Weapons and Warfare

[Deepcrush]

As stated, unmanned weapons are only useful on open objectives. They can't clear buildings or bunkers. They can't police the streets. They can't replace the abilities of troops on the ground. What they can do is reduced the amount of time one of our troops has to spend on said ground. Which in turn reduces his personal risk.

[Mark]

Second, soldiers are by their very nature desensitized to what they do. They have to be. You can't have bomber pilots going home and crying about every single person they kill, if they do then they never fly again and they're useless. Soldiers have dehumanized the enemy and desensitized themselves to what they have to do since warfare began, they have to or they can't function.

This is sheer and utter rubbish. If this was true then PTSD wouldn't exist and the military suicide rate wouldn't be through the roof. Its all well and good to attempt to dehuminize the enemy and TRY to desensitize one's self....but MOST of the combat vets that I know have varying degrees of psycological trauma from what they had to do. Yes, they were doing their jobs and they were trained to do it........but you don't escape the psychological impact of what you've done. The ones who arent damaged in some way are the friggin' psychos that joyously talk about bombing schools and slitting throats.

Sorry if I snapped. I'm a little touchy about this particular subject.

[Vic]

[Edit] This is what I get for not reading the whole thread first, oh well I'll let it stand.[Edit]


Perhaps a middle of the road explanation is closer to what happens? It has become recognized that soldiers coming home from the field need some form of rehabilitation. My cousins husband had to go through it before coming home to see his wife and new born baby. Yes, soldiers have to desensitize to an extent to do their jobs, it is when that job changes to a non-combat status that things like PTSD come to the forefront. A family friend since passed away was Naval Intelligence in Viet Nam, he didn't have the option of psych rehab. He not only saw some ugly things, he did some ugly things, he managed to keep it at bay until the very end. He told my father that he knew that his time was near because he could see every one of the people he killed in his life, he died of a heart attack not long after. Just about ripped my heart out to see a strong independent man reduced to that.

[Tyyr]

Sorry if I snapped. I'm a little touchy about this particular subject.

No, I completely understand. I was only meaning it at the time they're fighting, not that they can permanently turn off their humanity.

[Lighthawk]

Hypothetical: What would it have taken for the battleship to have remained king of the ocean and not have been replaced by carriers?

[Captain Seafort]

Aircraft not to have been invented. They're much faster than a ship, and can carry weapons that can sink battleships.

[Lighthawk]

Aircraft not to have been invented. They're much faster than a ship, and can carry weapons that can sink battleships.

Not at first they didn't, at least not as readily as they can now. If the effort had been made, could battleships have been fortified against air attack sufficiently? And is their vulnerability to aircraft the only cause of their decline?

[Captain Seafort]

Not at first they didn't, at least not as readily as they can now.

Aircraft, flown from carriers, were perfectly capable of sinking battleships within 15 years of Kitty Hawk - indeed, the Grand Fleet was planning an air strike on the Hochseeflotte had it come out in late 1918.

If the effort had been made, could battleships have been fortified against air attack sufficiently?

No - the Yamatos were probably had the best protection against air attack of any warship built, and they were both sunk within hours of being seriously engaged.

And is their vulnerability to aircraft the only cause of their decline?

Not simply their vulnerability to aircraft, but the fact that aircraft can strike at a far greater range than any battleship, and with a far greater payload than any shell. The only advantage battleships confer is their ability to remain on-station for extended periods, and to put down a huge volume of fire far cheaper than any aircraft. These are nowhere near enough to match the range and speed of an aeroplane.

[Lighthawk]

Not at first they didn't, at least not as readily as they can now.

Aircraft, flown from carriers, were perfectly capable of sinking battleships within 15 years of Kitty Hawk - indeed, the Grand Fleet was planning an air strike on the Hochseeflotte had it come out in late 1918.

If the effort had been made, could battleships have been fortified against air attack sufficiently?

No - the Yamatos were probably had the best protection against air attack of any warship built, and they were both sunk within hours of being seriously engaged.

And is their vulnerability to aircraft the only cause of their decline?

Not simply their vulnerability to aircraft, but the fact that aircraft can strike at a far greater range than any battleship, and with a far greater payload than any shell. The only advantage battleships confer is their ability to remain on-station for extended periods, and to put down a huge volume of fire far cheaper than any aircraft. These are nowhere near enough to match the range and speed of an aeroplane.

So no hope at all for the battleship, history couldn't have taken any other course in that regard?

Here's another thought then, is there any hope for the return of the battleship? Looking at some of the weapon systems in development, particularly railguns and laser based missile defense systems. A large vessel armed with a few lasers capable of bringing down incoming missiles would certainly reduce the threat of air attack. And the latest railgun being tested by the navy is expected to reach a performance of being able land a shell within a 5 meter target at 200 nm, at around 10.5 mj, and firing at 10 rounds per minute.

[Tsukiyumi]

...an aeroplane.

A what now?










Sorry, sorry. I couldn't help myself.

[stitch626]

...an aeroplane.

A what now?




Sorry, sorry. I couldn't help myself.

I figured someone would pull that one...

Odd thing is, I speel it both ways, not sure why.

[Tsukiyumi]

...I speel it both ways, not sure why.

Broken keyboard?

[Mikey]

You'd need quite a spiel to get someone to use the term "aeroplane."

Sorry. *ahem*...

LH - Yes and no.

That is, yes - there is still a role for a ship with lots of big offensive armament in modern warfare. The U.S.S. Missouri was in combat as recently as 1991. However, I don't foresee this role being filled, going forward, by a traditional battleship, for the very reason of the advent of modern armaments such as missiles or the rail/coil guns you mention (probably rail, because coil gun research has predominantly been mortar-sized weapons by the Army.) The modern "ship with big guns" will not have to support 16" artillery guns which fire 2600-lb. shells; nor will it have to have magazines full of said 2600-lb. shells, or turrets capable of mounting said 16" guns and breeches for loading said 2600-lb. shells and hundreds of pounds of powder for each shell, or... I think you get where I'm going with this.

The BDD* naval weapons of the future are capable of being mounted on cruiser-sized vessels, if not destroyers; and for a given armor protection, a cruiser will in general have better speed, maneuverability, and often better stamina. That is, to armor a cruiser with 2" of plate will take less weight of that steel than it would to armor a battleship with the same thickness, while the cruiser could generally adopt the same (or pretty damned close) engines. In fact, we've seen this in practice for years; the Tico class has long been known as a heavy hitter, because the most modern offensive armament of the time of the Tico's introduction was no longer naval artillery. I'm not saying that the Tico is armored as well as an Iowa-class; but it is representative of the preference for a cruiser when a battleship isn't necessary to field the weapons you want.

*

BDD = "Big Dick Daddy"

[stitch626]

...I speel it both ways, not sure why.

Broken keyboard?

For some reason, that happens a lot to me. I usually catch it. Not this time I guess.

[Tyyr]

No - the Yamatos were probably had the best protection against air attack of any warship built, and they were both sunk within hours of being seriously engaged.

I disagree. Japanese naval AAA was pretty pitiful. The Yamato carried a huge number of AAA guns but they were almost exclusively pissant 25mm set ups with no real range or altitude. Their larger caliber AAA weaponry had only recently started to allow for elevations necessary to threaten dive bombers and half of them were in open mounts susceptible to being knocked out by the first close hit. Additionally the Japanese lacked proximity fuses for their AAA.

The Iowa's with 20 high elevation 5" guns with proximity fuses in armored enclosures backed up by masses of 40mm cannons were far better protected against air attack. Not that it changes anything in the long run in regards to battleships vs. aircraft.