The US sailing frigate, USS Constitution, nicknamed Old
Ironsides, is the most famous ship in US naval history (USS Enterprise, CV-6,
is a close second!) and for good reason.
In addition to her notable victories, she established the pattern of
building ships that could stand in a fight, absorb hits, and keep fighting.
The Constitution was unique in its construction, for the
time, using a system of diagonal beams to support the ship’s structure, thus
lending far greater strength to the structure and allowing much heavier
planking (armor) to be carried. This
heavy planking and strong structure earned the ship its nickname when enemy
cannon balls supposedly bounced off the sides of the ship.
In addition to the ship’s heavy planking (armor), she carried
a heavy weapons fit. Nominally rated for
44 guns, Constitution typically carried 50 or more. For example,
Constitution’s heavy firepower and strong planking (armor) allowed her to stay in fights and win.
During the War of 1812, Constitution's battery of guns typically consisted of 30 long 24-pounder (11 kg) cannons, with 15 on each side of the gun deck. Twenty-two more guns were deployed on the spar deck, 11 per side, each a short 32-pounder (15 kg) carronade. Four chase guns were also positioned, two each at the stern and bow.[1]
Constitution’s heavy firepower and strong planking (armor) allowed her to stay in fights and win.
 |
| USS Constitution - Firepower and Armor |
That original US Navy tradition of heavy arms and armor
continued through to WWII where ships such as the New Orleans class cruiser,
approximately the same size as a modern Burke, carried heavy armament and
armor.
New Orleans Class Armor
Belt 3-5
in
Deck 1.25-2.25 in
Turrets 1.5-8 in
Barbettes 5 in
Conning Tower 5 in
Inexplicably, the Navy abandoned armor after WWII. I don’t know what the last ship built with
traditional armor was but it would be interesting to know. Maybe someone has some data?
We had conceptual ship design figured out in the 1700’s and,
after proving its worth in WWII, we promptly abandoned it. How’s that for illogical? How’s that for failed leadership?
Go Navy!
__________________________________
Deck 1.25-2.25 in
Turrets 1.5-8 in
Barbettes 5 in
Conning Tower 5 in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution
While Im not positive, I dont think that any ships built postwar had armor, except the Sumner/Gearings that were completed afterwards. The USS Long Beach was the last ship built on a "cruiser hull", but I dont believe it had any armor. It in fact used hundreds of tons of structural aluminum. In a quick search, I couldnt find anything online to prove or disprove that it had armor. It seems as if armor was summarilly deleted as a design feature for anything new after the war...
ReplyDeleteI've heard that Long Beach had armor but I've been unable to verify that or uncover any details, if it did.
DeleteMy guess would be the reactor compartments had armor. We haven't published our armor schemes for any of our Nuclear surface ships.
DeleteThe last Des Moines class cruiser was commissioned in 1949.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't know if there were any classes after that with armor.
Lutefisk
Incidentally my son and I toured the USS Constitution and Museum this past summer. We were pleasantly surprised to find a Fletcher class destroyer there for tour as well.
ReplyDeleteWe then drove down to Battleship Cove and toured the USS Massachusetts (South Dakota class BB) and a Gearing destroyer.
There is also a Des Moines class cruiser in the area, USS Salem, but it is only open a couple of days a week so we just stood in the parking lot and looked at it (it's a huge ship BTW).
If you ever travel to the Boston area I would highly recommend seeing all of those.
Lutefisk
This is a test to check formatting. Full post to follow.
ReplyDeleteNewOrleans Spruance Burke
Displacement 12,463 8,040 8,900*
Range@20knots 5,280 6,900 4,400
Top Speed 32.7 32.5 30+
Yeah, it's ugly. But readable. Standby.
DeleteI've always been of the opinion that our aluminum coke-can construction (see Spruance and after-) was a result of the 1st oil shock (embargo) in 1967. Because physics. More weight requires more propulsion and thus more fuel (consumption). Lighter ships are more economic to run. I'm going to come back to fuel consumption in just a bit.
ReplyDeleteBut. Using Wikipedia (yeah, yeah I know- but this is quick and dirty) as a common source for all numbers herein... I THINK Spruance construction started in 1972. I don't know when DESIGN started but 5 years for the design phase back in the 60s sounds reasonable/possible. I'm using Spruance because that's the first manifestation of the Design Evil we live with today.
How did trading off weight (armor) for fuel economy work out?
It didn't.
Let's compare New Orleans, Spruance and Burke. Formatting here will be ugly but all of you ought to be able to parse if you try.
New Orleans Spruance Burke
Displacement 12,463 8,040 8,900*
Range@20knots 5,280 6,900 4,400
Top Speed 32.7 32.5 30+
Crew 708 334 281
This is not good.
My original premise was that warship design was driven by fuel consumption concerns. If so, we traded survivability for zero economic gain (op cost reduction).
Problems with my post? Yes, I know I'm comparing a cruiser to destroyers but it's in COMNAVOPS example. AND it has just now occurred to me that Cruisers should be the USN workhorses; not destroyers.
Many thanks to COMNAVOPS for giving me an idea for a graduate-level research paper. Any among you know the URL for Naval War College applications?
Nah. I can find it.
I must confess I'm at a loss as to what your premise, if any, is?
DeleteIf you want to demonstrate a trade off between weight and fuel efficiency (do you?), you'd need something like fuel fractions and/or mileage for each ship type.
Beyond that, I'm not sure exactly what you're driving at. Try again?
"More weight requires more propulsion and thus more fuel (consumption). Lighter ships are more economic to run."
DeleteI think you may be mixing this up with the transition to gas-turbine engines. Gas turbines are much lighter than a steam plant of equivalent power and easier to maintain. But they're quite thirsty.
Hypothesis: Modern warship design trades off displacement (weight) in favor of non-existant fuel savings thus negatively impacting wartime survivability. Economic considerations have overridden mission objectives for 50 years. This is going to get us killed.
DeleteIs Americas' priority to fight and survive or to sail around for the lowest cost given we don't anticipate a peer-level fight?
Chinese shipbuilding trends indicate we're in for a fight. Now is the time to consider re-orienting design to favor armor, larger capacity magazines and UNREP re-loads.
Intent of my original response was to 'possibly' answer (speculate) why USN turned away from a couple hundred years lessons-learned about warship design. I think the reason was the first Oil Shock in 1967 compounded (hammered home) in 1973 by the second Oil Shock. Don't know if I'm right about that. Regardless of the economic angle...
The overarching point of your blog is that Mission should drive Design (and everything else). There's no Sea Control without being able to fight and survive. Our current design philosophy doesn't support surviving.
Aluminum deckhouses came long before the oil embargo. The CG conversions brought in the first aluminum superstructures into common USN use.
Delete"Hypothesis"
DeleteFair enough ... now prove it. Present some data to support your hypothesis.
To piggy back somewhat on Prospective SecNav "theme" and somewhat related, why are today ships so heavy?!?
Delete1. As far we know, no modern Cruiser, destroyer or frigate has any significant amount of armor. Some ships aren't even steel but aluminum or mix of both.
2. They have no guns or nothing comparable to the heavy armored turrets of WW1 or WW2.
3. We have more electronics but are AESA panels that heavy? Compters weight can add up . Everything today is digital, no analog or vacuum tubes!
4. Engines? Don't know how heavy boilers vs gas turbines are? Maybe a wash?
5. Fuel is fuel so another wash?
6. Weapons? I would venture to guess weapons were heavier in WW2 than today small guns and 90 missile loadout compared to navy heavy shells.
7 Comfort? Ok, we probably spend more money and space on living conditions but is that stuff like beds, tables, TV, creature comfort that much more heavy than what we had to put inside a ship in WW2?
So why do we seem to have such heavy designs today with fewer weapons than a WW2 design weight?
"why are today ships so heavy?"
DeleteMany reasons, I guess. One is that today's ships have MASSIVE superstructures compared to WWII ships. I did a couple of posts on this. See, "Top Heavy" and "Ship Superstructures"
Another reason is the length to beam ratio of modern ships is much lower than WWII ships. Essentially, this means that ships today are "fatter/wider" than WWII. So, for a WWII ship and a modern ship of the exact same length, the modern ship would be much wider and, therefore, much heavier.
And probably other reasons, as well.
Hypothesis (n): a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
DeleteThe only element I can't prove is my speculation (priorly acknowledged as such) is the move away from armor was prompted by energy scarcity concerns along with associated costs. I can't think of any other reason, though- We didn't gain speed. I'll concede range is likely a function of displacement.
For Mr. Dallman: I actually pondered nautical miles per gallon but have no idea what the fuel fraction is for each class. I note, only, that New Orleans has greater range and equivalent speed to Spruance. New Orleans is a bigger ship though. When writing I knew I should have provided Tico numbers but we're just about out of the Tico business. Tico is, therefore, an outlier case.
For Mr. Nico: I too wonder(ed) about where the weight is. Only think I can think that's incredibly different since WWII is electronics. And associated air conditioning?
Well. That and modern-day thin-skinned ships. Which are less survivable.
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2022/10/missiles-versus-battleships.html
Bottom Line: This was and is a deliberate design choice. I don't know why USN did what it did for Spruance and all subsequent warships.
As I understand the history, the abandonment of armour after WWII was a reaction to anti-ship missiles. A large missile anti-ship missile, even a primitive one like the "Kennel", could carry a shaped-charge warhead that would go through battleship armour with ease.
ReplyDeleteThe new idea was to accept that would happen if a missile got through, compartmentalise the ships to limit the scope of the damage, reduce the weight of armour, and put the weight into better air defences to avoid those hits as much as possible.
Then it seems that the rationale was neglected in the pressure for ships that were more convenient for the crew (heavy compartmentalisation is a continuous annoyance) and for successive generations of over-sold technology.
Pretty close. They had a ton of damage data from the war and applied it in their new designs. There is no reason to assume they were the mess of incompetence we enjoy today. Plus, armor is part of a protection scheme. Some ships the armor is less relevant to the overall scheme. We very much still have what amounts to traditional armor on CVNs and the Zumwalts. We have seen in Sinkexs that Sprucans and Perrys held up pretty well even without a soul on board to keep them afloat. The sinkex of the CV America is classified because it got to show how well the most modern protection system on a CV prior to CVN mass production held up.
Delete"the abandonment of armour after WWII was a reaction to anti-ship missiles."
DeleteI keep hearing several variations of this theme and, as best I can tell, NONE of them are backed by any documentation. That doesn't mean that one the various theories aren't correct but it does mean that they're unsupported by any evidence.
The reality seems to be that we just don't know what the ship designer's rationale was. If you have any documentary evidence please share it! I'd love to know what the thinking was because none of it makes sense.
" A large missile anti-ship missile, even a primitive one like the "Kennel", could carry a shaped-charge warhead that would go through battleship armour with ease."
DeleteThis appears to be incorrect on multiple levels.
As far as I know, there were (and still aren't?) no shaped charge missiles. I'm unaware of any actual, documented shaped charge missiles even today. If you have any documentation proving the existence of early shaped charge missiles, please share it.
I am unaware of any tests that demonstrate that a shaped charge missile will penetrate battleship armor with ease. Given that the armor was designed to withstand 2000 lb armor piercing shells traveling at Mach+ speeds, it seems highly questionable that a shaped charge missile would penetrate armor with ease.
As I understand it (poorly!) shaped charge anti-tank missiles produce very small holes in relatively thin armor. How that translates, if at all, to a large anti-ship missile is completely unknown as it has never been tested, to the best of my knowledge. Would it do anything? Would it produce a large enough hole for the body of the missile to pass through? Would the shaped charge be wasted on the decapping layers? Shaped charges are intended to produce spalling which seems like it would be ineffective inside the large compartments of a ship as opposed to the confined space of a tank. And so on. Again, if you have any actual data, please share it.
Kh-22, NATO designation AS-4 Kitchen, had a shaped charge warhead. Entered service in 1962. There's also the SS-N-14 Silex.
DeleteThat said, shaped charges appear to be the exception, not the rule - most antiship missiles are using HE warheads, or blast fragmentation. Theoretically, nothing is stopping LRASM from having a BROACH warhead like JSOW does.
"AS-4 Kitchen ... SS-N-14 Silex"
DeleteI've seen these reports and dismissed them. If you dig into it, they all stem from a single Russian claim whose source is of unknown, undocumented authority and the report offers no details whatsoever. The report appeared not to be linked to any military source. This is tantamount to an unsubstantiated rumor. It might be correct but there is absolutely no substantiating documentation for it.
Soviet/Russian claims are commonly and significantly exaggerated which makes any claim highly suspect until independently documented.
"BROACH"
Even the BROACH warhead is very undefined about its effects and effectiveness. The only test description I've read stated that it was tested for penetration against a 'steel reinforced concrete' without giving any details about thicknesses, construction, layering, angle of impact, or results. Would it work against battleship armor? No idea and the test 'results' I've seen given no indication.
"The reality seems to be that we just don't know what the ship designer's rationale was. If you have any documentary evidence please share it!"
DeleteSo far, I can't find it. I'll keep looking, but my likeliest sources have not had it.
The penetration of a shaped charge depends on the charge diameter. The 150mm TOW missile gets through about 400mm of RHA; a 500mm shaped charge would penetrate over a metre of RHA, which would get through battleship armour. 500mm is far too big for a man-portable anti-tank missile, but easily practical for an air- or ship-launched anti-missile.
Given the reality of today's warships, blast fragmentation warheads are a lot more relevant than shaped charges: you get damage from the shockwave, it sets things on fire, and of course, blows up a big hole. If one really wants penetration missiles, that can be achieved with a hardened nose cap and a delayed detonation fuse - no need for shaped charges.
Delete"Given the reality of today's warships, blast fragmentation warheads are a lot more relevant than shaped charges"
DeleteCorrect! The paper thin warships of today do not require shaped charges to obtain penetration. In fact, one of the concerns today is overpenetration whereby the missile/projectile might pass completely through the ship, doing little damage.
Hi CNO, make a post regarding this project and make some lessons. https://www.navalgazing.net/The-Battleship-of-the-Future
ReplyDeleteWhat lessons do you see from it?
DeleteLook carefully at the picture. What features are appropriate for modern warships?
Delete- Internal Capstan Gear under the upper armored deck;
- Streamlined Superstructure;
- All Gun Turrets Cll Callibers are Rounded off to Avoid Direct Hits;
- Extra Protection for Gun Barbettes;
- Heavy A.A. Armament & Clear Arcs of Fire;
- Concealed Boats;
- Each Engine & Boiler Room in Separate Watertight Compartment
Also look on the "Section through one of the exhaust vents" scheme. It is survavible agains torpedoes, underwater mines, gun shells, air bombs and anti-ship missiles of course.
Section Amidships also contains some lesssons. For example
- displacement fuel tanks;
- cable tunnel;
- control platform.
Eventually read the text below. I see that modern CIWS Phalanx and SeaRAM or RAM should be produced like Heavy A.A. Armament. One inch of armour should be enough to save their sensors and launchers from the debris.
Streamlined Superstructure and Hull allows the ship to withstand enemy anti-ship missiles, air bombs and shells. The armor deck absorbs the damage and won't let enemy weapons to penetrate inside ship's hull and its compartments.
Cable tunnel runs under the waterline deep inside. Fuel tanks allows ship designers to make double or triple bottom which can better withstand enemy mines and torpedoes.
At least all these lessons should be applied to all modern warships.
The final question - Why do you write so few posts?
You've just done a nice job of summarizing lessons so no need for me to repeat it!
Delete"Why do you write so few posts?"
It takes time to generate posts. Each post requires research, writing, and editing. In addition, I like to allow a few days for readers to comment on each post before moving on to the next topic. Also, I don't want to become too repetitive so I limit myself in terms of frequency. Finally, I have a life outside the blog. This is not a full time job!
I'd rather publish fewer good posts than many mediocre posts.
One other theory I've heard is that it has something to do with the assumption post WW2 that future wars would be nuclear. Since no practical amount of armor would protect a ship (and especially the crew) from a nearby nuclear explosion, perhaps they figured there was no point.
ReplyDeleteI have no knowledge about whether this theory was actually the reason.
This is exactly the kind of 'myth-busting' I'd love to do a post on but I can't find any documentation on the subject!
DeleteI've also tried to look into this and the answer I've usually seen is that shaped charges are too effective against traditional steel armor. But this should be solvable with something like the old torpedo armor with mixes of steel, water, and air.
DeleteI see this was already discussed above, oops.
DeleteI have not found a specific "who" and "when" on the decision to stop armoring ships. But this excerpt from Black Shoes and Blue Water; Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945-1975 by Malcolm Muir Jr. describes the thinking about ship design in the 1950s. Pages 89-90 describe the design of Chares F. Adams-, Forrest Sherman-, Farragut-, Albany-, and Leahy-class warships and states:
Delete"Few apologized for the slight gun armament. The Bureau of Ordnance, while admitting their appearance might suggest weakness, bragged, 'but to one who knows her she will be very different indeed: a destroyer type more powerful than any battleship ever built.' With eighty Terriers, 'each ship is capable of shooting down Mach 2 jet aircraft at twenty miles with conventional high-explosive warhead missiles; capable of destroying a formation of aircraft with a nuclear warhead missile; and capable of delivering a nuclear warhead against a surface target or a shore target.'
"There were also no apologies for lack of armor worked into any of these designs. As one Naval War College study concluded, 'The projectile, that is, the rocket, the torpedo, and the atomic bomb, seems to have won with some finality the age-old struggle of armor versus projectiles.' Because even the best-protected modern ships could be sunk with relative ease by these weapons, heavy armor simply was not worth the investment, especially insofar as its weight and expense might detract from more active measures. Designers went in the other direction emphasizing light construction materials, especially to cut down on topweight. With the large antennas carried high on the ships' superstructures, stability represented an increasing problem. Aluminum instead of steel became the metal of choice for higher areas; its rustproof nature added to its attractiveness."
The endnotes cite this as the Naval War College study mentioned above:
"The Elements of Naval Gunfire for use in connection with the Surface Action Study," Naval Warfare (I), Class of June 1955, Nov 1954, 13-14, Folder 2912, RG 4, NWC.
One likely response is saying if a ship is not armored, vulnerability to "the projectile, that is, the rocket, the torpedo" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, the Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart, which was based on the Adams class, lost two crewmen when a USAF Phantom crew mistook it for an enemy vessel and fired Sparrow missiles into the ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Hobart_(D_39)
"One likely response is saying if a ship is not armored, vulnerability to "the projectile, that is, the rocket, the torpedo" is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
DeleteCorrect.
As we've seen, repeatedly, "the projectile, that is, the rocket, the torpedo" is far less lethal than feared. Many (most?) of the ships cited in the recent Single Hit post might well have avoided becoming instant mission kills if constructed with an appropriate armor scheme.
We had [battleship] armor in WWII that was capable of shrugging off 16-18" armor piercing shells. These projectiles were 2000+ lb traveling at Mach+ speeds. Why we suddenly became frightened of projectiles is a mystery.
I would also offer a major caution about the book and the study. Either or both could be pure speculation on the respective author's parts as opposed to official thinking Navy ship designers. The key is to examine the references and citations and see whether any of the explanations are direct quotes from official sources or whether they're author speculation. Naval College studies, for example, are just a student's thoughts unless directly quoted from an official source. Similarly, a book author is simply offering his opinion unless directly quoting from an official source. Check the references and let me know.
Phil brings up a interesting point. He quotes 'thinking' as purported by people 'who were there.' At the time. Pretty good, methinks. Citing documented (a book) history; it's all we have.
DeleteGood as it gets, I myself think, given any other contradictory evidence.
IF I understand COMNAVOPS original post he's asking, "Why did USN walk away from lessons-learned from pre- USS Constitution WHICH served us well in WW2?"
I've offered Spruance as the demarcation.
What Phil makes me realize is that what's needed to enlighten this discussion would be correspondence within USN regarding Spruance-class design.
Which I assume is CLASSIFIED. Yes. Discussions regarding Design and Intents 50 years back is likely classified.
So. We could FOIA the Navy Dept. Because that's what we would have to do.
Who's in?
"I've offered Spruance as the demarcation."
DeleteThere is actually quite a lot of information on the Spruance class. The definitive tome is the book "Electronic Greyhounds" by Michael Potter which describes the design and acquisition of the Spruance class. In the book, the author lists ceramic and Kevlar armor applied around [unspecified] deckhouses, the sonar room (not sure why there of all places), CIC, and [unspecified] armor equivalent to 3/4" on top of the VLS. No other armor was mentioned. This seems to be shrapnel armor as opposed to traditional armor.
The Spruance was a landmark event in Navy ship design, being the first ship to be designed entirely by industry (now the routine practice). This carried many implications, some good, some bad (my personal opinion is this practice is, overall, very bad).
I did a search on the title above at the Navy War College site. It got a surprising number of hits, but not the actual study. Considering that it dates back to 1954-1955, I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't been digitized.
DeleteSurely some of it has to be nuclear weapons, right? Like the famous Operations Crossroads test where they nuked a fleet, including some battleships. Even the ships far enough away to not sink were either lit on fire or strongly irradiated.
DeleteIt might have just been unquestioned 1950s dogma that any war would necessarily be a nuclear war, including nuclear torpedoes and nuclear shells.
"It might have just been unquestioned 1950s dogma that any war would necessarily be a nuclear war"
DeleteThere is no documentary evidence to support that theory. However, even assuming it's true, that would explain the 1950's and, perhaps, '60's but not 1970-present where we've dismissed the risks of nuclear war (largely due to MAD). We should have reverted to armor sometime in the '60's - '70's once we realized our assumption was wrong. We did not, for reasons that remain unknown.
You might also want to read up on Crossroads to understand the true extent of damage and the real risk to an operational fleet which would never be clustered together as in the test. In actual combat, a nuclear bomb might take out one or two ships - a very poor return on an effort that would result in world condemnation and mutual destruction.
CNO, you might like some of the things I found in Black Shoes and Blue Water because they parallel things you've written.
DeleteThough the book says people thought nuclear weapons made armored ships obsolete, it also mentions that some pointed out dispersing the ships would reduce the effectiveness of nuclear weapons against the fleet.
After WWII some cruisers got upgraded with sonar, but other than providing information and helping guide DASH drone helicopters, they had no way of fighting an enemy submarine. One cruiser captain lobbied hard to get torpedoes for his ship, but he did not succeed. The book says cruiser crews did not train with the sonar much--just as you've written that Burke crews don't train for ASW much.
I argued for advanced 5-inch guns with a higher rate of fire to counter small surface threats, but acknowledged they might not work as well as I thought. The book says after the Gulf of Tonkin incident the Navy conducted tests firing ships' guns at moving targets. The Navy concluded the best way to knock out a PT boat with a 5-inch gun was to have the shell detonate 100 feet directly over the boat. One should expect to fire an average of 50 shells per boat destroyed. The Navy also concluded the 3"/50 guns were pretty marginal against this threat.
Actually, it is stated it probably would take over 50 shells to knock out a fast boat, and 5-inch air bursts could be difficult to see at a distance.
Delete"We should have reverted to armor sometime in the '60's - '70's once we realized our assumption was wrong. We did not, for reasons that remain unknown."
DeleteDenial? Institutional inertia?
To what extent did the Falklands War affect British warship design--in regards to armor?
"To what extent did the Falklands War affect British warship design--in regards to armor?"
DeleteThat's a great question for which I have no knowledge or answer. Perhaps a reader can offer some insight?
Not related to Armor, But when Old Ironsides is resting at the wharf the noises are calming as she creaks and groans while rocking with the waves.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the US Navy's Joshua Humphreys today? His analysis of ship characteristics and the US Gov Budget Reality should be a case study for every sailor in the Sys Coms and the N branches in the Pentagon.
ReplyDelete"Where is the US Navy's Joshua Humphreys today? "
DeleteHe was kicked out of the Navy for non-conformity.
I might have asked you this before but I’m not 100% sure. But are you aware if the Chinese literature on this aspect? Does the Type 052D and Type 055 incorporate some kind of armor plating?
ReplyDeleteI have no information about Chinese ship armor. They seem to have copied us so closely that I would assume they have no significant armor but that's pure speculation on my part.
DeleteAnother advantage Old Ironsides had was her wood came from Hilton Head Island, SC; which was the US Navy's fleetwood during the Age of Sail.
DeleteThe Swamp Oaks from there were famous, even in the Royal Navy, for their strength and their great flexibility. Surviving hurricanes for hundreds of years made them tough as nails, but forgiving.
Live oak.
DeleteLutefisk
For a very, very long time after WWII it was assumed that a launching platform was disposable. Why would you armor a platform you knew you'd be degraded instantly.
ReplyDeleteI've heard all kinds of theories. Do you have any documentary evidence to support your contention? I've been unable to verify any of the various theories.
DeleteSome US 1970's built CGN cruisers have armor (to protect their nuclear reactors) ;)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the the whole abandonment and focus on defensive missile AAW was because we still veiwed carrier aviation at that time as the swords tip? Today we see the threat to ships as missiles. We dont even envision enemy planes being nearby, even if theyre the ones who launched the missiles!! AAW today really means AntiMissileWarfare. But in the 50s, as postwar cruisers were being thought out- we were just coming out of a period where all warships bristled with weapons meant to kill PLANES, and we'd gotten pretty good at it. We were creating cutting edge tech- and missiles were the new thing that could/would seemingly eliminate the airplane threat. If those designers were veiwing just-decade old WWII Pacific battles, but inserting the new missiles into the scenario, theyd of pictured it being a slaughter, and stories like the Franklin wouldve never happened. Also, looking at our main enemy of the day- they really werent a peer, at least in a naval sense, yet. Maybe its simply that everyone was immersed in the hubris of not only our WWII success, but also the new tech superiority, and that we could rely on the new tech to avoid hits rather than use armor to absorb them.
ReplyDeleteGreat
ReplyDelete