Why Not Battleships?

The WWII battleships were retired, multiple times, for various reasons, none of which were particularly valid.  The fact remains, we don’t have any in commission today and we’re unlikely to ever have them again.  But why?  What is so horrible about battleships that we can’t even contemplate having them in the fleet again?  Detractors see the issue as almost a religious thing.  They oppose the evil of battleships and spew forth the Word of the Modern Navy to shout down any talk of battleships.

Let’s look a bit closer at the arguments against battleships and try to understand why a modern version of an Iowa/Montana class battleship can never be part of a modern navy, in the minds of opponents.

Firepower – This is a less common argument because, well, it’s simply not true.  The argument is that a battleship can’t match the firepower of a carrier.  The reality is that the opposite is true.  A carrier can’t match the firepower of a battleship. 

WWII battleships carried 100+ shells per gun.  Navweaps website lists a total of 1220 shells per ship.  The secondary armament magazines contained around 500 rounds per gun (I assume this means per mount rather than per barrel) for a total of around 5000 rounds.

A battleship can fire salvos of 16” 2200+ lb shells at a leisurely rate of 9 shells/minute (19,800+ lbs per minute) and do it on a sustained basis.  A carrier can’t even come close to matching that kind of explosives delivery rate.  A carrier maximum effort strike of, say, 20 Hornets – a carrier always retains aircraft for self-defense and needs several strike aircraft for tanking – can deliver oh, let’s be generous and say 12,000 lbs of munitions per aircraft – remember, some of the hardpoints are taken up by air-to-air weapons and fuel tanks and a max loaded combat aircraft would be an unlikely occurrence.  So, that’s a pulse salvo of 240,000 lbs of munitions.  Let’s also be generous and say each aircraft could generate three sorties per day.  That’s 720,000 lbs of munitions per day delivered sporadically, in three pulses.  By comparison, the battleship can maintain a steady 18,000 lbs of munitions fired until its magazines are depleted.  That’s 2.44M lbs of munitions.  And, this doesn’t even begin to consider the battleship’s secondary 5” guns which adds another 275,000 lbs of munitions!

A battleship’s firepower is also available 24/7, on call within minutes, is unaffected by weather, and can’t be electronically jammed, decoyed, or shot down.  There are no pilots put at risk.  This is kind of the same rationale being put forth for UAVs except that UAVs can be electronically jammed, decoyed, and shot down!

Clearly, firepower is not a valid reason for not having battleships in a modern navy.

Gun Range – Range is limited to around 20 miles but the vast majority of worthwhile targets are within 20 miles of the ocean.  The mere fact that some targets may be out of range is not a reason to pass on a weapon.  There are targets that are outside the range of a Tomahawk cruise missile but no one is calling for their elimination because they can’t reach a particular target.  Being able to utterly dominate a 20 mile strip along all coastlines would be a staggeringly beneficial capability.

There have also been developmental efforts directed at creating longer range battleship shells.  In fact, the Navy built an entire, if abbreviated, class of warship, the Zumwalt, predicated on extended range munitions fired by 155 mm guns.  If this was sufficient justification for the Zumwalt, surely it would be sufficient for a battleship.

There is every reason to believe that sub-caliber, sabot rounds could be developed with greatly increased ranges.

Clearly, gun range is not a valid reason for not having battleships in a modern navy.

Manning – This is one of the major reasons cited for the undesirability of battleships.  However, objective analysis shows this to be a false argument.  The WWII battleship crew size was around 2700 with much of that being devoted to the manpower intensive 10x dual 5” mounts (~17 crew per mount including fire control), 20x 40 mm quad Bofors mounts (~14 crew per mount including fire control), and 49x 20 mm single mounts (~5 crew per mount).  A rough estimate puts the secondary and anti-air manning at around 695.  None of that would exist today.  Even a modern secondary armament fit of 5” guns has very low manpower requirements.  As partial evidence, the crew size of the battleships in the 1980’s was reduced to around 1800.  A modern battleship, with modern computers and electronics, modern turbines, and extensive automation could reduce crew size further to perhaps 800 or so.

As evidence, the Zumwalt has a crew of around 150 on a ship of 15,000 tons.  If scaled up, a battleship with a displacement of 57,000 tons would require a crew of just 570.  ComNavOps has severe reservations about the wisdom and suitability of the Zumwalt crew size but that is the official Navy manning level.  Further, the Zumwalt has demonstrated that we could, if we want, 100% automate the main and secondary batteries and require no gunnery crew.

The big deck amphibious ships such as the America class LHA have crews around 1000 and we cheerfully operate around 33 of those so we can clearly afford to operate a ship with a “large” crew, if we want.

Clearly, manning is not a valid reason for not having battleships in a modern navy.

Operating Cost – This is a common but completely unsupported claim.  We’ve operated 15-20+ carriers in the past.  We operated a 600 ship fleet in the Reagan era.  We currently operate carriers and big deck amphibious ships.  Our current fleet is at a several decade low.  We have more than enough budget to operate a few battleships, if we choose to. 

Operating cost just a red herring put forth by battleship critics.

Survivability – Ironically, this is one of the more common arguments against battleships even though a battleship is the most survivable ship ever built!  Opponents claim that battleships are not survivable – that modern torpedoes will easily sink them and modern anti-ship missiles will devastate them.  These same opponents then go on to ask for more carriers and Burkes and frigates whose survivability is far less.  The inconsistency in logic is stunning!

We’ve already debunked the torpedo myth.  It would take many torpedo hits to sink a battleship.

Clearly, survivability is not a valid reason for not having battleships in a modern navy.


Construction – Another common argument is that we no longer possess the industrial construction ability to build 16" guns and heavy armor.  This is true but not persuasive.  Whatever we currently lack, we'll simply create.  We had no ability to build gigantic laminated wooden panels for the Zumwalt superstructure and yet we developed the ability as part of the construction effort.  We had no ability to build large trimaran warships until the LCS and now we can.  We had no ability to build ships by superlifts and now it's routine.  History is a non-stop series of new developments that happened because we needed/wanted them.  How much easier must it be to re-develop technology that already existed?

Clearly, lost construction techniques are not a valid reason for not having battleships in a modern navy. 

Funding Competition – This is not a common argument against battleships but it is, perhaps, the most valid one.  The Navy has a fixed shipbuilding budget in any given year and choices must always be made and shipbuilding priorities set.  This is, essentially, a question of value and need.  Which ships provide the most value for the cost and which ships meet our most pressing needs? 

Honestly, it’s hard to imagine that 55 LCS offer more value than, say, four battleships.  The LCS production run would cost $27.5B or thereabouts and that’s without modules or the developmental costs.  Surely, we could build four battleships for $27.5B and get much more value.  Certainly, they would meet our needs more than a bunch of toothless LCS.  Had we not wasted $24B on the Zumwalts we could have easily built four battleships.  If we would stop building $15B Fords and revert to evolutionarily upgraded Nimitzes we could save around $8B per vessel which would easily pay for a couple of battleships for each carrier built.  And so on. 

Thus, while funding competition is potentially a valid argument, we see that it is actually not.

I’m running out of arguments against battleships and I have yet to find a compelling reason not to build them.  Shouldn’t that tell us something?

On the flip side of the coin, one of the major justifications for naval ships, in general, is ‘presence’.  Presence supposedly deters war and promotes peace.  ComNavOps believes that is bilgewater but it’s part of the Navy’s formal justification.  Well, nothing shouts ‘presence’ like a battleship!

Maybe it’s time to rethink battleships in the modern navy?