What made Battleships obsolete?

Did carriers really make the battleships obsolete? Battleships still served quite well in World War 2, even in the wide expanse of the Pacific?

Talking to my teacher again, and he maintains that no, it wasn't carriers that made battleships obsolete. Although they lessened the role much, the actual end of battleships was brought about by the missile. After all, missiles are now powerful to sink battleships in one or two hits. And, a tiny destroyers packs enough firepower to blow a battlewagon, and is faster, easier to produce, more efficient, and stealthier.

Any thoughts?

 

The far longer effective range of naval aircrafts that can deliver more tonnage of high explosives. Aircraft carriers can stay out of gunnery range and pummel the battleships all day.

 

At the end of WWII the BB was actually pretty capable of defending itself agains at least a single CVs worth of planes. Jets and guided missiles turned that around again. Note that it wasn't just ship launched missiles but air launched ones as well. The case could also be made that BBs are not obsolete just not cost effective under many of todays conditions.

 

Battleships are complex and expensive pieces of equipment. If the carrier was the reason for there demise, we would have seen them disappear a lot earlier than what they did. I personally believe that it was mostly the cost of operations was higher than the strategic advantage that they gave. By Vietnam they were being used for mostly coastal bombardment. Missiles had a part to play in it, but only in the sense that a smaller ship could produce the same results as a battleship at a much smaller cost.

 

Modern bombers made the big guns obsolete, they can still be useful if you have them but they are terribly cost ineffective, I would not think of missiles as the main cause of their obsolescence as missiles, at least until VLS were introduced, are incapable of sustained fire and so have obvious limitations compared to both battleships and carriers, if for some reason your first (and usually only) missile salvo fails to knock out your opponent you need to run for it and if your mission is sea control rather than sea denial you failed it. IMO the US kept the BBs in service only because of their effectiveness for limited conflicts, loosing an aircraft crew to a lucky enemy shot may turn an "intervention" operation from a success to a failure from a political standpoint.

 

I agree that it was the bombers that made it obsolete. Not only the risk of them being sunk by them but also the bombers could be used in their place in the offense. This inturn goes to Mike's point about cost. A nation can now turn out smaller vessels at a lower cost if they have a carrier force.

 

The traditional mission of the battleship was "sea control", the ability to control the sea enabling one's own side to use it to move ships, troops, and supplies at will, and to deny the same ability to the enemy. The battleship accomplished this by using it's big guns to sink all opposing ships.

Aircraft carriers introduced another factor into the equation; the ability to sink all opposing ships well beyond the range of a battleship's big guns. This was important because a smaller number of ships could control a larger area of the sea. When advancing aviation technology allowed this ability (including the ability to sink battleships) to be developed beyond reasonable doubt in the late 1930's, the battleship, in it's traditional role, became obsolete, and aircraft carriers became the decisive factor in sea control.

Battleships were still built for a few years after this, but they were no longer sea control arbiters; they were quite expensive and navies had to find other uses for them (escorting carriers, shore bombardment) until they had lived out their useful lives. Today, surviving battleships are likely to serve only in these ancillary roles.

 

It seems to me that technology advancement also played a role in this. It would cast a lot more to upgrade the battleships technology than to build a new ship with the technilogy already in it. When they brought BB-61, USS Iowa for those of you who don't know, over here to the Suisun Mothball Fleet, I was reading an article on how they wanted to upgrade it so it could still be in service. Then a bit later they realized how much it would cost and decided not to do it.

BB-61 is proudly at rest waiting for the call to action once again.

 

I think the key factor that usually gets overlooked is the unrivaled supremacy of the United States Navy that emerged from World War II.
I would qualify the claim that the carrier had taken over as the top sea-control asset. The battleship remained unequaled in this role, if I'm not using the terms too elastically, in the area within the range of its guns. If a battleship wants to control a section of sea, it merely has to go to that sector and sit there. The enemy aircraft carrier must yield before it. So the battleship controls the immediate vicinity, but the aircraft carrier is superior at greater ranges. For some reason, this usually directs the conversation into a BB-vs-CV debate, but this is a false proposition. It should be BB+CV. The battleship-carrier task force was the perfect tool for sea control at the close of World War II. It could strike at long range, and it could move to any sector without fear of a superior surface force.
The USN stood alone as a fleet with this capability in 1945. The only other force that might pretend to challenge the USN was the RN, but the RN was so far behind the USN in fighting strength and in mobility that it was hardly in the same league, and in any case, it was a friend. There was no opponent for the USN in its role of sea control.
As lwd has noted, battleships are not cost-effective. Given the changed scenario regarding sea control, the carrier with its greater versatility was clearly a better investment, and no more battleships were built. I think everyone else has accounted for the other factors in the eclipse of the battleship, except maybe submarines, which I won't bother with because they're boring.

 

What technological advances might make them feasible again?

What if, say, there was some sort of reliable anti-missile system. Jets and other ships can't fire missiles at it now, does it go back to big ol' guns?

 

You have to remember that the entire premise of the Navy is "Force Projection". Back before airplanes battleships were the ultimate symbol of a nation's strength. With the advent of Naval Airpower there is no longer a need to send a ship into such close proximatey to another nation as was required with the Battleships. The modern Navy can conduct whatever business it needs from beyond the horizon, something that was not possible with the BB's.

The New Jersey and Missouri both were modified to launch UAV's and did so during GW1 and that would have been an excellent mission for them; but, the Clinton administration decided to take a different course and moth balled all the BB's in favor of smaller more efficient multi roll ships.

Personally I would love to see the Iowa or the Wisconsin head back to sea even if it is for no other reason than for the US to be able to say we still got battle ships. Imagine the affect a BB would have against the Pirate situation.

IT would be interesting to see if a Rocket Assisted "Smart" projectile could be developed for use from the 16" 50's. Something more cost effective than cruise missiles.

 

Actually, it was more than just aircraft. Missiles, improvements in explosives, and the electronics revolution all had a role too.

Battleships in naval architechure terms are weight critical vessels. That is everything on them is heavy: Guns, armor, etc. They are relatively compact ships for their displacement.

Ships using lots of electronics and missiles are volume critical. That is they have alot of light stuff that takes up alot of room. Hence, the reason modern warships have huge superstructures and are large for their displacement.

In modern combat a WW 2 (or earlier) battleship's armor arrangement is of marginal value. Missiles using linear shaped charges will blow holes through the armor and larger ones right through the ship itself. Guided bottom detonating torpedoes (ie they go off under the keel) will cripple a battleship from shock.

Battleships don't have the room for extensive electronics and require massive numbers of crew to man. This makes them cost ineffective in a modern navy. Aircraft just extend the range at which a battleship can be hit.

The Iowa class are worn out expensive relics of another era. They are only fit for use as floating museums not as warships. I know that is not what some would like to hear but, nostalgia doesn't win wars.

 

God that made me laugh hard, true though.

 

What could a battleship do against Somalian pirates that smaller, less expensive ships can't do? The only thing I can think of is shore bombardment, and even that would probably be more efficient using cruise missiles.

 

Some people are intimidated by size, and this could play a key factor. The Iowa can still provide more firepower than current ships, but that's not needed right now. I can see the Iowa over there dealing with the pirates, but it's not needed.

 

The short answer everyone is saying - aircraft made battleships obsolete. Before WW2 it was thought carriers would merely support the battleships in a war; but a few perceptive leaders realized it would be the other way around.

Like any new weapon no one really knew for sure what was going to happen when carriers went to battle. Carriers were faster than battleships (many carriers could do 35 knots vs a battleship's 25 to 30 knots) but being lightly armored, were much more vulnerable to attack from naval gunfire, aircraft carrying either bombs or torpedoes, or submarines. nonetheless the carrier proved the premier naval weapon of the war due to the aircraft they carried. In the pre-missile age, carrier aircraft outranged any naval gun on any side and were obviously much faster than any ship.

Moreover it was possible, although unlikely, for one (relatively cheap) aircraft to sink a (very expensive) ship with one well placed bomb or torpedo. Despite any amount of anti aircraft fire a fleet could put up in WW2, aircraft from carriers could simply keep coming at you from all directions dropping bombs and torpedoes (or even the entire plane like the Kamikazes did) until one or more of your capital ships were sunk. This is exactly what happened at Midway and several other battles.

The reason Japan lost the war was that battleships and other warships sent out by the japanese and sunk by the american fleet, were irreplacable - while American ships lost in battle, could be replaced in a matter of months or a year and a half at most - since US ship-building capacity was almost unlimited.

In the nuclear age battleships are not so useful for most intents and purposes, except possibly for shore bombardment providing support for an amphibious invasion somewhere. The value of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers is obvious, since their combat power is huge and despite their high cost (a modern US carrier costs about $1 TRILLION to build and equip) these weapons are potential war winners if needed and any potential enemy not equipped with these ships is at a huge disadvantage. Not so much the battleship - it cannot submerge and disappear like a sub and it has no aircraft to defend itself, only missiles and guns. Against a determined enemy attack by aircraft or a large salvo of cruise missiles it would mostly serve as a large and expensive target.

 

A Battleship makes a statement........it's like the .44 Magnum of Naval vessels.

If you do a cost comparison there is no denying that a 16" shell is less expensive than a cruise missle, even though all 4 Iowa Class BB's have cruise missles anyway. Battleships were made for ship to ship engagements. There is no finer tool in the American arsenal for defeating Pirates.

If you take any 6 smaller surace ships : ie frigates, cruisers, destroyers there is no job that any of them can do that a BB can't.

Battleships are the shiznit.

Brad

 

It costs too much to upkeep and run the Diesel engines on it. I'd love to see the BB series back in service. I get to see it almost every day in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, Mothball Fleet or Ghost Fleet as some call it, here in the Suisun Bay. She's a beast. She makes all the other ships in the Fleet look small.

 

That's the Iowa sitting out there. I was taking my son to an A's game a few years ago and we stopped at the observation point to look at the fleet. I was suprised to see 61 sitting out there. There is no mistaking a BB. There is actually a very good view of it from "Google Earth".

I hope it finds it's way to Pier 39 as a museum and is taken better care of than the Missouri.

 

It was suppose to either go to Stockton or Vallejo (Mare Island) as a Museum. I don't know what happened to that ever happening. If you go to Wikipedia, yes I know it's unreliable but in this case it's not, and search BB-61 you'll find the whole story of the USS Iowa and it's current status.

Where about do you live? (Don't answer it here. PM it to me please.)