Is it just me or does it seem like modern warships seem a LOT less armoured than ww2 warships. For instance looking at say a modern destroyer or cruiser and a ww2 cruiser i feel like the older cruisers have more armour and such? although also i know nothing about the protection of modern ships...so maybe someone can proove me wrong heh heh Also i just found out that the USS Cole has just been accepted into the fleet again. Is it just me or does anyone else think that a year and a half repair for damage like that is plain WAY TOO LONG! doesn't sound reasonable if there was a war going on in which ships were getting damaged much more frequently and probably even worse than the Cole was?! I mean i sware ships hit by kamakazes or several bombs were repaired faster than that YEARS ago! what does everyone else think?
1. The only ships that are in naval service today and have any sort of armour are the 4 Iowa class BBs in the USN. The reason for this is that even all that amount of armour will not help them at all when they are struck by a strike of a few SS-N-19s or AS-14s or other large missiles that are likely to be fired at them. This also means of course that you can punch holes in the side of any destroyer, frigate and even aircraft carrier with a 20mm machine cannon. This is also the reason why most ships still have a little gun somewhere. 2. Repair times. It is very easy to patch up the side of a ship. It is also relatively easy to replace machinery inside and electronics. And now I'm guessing: a) This is a relatively modern ship. More than likely it has a fancy hull to reduce noise signature. So you can't just patch it up, but this takes a lot of time. b) Machinery and especially electronics cost millions. Its possible that the Navy no longer had the money to buy the stuff and had to wait for the next budget year.
I would agree that more than likely it is an accepted fact that regardless of the hull thickness, a ship will sink. So why spend more when you can focus on defensive weapons such as radar, air to air missiles and so on. The strategy is similar to the stealth weapons, go in and strike hard first so that there is no chance of retaliation thus not having any ships sunk.
I don't know if any of you guys ever played Harpoon. It certainly opened a new vantage point to me. Basically what I learnt from the game was that whoever has the longest-ranged missile wins. And the guy with the most missiles in the air will survive. A 30-plane bomber raid on a carrier task force will probably sink at least a quarter of the ships and completely deplete the task force's SAM stock. But your bombers can land, reload and be back within 24 hours. The task force is in the middle of the ocean with no supplies at hand. In 24 hours, they're doomed. Air cover can be totally insufficient. I played the game too much not to be sure of this. Hey I had twenty Tu 22 attacking a task force with forty Su 33 fighters, a carrier, two light and one heavy cruiser and a couple of DDs. They got all missiles down, but do you know where? The last one was killed by the last-ditch gatling on the carrier. And that was an incredibly lucky game too. I played it again later and within minutes my cruiser was sinking.
I see your point. we're at a time where no amount of a ships armour can protect you from moderm missles and thus redundant. So thus make your "armour" your anti-missle defenses and such. Although it is a bit demoralizing to know a small cannon could damage a cruiser or destroyer oh well speed is more important anyway. Say is Harpoon a PC game? Sounds interesting. i may look for it.
I have speculated whether a certain amount of armour wouldn't be enough to stop a Harpoon or Exocet or something from sinking or heavily damaging a ship. But the effort is probably futile. And the truth remains that if you put a seventy-four gun sailing ship next to a modern cruiser, the cruiser may well lose the fight!
