Such a ship would not be a true "battleship." It would be a "monitor."

Battleships were designed and built to battle other ships. They had big guns, big sea-worthy hulls, huge crews, high speed (more and more as time and technology progressed), and armor heavy enough to (theoretically) stop or hinder fire from enemy battleships. I seriously doubt there will ever be another Jutland (major surface battle between capital and support ships). As much as I love them, the era of the battleship is dead and gone.

Now, if the Navy decided to put this honkin' big gun on a ship, it would be a monitor. Monitors were built in WWI and WWII for shore bombardment. They had big guns, but only a few of them (typically 2, vs 8-10 on a real battleship), small hulls, minimal crew, essentially no armor and very slow speed (they might make 10 knots with a tail wind), in an era when modern WWII battleships could make 27-31 knots. Monitors were used as shore bombardment platforms, where they wanted big guns to pound a target in preparation for invasion, without the size, crew numbers, or cost of real battleships. Monitors were not designed to fight other ships, and in all practicality, a WWII monitor could have been defeated by a WWII destroyer (MUCH faster and more maneuverable with potent torpedoes).

It's a cool concept, but I doubt the Navy will be interested.

 
My iPhone home screen wallpaper:
 

The other thing is that, given how long this would take to reach 1,150 miles, the target (if mobile) will have a long time to randomly not be where the round (if ballistic) was initially aimed.

So, this would either be have to be used against immobile targets (buildings, bunkers, infrastructure, etc.) or would need some capability to adjust to target movement. The latter implies that you'd need some way to figure out where the target is, some way to get that data to the shell en-route, and some way for the shell to figure out how to adjust. Interesting problems.

Not needing air superiority/supremacy over the target would be a big advantage over bombing. I imagine it would be faster than missiles, so possibly less interceptible?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: joel9507,

henryaz, thanks for the photo! I've added it to my muzzle flash archives. (Beautiful!)

flashguy

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The other thing is that, given how long this would take to reach 1,150 miles, the target (if mobile) will have a long time to randomly not be where the round (if ballistic) was initially aimed.

I'm guessing that since it's called the "Strategic" Long Range Cannon accuracy isn't it's goal. I'm guessing it will be able to hit the area of a couple city blocks consistently at 1000 miles. This isn't being designed for taking out a tank at 1000 miles.

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Originally posted by flashguy:
henryaz, thanks for the photo! I've added it to my muzzle flash archives. (Beautiful!)

flashguy

Yes and, its nearly as big as a Texans muzzle flash..almost.. . You can see the shell in that photo.

So the Army's workin on a new big gun and there's talk of bringing back a new class of battleship?
Having served in the Navy during the Iowa's twilight and being one of those guys who reads too much I do remember reading somewhere on the web that not long after WW2 there was an abundance of 14 inch projos and somebody decided to experiment.
Taking said rounds they were fitted with a sabot of sorts and fired from the 16 inch Mark 7 guns on one of the Iowa's, the lighter higher velocity round was good out to 44 miles.
Also I remember reading there were rocket assisted shells capable of 52 miles.

So depending on what space material the Army will be making this shell from, if it's light enough a thousand miles might be doable since the cannon in the picture reminds me of the old rail car guns the Germans used.

As for a new class of BB, there's a rendering or drawing someone did of a hypothetical USS Khe Sahn, looks like an enlarged Burke class, three main turrets, several smaller batteries plus VLM capability and could fire torpedoes.
Hell anything's possible if one could convince the admiralty to get its head out of the clouds and carriers.
I'll be watching this closely! Dale

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Originally posted by David Lee:

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
henryaz, thanks for the photo! I've added it to my muzzle flash archives. (Beautiful!)

flashguy

Yes and, its nearly as big as a Texans muzzle flash..almost.. . You can see the shell in that photo.

You could see the shells in flight from the ship, when conditions were right.

quote:

Originally posted by Badkarma 1:

Hell anything's possible if one could convince the admiralty to get its head out of the clouds and carriers.

That's the problem, though, isn't it? Navy doesn't seem to like anything that isn't fast and looks good on a recruiting commercial, or is festooned down with so much hi-tech crap that it is worthless in a real operational environment.

quote:

The other thing is that, given how long this would take to reach 1,150 miles, the target (if mobile) will have a long time to randomly not be where the round (if ballistic) was initially aimed.

IIRC, there are GPS-guided projectiles. Small fins could make minor corrections to compensate for wind, humidity changes, the Earth's rotation, etc. . . As for mobile targets, even TLAMs and ALCMs are optimized for fixed targets. I suppose there could be seeker heads that could target mobile targets, but it is hard enough to hit a fixed target from hundreds of miles away. I would not think that this would be considered for mobile targets (of course, I could be wrong - it happens at least once a day).

As far as missile defense goes, I suppose it's theoretically possible to intercept shells from this kind of gun. But, the great thing about guns is the (again, theoretical) ability to replace 10 missiles with 100 projectiles. Every defensive missile battery has a finite number of interceptors, often requiring multiple shots to take out one target. This gun could (again, theoretically) overwhelm even a sophisticated defense network.

I’ve remember being in in a radio pod monitoring an artillery frequency. When I heard shot out, I’d step outside and see the blur of the shell passing overhead. I can’t even imagine what a 2000 pound shell would look and sound like passing by.