Last of the Battleships?

[Garyt]

Penetrating several layers of armor is different than penetrating one layer. Every layer penetrated is going to instill more and more yaw in the projectile, which makes it less penetrative. It also damages the projectile, doing the same.

Per Nathan Okun, one of the leading authorities on the subject of armor penetration, multiple layers actually reduce the effectiveness of armor against AP projectiles. But yeah, against HEAT spaced armor is more effective, but I do not believe the Iowa class had spaced armor other than the deck armor.

 

[silence]

Per Nathan Okun, one of the leading authorities on the subject of armor penetration, multiple layers actually reduce the effectiveness of armor against AP projectiles. But yeah, against HEAT spaced armor is more effective, but I do not believe the Iowa class had spaced armor other than the deck armor.

A shell penetrating an armor plate is going to have its direction of travel changed a few degrees plus have the amount it wobbles (yaws) increased, making the next strike (if any) a little more glancing than the previous strike.

Think of it like the bullet from an M-16, which is known to tumble, increasing the area of the damage but reducing its penetration.

A spaced array has to have a decent amount of separation between plates to be more effective; it can't just be several thicknesses laminated together. For a great example look at the Littorio armor scheme.

Iowa has 1.5" of STS plating outside of the armor belt - its not thick enough to decap a BB-caliber shell, but might be effective against a HEAT shell; I don't know.

I've read Okun's stuff; it doesn't take induced yaw into account. Remember that Okun is both an amateur - an amazingly gifted one, to be sure - who still to my knowledge has never published his actual work and allowed other experts to critique it. That being said its still extremely impressive. There are other people on this board and other boards who can explain this better than I can.

 

[parsifal]

There are no missiles currently on offer that have a vertical penetration angle of attack, and no anti ship missiles that can penetrate much more than about 5 or 6 inches of armour. Thats because there is no needed for such capability in the current environment. Because there arent any does not mean its difficult to make one, or adapt existing technologies to address that threat, should the need arise.

The technology exists and would be fairly easy to adapt were someone to produce another dreadnought style warship as the main element of their inventory. The age of battering ones way through are gone, stealth, asset dispersal and force projection are the new arbiters of naval power, and where the smart money is.

There exists technology that i know of, bunker busting warheads, capable of penetrating up to 80 feet of reinforced concrete. Such technoloogy point to the fact that it would not be difficult to adapt existing technologies to defeat just about any armouring scheme likley to arise.

There are reasons why armouring has not seen any extensive usage since WWII. Mostly because it is now easily made obsolete by just about using the existing technology.

Best defences are now seen as passive....low radar signatures and visibility. Behind that is passive EW defences, followed by ABM technogies like Sea Wolf, and then finally the CIWs like Vulcan. The really big threats are of course of a nuclear kind, and as the Bikini tests conculsively showed, armoured warships that are expensive and large are just targets waiting to be nuked. unlike land targets , nuclear exchanges at sea, where civvy deaths would be unlikley, a nuclear strike has to be considered as quite likley in a full conflict.

In most situations that trained under, a warship could handle one threat. However its the multiple threats that cause the headaches, if the threats become too great and too multi layered , they tend to swamp the defences . Any hit is likely to either sink the ship, or render it unable to complete its assigned tasks. being a battleship doesnt add greatly to its survivability. above everything else however, is the issue of cost, a BB is simply not cost effective

 

[Garyt]

There are no missiles currently on offer that have a vertical penetration angle of attack, and no anti ship missiles that can penetrate much more than about 5 or 6 inches of armour. Thats because there is no needed for such capability in the current environment. Because there arent any does not mean its difficult to make one, or adapt existing technologies to address that threat, should the need arise.

That makes sense. I've heard the HArpoon penetrates 2-4 inches.

And looking at the Harpoon, it's warheads are definitely not heat. Which makes sense, as HEAT is designed specifically for armor penetration entirely. HEAT produces little damage other than the superheated jet spewing molten metal. It's good against personnel if in a confined tank, but little use in a typical HE role. And I guess a HEAT round is going to make a small hole, may start a fire, but that's about it. Unless you are lucky and get a hit on a BB turret and manage to start a fire in there, you won't do much damage.

So while a 220kg HEAT round could penetrate pretty thick armor, the standard large anti-ship missiles are not HEAT. Which means they probably penetrate in a similar fashion to HE shells, which based on Okun's formula's give you about a 2.7"-4" penetration, which coincidentally or not is extremely close to the penetration numbers I have read for the Harpoon missile.

I've seen a photo of a ship (modern frigate size, maybe 3000 tons) hit by a 1000 lb gp bomb, a harpoon missile, and 2 hellfire missiles. The bomb and the Harpoon did significant damage - the Hellfire just made two very small holes in the vessel.

If you want something to take out a battleship though, use something like the the Soviet P-700 Granit. 750kg warhead, mach 2.5 capable, has it's own internal countermeasures against anti-missile missiles, range of 500 km. That's 3-4 times the warhead size of a harpoon, though if using specs as a HE shell for penetration it can penetrate 7-10" of armor, still comes up a bit short.

 

[Garyt]

Any hit is likely to either sink the ship, or render it unable to complete its assigned tasks. being a battleship doesnt add greatly to its survivability.

I would not say one hit is going to mission kill a naval vessel. Sensors getting knocked out would be an issue, but there is some redundancy in these vessels.

And being a battleship with today's assortment of weaponry does indeed enhance survivability.

 

[BattleshipNightZ]

I would disagree entirely The cost of a 16 inch shell is so much less than a missile. On land, we don't seem to have these debates - artillery is still a part of the battlefield. Besides, aircraft carriers just don't look as cool as battleships.