USS Iowa (BB-61) and USS New Jersey (BB-62) Modernization

[Master Chief Brown]

Fellow Bucketeers,
I am grateful for allowing me, a poor, young naval enthusiast, to join your ranks in your interest in ships and airplanes. Collectively, you all have hundreds of years of combined naval military knowledge on ship design and weapons at your fingertips.
I would like to pose a question to you: If Congress gave the Navy money and an order to restore a pair of Iowa-class battleships to counter, once again, the Russian's Kirov-class battlecruisers, what could be done to them with the weapons of this day and age to improve their weapons, propulsion, and electronics to the point where they could feasibly become the most powerful ships in the history of the world?
This has been written about from the pearly gates to breakfast by people with an internet connection and a bare knowledge of weapons, nuclear reactors, and what would be fun to do. They want to replace the 16"/50's with railguns, melt down the 5"/38s for scrap, put Mk-41 VLS where the ABL's are, give the battleships the Aegis System, and use them as Theater Anti-Ballistic Missile Ships. My requirements are simple: Keep the 16"/50's in their original, unaltered configuration, and possibly replace the 5"/38 guns with 5"/54 or 5"/62 if the electronics would withstand the shock of the main battery firing (either design and field a dual turret, or just put the single turrets on where they would go). As for missiles, maybe put SeaRAM in place of two or all four of the R2D2's, leave the Harpoons alone, and either replace or retain the ABL's. I have doubts as to how well Mk-41 VLS would fare when the 16" guns fire, but if you know anything to the contrary: drill, baby, drill.
If you can put UAV facilities on them, even better. I will promise this to you: anyone who submits a drawing will, in a few years' time, have a package delivered by the Federal Trolls bearing cookies and a highly unusual tome.

[Colosseum]

Missiles are for cowards.

What you see above is the ultimate evolution of the warship.

Fuck the haters.

[Erusia Force]

Missiles are for cowards.

What you see above is the ultimate evolution of the warship.

Fuck the haters.

We all know you love the elan of WW2 Iowas Colo, but to survive the advancement of tech, even the most beautiful things must be dimmed down with their own new tech in order to keep an edge.

[TimothyC]

Reactivation of the Iowas is no longer possible without an expenditure that is well beyond any value the ships would have (look around for what happened to the barrels and barrel machining gear for the guns - they were quietly scrapped).

Let me put it this way - New Jersey and Missouri had their guns spiked. Iowa was never fully refurbished from the turret explosion. Wisconsin is the only one who's engines still work (at least that is my current understanding).

So even if we wanted to reactive them, we would have to build out the entire logistics train for a single ship. We don't have the spare engines anymore - the Sacramentos got scrapped.

Plus, to make matters worse, you want to put missile defense and fire support on the same hull when they have totally different requirements for what the ship needs to do, and where it needs to be to do the job. Not to mention that to put AEGIS on the thing you have to rebuild everything from the engine room up to provide for power and chilled water.

The battleship is dead. Let it rest in piece instead of desecrating the corpse by trying to reanimate it.

[heuhen]

to take out Kiro. all you need is a couple of Skjold class with NSM, supported by Fridtjof Nansen or other AEGIS- vessel to support with sensor and heavy AA-defense!

or just a single ULA-class submarine or similar!

[Master Chief Brown]

Missiles are for cowards.

What you see above is the ultimate evolution of the warship.

Fuck the haters.

Mr. Colosseum,
I understand you completely. You feel as if missiles, a weapon equivalent to the longbow when it first emerged in europe, have made warfare completely nekulturniy. Uncultured, in Russian. However, I feel your last three words are not only physiologically impossible for me to execute upon myself, but insulting, Obama-ish, demeaning, denigrating, theoretically racist, ignorant, and also inadvisable. I would like you to attempt to have intercourse with some of the retired male and female Marines, Master Chiefs, Senior Chiefs, Gunnery Sergeants, Colonels, Generals, Rangers, Green Berets, SEALs, PJ's, and MP's whose lives have been saved by a well-placed SLAM-ER or Tomahawk missile.
Make your words tender and sweet, or they may come back and bite you.
Sincerely,
MCPO Brown

[Master Chief Brown]

Missiles are for cowards.

What you see above is the ultimate evolution of the warship.

Fuck the haters.

We all know you love the elan of WW2 Iowas Colo, but to survive the advancement of tech, even the most beautiful things must be dimmed down with their own new tech in order to keep an edge.

Erusia Force,
I don't feel the Iowa BB's were dimmed down with the addition of missiles in their arsenal. Then, with Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles, as well as potential to carry nuclear payloads, they merely became better reasons for the Soviets to fear. See what Admiral Gorshkov said about them-it's my signature.
Sincerely,
MCPO Brown

[Master Chief Brown]

Reactivation of the Iowas is no longer possible without an expenditure that is well beyond any value the ships would have (look around for what happened to the barrels and barrel machining gear for the guns - they were quietly scrapped).

Let me put it this way - New Jersey and Missouri had their guns spiked. Iowa was never fully refurbished from the turret explosion. Wisconsin is the only one who's engines still work (at least that is my current understanding).

So even if we wanted to reactive them, we would have to build out the entire logistics train for a single ship. We don't have the spare engines anymore - the Sacramentos got scrapped.

Plus, to make matters worse, you want to put missile defense and fire support on the same hull when they have totally different requirements for what the ship needs to do, and where it needs to be to do the job. Not to mention that to put AEGIS on the thing you have to rebuild everything from the engine room up to provide for power and chilled water.

The battleship is dead. Let it rest in piece instead of desecrating the corpse by trying to reanimate it.

Mr. TimothyC,
I have seen the inside of the turrets of the USS Missouri, and it is entirely possible to bring ammo up from her magazines, blow out the wooden plugs in her barrels with the detonation of a single bag of powder, and fire on Aloha Stadium if you can hook up some generators. And here we are in the greatest, most powerful nation on earth (at least I am), and you are telling me we cannot rebuild boilers or turbines in six months with plans we still have? It would take at least 20 months to restore one of those beautiful BB's to service.
I never said I wanted to put missile defense, Aegis, and fire support on their hulls. In fact, I think it is stupid, ignorant, and worse than child pornography or molestation to even consider doing such a thing. I simply asked how you would modernize it if given an order and money by the US Congress to do whatever you wanted to them, within the bounds of today's technology and making them even more lethal.
If the Soviet threat was still around today, would you say we were desecrating the corpses of our father's and grandfather's ships by reactivating them and sending them against an enemy just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis or the Japanese then? President Reagan talked to Gorbachev about the threat of radical Islam and how terrorists would do everything in their power to destroy the world and "convert" it to their own twisted version of that religion of peace. After the Marine Barracks were bombed in 1983 in Beirut, the USS Iowa, I believe it was, was sent to prevent attacks on US forces. She succeded magnificently.
We can make them even more lethal than they were back then. I feel we should.
Sincerely,
MCPO Brown

[Master Chief Brown]

to take out Kiro. all you need is a couple of Skjold class with NSM, supported by Fridtjof Nansen or other AEGIS- vessel to support with sensor and heavy AA-defense!

or just a single ULA-class submarine or similar!

Mr. Heuhen,
Thank you for actually answering the question! You have not idly clung to past versions of the battleships, or said it was not only impossible and financially unpalatable, or tried to correct previous postings. The thing is, the Kirov battlecruisers never sailed by themselves. The Iowa BB's were designed to keep on fighting despite hits from other just as capable ships, and carried heavy armor around critical spaces. Additionally, their sensor suites gave them a qualitative edge over ships of the time they were constructed in.
Admiral Gorshkov admitted publicly that they had studied trying to take down one of the Iowa's. Simply see my signature to see what he had to say about it. The Iowa's were reactivated to counter the Kirov's explicitly, as well as for several lesser reason they still excelled at.
If you had a large budget and an order from the most powerful forum on earth, backed up by the most powerful person on earth, just how would you bring back the Iowa's and made them better? Please, just answer that question. I don't need drawings, although they do get you extra cookies from the federal trolls, just specifications.
Sincerely,
MCPO Brown

[bezobrazov]

MCPO Brown, do yourself a big favor and us too: spare us your apparently Neo-Con rambling! This is not a political forum. Anyone, supporters of President Obama, supporters of Gov. Romney, supporters of Congressman Ron Paul; British Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, adherents to the Scottish SNP; whatever you may come up, are welcome as members of this forum. We simply do not take sides! Your rambling statement, the riposte to Colosseum's post is a flagrant example of exactly what you accuse Colosseum to be guilty of: demeaning, denigrating, potentially racist, but also petty, arrogant, narrow and very small-minded! Not the best and most auspicious beginnings to a membership at this forum. Colosseum may have a stark language at times, but I know that gentleman means well, and is honorable by core!