruise missiles will do the trick.

When you consider that today's average big carrier has about 40 attack planes, not to mention interceptors, AEW, etc., and each carries four missiles, that's 120 missiles in just one sortie from one carrier. And bear in mind that they can engage the enemy at much greater range than they can be shot at. The battleship fleet without carriers will have no air recon and will have no idea of what's shooting at them. Long-range SAMs can't really be reloaded at sea, but aircraft mounted SSMs can be, from replenishment ships. So the carrier group will just keep pounding the battleships until they sink or run out of SAMs. Battleships suck.

About what you call the weakness of anti-ship missiles-

You say that they are 95% accurate. Many SAM systems achieve about that rate in tests. The French Crotale, specifically, achieved a 90% kill rate against missiles in tests. But you must remember that weapons almost always are significantly less effective in war, where greater wear and tear, ECM, clever tricks and more are present. I would give the accuracy figure in wartime conditions for the most modern SAMs against cruise missiles at around 70%, although this is a very controversial subject.

Also, you have to remember rate of fire. Sure, the advanced AEGEIS cruisers can fire off all their missiles in 30 seconds, but the Perry class, for example, can only track one missile at a time. Very few navies today have AEGEIS-type cruisers, and would have trouble firing off all, or even most, of their SAMs against a concentrated attack.

Modern (1980s-ish American models like TASSM and Harpoon) cruise missiles can be reporgrammed for a diving attack to penetrate the weaker top armor of a ship. If you fire thousands of pounds of high explosive at any ship, it will cripple its senors, weapons and fire control systems even if the ship still floats. The British did not actually sink the Bismarck, but pounded it for hours until it turned into a massive inferno and incinerated. Concentrated attack from a few dozen cruise missiles will do the trick.

When you consider that today's average big carrier has about 40 attack planes, not to mention interceptors, AEW, etc., and each carries four missiles, that's 120 missiles in just one sortie from one carrier. And bear in mind that they can engage the enemy at much greater range than they can be shot at. The battleship fleet without carriers will have no air recon and will have no idea of what's shooting at them. Long-range SAMs can't really be reloaded at sea, but aircraft mounted SSMs can be, from replenishment ships. So the carrier group will just keep pounding the battleships until they sink or run out of SAMs. Battleships suck.

Coupla bit 'n' bobs 'ere.

Firstly, your first point works both ways. In wartime, the sensors, control systems, engines et al of your missiles are under much greater strain than in peacetime. They're probably not going to be receiving their usual dose of TLC, and will be operating under more rigorous conditions than in any peacetime exercise; in wartime you might expect between 10 and 20% of your cruises to malfunction, depending on various factors (length of time between maintenance, intensity of maintenance, general state of the weapon, weather, etc.) So yes, your point is good, but it applies to any missile system (or indeed any weapon at all).

Secondly, I think that that's a bit of a dodgy assumption to make when you're discussing the battleships of NS, many of which are the pride and joy of their respective fleets. As such, they receive the kind of investment in electronics that makes the entire USN look like so many toy boats, and most carry individual radar systems able to track several hundred (or in some of the IMO more wanky versions thousand) contacts simultaneously, and control fire on them. Unlike the USN, most of the big NS navies aren't constrained by such things as a budged not in the trillions of US dollars, and so they can afford that little bit extra in performance.

Third point is a perfectly valid one, but the defence against a high-flying missile is scarcely all that different from the defence required against a low-flying one; furthermore bear in mind that even WWII battleships would have deck armour of maybe (and I'm going from a notoriously erratic memory here) six or seven inches of compound armour (face-hardened steel, wood, perhaps some concrete or similar), which is a fairly tall order to penetrate. Furthermore, tknocking out the fiddly (and duplicated) radars and suchlike of a massive ship isn't all that easy. For instance, I know that my own New Dawn class has at least two large 3D radars, backed up by a tertiary multipurpose one. The more towards plate antennae, incidentally, shouldn't make the task of knocking out a radar any easier (since you need to eliminate a large proportion of the radar's area before it becomes ineffective). So yes, again your argument's fine, but fails to take into account the much-improved effectiveness of NS heavies while emphasising the much-improved effectiveness of their counterparts.

Fourth, I'm not even going to go into this. Again you're seemingly assuming a dramatically understrength group or a Navy which uses entirely modern USN technology. Not a sensible assumption to make against beefed-up NS fleets that would take the USN apart in an afternoon.

two thibngs I belive to be almost necesarry in modern naval war that have been largely ignored:
Surveilance drones: in the hypothetical battle both fleets are stumbling about without the godlike sattelite views they have been accustomed to and if such a battle ever actually took place the sattelites on both sides would almost certainly be nonexistant, however if one side has in addition to sattelites a reasonably stealthy recon/surveil;ance drone, then in sucha battle they would have a signifigant long range advantage, still being able to use long range guided munitions to devestating effect.

The other is Helicopters: Choppers serve many key roles in a fleet, they are a flexible ASW unit capable of tracking and prosecuting submarines faster and more efficiently than either other submarines or ASW frigates, Additionally they can perform armed recon/counter recon roles acting as a forward deployed line capable of detecting enemy scout/fast strike ships and capable of carrying the weapons to deal with them before they reach the main fleet. Helicopters can also carry short-medium ranged Anti SHipping weapons such as exocet missiles to within range of the enemy ships without the same deck requirements or risk as an airstrike or ship based barrage.

Both of these units have not seen enough use in NS naval warfare as the advantage they provides would suggest.

In somewhat more general terms, satellite imagery offers strategical intelligence while ASW, AWACS and UAVs offer tactical imagery for tactical operations within a single strategical battle.

UAVs:
To be honest, I'm probably one of a very few individuals that has placed significant value on UAVs (even my small missile boats and patrol craft use them). However, despite their value, they are, as noted earlier, TACTICAL surveillance systems. While perfectly good for tracking and observing targets, or finding their exact location once the general location is known, few UAVs (NS or otherwise), and none that would be launched from anything shy of a full-deck carrier, are capable of finding the general location of a naval force in the vast expanses of ocean. Satellites are really the most effective method of finding a fleet simply by virtue of their wide search area, which no other platform can effectively attain, let alone maintain. Even the next best thing, a high altitude AEW platform, does not provide that much coverage in the greater scheme of things.
Unless you have a pretty good idea of the path and speed of an enemy force, satellites are vital. And even if you do, they're still much more important initial tools. UAVs are part of the endgame.
In the tactical realm, they are often overshadowed by their more capable cousins, the AEW aircraft. These can track more targets and cover a greater area than UAVs, and thus steal the show most of the time. Even with me, you'll find the greatest concentrations of UAVs on vessels that are likely to operate without carrier support (patrol & missile boats), or need precise targeting (shore bombardment vessels).

Helicopters:
Everyone has them, and most use them. But I will admit, few know just how much they can do and how well. Helicopters are used for resupply, cargo & personnel transport, ASW, search & rescue, mine countermeasures, ASuW, ground attack, special operations support, assault landings, electronic intelligence, and even as AEW platforms (that can operate with forces that don't include carriers). As the destroyer (or frigate in modern RL navies) is the workhorse of the fleet, so is the helicopter the workhorse of the fleet air arm.
That said, few players would incorporate any but the most obvious roles into an RP to begin with, so even knowing all that they do doesn't ensure that their contibution will appear.

Pop-Up & Diving attacks for missiles
The former are useful as a means of getting past point defenses, and that is their only role. The similar diving attack is good for punching through deck armor, but requires a high-altitude flight to be of much use. High-altitude = SAM bait. Weapons that used high-speed, high-altitude flight (most notably the Soviet Kh-22/AS-4 Kitchen) were considered to be outdated by the mid-1980s, due to the introduction of the Ticonderoga class AEGIS vessels.
Back to the pop-up. The maneuver, again, was instituted on some antishipping missiles (most notably the Harpoon) to help defeat CIWS systems. On a good day, the missiles that do this might penetrate +/- 4 inches of armor, tops. An Iowa class battleship, which is the starting point for most NS vessels, has deck armor over 8 inches thick, and most other WWII battleships still have 4 inches or more of deck armor (5-8.5 was the norm for US ships). This attack just doesn't work so well on them. Even many NS destroyers have enough deck armor to stop that.

Carrier Aircraft with missiles:
Actually, most carrier aircraft only carry two antishipping missiles, except when using small short range weapons like the Penguin and Sea Skua (and even then, 2 is the norm). So that number drops sharply. As for detecting, though battleships can't carry full-up AWACS birds, they can have UAVs and lower altitude helicopter AEW systems, which can still provide signficant long range detection. Forthermore, ship-based SAMs can have greater range than air-launched antishipping missiles. And with systems like TVM and IIR terminal guidance, those planes won't be evading those SAMs all to well, especially if they're trying to hide at low altitude.
Finally, most air-launched antishipping missiles are subsonic or transsonic weapons that don't have sufficient penetration to really hurt a battleship. The few that might do damage are either so big that only land-based aircraft will carry them, or rather short ranged and so heavy that, at best, only one can be carried per plane, in what could well become a suicide mission.

Like I said, if the missiles hit enough times, they will simply turn a battleship into a smoldering wreck like the Bismarck. Even if they don't do that, they'll knock out all sensors and fire-control radars. And I am skeptical your figures referring to the armor penetration of these missiles. Bear in mind that during World War II a number of battleships were sunk by aircraft, including the Yamato. Where do you get your figures for armor penetration for the missiles?

As for the carrier aircraft, the FA-18 can carry four Harpoons. Most Nationstate nations have ridiculously unrealistic aircraft that can carry twice that. So it depends if we're talking real life or Nationstates. Either way, the only major carrier user in the world, America, uses four-missile airplanes.

The problem with your thinking in RL terms is that modern anti-shipping missiles are designed to wreak major havoc upon today's ships, which are extremely thin skinned. If a Harpoon hit a Iowa-class battleship in the wrong place, the only thing the Iowa would need to be fully back to normal is a new paint job. The old wagon was tested against modern shipping missiles and modern naval guns when the Reagan-era Navy was conducting its modernisation programme and those had little effect on the ship.

As it relates to NS, almost any sensible navy is going to have plenty of escorts and the big capital ships themselves are going to have extensive CIWS or other anti-missile weaponry. Artitsa and I have even created ships specifically to deal with missile saturation strikes. One major problem with missile attacks at sea is that it's highly impractical to reload missile launchers at sea. Once you launch, you have to put back into port to reload. That problem doesn't exist with guns, which is why modern day warships still use them. That, and it's MUCH harder to shoot down a shell from a naval gun than it is to shoot down a missile.

The fact is that NONE of the ships in the modern day navies have the same cachet that a battleship does. When a Iowa-class battleship was lurking off the coast in 1968, the Vietnamese refused to negotiate until it was sailed off. Nothing scares an enemy quite as much nowadays.

If battleships become a major issue, like they apparently have become in Nationstates, everyone would adapt their missiles accordingly. In WWII, the main anti-shipping weapon was the Armor-Piercing Bomb, a sharp-tipped piece of iron with just a little bit of explosive packed in. The idea was that it would impact with such force that it would penetrate the armor, and then the explosive would detonate in the interior of the ship. The same effect could be replicated by doing a pop-up attack with the Harpoon or Tomahawk, the rocket booster providing the force necessary to plough through. Maybe a hardened tip would be fitted to help out. The essential thing is that if battleships still were a good idea, every navy would have them. If anyone started building any, missiles would just adapt.

Not necessarily true. The second most powerful RL navy in the world is the Royal Navy IIRC. I seriously doubt they have enough financial support to maintain a battleship ATM. After that, you possibly have the Russians (financial problems), the French, and other smaller powers that don't spend nearly as much on their military as the U.S. does, so it's a bit too simplistic to make the claim that everyone would use battleships if they were a great idea.

The battleship fills a role that other ships can't for far less money than an aircraft carrier does.

They could afford a few, especially if they're such invincible Gods of War that you make them out to be. And an aircraft carrier has much greater destructive power.

They could afford a few, especially if they're such invincible Gods of War that you make them out to be. And an aircraft carrier has much greater destructive power.Um, do you realise just how expensive that would be? As I've said earlier, an aircraft carrier's strike capability is limited to its aircraft because it only has the barest self-defence weaponry (usually four CIWS and maybe 20 mm guns). I didn't say battleships were invincible Gods of War. I said they provide a coastal bombardment platform and carry a certain cachet that no other ship can carry.

Um, do you realise just how expensive that would be? As I've said earlier, an aircraft carrier's strike capability is limited to its aircraft because it only has the barest self-defence weaponry (usually four CIWS and maybe 20 mm guns). I didn't say battleships were invincible Gods of War. I said they provide a coastal bombardment platform and carry a certain cachet that no other ship can carry.

So they provide an unneeded function.

In terms of ship-to-ship warfare, the carrier, I believe, is better. Its also debatable whether it is better for shore bombardment. Each battleship round weighs 2,000 pounds or so. Aircraft are capable of carrying bombs that weigh that much, are more accurate, and have more weight devoted to warhead as opposed to propellant, steel shell, etc. that battleship shells need to have.

OOC: Unneeded in RL. But is this RL? No, this is NS.

OOC: Unneeded in RL. But is this RL? No, this is NS.

If you're assaulting a fortified beach, you've done something massively wrong.

If you're assaulting a fortified beach, you've done something massively wrong.
Exactly - you are doing something massively wrong by not having the needed quantity of fire support, which only a battleship can give (especially in a NS environment) in the most efficient manner when compared to aircraft carriers.

Omz, I've posted my reasons why I think that the carrier does better at shore bombardment. Can you post yours?

So they provide an unneeded function.Try telling that to Oliver North (http://www.military.com/Opinions/0,,FreedomAlliance_041405,00.html).

And I can't believe someone is seriously arguing that an aircraft carrier is a better anti-ship platform than a battleship. If an aircraft carrier didn't have its air wings, it wouldn't even be able to take on a Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. A battleship also has secondary weapons including five inch guns and anti-shipping missiles to a far greater extent than an aircraft carrier does.

When we say "aircraft carrier", we mean the planes it carries also.

I've posted my reasons for believing that carriers are better for anti-shipping roles. They're earlier in this thread.

The value of the battleship is largely psychological. They get more respect than they warrant.

Exactly - you are doing something massively wrong by not having the needed quantity of fire support, which only a battleship can give (especially in a NS environment) in the most efficient manner when compared to aircraft carriers.

How does a battleship provide better fire support than a carrier airstrike and helicopter gunships?


And I can't believe someone is seriously arguing that an aircraft carrier is a better anti-ship platform than a battleship. If an aircraft carrier didn't have its air wings, it wouldn't even be able to take on a Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. A battleship also has secondary weapons including five inch guns and anti-shipping missiles to a far greater extent than an aircraft carrier does.

And if a battleship didn't have any shells, it wouldn't be able to do jack either. Don't burn the strawmen, they get annoyed when people do that.

Also, a refitted Iowa had a maximum of 48 anti-ship missiles (if you assume that the 32 Tomahawks were of the anti-ship variety). Now, do you honestly suppose that a carrier cannot launch an airstrike with more missiles? Or that the battleship has more sustained anti-ship firepower since it has to return to port to reload its missile tubes (which a carrier does not need to do)? And of what relevance is a five-inch gun? You aren't going to get that close in a modern naval engagement.

On a per unit and cost basis, a battleship _will_ be able to deliver a greater quantity of fire when compared to the aircraft carrier, which despite the number of aircraft it carries should be used for other roles such as striking targets inland. A battleship's main guns will be able to provide unprecedented fire support for the landing ground forces while its missile-based systems will be more able to strike targets inland, whereas the aircraft cannot due to the fact that you cannot provide a _continuous_ stream of bombardment with aircraft, and due to the fact that they should be rather used against both military and industrial targets inland as part of the overall operation. In regards to anti-ship operations, we are not talking about a WWII retrofit such as an upgraded Iowa, we are talking about realistically-conceived battleships in NS (even if you excluding all the 100,000+ ton monsters, it will stay true) which will have a far greater combined gun and missile armament. In this case, a battleship and an aircraft carrier can work together, as the aircraft carrier uses its aircraft to deliver a long-distance punch against naval forces, while the battleships can use both its missiles and (to a very limited extent of course, guns) for close-in work, at the same time being much better protected than a carrier due to the fact that the aircraft carrier's deck and easily-penetratable hangars will always be littered with aircraft, munitions, and fuel. Further, even if you use dumb bombs, on a cost-per-round basis the battleship will be noticably _cheaper_, when you consider that a 16" shell will be able to do even greater damage with its area effect while the smaller guns will be able to deliver precision fire. Operating an aircraft, even per sortie, will be expensive, and you don't want to do that at such rates that are _required_ by effective shore bombardment. _If you can_, that is, in which it is unlikely that you could considering that you aren't going to have a F/A-18 loitering above someone's coast without running out of munitions pretty quick, and getting shot down by shore defences which the battleship's fire could easily overwhelm. Now, if you prefer to concentrate your aircraft as well on the role of shore bombardment... It'd still be terribly inefficient when compared to a battleship. Yes, an aircraft may carry more load /per aircraft/ when compared to /per round/ of a battleship's main gun, but are precision munitions /that/ much available? Can aircraft be launched, recovered, and then reused nearly as fast as a battleship's main gun firing a constant barrage of shells? So why not get a battleship anyways, provided that you already have enough escorts to escort a carrier?

Best to use them for inland targets that will require the attention of precision strike aircraft, then.

In an anti-ship role? Best for them to work together when you actually have the capability of getting a battleship and a carrier together, in a fleet that is covered extensively with anti-aircraft defences (no, we are not talking about WWII anti-aircraft guns here on a pitifully small group of destroyers and frigates, escorting a battleship that is in itself extremely vulnerable to aircraft if _left alone_). A combination of aircraft carriers and battleships will still have a far better capability in both naval battles and land attack than solely aircraft carriers or battleships - provided of course, you actually have the monetary funds to have the capability of doing so.

With supplies... Ever heard of replenishment vessels? Granted, it would be extraordinarily difficult to reload missiles in VLS tubes at sea, but in the end you are going to have a limited number of both shells and strike munitions (precision or dumb, the former rarer) anyways.

The Bismarck. The Yamato. The Italian battleship that was sunk in the Med by British aircraft. The British battlecruiser that got sunk when the Japanese attacked. But are they escorted well, by a very powerful escort fleet? Are they accompanied by the aircraft carrier? I think not. Yet, people _still_ use the "carrier domination" example as a way of automatically disspelling battleships as an useless system, while completely ignoring its successes, in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and beyond. And are they that vulnerable to air and missile attacks? Remember the Silkworms that were fired at the Iowas in Iraq? Did they sink or receive any damage? WIth the assistance of a large contigent of escorts, no.

Now, the effectiveness of the battleship, _when working with aircraft carriers_, is documented in history and will most likely have a similar effect today, if it is not for the fact that nowadays there isn't a need seeing that the financial burdens of a battleship will provide disadvantages that will overwhelm its unique advantages. _Neither should replace the other, that's the key point_. Athiesism, the points about the superiority of the battleship over the CV _in the role of fire support and shore bombardment_ are already well demonstrated, so it needs no further reiteration. If you still prefer to contradict against the facts (as opposed to basing your analogy on a post cold war RL that doesn't really have the room for battleships in terms of funds and necessarity), then free to do so, but it's not going to change anything. The effectiveness of the battleship-aircraft carrier combination has been proven endlessly here in NS (for a long time, mind you), which directly contradicts the implications that aircraft carriers are far better than battleships _even in the battleship's own intended roles_ and are "unnecessary". It is just as unnecessary as strategic bombers and heavy self-propelled artillery.

Also, you do realize that the TSSAM was destined not to be an anti-ship missile but a land-attack missile, no? And the Harpoon and Tomahawk's rocket boosters are for getting them out of the missile launchers, not this so-called assisting in a diving attack. An ASM doing a pop up and dive maneuver at its terminal stage, while being abble to do a greater level of damage to a ship, will be extremely vulnerable since it would no longer have the speed advantage. The Crotale... If you really insist on using older weapon systems that can be considered as obsolete in NS to back up your analogy...

How does a battleship provide better fire support than a carrier airstrike and helicopter gunships?
There are situations when an 18" shell can bust open a bunker but a Harpoon or a Tomahawk can't..(actually Harpoon and Tomahawk are weak missiles) Battleships can blow apart oh-so- popular shore defences in NS and they can also put up a better bombardment of a base, a dock, or a city than any fighter bomber.



And if a battleship didn't have any shells, it wouldn't be able to do jack either. Don't burn the strawmen, they get annoyed when people do that.
How can you compare a shell to a plane? At that point we can just say "but if the DDG's had no missiles..."

Also, a refitted Iowa had a maximum of 48 anti-ship missiles (if you assume that the 32 Tomahawks were of the anti-ship variety). Now, do you honestly suppose that a carrier cannot launch an airstrike with more missiles? Or that the battleship has more sustained anti-ship firepower since it has to return to port to reload its missile tubes (which a carrier does not need to do)? And of what relevance is a five-inch gun? You aren't going to get that close in a modern naval engagement.

Iowa =! NS Battleship. NS Battleships are alot lot lot bigger and have up to ten times (sometimes up to 400 times in the SDN range) that of a refitted Iowa. No, a ship cannot reload its' VLS mid combat, but some big battleships DO have guns in the 18-27" range that can fire RAMjet missiles from the turrets and nuclear tipped shells, etc.

Little misconception on your part here. NS is NOT Modern.

Oh, and the most important thing about battleships is that it is hella more fun to RP a BB battle with guns than a missile strike from an aircraft.

There are situations when an 18" shell can bust open a bunker but a Harpoon or a Tomahawk can't..(actually Harpoon and Tomahawk are weak missiles) Battleships can blow apart oh-so- popular shore defences in NS and they can also put up a better bombardment of a base, a dock, or a city than any fighter bomber.

Which is why you use bunker busters.

I agree that battleships are more fun to RP than carriers, and I have no problem with that. I'm just saying that realistically they're not something to center a fleet on.

I read once about the 4,000 pound bunker busters fitted onto Air Force F111s during the Gulf War. During a test, they penetrated 100 feet of hardened, compacted earth and 20 feet of concrete. These smart bombs were improvised when it was found that a certain Iraqi command post (I forget which) was found to be invulnerable to 2,000 pounders dropped by F-117s. The bunker busters got the job done. Aircraft carriers don't carry F-111s, but if its absolutely essential, which it isn't, it's cheaper for carrierborne air-to-air refueling planes to escort an F-111 to target than to buy a whole battleship just to take out big bunkers.

As for the Tomahawk, there is an anti-shipping variant, the TASSM.

It's just wasteful to spend billions on battleships specifically for shore bombardment when cruise missiles and air craft can do the job, and at the same time sink other ships too.

You cited the example of how two Silkworm missiles were fired at a battleship in the Gulf War. One suffered a mechanical malfunction and crashed, the other was shot down by an escorting British destoryer. Hardly a missile swarm attack.

The HMS Prince of Wales, I think it was, was sunk west of Singapore during 1941. You cited it as an example of how battleships are usually only sunk when unescorted. However, I believe that if England spared an aircraft carrier, as it readily could have, it would have been able to prevent it from being sunk. It's funny, that example actually came up in a Strategypage ( www.strategypage.com ) discussion about battleships vs. carriers.

The reason so few battleships were sunk when travelling with large task forces is because they were ignored in favor of the more important carriers. The only time battleships travelled in large formations was when escorting carriers, because near the middle of the war it was realized that inj modern war they were near worthless for anything other than air defence (which they did well at, but that's another story).

Modern battles are resolved with aircraft carriers. Buying battleships to escort them is kind of strange logic- the more battleships you buy, the less carriers you can have, to the point where you have a lot of escorts but not enough to escort.

Perhaps the single most valuable purpose of airpower at sea is reconassaince. Now that fleets fire at targets beyond visual range, it determines who shoots first. Satellites can only cover a small area during certain parts of the day and, once shot down, are hard to replace because of their relatively small numbers. A heavy carrier task force will gain air superiority, spot the battleships first, pound them, and then either pursue or retreat. The FA18, for example, has a combat radius of 200+ miles and its Harpoons can fly 80 miles. TASSM or SS-N-19 type cruise missiles can shoot hundreds of miles away. Battleships can only fire 20 miles, and even the proposed rail gun variants have a theoretical range of 100.

In sum, if you're going to buy battleships for air defence, it's cheaper just to buy ships designed specifically for air defence.

Here's the catch. On NS, there are things called SuperDreadnoughts, which can have IN EXCESS of 100 fighters as well as having 9-12 ultra-large caliber guns.

The SDN outstrips the BB through size and power and aircraft, and the CVN through air complement and having enough armor to withstand something larger than a 75mm cannon. An NS SDN could probably stop an Iowa's 16" cannon easy as pie, seeing as the Iowas were originally armored against themselves (I'm not sure about after they redid the shells, but in the planning stages they could withstand their own bombardment superbly, and were certainly armored against any North Carolina class BB)


Lastly, this is NS. I personally have over 5 trillion USD in my defense budget, that's 5X the entire real world's estimated defense budget, and over 10X the US defense budget (400 bil)

And if a battleship didn't have any shells, it wouldn't be able to do jack either. Don't burn the strawmen, they get annoyed when people do that.
If my gun didn't have any bullets... or better yet, if my carrier had no fuel for its planes!
Also, a refitted Iowa had a maximum of 48 anti-ship missiles (if you assume that the 32 Tomahawks were of the anti-ship variety). Now, do you honestly suppose that a carrier cannot launch an airstrike with more missiles? Or that the battleship has more sustained anti-ship firepower since it has to return to port to reload its missile tubes (which a carrier does not need to do)? And of what relevance is a five-inch gun? You aren't going to get that close in a modern naval engagement.
Maybe not in a NAVAL engagement, but BBs are commonly used for shore bombardment now. A 5" is really helpful in clearing a beachhead.

Now, as for those missiles, you know how a tomahawk functions, right? A tomahawk has a delay fuse so the missile doesn't actually explode until it penetrates the thin armor of a modern warship. (watch it destroy bunkers. It penetrates the concrete some, then explodes) It explodes inside the craft. However, large destroyers and most cruisers can resist a tomahawk explosion and keep on fighting. A tomahawk, unless it goes inside an open hatch or through a window, most likely will NOT even penetrate an Iowa's armor, so it can't explode inside and cause damage. Assuming it did somehow penetrate, the compartamentilization of the BB will keep the damage to a very few frames.

A carrier has decent armor, but it is FAR more locally vulnerable than a BB. Just remember though, not even a tomahawk will fase a carrier simply because of its sheer size. It takes a lot to slow down a carrier, so imagine what it would take to even scrape a BB.

::comes from someone who's been on an Iowa and a Nimitz::

In terms of ship-to-ship warfare, the carrier, I believe, is better. Its also debatable whether it is better for shore bombardment. Each battleship round weighs 2,000 pounds or so. Aircraft are capable of carrying bombs that weigh that much, are more accurate, and have more weight devoted to warhead as opposed to propellant, steel shell, etc. that battleship shells need to have.
http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/IowaClass/Main.htm
The type of round that NS is most likely to use weighs 2,700 lbs, and hit pretty hard. Plus it's dirt cheap to shoot one of those things off. It costs a ton to launch planes, there's a chance of getting shot down (meaning you need to launch another plane), and you put a risk to the pilot, who needs a TON of training and gets a high salary.

A 16" gun needs maybe 50 people to keep running, can fire several shots per minute, and keeps your personel out of the line of fire and behind a slab of armor. Plus it costs less to train and pay a guy who works a turret than it does for a plane.

The HMS Prince of Wales, I think it was, was sunk west of Singapore during 1941. You cited it as an example of how battleships are usually only sunk when unescorted. However, I believe that if England spared an aircraft carrier, as it readily could have, it would have been able to prevent it from being sunk. It's funny, that example actually came up in a Strategypage ( www.strategypage.com ) discussion about battleships vs. carriers.

The reason so few battleships were sunk when travelling with large task forces is because they were ignored in favor of the more important carriers. The only time battleships travelled in large formations was when escorting carriers, because near the middle of the war it was realized that inj modern war they were near worthless for anything other than air defence (which they did well at, but that's another story).

Battleships can only fire 20 miles, and even the proposed rail gun variants have a theoretical range of 100.

In sum, if you're going to buy battleships for air defence, it's cheaper just to buy ships designed specifically for air defence.

Why don't you actually do some RESEARCH first? POW and Repulse where sunk EAST of MALAYA, 1941, and the UK could NOT spare a CV to go with them as Illustrious was on repairs. The problem was found for Repulse and PoW to not have enough anti air armament. Actual signalling from Repulse's Captain:
"With Providence we have evaded 18 torpedoes"

Theoretical range of 100? You mean, like the "theoretical" 16" guns on the Iowa currently?

And who said constructing battleships for AIR DEFENCE? We don't do that, we do it to attack other surface vessels, other battleships, and as I said, land targets. Again, shell = cheaper than a missile.

The HMS Prince of Wales, I think it was, was sunk west of Singapore during 1941. You cited it as an example of how battleships are usually only sunk when unescorted. However, I believe that if England spared an aircraft carrier, as it readily could have, it would have been able to prevent it from being sunk. It's funny, that example actually came up in a Strategypage ( www.strategypage.com ) discussion about battleships vs. carriers.

The reason so few battleships were sunk when travelling with large task forces is because they were ignored in favor of the more important carriers. The only time battleships travelled in large formations was when escorting carriers, because near the middle of the war it was realized that inj modern war they were near worthless for anything other than air defence (which they did well at, but that's another story).

Battleships can only fire 20 miles, and even the proposed rail gun variants have a theoretical range of 100.

In sum, if you're going to buy battleships for air defence, it's cheaper just to buy ships designed specifically for air defence.

Why don't you actually do some RESEARCH first? POW and Repulse where sunk EAST of MALAYA, 1941, and the UK could NOT spare a CV to go with them as Illustrious was on repairs. The problem was found for Repulse and PoW to not have enough anti air armament. Actual signalling from Repulse's Captain:
"With Providence we have evaded 18 torpedoes"

Theoretical range of 100? You mean, like the "theoretical" 16" guns on the Iowa currently?

And who said constructing battleships for AIR DEFENCE? We don't do that, we do it to attack other surface vessels, other battleships, and as I said, land targets. Again, shell = cheaper than a missile.

With this battleship argument... I'm afraid that I already made my point. If you still want to argue against facts and the observation of someone who has two years of experience in NS combat, while not taking into account the various factors that does make the battleship successful in NS warfighting, then meh.

And it's not the TASSM, it's the TASM. The TASSM was a stealthy land-attack air-launched cruise missile that got cancelled with the newer JASSM eventually fulfilling its envisioned role.

Yawn. Here, I'll end the debate on my own.

When unescorted, in a one-on-one fight, a CV would likely pwn (to use a n00b term) a BB. Period, hands down.

With sufficent escorts, the battle depends on luck and tactics. A BB would win should it get in close enough, period. Else, the CV would likely win out - though the battle still could be a draw. The reliance would be very much on escorts and speed for the BB and hit-and-run tactics for the CV.

In land attack, a BB is cheap, effective, and generally good, but a CV can fill a wider variety of roles in ground attack, and is perhaps more flexable, plus has the advantage of range.

Thus spake Novikov, and the conflict was no more.



Seriously, just get it together. You can't do without either BBs or CVs in a NS battlefleet, for the reasons noted. Deal with it and agree that you both need eachother.

Okay, responses to a few things:

Missile Penetration:
The Exocet is stated as having a penetration capability of 2.75" (70mm). If you do even a simple search, you'll see this all over the place, as this weapon is credited with several high-profile attacks. The Otomat is a bit more obscure, but 90mm (3.54") has been stated. The Harpoon, I once came across a figure of 4" (101.2mm), but I'm not certain on the validity of that - it could be lower. All these, however, are without a pop-up attack. That attack will reduce penetration with the velocity loss Omz noted. This is acceptable since modern vessels rarely have more than 1.5" of armor anywhere. But in NS or against battleships, that's not the case. They could compensate by going up to a decent altitude before coming back down, but that would leave them exceptionally vulnerable to vertical-launched SAMs and negate the advantages.


Battleship VS Carrier:
Against an NS battleship, a carrier is at a major disadvantage. The reason is that a battleship with a proper heavy SAM armament can effectively render the air wing impotent. The only weapons the aircraft could use to seriously damage the ship (heavy penetrating bombs and large torpedoes) would require them to get too close - they'd get shot down before they reached effective range. Other weapons that could somewhat damage the battleship can still be countered by defensive armament.
The battleship, on the other hand, can be firing shells out to at least 200nm (370 km) with NS tech, and the carrier has absolutely no effective means of countering them. Additionally, these can be guided to provide the necessary accuracy to hit the target. Thus, even with the greater striking range of the carrier, the battleship has an advantage.

Missile Saturation and Shock Damage:
Regardless of the number of missiles, if they're not powerful enough, they do nothing. You can set off a million M80 firecrackers on a lightly armored vehicle, and still see no real effect. The same holds true for many modern antishipping missiles against NS battleships, or even an Iowa. Weapons like the Exocet and Penguin were designed for frigates and maybe destroyers. Against a battleship, they're the proverbial firecrackers. Some might manage to catch something important with the blast or shrapnel (if you can reprogram them - they're usually designed to strike lower), but the main systems of the Iowa will survive intact. You need really big missiles in the catagory of the Kh-22 (NATO: AS-4) or P-700 Granit (NATO: SS-N-19) to do any real damage. However, the Russians themselves stated that they were afraid that even these weapons couldn't take down an Iowa, and even if they manage, it would require massive fleets of submarines, surface vessels, and/or land-based bombers to put out enough missiles, since carrier aircraft can't do it, and the correlation of forces just doesn't come out like that often enough.

Battleship VS Carrier on shore bombardment:
Contrary to what was stated earlier, this is the actual role that the battleship performed for the most part during WWII, not air defense. The simple fact is the battleship can put more ordnance on target in a given time than a carrier.
Consider for a moment: an Iowa can fire a 2700 lb APC shell at a rate of 2 per minute from each gun (18 per minute total). That's 48,600 lbs of ordnance per minute. For a 60-minute bombardment, that's 2,916,000 lbs, just for the 16" guns - you can add another 400,000 lbs or so for the 6 5" weapons added into the broadside from a modernized vessel. Even if you load a Nimitz with nothing but 80 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets (17,750 lbs total payload), it would still only be able to deliver about 1,420,000 lbs of ordnance in the same period (that's only enough time for one full sortie), which is less than half that of the Iowa, and it would also be at a phenominally greater cost (aircraft each cost several thousand per flight hour, then the operating cost of the carrier, then the cost of the ordnance, etc - battleship has just operating cost, which is lower, and ordnance, which would likely also be lower).
A carrier's advantages are greater overall ordnance (an Iowa has up to about 2000 tons of ordnance, while a Nimitz has I believe around 2800), greater range, and greater versatility. The disadvantages are greater vulnerability, greater cost, and the fact that aircraft can be shot down, often with great frequency, severely inhibiting strike capability.
A battleship can put more ordnance on target in a given period, is more survivable, and cheaper to construct and operate/maintain. Its weakness is lack of weapon range, and the versatility reductions that entails.
A battleship may not be able to do everything, but don't for a minute think a carrier can come even close to it in its own element. For, say, directly supporting a landing, it's battleship all the way. Similarly, if the target's in gun range but heavily defended, use a battleship. We'd have a lot less MIAs if the leaders in Vietnam had thought that way. Quite a few planes were lost going after targets later annihilated by 16" guns.


In the end, you don't need huge fleets of battleships, and they can't replace the carrier, but the exact same holds true the other way around. Claiming either is a sign of great ignorance. A balanced NS navy should have both types, with the proportion determined by the role of the navy. Neglect one or the other, and you're just asking for trouble.

Battleship VS Carrier:
Against an NS battleship, a carrier is at a major disadvantage. The reason is that a battleship with a proper heavy SAM armament can effectively render the air wing impotent. The only weapons the aircraft could use to seriously damage the ship (heavy penetrating bombs and large torpedoes) would require them to get too close - they'd get shot down before they reached effective range. Other weapons that could somewhat damage the battleship can still be countered by defensive armament.

Which is why you strip away the defenses before hitting the battleship itself. SEAD is the first law of air bombardment.

Which is why you strip away the defenses before hitting the battleship itself. SEAD is the first law of air bombardment.
...while most likely what you will be hitting is not the battleship but all of its surrounding escorts, all of which will be in overlapping rings and will already down your aircraftbefore it ever gets in range to fire at the battleship itself. The same thing however, can still said with carriers, save for the fact that the carriers' generally have a smaller quantity of fighters to deal with the threat (assuming that they are actually not preoccupied with the strike against the opposing fleet) while battleships will have a far greater number of missiles tied to a very capable air defence suite. This is still assuming that they operate separately, which won't be the case with any competent Admiral.

The point is that they work together. Yet people still fail to understand the point that they are no longer used in RL because of financial concerns and a changing world, not because of their actual capabilities. The point is that they work together to be effective while allowing a task force to get the best of both, not separately.

..while most likely what you will be hitting is not the battleship but all of its surrounding escorts,

I do believe that that is exactly what I was saying.


all of which will be in overlapping rings and will already down your aircraftbefore it ever gets in range to fire at the battleship itself.

Not if you're targetting those escorts and stripping away the rings prior to hitting the battleship.

Not if you're targetting those escorts and stripping away the rings prior to hitting the battleship.
Yes, but you are proving absolutely nothing since most likely you will also find an aircraft carrier working in conjunction with the battleship, so the point about 'aircraft carrier > battleship' in respect to vulnerabilities to air attacks is moot since in practice you will find both CVs and BBs in an NS naval task force.

Not if you're targetting those escorts and stripping away the rings prior to hitting the battleship.

Do carriers carry the ordinance needed to destroy an entire escort fleet? I would imagine not, and even if they could, the time between waves (the time it takes for the launching, retrieving, and refitting of a single aircraft) would be so great that this type of action could take days, in which your fleet would be under attack or the enemy fleet would be reinforced.

...while you still need to account for the fact that while your aircraft are hopelessly getting shot down, the distance between the fleets will close in to a point where the battleships' weapons will get in firing range, which will be a whole new, and hopelessly dangerous, situation. You aren't given the time advantage here, obviously.

Between the carrier and the battleship, there is no supremacy. Both provide niche roles that the other cannot possibly hope to fill as well as the other, or at all.

CA has obviously never fought a naval battle in NS, so he doesn't realize the error of his theories, but I look forward to the day he is stomped on by a more balanced naval force.

Also, a refitted Iowa had a maximum of 48 anti-ship missiles (if you assume that the 32 Tomahawks were of the anti-ship variety). Now, do you honestly suppose that a carrier cannot launch an airstrike with more missiles?

Do you have the slightest idea how much unused, unusuable space there is in the modernised Iowa series? There's so much they can be used to resupply other ships. It's had the following external stuff removed:

4 double 5-inch gun installations and associated sighting equipment
20 quadruple 40mm bofors gun installations and all associated sighting equipment
49 single 20mm gun installations
Stern crane
2 aircraft catapults
Rangefinder extensions, forward triple gun installation

This has been replaced with:

32 Tomahawk missiles in 8 armoured box launchers
16 Harpoon missiles in 4 quad cell launchers
4 Phalanx 20mm CIWS installations

Do you notice a slight disparity in what came off versus what went on? That'd be because the Iowa class was never designed to handle large numbers of missiles and putting more space-efficient VLS on would require incredibly expensive internal vandalism; you can't just drill holes through multiple decks of a WW2 ship because it has stuff there already, so you have to stick them in boxes bolted on to the superstructure.

Now, were we designing a modern battleship rather than refitting an old one, you could easily mount hundreds of missiles in VLS cells. Comparing a modern carrier to a refitted 60-year old hull with box launchers stuck on the top is nothing short of dishonest.

The battleship, on the other hand, can be firing shells out to at least 200nm (370 km) with NS tech, and the carrier has absolutely no effective means of countering them.

Well, at a pinch you could probably yank out some kind of THELwank to provide some level of protection from shell impacts...IIRC the THEL's managed to shoot down artillery shells already, though you'd need a damn sight more power to burn your way through the nose of a high-calibre gun round.

Also, why is it that NS PMT battleships don't use the rear deck area for carrying vertically-launched unmanned drone interceptors?

CA has obviously never fought a naval battle in NS, so he doesn't realize the error of his theories, but I look forward to the day he is stomped on by a more balanced naval force.

Like mine, which does use a mix of battleships and carriers? :rolleyes:

The British had a number of aircraft carriers in 1941, and could have spared some of them. It's possible that they could have saved themselves two good battleships.



Theoretical range of 100? You mean, like the "theoretical" 16" guns on the Iowa currently?


No. They are designing a new railgun-type weapon that has a range of 100 miles.

Someone noted that a battleship could get twice the ammount of shells on target, but it could do so with nearly as much precision as precision munitions.

Thanks to Clan Smoke Jaguar for the research. However, if battleships really became a factor, weapons would adapt. Refer to my earlier comments about converting a Harpoon to a WWII-style "armor-piercing-bomb" type warhead with a hardened cap.


Do carriers carry the ordinance needed to destroy an entire escort fleet? I would imagine not, and even if they could, the time between waves (the time it takes for the launching, retrieving, and refitting of a single aircraft) would be so great that this type of action could take days, in which your fleet would be under attack or the enemy fleet would be reinforced


Would the battleships have air reconassiance? Would they know where to shoot? Or couldn't the carriers just sink all the escorts and withdraw, without the battleships even seeing the enemy? I believe that they would be stumbling around blind. It's unlikely that they would be able to close within 30 miles or so to fire their guns without being hit by every cruise missile the fleet had. Few encounters result in the complete destruction of the opposing fleet. It's usually one side just sinks more than it looses, and that is enough.

I mentioned before that you don't have to literally sink the ship, you just have to turn it into a blazing inferno. With 10-20 hits even by a medium-sized missile like Exocet, Harpoon or Otomat, sensors and weapons would all be destoryed and the ship would be effectively mission killed.

When you could buy one $2 billion battleship or eight $250 million top-of-the-line air defence AEGEIS cruisers, which would you pick? More missiles or more useless guns?

I believe that they would be stumbling around blind.

On what do you base that baseless assumption, that they have no UAVs, spotter planes or satellite data? Oh, wait, it's a baseless assumption. After all, if you can't beat the enemy in a reasonable combat situation, assume they're already partly disabled, blind and you somehow have the power to flit in and sink all their escorts with multiple carriers' worth of aircraft.

By this kind of ridiculous reasoning, I can show that a carrier is useless against a motor torpedo boat as long as it's already on fire and sinking, and therefore carriers are useless.

I mentioned before that you don't have to literally sink the ship, you just have to turn it into a blazing inferno. With 10-20 hits even by a medium-sized missile like Exocet, Harpoon or Otomat, sensors and weapons would all be destoryed and the ship would be effectively mission killed.

Nonsense. Exocet and missiles like it aren't even fused properly to penetrate battleship armour. It's been seen in tests; ASMs that hit old Iowas do not penetrate and they do not cause surface fires. They bounce off.

Any ASM large enough to seriously damage a battleship would have to be carried by a medium or heavy bomber or have such a short range the aircraft's pilot would be taking his life in his hands.

And you are very much wrong about the Bismarck. She was disabled after 7-8 hits from British battleships, the remainder simply rearranged the wreckage on her deck until she was finally torpedoed and sank. More than anything else, this proves how difficult it is to sink a battleship by hitting her above the waterline.

Also, Prince of Wales went down largely because she was already damaged at the start of the engagement and had been since she was on the slip.

The Bismarck endured hours of pounding before it became an inferno. Does a link need to be provided?

As I've said before, satellites can be shot down and only cover a relatively (considering the size of an ocean area of operations) limited area for a limited time.

UAVs are relatively short-ranged, and without a strong carrier group you will loose air superiority and not be able to recon at all.

As for the missile damage debate, we're going around in circles. Refer to the previous discussions about armor-piercing bombs and pop-up attacks. Pop-up attacks can damage weapons and sensors.

As for the missile damage debate, we're going around in circles. Refer to the previous discussions about armor-piercing bombs and pop-up attacks. Pop-up attacks can damage weapons and sensors.
...and you are still ignoring the facts that are already bombarding you about the inherent disadvantages of pop-up missile attacks in a heavily defended environment. Until the facts are actually acknowledged as opposed to this mis-guided understanding about po-up attacks, I think we'd still be going in circles.

It's not a major problem. It's only a second or so of exposure.

It's not a major problem. It's only a second or so of exposure.
Err... A 'second or so exposure'? Do you understand any basic physics that goes into how a missile flies and attacks?

Yes. They pop up just short of the target and then manuever downward to hit the relatively weak top armor of a ship. Previous to the manuever they are at a sea-skimming altitude.

The Bismarck endured hours of pounding before it became an inferno. Does a link need to be provided?

The Bismarck was disabled after the first few volleys that hit her. The final total of hits was 300-400, but she had been disabled within 7-8. The remainder, as said, did nothing more than rearrange the wreckage on her upper deck. She was finally sunk by either a Royal Navy torpedo boat / destroyer or her crew scuttling her, depending on who you're listening to.

Either way, she was disabled by penetrating hits, not by fires. You are wrong.

As for the missile damage debate, we're going around in circles. Refer to the previous discussions about armor-piercing bombs and pop-up attacks. Pop-up attacks can damage weapons and sensors.

Pop-up attacks do almost no damage to vessels with armoured decks because the missile loses most of it's momentum in performing the pop-up. It'd be useless for hurting the main armament of a battleship.

And who says our BB doesn't have a small escort carrier in her battlegroup, exactly? Or a rear deck full of vertical-launch drones?

GMC, refer to my previous comments about converting SSMs into armor-piercing bombs like in WWII, which were able to penetrate battleship armor. Do you want me to repeat it?

The Bismarck was hit by a torpedo from a Firefly aircraft, which jammed its rudder and caused it to drift in a circle. That is what disabled it. What you are saying is besides my point. The Bismarck was not really sunk, it was turned into an inferno and then sunk eventually. That is my point.

edit:

http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/Squadrons/825.html

GMC, refer to my previous comments about converting SSMs into armor-piercing bombs like in WWII, which were able to penetrate battleship armor. Do you want me to repeat it?
For the last time, a bomb on the aircraft does not have the same flight profile and characteristics as a guided missile that flies by itself. Does this fundamental fact still needs repeating? And what... You are expecting them to attack in the same fashion?

What is your point?

What is your point?
I was just pointing out the inherent flaws of such logic from the point of view of someone who has actually seen, and engaged in, actual NS naval warfare that does involve battleships. And for some reason you still expect that a SSM doing a pop-up maneuver after seaskimming is going to do as much damage as a armour-piercing bomb dropped from a dive bomber.

How does the difference reduce the effectiveness of a hit? As I've said about five times already, you could easily modify an SSM to resemble an AP bomb.

GMC, refer to my previous comments about converting SSMs into armor-piercing bombs like in WWII, which were able to penetrate battleship armor. Do you want me to repeat it?

No, it was bad enough the first time. Harpoon already has a hardened cap to penetrate armour. It would still bounce off a battleship, as would all modern subsonic aircraft-portable antiship missiles.

The Bismarck was hit by a torpedo from a Firefly aircraft, which jammed its rudder and caused it to drift in a circle. That is what disabled it. What you are saying is besides my point. The Bismarck was not really sunk, it was turned into an inferno and then sunk eventually. That is my point.

Your 'point' is throughly incorrect, and a Red Herring. The Bismarck's steering gear was disabled by a torpedo from a Swordfish aircraft which forced her to drift in a wide circle. That is not the damage I was talking about. The vulnerable steering gear was unique to the armouring scheme of the Bismarck, and is not a fault with all battleships.

The initial volleys fired from the Royal navy battleships that engaged her after she lost steering control quickly disabled her fire control installations and main guns with a series of penetrating hits with high-calibre gun rounds. This was within the first few volleys fired at her, and that was when she was disabled in terms of overall combat power. That she was pounded with hundreds more rounds was not what knocked out her guns, it was the initial penetrating hits. Her combat power was not disabled by non-penetrating hits, and it was not disabled by fires. She was finally sunk with either torpedos or her own scuttling charges, depending on who's telling the story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1345013.stm

Sir Ludovic added that one of his most vivid memories was seeing the German sailors leaping from the stricken battleship as it was consumed by an "inferno of fire".

Do you not believe that the fire disabled the battleship? If it was not for the fire, then the battleship would not have sunk- its armor was impervious to shellfire. Aircraft are superior as they attack the weaker top armor.

The hardened cap on the harpoon is not sufficient to qualify it as an armor piercing bomb. Listen closely. I will not repeat myself anymore. An armor piercing bomb (in WWII) is a sharp, thick iron casing with a small explosive charge. The iron allowed it to penetrate the top armor of a ship, and then the explosives wrecked the vulnerable insides. How, tell me, did WWII battleships sink if bombs are so weak and their armor soo strong?

Do you not believe that the fire disabled the battleship?

No. It was disabled by penetrating hits to the fire control installations and the main gun installations, which occurred during the first few volleys fired at Bismarck by the Royal Navy.

If it was not for the fire, then the battleship would not have sunk- its armor was impervious to shellfire.

The hell it was. You've clearly never seen Bob Ballard's pictures of the Bismarck as she is now, there are massive holes and most of the superstructure is missing. She sank because she was torpedoed by the Norfolk and Dorsetshire, and then Captain Lindemann gave the order to scuttle her to prevent the hull [with almost no remaining superstructure] being captured.

Aircraft are superior as they attack the weaker top armor.

And get shot down by being right above a ship with sophisticated SAMs? This isn't WW2.

How, tell me, did WWII battleships sink if bombs are so weak and their armor soo strong?

Mostly from torpedoes, actually. Where bombed, battleships tended to require horrendous amounts of punishment before they sank [see Yamato and Musashi], and seriously, who gets to use free-falling bombs in this day and age?

Pop-up missiles attack top armor.

Torpedoes were usually used, but a number of battleships were sunk by armor-piercing bombs. In an engagment versus submarines or modern surface ships and helicopters (at close range), both of which have long-range guided torpedoes, battleships might be sunk by a few small, cheap chips. Not cost-effective.

More than that, if the United States used free falling bombs [such as in the Battle of the Coral Sea] they would actually skip the bombs over the surface of the sea. Most of the time, however, such as at the raid at Taranto, or even the raids in the Battle of Midway and those against the Musashi, they were torpedo bombers, meaning they still dropped torpedoes.

Pop-up missiles attack top armor.

Torpedoes were usually used, but a number of battleships were sunk by armor-piercing bombs. In an engagment versus submarines or modern surface ships and helicopters (at close range), both of which have long-range guided torpedoes, battleships might be sunk by a few small, cheap chips. Not cost-effective.


You're thinking wayyy too simplistic here. The light torpedoes used by helicopters probably would take more than one to pierce through the heavy bulkheads of NS BBs and SDs. More than that, they have a very short range [around 10 kms or less], while a short range SAM has a range of around 30 to 70 kms. That chopper is going to get blasted out of the sky even before it gets close. In terms of NS warfare, submarines are actually beginning to fire from longer ranges, not getting close, and so the only thing that has that range are anti-shipping missiles, so in terms of NS warfare from submarines at least, BBs and SDs aren't getting much threatwarnings from torpedoes.

When I said close range, I meant as in a melee fight between light ships and battleships. With their SAMs spent and fire-control radars occupied otherwise, helicopters will play a factor. With several light ships and their helicopters working together, they can put a lot of fire on target. A Perry-class frigate (which carries torpedoes and an ASW chopper) costs $100 million. A battleship costs $2 billion. Each Perry class has at least two torpedo tubes (probably more than that, but I'll look it up later) and is 1/20th the cost of a BB. Forty torpedoes, plus whatever the choppers can fire, is enough to kill a battleship.

Pop-up missiles attack top armor.

Torpedoes were usually used, but a number of battleships were sunk by armor-piercing bombs. In an engagment versus submarines or modern surface ships and helicopters (at close range), both of which have long-range guided torpedoes, battleships might be sunk by a few small, cheap chips. Not cost-effective.The flaw in your argument about cheap ships making the bigger, more expensive ships less cost-effective is that none of them fill the same role that the bigger ships do, and each of those bigger ships has a role to play in naval warfare. A couple of $50 million missile boats can destroy a Nimitz-class carrier if they can get past a crapload of escorts, but that doesn't make the Nimitz a financial black hole.

And the argument about "well if you use battleships, the navies of the world will adapt" doesn't hold for one simple reason. If the rest of the world adapts, the U.S. Navy (or any navy that uses battleships) will adjust to the adjustment and find ways to counter the pop up missiles and torpedoes. At one time, ironclads were likely viewed as invincible even against the exploding shell guns of the era. Eventually, people found out that wasn't the case.

Pop-up missiles attack top armor.

So we oversimplify things to say that anything that attacks top armour, be it a 1000lb bomb dropped by a dive bomber or a toast soldier dropped by a man standing on deck, will do the same amount of damage? That's ridiculous.

Missiles that do pop-up attacks lose almost all their speed and momentum in executing the maneouvre. It's speed, not the warhead, that allows a missile to penetrate heavy armour, with the result that a missile performing a pop-up has no chance whatsoever of penetrating an armoured warship deck. It's totally different from an airdropped bomb, which doesn't have to lose almost all its speed to turn violently in another direction and back at the last moment.

In an engagment versus submarines or modern surface ships and helicopters (at close range), both of which have long-range guided torpedoes, battleships might be sunk by a few small, cheap chips. Not cost-effective.

And in an engagement against the same fleet, how would a carrier fare on it's own without escort, as you're constantly imagining this battleship?

When I said close range, I meant as in a melee fight between light ships and battleships. With their SAMs spent and fire-control radars occupied otherwise, helicopters will play a factor. With several light ships and their helicopters working together, they can put a lot of fire on target. A Perry-class frigate (which carries torpedoes and an ASW chopper) costs $100 million. A battleship costs $2 billion. Each Perry class has at least two torpedo tubes (probably more than that, but I'll look it up later) and is 1/20th the cost of a BB. Forty torpedoes, plus whatever the choppers can fire, is enough to kill a battleship.


And, of course, that BB doesn't have an escort. A perry class frigate would most likely be knocked out of the water within the range of fifty kilometers by the battleships used on NS, while the chopper would be either knocked out by a sam or by AAA. So, even without an escort, the BB is superior to an escort ship and a light helicopter.

Let's use the example of Midway. The Americans sunk four Japanese carriers, but lost somewhere near over one hundred aircraft in the process. So, even preaching your theory as gospel, you would still need dozens upon dozens of helicopters, perhaps hundreds upon hundreds.

The flaw in your argument about cheap ships making the bigger, more expensive ships less cost-effective is that none of them fill the same role that the bigger ships do, and each of those bigger ships has a role to play in naval warfare. A couple of $50 million missile boats can destroy a Nimitz-class carrier if they can get past a crapload of escorts, but that doesn't make the Nimitz a financial black hole.

And the argument about "well if you use battleships, the navies of the world will adapt" doesn't hold for one simple reason. If the rest of the world adapts, the U.S. Navy (or any navy that uses battleships) will adjust to the adjustment and find ways to counter the pop up missiles and torpedoes. At one time, ironclads were likely viewed as invincible even against the exploding shell guns of the era. Eventually, people found out that wasn't the case.


How will the navies defend their battleships? They've done everything they can already.

I am not imagining this battleship without escort. It would actaully be to the carrier's advantage, as its aircraft would have less SAMs to deal with.

Especially with a second-stage rocket motor and a hard (tungsten, DU, titanium etc.) tip, a pop-up SSM would have enough momentum to penetrate.

Missiles that do pop-up attacks lose almost all their speed and momentum in executing the maneouvre.

Depends on the height. The Kh-15, to use as an example, climbs up to 40,000 feet before coming back down at Mach 5.

A Perry-class frigate (which carries torpedoes and an ASW chopper) costs $100 million. A battleship costs $2 billion. Each Perry class has at least two torpedo tubes (probably more than that, but I'll look it up later) and is 1/20th the cost of a BB. Forty torpedoes, plus whatever the choppers can fire, is enough to kill a battleship.

You're trying to use ASW choppers to sink a battleship? Jesus, I should get Freethinker onto this, he'd piss himself laughing. Your Perry class frigates are virtually unarmoured and could probably be sunk by a hit from a modern BB's secondary guns, let alone the main guns. Before you got to anything like torpedo range you'd have been given six plateloads of misery with the BB's missile batteries and main guns. You'd be lucky if you had enough left of your 20 frigates to take home in a sack.

And, of course, that BB doesn't have an escort. A perry class frigate would most likely be knocked out of the water within the range of fifty kilometers by the battleships used on NS, while the chopper would be either knocked out by a sam or by AAA. So, even without an escort, the BB is superior to an escort ship and a light helicopter.

Let's use the example of Midway. The Americans sunk four Japanese carriers, but lost somewhere near over one hundred aircraft in the process. So, even preaching your theory as gospel, you would still need dozens upon dozens of helicopters, perhaps hundreds upon hundreds.


I am saying that if the range closed to within the MK-50 Barracuda's maximum (50mi) range, then there could be a torpedo fight.

As I said, in a close-range fight when SAMs have been spent, helicopters are a factor.

I am not imagining this battleship without escort. It would actaully be to the carrier's advantage, as its aircraft would have less SAMs to deal with.


How does that make any sense?

I am saying that if the range closed to within the MK-50 Barracuda's minimum (50mi) range, then there could be a torpedo fight.

Unfortunately, I have troubles believing that claim. The top figures I've heard for the Mk48 is a range of 60 kilometers. Now, with the Mk50 being little less than twice the size of the Mk48 it would imply that the range would not exceed 30 kilometers, if you were going by that thinking.

Aircraft's missiles are shot down by SAMs. They have an easier time blowing up an unescorted ship than an escorted one.

As I said, in a close-range fight when SAMs have been spent, helicopters are a factor.

And these SAMs have been spent on what, exactly?

Unfortunately, I have troubles believing that claim. The top figures I've heard for the Mk48 is a range of 60 kilometers. Now, with the Mk50 being little less than twice the size of the Mk48 it would imply that the range would not exceed 30 kilometers, if you were going by that thinking.

Sorry, I meant the MK48.

Aircraft's missiles are shot down by SAMs. They have an easier time blowing up an unescorted ship than an escorted one.


Yea, but we're implying here that all ships are going to be escorted in some wya or another. A more likely than not a BB will have more SAMs than twenty aircraft have missiles, especially when you're considering some of the stuff NSers have come up with.

And these SAMs have been spent on what, exactly?


Once the range is that close, odds are everything's already been fired off. The SM-2 has a ship-to-ship capability, by the way, so all the SAMs and SSMs would be spent before gun range.

Sorry, I meant the MK48.

A helicopter can't carry the Mk48; they have trouble carrying two Mk50s at that. There would be a threat from a submarine, but most ASW/ASuS perimeters on NS exceed two hundred kilometers in radius.

Yea, but we're implying here that all ships are going to be escorted in some wya or another. A more likely than not a BB will have more SAMs than twenty aircraft have missiles, especially when you're considering some of the stuff NSers have come up with.

Which is the purpose of missile swarm attacks. The more ships an enemy concentrates in one place, the more aircraft carriers are free to concentrate on that area also.

A helicopter can't carry the Mk48; they have trouble carrying two Mk50s at that. There would be a threat from a submarine, but most ASW/ASuS perimeters on NS exceed two hundred kilometers in radius.

Perry class frigates and submarines carry MK48s. The helicopters would be a factor. You are not going to sink something with them, but when you fire everything you have at a target, it helps.

Which is the purpose of missile swarm attacks. The more ships an enemy concentrates in one place, the more aircraft carriers are free to concentrate on that area also.


But the more concentrated a battle group is the better chance it has to survive against a missile swarm attack. The only reason a battle group would be unconcentrated would be in the event of a nuclear attack.

Yes. Some missiles would be shot down. Not all would get through.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1345013.stm



Do you not believe that the fire disabled the battleship? If it was not for the fire, then the battleship would not have sunk- its armor was impervious to shellfire. Aircraft are superior as they attack the weaker top armor.

The hardened cap on the harpoon is not sufficient to qualify it as an armor piercing bomb. Listen closely. I will not repeat myself anymore. An armor piercing bomb (in WWII) is a sharp, thick iron casing with a small explosive charge. The iron allowed it to penetrate the top armor of a ship, and then the explosives wrecked the vulnerable insides. How, tell me, did WWII battleships sink if bombs are so weak and their armor soo strong?

It's armour was impervious to gunfire was it? I have read actual accounts from sailors onboard the HMS Rodney who saw the Rodney's 16" shells make holes through Bismarck's belt. The fires did not destroy the Bismarck, the British 8", 14", and 16" shells did.

Aircraft are not superior because they attack from the top, that is completely wrong and I am unsure where your basis that a guided missile can penetrate deck armour comes from.

Once the range is that close, odds are everything's already been fired off. The SM-2 has a ship-to-ship capability, by the way, so all the SAMs and SSMs would be spent before gun range.

So you are going to play attrition against a battleship? Good, good idea.

Cruise missiles being converted to AP bombs, we've talked about it before.

The Bismarck's armor was soo thick that it didn't sink until it blazed and incinerated. Shellfire only started the inferno. The British then withdrew, but when it still didn't sink, they had to torpedo it. Shellfire was not the main cause of its death.

So you are going to play attrition against a battleship? Good, good idea.

They're soo damn expensive that each one you sink is a major blow.

The power of the cruise missile comes through it's extended range, not the warhead. In fact, a cruise missile would only scrape the paint off a BB, now speak for a SD. Now, how exactly would you convert it into an AP weapon?

They're soo damn expensive that each one you sink is a major blow.


And in the mean time you've lost five or six escort ships, maybe up to ten or more, which means....congratulations... you've lost more money in your escort ships and all those missiles than us loosing a single battleship and some shells.

I've stated about three times in the past in this thread exactly how you can convert an SSM. Do you want me to say it again?

As I said, the Perry is 1/20th the cost of a battleship, making it very attritable.

{Tag; For Intelligence Purposes}

OOC: Cause Jolt, still won't let me use the thread tools bar...*sigh*

I've stated about three times in the past in this thread exactly how you can convert an SSM. Do you want me to say it again?

As I said, the Perry is 1/20th the cost of a battleship, making it very attritable.

So you put a AP head on a criue missile, still doesn't make it all that much more effective unless you have the speed to get enough energy into the pentrator to make it work, crisue missiles are not designed for speed (ok so the likes of the VESTA project are but they haven't been biult yet).

Ap missiles would require much greater speeds which in turn would require much shorter rnages unless you make the missile bigger...

Which you could do.

I've stated about three times in the past in this thread exactly how you can convert an SSM. Do you want me to say it again?

As I said, the Perry is 1/20th the cost of a battleship, making it very attritable.


The Perry class Frigate costs around $212 million. An Iowa class BB would cost around at tops 2.5 to 3 billion. That would mean that sinking 10 to 15 frigates, which a battleship would most likely sink as many frigates as you sent against it, would mean that the BB got its money worth. Now, take that concept, and apply it to the fact that most NS BBs are five times as powerful.

Which you could do.

In which case it becomes more suceptible to missile fire and CIWS. But now, I'm off to class.

Not significanlty so, Macabees.

As for the Perry, I've mentioned their torpedoes and their 50 mile range. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Okay, here's the simple truth of the matter:

Perry frigates are so lightly armored you could probably take a Bradley IFV gun to them and punch through, not that a gun that calliber would make a big hole, but you get the picture.

Any battleship worth its money is armored against its own shots. This was true of the Iowas and was going to be true of the Montanas were they made. This means that an Iowa was armored against a 2,700 pound high-speed ultra-penetrating metal slug. As such, you'd need something larger to penetrate the armor. You talk about hitting from above, but you ignore a BB's compartmentalization, and the fact that things like the engines were below the superstructure. Good luck penetrating all of that!

http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/IowaClass/Armor.htm
http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/IowaClass/Cutaway.htm
As you can see, most of the vulnerable equipment is shoved beneath the superstructure. You can shoot your missile in and screw up a mess hall... (assuming it doesn't bounce off), and the armor was designed to withstand all sorts of arial attacks.



Now, that's an Iowa, a 50 year old ship that is still one of the most powerful ever to be built. Now, imagine making a new style of BB with modern tech and everything. Probably nuclear powered, maybe not the same fleet refueling capabilities as the Iowas, but quite a bit, ultraheavy composite armor, etc. It would probably run along the same price line (if it were adjusted for inflation, blah blah blah)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/bb-61.htm
Just read up on the Iowas and then consider what a modern BB would have. A rear flight deck for interceptor-drones, even more powerful guns (if they had nuclear reactors, maybe even those naval rail-guns)



However, there is currently no ship that can match a Nimitz's Air Complement. (unless there's a Russian or Chinese one I don't know about) Gee, wouldn't it be smart to either
1) combine them? *cough* uber-expensive, huge, and too deep-drafted trimeran SDN *cough*
2) use them in conjunction? With escourts, ASW screens, sub, frigate, and destroyer rings, spysat readouts, and land based recon craft patrols?

Any battleship worth its money is armored against its own shots.

Only 6 or 7 of their own shots, not a whole bunch of them.

Only 6 or 7 of their own shots, not a whole bunch of them.
Now you're just getting nit-picky. Body armor rated for 9mm shots will still get penetrated if you keep shooting. Similarly you can kill a person if you keep cutting them with a pair of pie tins.

Besides, sure you can shoot through the superstructure. However, there isn't a lot that's uber-important up there. Check the schematic I posted. Sure you can slow it down by hitting fire control centers, etc, but there are still sights inside the turrets, and a modern BB would have radar aiming with electric traverse and the whole setup.

Now you're just getting nit-picky. Body armor rated for 9mm shots will still get penetrated if you keep shooting. Similarly you can kill a person if you keep cutting them with a pair of pie tins.

Nit-picky because many people think that means that they're totally immune to their own shots, and I just wanted to make sure that it was clarified that they weren't.

Are you saying that battleships are invincible to SSMs?

And about the "composite armor", the only thing within a reasonable price range to armor stuff as big as a BB is still steel. Yes, we could talk PMT, but then what about this future super-missile, and that, and this... Besides, we're talking about today and what modern, real-life navies are capable of.

Um, that's the problem. You're debating RL while the rest of us realize that this thread is about NS combat.

Would the battleships have air reconassiance? Would they know where to shoot? Or couldn't the carriers just sink all the escorts and withdraw, without the battleships even seeing the enemy? I believe that they would be stumbling around blind. It's unlikely that they would be able to close within 30 miles or so to fire their guns without being hit by every cruise missile the fleet had. Few encounters result in the complete destruction of the opposing fleet. It's usually one side just sinks more than it looses, and that is enough.
1) Look at the specs. A modernized Iowa carries three medium endurance (RQ-2 Pioneer - 100 nm maxium radius) UAVs specifically for directing gunfire. More modern UAVs are in the works that take up the same space but have several times the radius and endurance (on par with the Global Hawk), and battleships can use those. They can also carry helicopters with AEW radar systems, which can give detection a few hundred miles out. Not as good as a carrier, but not as bad as you claim.
2) For shells, the Iowa had a 280mm (11") Sabot projectile in the works, which was GPS guided. This could have been fired out to 100 nm. A larger 13" Sabot was still good to about 50 nm, more than twice the range of the original shells. These were scrapped when the Iowas were decommissioned, but they did have them. Newer propellants (liquid, ETC) on the horizon and extending the barrel can at least double the range, and adding terminal guidance to the shells is possible, so Battleships can indeed have a precision strike capability at ranges actually exceeding those of the medium antishipping missiles being mentioned.


I mentioned before that you don't have to literally sink the ship, you just have to turn it into a blazing inferno. With 10-20 hits even by a medium-sized missile like Exocet, Harpoon or Otomat, sensors and weapons would all be destoryed and the ship would be effectively mission killed.
No they won't. The missiles don't have the sensors or programming to hit that many specific targets. They'll mostly go for the hull, usually near the waterline, leaving all the systems high, dry, and unaffected. Even if they did aim higher, most of the systems would still evade any effects. The battleship is a big thing, and you're grossly overestimating how much a bunch of little missiles will affect. And no, they will not turn it into a blazing inferno. Remaining rocket fuel will cause fires, yes. But unless they manage to get something flammable on the interior, the threat is not that great. To my knowledge, all vessels sunk by fires, or even just completely disabled, were damaged by interior fire - either started internally, or spread as a result of holes created by explosions or other hits. This includes the Japanese carriers. The likelyhood of that happening to an Iowa from a Harpoon/Exocet/Otomat is virtually nil, as the ammunition is far enough from the main deck and well enough protected that this isn't an issue.


When you could buy one $2 billion battleship or eight $250 million top-of-the-line air defence AEGEIS cruisers, which would you pick? More missiles or more useless guns?
Sorry, but Arleigh Burke destroyers are approaching $1.2 billion each today, and even Ticonderogas would be about $1 billion. For $250 million, you might get a decent multirole or specialized corvette, or possibly an older frigate, but nothing more. When it's only two AEGIS ships for a battleship, the battleship becomes a rather attractive deal, especially if you have marines in the decision making process.


When I said close range, I meant as in a melee fight between light ships and battleships. With their SAMs spent and fire-control radars occupied otherwise, helicopters will play a factor. With several light ships and their helicopters working together, they can put a lot of fire on target. A Perry-class frigate (which carries torpedoes and an ASW chopper) costs $100 million. A battleship costs $2 billion. Each Perry class has at least two torpedo tubes (probably more than that, but I'll look it up later) and is 1/20th the cost of a BB. Forty torpedoes, plus whatever the choppers can fire, is enough to kill a battleship.
1) Not entirely accurate. Taiwan's Cheng Kung (license-built Perry) cost $300 million a pop in 1999. Even without weapons systems installed, they cost $212 million. I don't think they've ever been as cheap as $100 million, and if they were, that would be the cost 3 decades ago and the battleship that costs $2 billion today would have cost $667 million then. You can't use the current cost of one with the past cost of the other. So, that drops the ratio by about 70%.
2) Battleships can carry torpedo tubes too. And theirs can be bigger and more numerous, with longer-ranged and more powerful weapons. Plus, 12.75" weapons are pathetic. An Iowa's underwater protection is rated at, IIRC, 700 lbs, and would have been at least 20% greater for the later vessels (the first four used the exact protection scheme of the earlier South Dakota, so were actually significantly underprotected). A Perry could fire off all its torpedoes, have them all hit the same place at once, and when you consider the charges, it would still do minimal damage. And that's assuming it could get within at least 5 km or so, and fire off all of the torpedoes at the target, which is difficult considering tube arrangement.
The truth is that those torpedoes are only effective against submarines because a single little hole is at least crippling in that situation. Against surface ships, even current frigates and destroyers can survive hits from them.
3) That whole scenario's a huge if. More likely, even with 20 of them, the Perrys would all be torn to pieces by missiles and 5" gun fire before one got within 10 miles, let alone 3. Threats are prioritized, and if a vessel started to get that close, the fire control would shift to it. The battleship would not be quite so "otherwise distracted."

Perry class frigates and submarines carry MK48s. The helicopters would be a factor. You are not going to sink something with them, but when you fire everything you have at a target, it helps.
Incorrect:
The Mk.48 is a 21" weapon designed to be launched from submarines. It has never been used to arm a surface vessel, and never will. The only surface ships with 21" tubes are of Soviet design, and those are lighter and shorter ranged than submarine-launched weapons. The Perrys have 2 Mk.32 Triple 12.75" tubes that fire the same Mk.46/50/54 torpedoes as the helicopters. No torpedo strikes from dozens of miles away here.


Are you saying that battleships are invincible to SSMs?
Nope. Just the ones you keep trying to cite.
Instead of trying to find a way to magically make current low-cost, subsonic, medium missiles take out a battleship (Iowa or otherwise), you should be talking about expensive, high-speed, and very big weapons. If you did that, you wouldn't be refuted anywhere near as much. But as soon as you try to find some way to make something like a Harpoon a battleship killer, people will counter you. It's just that, when it is projected that several of the weapon may be needed just to take out one unarmored AEGIS cruiser, you can be certain that even dozens won't do much to a heavily armored vessel with six times the displacement.

Are you saying that battleships are invincible to SSMs?
No, they aren't. Just that what you are doing is trying to make bread when there isn't flour from the start. How about just drop this ridiculous RL-small navy-centric logic and stop trying to stubbornly applying it to NS warfare, when a lot of people around you are already far more experienced to talk about it?

So, NS isn't based on real life? I thought it was.

What is your source referring to Perrys carrying MK32s?

Missiles still will turn a ship into a blazing wreck if you fire enough of them. I talked about the Bismarck, which was set on fire by shells. AP bombs or SSMs, as I've talked about, start interior fires.

As for the thing about hitting the hull, I've already talked about pop-up attacks. Also, something slipped my mind somehow. Battleships do have 16 inch armor in some places, but only in an armor belt that covers the most vulnerable part of the ship (the boilers). This makes that part almost inpenetrable, but to armor the whole ship would be not only insanely expensive but also would make it too heavy to float. So the rest of the armor is a relatively modest 4-6 inches. Penetrable by an adapted SSM.

You mentioned that BBs carry recon UAVs. Not only could they be shot down, but they do not have the range (only 100 miles) to spot ships at SSM and aircraft SSM range (250 miles + for FA-18 or TASM).

If you can prove that cheap surface combatants like the Perry do not have the torpedo range to engage BBs, I'll go with that. It dosen't invalidate my main point, that SSMs are more effective than guns.

edit: You're right about the Perry, I looked on Wikipedia.

you continue to ignore the fact that a pop-up looses all of its momentum in the maneuver.
Missiles still will turn a ship into a blazing wreck if you fire enough of them. I talked about the Bismarck, which was set on fire by shells. AP bombs or SSMs, as I've talked about, start interior fires.
Yes the Bismark was set on fire. By large shells fired by BBs, not rockets or bombs, you even admit it.

You mentioned that BBs carry recon UAVs. Not only could they be shot down, but they do not have the range (only 100 miles) to spot ships at SSM and aircraft SSM range (250 miles + for FA-18 or TASM).
Anything can get shot down @@. A UAV is smaller and stealthier than a standard plane though, so it has better survivability. Also, you're COMPLETLY ignoring those little things called Radar and Spysat feeds.

http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/IowaClass/Armor.htm
Please study up on what the armor is designed to do.

"The deck consists of three parts, the bomb deck, the main armor deck, and the splinter deck. The bomb deck is 1.5 inches STS plate, the main armor deck is 4.75 inches Class B armor laid on 1.25 inches STS plate and the splinter deck is 0.625 inches STS plate. The bomb deck is designed to detonate general purpose bombs on contact and arm armor piercing bombs so they will explode between the bomb deck and the main armor deck. Within the immune zone, the main armor deck is designed to defeat plunging shells which may penetrate the bomb deck. The splinter deck is designed to contain any fragments and pieces of armor which might be broken off from the main armor deck."

That is on an Iowa. Nowadays, we can make stronger steel and use composites, making all of this stuff even stronger.

Only in the vaguest sense is NS naval combat based on that of RL. Nobody with any sense uses RL naval equipment, ships, or tactics. What I find hilarious is that most of us that argue in favor of a balanced force probably have more capital ships than your navy has ships total and even given even forces would still rip your navy apart, simply because our ships are armed and armoured towards the far more dangerous NS combat environment.

The problem is that while equipment can be realistic in terms of its technical feasibility relative to the resource bases of large NS nations, and while NS tactics will involve RL elements, the philosophical part of NS warfighting is different from those of RL, where despite the growing computerization and networking of the battlefield the world is still in a post-Cold War environment...

As for Athiesism's navy, I recall he's a FT roleplayer. Of course, those of us who have actually fought - as opposed to solely discussing about, as if every nation here is the size of the United States with a rather small navy - multiple wars involving naval battles will know much about the dynamics of NS warfare.

So, NS isn't based on real life? I thought it was.
NS (at least, the NS we're talking about) is indeed based on real life, but remember that this fact doesn't mean it IS real life. There are differences, particularly involving technological designs and applications that don't exist, but could.


Missiles still will turn a ship into a blazing wreck if you fire enough of them. I talked about the Bismarck, which was set on fire by shells. AP bombs or SSMs, as I've talked about, start interior fires.
The Bismarck suffered penetrating hits before being set on fire. If not for penetrating hits, there could not have been a persisting fire. Thus, the argument, which is based on missiles that cannot achieve penetrating hits, is invalidated.
AP bombs and SSMs are irrelevent here if they either 1) can't be effectively and/or safely deployed against it or 2) can't penetrate the armor. Most of the rest of us agree that at least one of these attributes is accurate for each idea you've put forward.


As for the thing about hitting the hull, I've already talked about pop-up attacks. Also, something slipped my mind somehow. Battleships do have 16 inch armor in some places, but only in an armor belt that covers the most vulnerable part of the ship (the boilers). This makes that part almost inpenetrable, but to armor the whole ship would be not only insanely expensive but also would make it too heavy to float. So the rest of the armor is a relatively modest 4-6 inches. Penetrable by an adapted SSM.
You've talked about pop-up attacks, and they've been refuted. Even your bomb talks are not entirely accuracte because the ships those weapons were designed to penetrate had no more than 1/2 to 2/3 the protection of the Iowa (whose only competitor in deck protection was the Yamato class, which did not beat it by much). The Arizona, for example, had only 4.15" of deck armor, which is less than half that of the Iowa.
For the Iowa's belt, the armor box extends from just forward of turret #1 to just aft of turret #3. That's a heck of a lot more than just the boilers. It's the magazines, turret systems, controls, and almost everything else of value. The concept of "all or nothing" armor for battleships gave the idea that everything of real value should be protected, with only unessential systems being outside the armor box. So, even if you penetrate the thinner armor, you don't really do anything.
I also belive the minimum belt armor for the Iowa was still a bit more than 6 inches - I've seen 9 mentioned, but I do think it is a bit lower. And of course, that's still irrelevant when the missile that's hitting can't penetrate 4 inches.


You mentioned that BBs carry recon UAVs. Not only could they be shot down, but they do not have the range (only 100 miles) to spot ships at SSM and aircraft SSM range (250 miles + for FA-18 or TASM).
For the UAVs, as I have stated, we already have longer ranged ones that could be put on an Iowa, and even better ones in development. They just don't have an active Iowa to put them on, and even if they did, we scrapped those long-range shells that would have prompted putting them on. Remember that the RQ-2 is already 20 years old after all, and was appropriate for its assigned role. That doesn't, however, mean we can't do better. This illustrates some of the main differences between RL and NS. In NS, we don't scrap promising programs, and can put two things together that were never integrated in RL. It's still based on RL, with nothing that doesn't exist, but sets up a whole new ball game. Plus, you're ignoring the helicopter AEW, which can easily provide area surveillance against surface targets over 300 nm from the battleship.
Besides, you seem to be ignoring (again) that things work both ways. A battleship with long-range SAMs can just as easily knock out that carrier's pesky E-2. In fact, that's a lot easier, since it's a bigger target and actively emitting (an RQ-2, on the other hand, could get surprisingly close to a fleet before being engaged). The E-2 still needs line of sight, and so long as the missile can go far enough, and there are at least two SAMs that can, that plane is toast if it gets close enough to see, and that's just assuming a shot from the battleship itself. So, a carrier still does not have that much of an edge over a battleship in that particular area, even if we're talking RL designs.

Well, the larger nations who an afford handfuls of SDs don't scrap promising projects, simply because the budget exists to see almost any project through. However, I have noticed that those same nations (with a few exceptions) will scrap entire ship classes in favor of another if a percieved advantage exists, it's almost wasteful.

Pop-up attacks don't loose almost all of their momentum. They're at a fairly constant velocity all the way through. E-2s and radar recon can spot targets beyond their SAM range.

How about I lay out a scenario, and you tell me what's wrong with it:

Let's assume a BBBG and a CVBG fought. Since carriers and their air wing cost about as much as 2 BBs, lets set up the fleets like this:

CVBG:
1 Nimitz
4 Arleigh Burke
4 Ticonderoga
1 Sub (Los Angeles/Virginia/whatever)

BBBG:
2 Iowa class
Same as above except for no Nimitz

Maybe satellites are either shot down or don't arrive at the right place at the right time to make a difference (the battle lasts only a few hours and it takes more than that for a satellite to complete a rotation. Or we can assume that all satellites are shot down, jammed, or damaged by ground-based laser or a near miss by a missile, all possible. Even if they're still up, it's not likely for them to fly over the exact right place at the exact right time. Let's assume that the BBBG commander has satellites but the CV commander dosen't. The CV will win anyway.

Anyway, the carrier interceptors shoot down whatever air recon the enemy has. The carrier's recon (E-2 or S-3) airplanes find the enemy. An airstrike is launched, and FA-18s, S-3s, and whatever else can fire cruise missiles fly 300 miles or so (within the FA-18's combat radius of 350) and fire off their Harpoons at a range of 50 miles or so (within the 80 mile range of Harpoons). SAMs shoot down 70% of the missiles, and things like jamming, chaff, close defence, mechanical failure and missiles accidentally attacking already-dead ships kills 95% of those incoming. Still, the 45 FA18s fire 4 missiles each (total of 135), meaning that they score 6.75 hits. Even if a Tconderoga takes a lot of missiles to hit, 1 or 2 will mission-kill it. So three of the escorts are disabled or, better yet, sunk.

Two hours later, the BBBG, traveling blind without air recon, gets hit by another strike. The carrier uses up all its air-launched harpoons, but now another 4-5 ships are disabled. That leaves the BBBG with with only 2 escorts at best. The CV submarines now have a poorly defended target, and the enemy subs have to get past a good escort screen.

Now the BB commander has the choice of continuing on or retreating. Actaully, he dosen't know where the enemy is because he has no air recon, so retreating is a gamble. Alternatively, he can charge into the CVBG and be torn to shreds by the big TASM tomahawk missiles, enough to penetrate the part of his battleships not protected by armor belt. Even if he somehow manages to pinpoint the carrier and launch cruise missiles at it, he has only a total of four (two escorts+ two BB) left, so not that many SSMs are available. They'll probably get shot down by SAMs or aircraft AAMs. The missile takes place at over 200 miles, out of range of UAVs, torpedoes or guns.

Even if he did throw in a carrier into the mix, if he didn't win the air battle not many of his bombers would get through. So, IMO, it's all about who wins the air battle.

edit: About how NS is different from real life. I see what you mean- what nation on earth today has 6 billion people? Only India and China today have 1 billion people, but here, almost every country does. But the proportions are the same. Sure, NS countries can build 100 battleships, but remember they can also build the same number of carriers. So, because proportions stay the same, I think that if we want to be realistic we should reconsider making BBs.

So, navies adapt.

If battleships become fashionable,

-Fewer anti-air escort ships to worry about
- Aircraft can carry less but bigger missiles

If small ships become fashionable,

-More tiny, lightly armored ships to worry about
-Aircraft can carry smaller but cheaper missiles

An Iowa-class BB carries no real long-range air defence. Adding one would cost a billion or so dollars. So that means that for every $3 billion long-range-air-defence battleship, you can't by 3 air defence escorts, which means you have a lot less SAMs to protect yourself. Even if the Harpoons don't penetrate the deck, they'll destroy radars, gun tubes, missile tubes, etc. So if a battleship gets hit 20 times with tiny missiles, it won't sink, but it'll be mission-killed or consumed by fire.

You're assuming the BB battle group is using their airpower offensively, when they are most likely not. The aerial reconnaissance, which will most likely be fashioned in the way of helicopters, will be flying low, and will probably not be detected fast enough by the CVNs aircraft, and by that time the CVNs aircraft will have been put under extreme pressure from the BBs own surface to air missiles, and when speaking about BBs on NationStates, they have more SAMs than you can dream having aircraft - and that's the fact of the matter. The CVNs air wing probably wouldn't put up a chance if this was at close range; the CVN battle group would have to remain at hundreds kilometers distance, and the aircraft would have to rely on missiles that exceed the range of the SAMs of the BBs [which is hard pressed to find on NS, unless you use a cruise missile - which have the fame not to penetrate the armour of a BB].

In the end, however, with NS technology [rail guns, ETC guns, EM guns, et cetera], that CVN is going to be at a disadvantage unless it allows itself to keep the gap open between it and the BB - I don't suspect that will always be possible. At some point or another the airwing is going to be gone, and it will have nothing to do to defend against the BB, and the BB will have won on principle.

So is t here any point to a CVN?

So is t here any point to a CVN?


Yes, it a cheaper, lighter, aircraft carrier, with probably, a larger aircraft complament. In the end, like we all have been preaching here, the key to success is combined arms. No one design is better than the other - all designs have disadvantages, all designs have advantages - now, you put them together in a battle group, and bam, you have yourself a strong naval force.

Macabees, not only could the helicopters easily be shot down at whatever height they were, but they do not have nearly enough range or detection equipment, particularly at low altitude, to spot a battlegroup even 150 miles away. Also, notice that the air-launched cruise missiles are not firing at the battleships. They are shooting up the escorts. If the BB was unescorted, they'd call in long-range ground-based tomahawk-firers like a B-52 or B-2. Even a Harpoon with a range of 80 miles can be fired outside of the practical range of long-range SAMs like Standard. At that range, missiles could be easily outrun, and with their propellant exhausted they would be unmanueverable. The chances of them hitting aircraft are low, particularly if they have jamming support and/or are firing HARM anti-radar missiles back.

But nobody uses the SM series of missiles, long-range in NS means missiles capable of engaging targets at 500+ kilometers. I reitterate, this is a thread about NS naval combat, not RL.

Macabees, not only could the helicopters easily be shot down at whatever height they were, but they do not have nearly enough range or detection equipment, particularly at low altitude, to spot a battlegroup even 150 miles away. Also, notice that the air-launched cruise missiles are not firing at the battleships. They are shooting up the escorts. If the BB was unescorted, they'd call in long-range ground-based tomahawk-firers like a B-52 or B-2. Even a Harpoon with a range of 80 miles can be fired outside of the practical range of long-range SAMs like Standard. At that range, missiles could be easily outrun, and with their propellant exhausted they would be unmanueverable. The chances of them hitting aircraft are low, particularly if they have jamming support and/or are firing HARM anti-radar missiles back.


Ummm, believe it or not my long range surface to air missile has a range of 400 kilometers, while Omz has one that exceeds 500. So, a Harpoon 1. Can't be fired outside the range of SAMs 2. Aren't powerful enough anyhow. Furthermore, aircraft, at least in real life, have always had to get real close to a helicopter to detect it, simply because the helicopter if slying that low, so a surface search radar on a ship could pick it up, but because aircraft don't have surface search radars, because they're not on the surface [!], it's more difficult. I'm sure somebody came out with a better radar on NS, but as far as I've seen that maintains itself. It it to say, an aircraft can detect a helicopter at the range of say fifty kilometers, while the helicopter will be at most ten to twenty kilometers from the escorts, meaning that aircraft is a full 70 kilometers away from the helicopter. Unfortunately, it would have already been engaged around three hundred kilometers ago.

If we say that NS nations can fire their SAMs a million miles away, why don't we say that SSMs can fire that far too? Is it practical in real life to produce an affordable SAM that can fire that far?

Modern pulse-doppler radar can detect targets at any altitude.

But nobody uses the SM series of missiles, long-range in NS means missiles capable of engaging targets at 500+ kilometers. I reitterate, this is a thread about NS naval combat, not RL.

We do :p Obviously that's going to change.

Hell, I have a SAM that can reach 900 miles, but remember, it's (very)huge, unmanueverable, and (very, very)expensive, and is only used against targets like cargo, AWACs, and refueling planes.

Don't change your SAM, Civitas. The other people's SAMs are all flying turkeys.

Don't change your SAM, Civitas. The other people's SAMs are all flying turkeys.
And you know this how?