Trump’s Battleship – What is it Really?

A reader recently launched a mini-rant about the classification of Trump’s battleship as a battleship, claiming it should be a heavy cruiser, instead.  This led me to reflect on what it really is.  Heavy cruiser?  Light cruiser?  Oversized destroyer?  Arsenal ship?  Something else?
 
As you all know, President Trump has a fondness for hyperbole (turning Canada into the 51^st state, seizing Greenland, this pretend battleship, etc.) which is often just a prelude to subsequent negotiations (he loves making deals!).  Only the left takes the obvious hyperbole as meaning anything.  The wiser and calmer among us recognize it for what it is and get a chuckle out of it.  Thus, the classification of Trump’s battleship as a battleship is strictly for public relations purposes and, perhaps, a bit of a thumbing of the nose at China.
 
So, if it’s not a battleship, what is it?  Acknowledging that we lack enough specifications to draw much in the way of definitive conclusions, let’s go down the list of classifications, just for fun, and see what, if anything fits.
 
Battleship – It’s clearly not a battleship as it lacks armor, survivability, and effective fire support for land forces among other shortcomings.
 
Heavy Cruiser – A heavy cruiser is a mini-battleship with appropriately heavy armor, guns (land attack), and anti-ship weaponry.  Again, this ship is clearly not a heavy cruiser.
 
Light Cruiser – These are compromise ships that try to excel at one aspect of heavier ship’s tasks while retaining some armor and survivability and, most importantly, holding to a cost-conscious construction budget.  They may be specialized as anti-air, anti-surface, escort, or other tasks.  Trump’s battleship could fall somewhere in this category, in some respects, although it is stunningly not budget-friendly and lacks a specialization so it’s not really a light cruiser.
 
Oversize Destroyer – Trump’s ship certainly falls into this category in terms of the lack of armor and survivability but it has way too much in the way of weapons and is insanely expensive for a destroyer, oversize or not.
 
LCS – Trump’s ship checks a lot of the boxes for being an LCS!  It tries to be all things.  It depends on mostly non-existent systems.  It has no clear mission focus.  One could plausibly call it a hugely oversized, astoundingly expensive LCS although, thankfully, no one has yet mentioned interchangeable modules.
 
Arsenal Ship – The arsenal ship is a concept ship that is, essentially, a mobile missile barge with only that one function.  We’re getting close, here.  Trump’s ship is, essentially, a mobile missile barge albeit with large scoops of non-existent, fantasy gold plating (rail gun, laser, etc.) piled on and lots of independent capabilities that an arsenal ship would lack.  It also conflates anti-air and strike missions instead of focusing on just one.  Nevertheless, this is the closest fit as far as classification.
 
That said, as an arsenal ship it is a hideously poor design as evidenced by the cost and multiple fantasy systems.  An arsenal ship should be a minimally functional, cheap barge for carrying missiles for some other platform to control.
 
 
Conclusion
 
The only conclusion is that, like every recent Navy ship program, the “battleship” is just a collection of disjointed technologies, mostly non-existent, cobbled together and slapped with the inspiring label of “battleship”.  It lacks a CONOPS and, certainly, no formal Analysis of Alternatives has been performed. 
 
Given the extremely low probability of it ever actually being built, we should simply view it as an indicator of Trump’s enthusiasm for a strong Navy and hope that enthusiasm eventually gets channeled into more productive and useful assets.
 
As far as this post, take it as a bit of amusement.  Don’t get too worked up over it.

Trump’s Battleship

All right, settle down.  We’re not going to build “Trump Battleships”.
 
Come on, now. You should know by now that you have to take everything Trump says with a battleship size grain of salt. He routinely puts forth ideas that are not meant to be serious and/or never come close to fruition. Remember Canada as the 51st state, buying Greenland, replacing EMALS with steam catapults, etc.?  Sometimes he makes these statements as part of negotiating ploys and sometimes just for amusement value. I note the article indicates he wants to have the ships operational in 2.5 yrs! We barely built BBs in 2.5 -3 years even during WWII. The Navy can't even build a LCS or frigate in 2.5 yrs let alone a BB.
 
The schematic of the vessel is pure fantasy and shows non-existent equipment (lasers, rail gun).  Even calling the drawing a battleship is ridiculous.  A supposed battleship with 28 VLS, one major gun (rail gun), and 12 strike missiles is a joke.  That barely qualifies as a destroyer.
 
Do you recall what happened just a couple days before Trump announced his battleship?  That’s right, China announced a supposed large UAV mothership that could launch a hundred tiny UAVs.[1]  Then, a couple days later, out of nowhere, Trump announces a battleship.  Anyone see a connection, here?  Do you think Trump may have just been trying to one up China and grab the public relations spotlight back?
 
This is an amusing story but it ain't gonna happen. Just treat it as fun!  Think of it as a Christmas present of humor.

 

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1]https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2025/chinas-giant-jiutian-drone-mothership-debuts-with-internal-bay-for-one-hundred-mini-uavs
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

USS Massachusetts vs. Jean Bart

One of the lesser known engagements of WWII involved the gun duel between the US battleship USS Massachusetts and the French battleship Jean Bart.  The allies wanted to deny the use of the French battleship to the enemy and executed an attack by a small naval force.  Here’s a brief summary of the engagement.
 

At about 0700, as the Massachusetts, Wichita, and Tuscaloosa were preparing to engage French shore batteries, Tuscaloosa approached the entrance to Casablanca Harbor and reported that her scout plane was being fired upon, two French aircraft were closing, and two submarines were standing out from the harbor.
 
The cruiser subsequently shot down one of the French aircraft. The formidable French shore battery known as El Hank (four 8-inch guns) opened fire and straddled Massachusetts with its first salvo.
 
The unfinished and immobile French battleship Jean Bart opened fire with her operable forward quad 15-inch turret from pierside in Casablanca Harbor and hit a couple hundred yards from Massachusetts. Massachusetts received the “play ball” code at 0704, and she and Tuscaloosa concentrated their fire on Jean Bart. Massachusetts fired nine full 16-inch gun salvos (9 x 9 = 81 rounds) and hit Jean Bart five times within 16 minutes. The first shell hit in an empty magazine.
 
The last shell to hit glanced off the number 1 turret’s armor and bounced into the city, apparently without exploding, as it later became a souvenir at French navy headquarters. The hit, however, jammed the drive train of the turret and put Jean Bart’s main battery out of action for eight hours. Jean Bart’s 15-inch guns had sufficient range to reach the landing area at Fedala, but Massachusetts’s quick action eliminated that threat. El Hank, however, was not easily silenced and would dog U.S. ships all day, despite hundreds of rounds fired its way.[1]
 
The French warship able to fire just seven rounds at the U.S. battlewagon before the turret rotating mechanism jammed. USS Massachusetts‘ heavy 16-inch projectiles caused significant damage to the Jean Bart, although few actually exploded because they had been fitted with fuses manufactured a generation earlier. Had they had exploded; it is likely Jean Bart would have been crippled.[2]

This action again demonstrates multiple lessons such as the value of concentrated firepower, armor, etc.  I won’t belabor those as we’ve covered them many times.  Instead, I’d like to focus on one aspect of this action that jumps out and that is the concept of risk and reward.
 

USS Massachusetts

Jean Bart post WWII - note the unique 4-gun turrets

 
Risk/Reward – There is no avoiding the fact that risk and reward go hand-in-hand in combat.  People and equipment must be exposed to risk in order to accomplish anything worthwhile.  We’ve forgotten this and have come to believe that we can conduct wars without risking anything. 
 
For example, the idea of sending a ship to conduct a one-on-one duel with another ship that is supported by land batteries, is highly risky and not something we’d even consider today.
 
The corollary to risk/reward this is that losses will occur and we have to be willing to accept them and be able to absorb them.  This is the polar opposite of today’s military philosophy.  Today, we’re building staggeringly expensive ships and aircraft that we are loathe to risk because we can’t absorb their loss and can’t replace them in any useful time frame.  This risk aversion means we can’t accomplish anything worthwhile.  We have expensed ourselves into an almost unwinnable position.
 
We need to stop building ‘unriskable’, irreplaceable assets and return to simpler, single function assets that can be produced quickly and in quantity and that we’re willing to send in harm’s way.
 
 
 
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[1]Rebellion Research website, “Operation Torch : The Naval Battle Of Casablanca, 8–10 November 1942”, Admiral Samuel J. Cox, USN, 17-Oct-2021,
https://www.rebellionresearch.com/operation-torch
 
[2]The National Interest website, “Navy Battleship Massachusetts vs. France’s Battleship Jean Bart: Who Won?”, Peter Suciu, 15-Jan-2024,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy-battleship-massachusetts-vs-frances-battleship-jean-bart-who-won-208607

The Electronic Battleship

One observation that has clearly come out of the Ukraine-Russia war is the prominent role of electronic warfare (EW).  We’ve seen GPS disruptions, weapon guidance disruption, intercepted communications, unit localization using signals intercepts, and probably many other aspects that are not yet common knowledge.  So, while the exact manifestations of EW’s prominence are not yet fully clear, the overall thrust is.  EW is a major factor/force on the battlefield and its influence is likely to continue to grow.
 
This is a naval blog so what does the EW lesson mean for naval forces?  Obviously, all the same considerations apply to the maritime battlefield as the land battlefield.  Enemy forces and weapons detection, weapons guidance disruption, localization using signal intercepts, etc. are all vitally important for naval forces.
 
Naval forces (and for the rest of this post we’ll focus on US Navy forces unless otherwise explicitly stated) have had EW capabilities to varying degrees for many decades now so what’s the big deal?  The ‘deal’ is that naval EW has long been the forgotten stepchild of naval capabilities (along with armor, large caliber guns, survivability, robust steel construction, weapon density … boy, the Navy sure has a lot of forgotten stepchildren, don’t they?!).  EW has been an afterthought, at best.  It is only recently that the Navy has begun to belatedly, and even then only in a minor way, address EW with the SEWIP modernization program.
 
Currently, each ship has its own small SLQ-32/SEWIP EW unit and the units are constrained by space/volume/mounting requirements, power limitations, placement challenges, manning constraints, training deficiencies, etc.  In other words, each individual ship can, at best, take care of itself but is of little or no help to other ships in the area.
 
If EW is so important, doesn’t it make sense to have a ship that is a behemoth at electronic warfare?  An electronic battleship, so to speak?  Where is our EW ship that can electronically dominate the naval battlefield?  Where is the ship that can electronically ‘swat’ UAVs and missiles from the sky?  Where is our area EW as opposed to individual EW?  We wouldn’t dream of not having area air defenses so why don’t we have area EW?
 
Where is the EW battleship?
 
What’s wrong with individual ship EW, you may ask?  Nothing except that, by definition, it’s limited to just the host ship and it’s haphazardly implemented and suffers from being at the bottom of the ship’s training priorities because it’s not the main mission of the given ship.  This is the same problem the Burkes face with ASW.  They are theoretically capable of ASW but they rarely train for it and are, therefore, ineffective.  Anti-air is the Burke’s main mission so that’s what they train for on the rare occasions that they train for anything.
 
Consider this historical example:  the USS Stark incident was instructive as it illustrated problems with the SLQ-32 performance, interface, false alarms, and lack of training, as noted below. 

The electronic warfare technician at the SLQ-32 console heard the F-1’s Cyrano-IV again lock on to the Stark. The lock-on signal ceased after seven to ten seconds.
 
Neither of the two SLQ-32 operators saw a [ed. inbound] missile warning. The main operator at the console, however, had turned off the incoming missile audible signal warning. He claimed later that the alarm was typically set off too easily, and distracted him from performing other signal analysis.[1]

 
We need a ship whose main – indeed, only – mission is EW so that it gets the training that is required to achieve and maintain proficiency.  We need an electronic battleship.
 
More than that, we need a multi-ship, coordinated EW effort.  Currently, each ship is its own EW entity, separate and isolated from any other ship.  There is no integrated, multi-ship or group EW effort as there is with missile control and usage via Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) and Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA).  Navy air defense utilizes a central command and control function typically located aboard the Ticonderoga class cruisers.  Again, we need a group wide, area EW control that integrates the EW of all the ships in the group.  We need an EW CEC.
 
Further, we need the group’s chaff and decoy systems tied into the EW control system.
 
Having established the need for an EW battleship and the general concept of large scale, area EW let’s now look at the specifics of an EW battleship.
 
 
EW Battleship
 
Analogous to a conventional battleship, the three main categories and levels of ‘weapons’ for an EW battleship are:
 

• Main battery - electronic attack
• Secondary battery - electronic protection
• Tertiary battery - electronic support

 
More specifically, the EW battleship requirements are, in no particular order:
 

• radar warning
• targeting support
• countermeasures
• situational awareness
• threat warning
• signal collection / SigInt
• direction finding
• laser warning
• drone/missile communications jamming
• false signal injection
• enemy GPS (GLONASS, BeiDou) disruption at point of attack

 
With the specific requirements in mind, what kind of specific equipment (EW ‘weapons’) should an EW battleship have?  An examination of the myriad existing aircraft, vehicle, and ship EW systems provides a good candidate list while understanding that each system would be significantly scaled up in terms of power and antenna size (both sensing and emitting).  For example, a small EW pod on an aircraft might be functionally duplicated for use on a EW battleship but would have, for practical purposes, unlimited power and emitters/receivers many times larger.
 
To give a feel for the types of equipment, here’s a partial list of existing EW equipment on various platforms:
 
 
Ship:
 

• AN/SLQ-32(V)2 – Initially the most common variant, the (V)2 expanded on the (V)1's capabilities with new receiving antennas for increased radio frequency coverage. It added the ability to detect high frequency targeting and fire-control radars, providing early warning against an imminent anti-ship missile attack.
• AN/SLQ-32(V)3 – The (V)3 added antennas with electronic attack capability, able to actively jam targeting radars and anti-ship missile terminal guidance radars.
• Sidekick – active jamming in a smaller package as an alternative to (V)3
• AN/SLQ-32(V)6 – Part of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP). (V)6 provides enhanced electronic support capability through upgraded antennas and open combat system interface. It is made up of the SEWIP Block 1B2, SEWIP Block 1B3, and SEWIP Block 2, which provide specific emitter identification (SEI), high gain high sensitivity (HGHS), and electronic support (ES), respectively.
• SEWIP Block 1 provides enhanced EW capabilities to existing and new ship combat systems to improve anti-ship missile defense, counter targeting and counter surveillance capabilities. The upgrade addresses obsolescence mitigation through introduction of electronic surveillance enhancements (ESE) and Improved Control and Display (ICAD) as well as incorporation of adjunct receivers for special signal intercept including specific emitter ID (SEI) and high gain/high sensitivity (HGHS). The SEI and HGHS capability provides improved battlefield situational awareness.
• SEWIP Block 2 provides early detection, analysis, and threat warning from anti-ship missiles by providing enhanced Electronic Support (ES) capability via an upgraded ES antenna, ES receiver and an open combat system interface for the AN/SLQ-32. These upgrades are necessary in order to pace the threat and improve detection and accuracy capabilities of the AN/SLQ-32.
• SEWIP Block 3 (AN/SLQ-32(V)7) will provide electronic attack (EA) capability improvements.
• SEWIP Block 4 is a future planned upgrade that will provide advanced electro-optic and infrared capabilities to the AN/SLQ-32(V) system.
• COBLU Command and Control Coordination - Integrates area ship sensors and provides a common picture using passive sensors.

 
 
Aircraft:
 

• EA-18G Growler: ALQ-218 Detection Pod  -  passive Radar warning receiver for airborne situational awareness and signal intelligence gathering. The AN/ALQ-218 detects, identifies, locates and analyzes sources of radio frequency emission.
• EA-18G Growler: ALQ-99 High Band Jamming Pods  -  radar and comms jamming
• EA-18G Growler: ALQ-99 Low Band Jamming Pod  -  radar and comms jamming
• EC-130H / EC-37B Compass Call – electronic attack;  disrupts enemy command and control communications and secondary EA capability against early warning and acquisition radars.
• MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAV - Multifunctional Electronic Warfare (MFEW) Air Large is the Army’s first organic brigade electronic attack asset mounted on an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone.  brigade-level airborne electronic attack asset and providing limited cyberattack capabilities
• RC-135V/W is the USAF's standard airborne SIGINT platform.
• RC-135S Cobra Ball is a measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) collector equipped with special electro-optical instruments such an All Weather Tracking Radar and Medium Wave Infrared Array (MIRA) designed to observe ballistic missile flights at long range.[24] The Cobra Ball monitors missile-associated signals and tracks missiles during boost and re-entry phases to provide reconnaissance for treaty verification and theater ballistic missile proliferation.

 
Vehicles:
 

• Stryker - Tactical Electronic Warfare System (TEWS) which combines cyberwarfare, signals intelligence and electronic attack.

 

The EW battleship combines all these functions, each in its own 'mount', on one ship.

Antenna Size
 
The key concept that makes the EW battleship work is the available size and power of the various emitter and receiver antennae. 
 
For example, passive sensing is a function of sensor size.  Inter-galactic frequency sensors are massive in order to collect the faint signals from distant stars and galaxies.  A man-portable - or even an aircraft mounted – sensor is limited in size.  A ship, on the other hand, could mount Aegis sized sensor arrays, thereby vastly increasing the sensitivity and effectiveness of the sensor.
 
Similarly, one of the problems with Army man-portable or even mobile electronic warfare (EW) systems is that they are small and inherently power-limited.  Ship size systems with, for practical purposes, unlimited power would eliminate this constraint.
 
 
Dispersion and Redundancy
 
One of the [many] limitations of small EW package systems is that each package must execute several different functions, switching between them as needed.  On a ship, each function can be its own ‘mount’ and, therefore, be continuously available with no need to switch or ‘ration’ power.  The functions can be dispersed as stand alone, complete units.
 
Ships also offer the ability to have more than one of any given function, just as a ship has (or used to have when we still designed WARships) redundant guns.  This allows for both damage resilience and the ability to engage multiple threats simultaneously.
 
 
 
Note:  I’ve not specified any size for this EW battleship.  The term ‘battleship’ refers to combat power, not size.  If everything needed can fit on a canoe, that’s great.  If it requires a ship the size of an Iowa class battleship, so be it.  My pure guess is that something the size of Burke would suffice but I’ll leave it to the engineers to determine that.
 
 
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[1]https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1988/may/stark-report

Battleship Accuracy

While going through old posts and comments, I came across the following comment from ‘Ray D’ [1] about battleship accuracy in a post about battleship and carrier throw weights (see, “Carrierand Battleship Throw Weights”).  He’s responding to a comment that denigrated the accuracy of a battleship’s big guns.  The comment is so interesting that it deserves a post of its own for wider dissemination since not everyone reads all the comments. 
 
Note:  I have no way to verify the accuracy of the reader’s comment but I have no reason to doubt it, either.  I have not seen either of the two referenced reports/sources.  You can assess the validity for yourself.
 
I’ve copied his comment with just a couple of minor changes for grammar and readability.
 
In the comment, the author makes the distinction between precision and accuracy.  Some readers may not be familiar with the distinction so here’s the difference.  Precision is the grouping of several shots from a gun.  The tighter the grouping, the better the precision.  However, a tight grouping (high precision) does not necessarily mean good accuracy.  Accuracy is how close to the intended target the shot is.  Precision is how tight the grouping is regardless of the accuracy.  A series of shots may have very good precision (tight grouping) but very poor accuracy (a tight group that’s way off the target).  Conversely, the accuracy could be good but the precision might be poor.
 
The statement the reader is responding to declared the following about a battleship’s accuracy.
 
"estimated accuracy of 2.7% at max range"
 
The reader’s response was the following:
 

With all respect (and I mean a lot of respect), this comes from probably the most misrepresented report about US Navy WW2 era equipment of all time and the claim ignores the myriad of patently ridiculous assumptions that the report made about the hypothetical target given exactly what naval targets existed at the time.
 
To keep it short, their assumed target was a mythical Iowa-class counterpart that was performing rapid evasive maneuvers and somehow NEVER dropped below its assumed maximum speed of 35.4 knots.
I hope it doesn't need to be explained that this was and is physically impossible!
 
Furthermore, the only Battleships in the world (ever) that were capable of performing such radical evasive maneuvers and maintaining a targeting solution of their own were American; all others would have had to either choose shooting or evading due to their lack of stable verticals; so in real terms the report itself is entirely worthless unless the US Navy was expecting to fight the US Navy.
 
Against a Yamato acting according to Japanese doctrine, ergo attempting to maximize its own gunfire efficiency, the predicted accuracy for the Americans would be closer to 8% at that range, or over three times higher.
 
That aside, in the context of shore bombardment this entire argument is disingenuous and built around an obvious categorical error: at the last I checked, most strategic military targets such as bases, ports, airfields, factories, and governmental offices do not in fact move.
 
So, instead of accuracy assumption against moving targets, it's better to speak of the raw dispersion values of the guns in question.
 
According to live combat data taken from WW2 and Korea, the Iowa-class Battleships during those periods had range errors of only 0.6% of range, or 254yds at their maximum range of 42,345yds, making them the most accurate battleships to ever be built even then. Deflection error was usually negligible in comparison, as range error is always the larger number.
 
Of course, that's just the WW2 figures. Just by the 1980s reactivations advancements made to fire control and propellants saw a ~29% decrease in dispersion, again drawn from live combat data. During firing trials, the USS Iowa produced a range error of 0.3% of range (or ~127yds at maximum).
 
To put this in context, the blast effect of the Mk14 HC shell was significant enough that it was reported to incapacitate infantry within 500yds, defoliate trees within 300yds, kill exposed infantry within 250yds, level trees and light structures within 200yds (also destroy most aircraft), and even destroy MBTs within 100yds. This is roughly comparable to a WW2 era 2000lb bomb (or a modern 1000lb bomb).
 
Or, in other words, the USS Iowa during the mid-1980s had a greater than 50% chance of destroying a tank at 42,345 yards with a single shell; or if it fired all 9 guns at the same target, greater than a 99.987003826% chance.
 
By all measures that was absolutely excellent accuracy, even if the guns were not as precise as one may desire.  That's just with 1980s technology.  Today, since you already would have to make all new guns and the ships to carry them, you could utilize developments such as Polygonal Rifling and ETC cannons to not only further increase the accuracy of the guns, but decrease time of flight or drastically increase the effective range of the guns well beyond 50 nmi without sacrificing payload; and that's without using science-fiction technology such as rail guns. Of course, it goes without saying that guided 16in shells would be essentially child's play to develop as well, considering they did it with the 8in MCLWG program to great success in the '80s.
 
But I digress, my point was that the Iowa's guns in their final configurations were accurate enough for all targets they were within range of. They were imprecise, yes, but VERY accurate.

 
I have nothing to add to this other than it further illustrates the amazing capabilities of the US battleship.
 
 
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[1]Ray D.May 12, 2023 at 10:37 PM
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/05/carrier-and-battleship-throw-weights.html?showComment=1683956277384#c8102893492469470189

Explosive Effects

I didn’t want to address this but it keeps coming up and people keep getting it wrong so I guess I’ll have to.
 
Does anyone believe that a Mk82, 500 lb (192 lb of explosive filler) aerial bomb has a 25% larger explosive effect than a 16” high explosive (154 lb of explosive filler) battleship shell?  Of course not, and yet the Mk82 has 25% greater explosive filler weight.  Despite that, a 16” battleship shell has a profoundly greater explosive effect as demonstrated by the gigantic 50 ft diameter craters they leave.[5]  A Mk82 bomb is not to be sneezed at but it does not produce anything approaching that kind of effect.
 
Similarly, a Naval Strike Missile (NSM) has a 260 lb warhead which is 69% greater than a 16” battleship shell.  Does anyone believe that a NSM has a 69% greater explosive effect than a battleship shell?  Again, of course not!
 
So, the 500 lb bomb, with 25% more explosive, has far less explosive impact than a smaller (by explosive filler weight) battleship shell.  How can that be?  Shouldn’t the 500 lb bomb, with more explosive filler weight, produce a much greater effect than a battleship shell?
 
The answer/explanation is a combination of chemistry and physics.  Note, this is not a doctoral thesis and few of us are chemists or physicists so I’m going to simplify the following discussion for general audience comprehension.
 
 
Explosive Effect Definition
 
To begin, we need to define what an ‘explosive effect’ is.  There’s nothing magical or complicated about it.  It is simply the degree of destruction caused by the explosion.  A hand grenade has a small explosive effect compared to a 500 lb bomb.  See?  Nothing complicated.  But, if it’s that simple, how do we explain the bigger destructive effect of the 16” shell versus a 500 lb bomb that has more weight of explosive filler?
 
 
Chemistry and Physics
 
This is where we begin to delve into the chemistry and physics of an explosion (see Ref [6] for a detailed discussion of explosive chemical and physical properties).  Explosive effect is the damage inflicted on the target via a combination of overpressure (an instantaneous pulse of pressure far above normal atmospheric pressure), heat (the exothermic chemical reaction of the explosive), and physical damage by bomb/shell fragments (shrapnel), among other mechanisms.  Of these, pressure is the main destructive mechanism for general explosive munitions.  So, how is overpressure (increased pressure) generated?
 
We’ll answer that with a couple illustrative examples that lie at the heart of the matter and which we’ll keep referring back to.
 
Gunpowder – Gunpowder explodes, right?  Well, sure.  We’ve all seen hundreds of movies where barrels of gunpowder are ignited and explode.  Before we move on from this seemingly obvious phenomenon, let’s recall that we’ve also seen hundreds of movies where a trail of gunpowder, sprinkled on the ground, is ignited and slowly burns (acting as a fuse) rather than explodes.  Wait a minute, I thought gunpowder explodes?  Why does it burn on the ground rather than explode?
 
Gasoline – Gas explodes, right?  Or does it?  If gasoline, spilled on the ground, is ignited, what happens?  Does it burn or explode?  It burns!  However, if gas in a confined tank is ignited, it explodes!
 
Do you see the pattern – the key - behind this explode or burn phenomenon?  It’s confinement (containment).  When ‘explosive’ materials are confined/contained, they explode.  When they’re unconfined, they burn.
 
Now, what is it about confinement/containment that makes something explode rather than burn?  Again, it’s chemistry and physics!
 
Burning is actually a chemical reaction (oxidation).  A material reacts with oxygen at a very fast rate (an example of an exceedingly slow burning reaction rate would be rust!).  An explosion is the exact same chemical oxidation reaction but occurring in a confined/contained housing (the bomb or grenade or missile).
 
Let’s dig deeper.
 
When something burns, it undergoes a chemical reaction that releases gas as a byproduct.  In an open (unconfined/uncontained) environment – like gunpowder or gasoline on the ground – the released gas is harmlessly dispersed.  No damaging pressure build up can occur.  Conversely, in a confined/contained environment – like the inside of a naval shell – the released gas has nowhere to go and, as the burn continues and more and more gas is released, the quantity and, therefore, pressure of the confined/contained gas increases until, eventually, the pressure of the gas exceeds the strength of the container (the shell, bomb, grenade, or missile) and causes the container to burst which is the explosion we see.  This burst instantaneously releases the pent up pressure (now an overpressure wave) and heat.  In addition, the released pressure wave scatters the bomb fragments (shrapnel) and damage occurs to the surrounding area and objects.
 
The longer the pressure build up is contained, the higher the pressure gets inside the container and the greater the magnitude of the pressure wave when the container finally bursts and releases the pressure.  This is the overpressure blast wave which causes so much damage.  The overpressure wave causes objects around the explosion to be fractured, bent, twisted, ripped loose, and flung about.
 
Interestingly, if the container is stronger than the ultimate built up gas pressure, nothing happens.  This is what a bomb disposal chamber does.  It remains intact and contains the entire explosive force, releasing nothing.  The explosive gas can then be vented in a slow, safe, controlled manner.
 
Of course, the actual chemical composition of the explosive is important (different reaction rates, for example) but that’s beyond the scope of this post.
 
 
 
Shell versus Missile Construction
 
Now that we understand the importance of containment in producing an explosive effect, let’s examine the construction of various munitions.
 
Naval shells are intentionally constructed of very thick walls with relatively small burst charges of explosive material.  As we just discussed, the burst charge is greatly amplified by the containment of the heavy wall. 
 
Battleship 16” shells have wall thicknesses of around 3+ inches.  A 9.3 in diameter naval shell (type/gun unspecified) had a 2.5 in thick wall.[2]  And so on.
 

16" Battleship AP Shell Cutaway

16" Battleship HC (HE) Shell Diagram - note the shell wall thickness of 3+ inches

 
In contrast, a missile is, essentially, just thin sheet metal housing the fuel, motor, fuzing, and warhead.  For practical purposes, there is no amplification of the explosive weight.  The explosive weight is what it is.
 

Harpoon Missile Cutaway - note the thin sheet metal covering

 

We see, then, that the missile’s overall weight is consumed by fuel, guidance mechanisms, electronics, telemetry, sensors, fins and deployment mechanisms, and fuzes. A naval shell has nothing inside it other than a fairly simplistic fuze and, of course, the explosive chemical. All the naval shell's non-explosive weight goes into the wall thickness. Thus, a battleship’s 2000 lb weight is 154 lb of explosive filler and 1846 lb of wall.  That’s a lot of containment!  In contrast, the missile "wall" is nothing more than a sheet metal container.

Bombs lie in between shells and missiles and vary widely.  Some have heavy walls, though not generally approaching naval shells, and some do not.

Mk 82 Bomb Cutaway - note the reduced wall thickness compared to a naval shell

 
To sum up, missiles have thin walls that barely contain the burning gases before they burst. Thus, relatively less of the potential pressure buildup is achieved. Naval shells have thick walls that contain the burning gases and allow the pressure to build to its maximum potential before bursting. What's important is not the amount of explosive but the pressure at bursting.

 
Wall Thickness Effect
 
Understanding that, we’d now like to know how much of an effect wall thickness has on the explosive effect?  In a previous comment, a reader^[a] offered this rule of thumb relating containment wall steel thickness to explosive effect[7]:
 
Body Wall of 1" to 1.5" : Bursting Charge x 10 = Effective Explosive Weight
Body Wall of 0.5" to 1": Bursting Charge x 5 = Effective Explosive Weight
Body Wall of 0.25" to 0.5": Bursting Charge x 2.5 = Effective Explosive Weight
Body Wall of <0.25": Bursting Charge = Effective Explosive Weight
^[a]The reader offered this disclaimer:  “All figures are just from my memory, mind you, and shouldn't be taken as decisive fact (nor should any rule of thumb), but it is illustrative of the general idea.”
 
There are repeated references in discussions to equivalency charts between shells, missile, and bombs in terms of explosive/destructive effects but I’ve been unable to locate any.
 

Demonstrated/Explosive Effects
 
Here are some statements that qualitatively describe the destructive/explosive effects.  Of course, there are many factors that contribute to the observed effects of an explosion but these are illustrative, nonetheless.
 

The High Capacity (HC) [16”] shell can create a crater 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep (15 x 6 m). During her deployment off Vietnam, USS New Jersey (BB-62) occasionally fired a single HC round into the jungle and so created a helicopter landing zone 200 yards (180 m) in diameter and defoliated trees for 300 yards (270 m) beyond that.[5]

“The crater from a 500-lb. bomb with impact fuze (e.g., MK 82) is typically 30 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep (this obviously varies greatly with the terrain)” (Doleman Jr., Edgar C., 1984. Tools of War. Boston Publishing Company, Boston)  ;  note: this quote is unverified by me but the book exists and there is no reason to doubt it

A conventional 155mm artillery high explosive (HE) shell often produce a crater about 1.2–1.5 meters deep and 4–5 meters wide (4).  The M114 howitzer of WWII used an HE shell with around 15 lb of explosive.  The modern 155 mm M795 shell has around 24 lbs of explosive.

A 16-inch (406 mm) shell fired from an Iowa class battleship created a crater about 6 meters deep and 15 meters wide (4)

 
 
Summary
 
We now understand why a 16” battleship shell, despite having a smaller burst charge than a Mk82 500 lb bomb, produces a much greater explosive/destructive effect.  It’s all about containment!  The containment effect – or lack, thereof - is even more pronounced for missiles which, due to their almost non-existent containment, release their exploding gases at far less pressures and produce far less damage effects.
 
So, why don’t we build missiles with thick walls?  The answer is obvious.  The missile is a powered, flying object and every pound of extra weight decreases the speed and range of the missile.  A missile with, say, a battleship’s 3+ in thick walls would have a range of just ten feet!
 
 
Disclaimer:  I offered this disclaimer at the beginning and I’ll repeat it.  This was a simplified discussion to illustrate the basic concepts.  It was not intended to be a rigorous doctoral thesis or all-encompassing textbook.
 
 

 
______________________________________

 
[1]NavWeaps website,
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_61-62_ags.php
 
[2]https://books.google.com/books?id=mhdaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA624&lpg=PA624&dq=naval+shell+wall+thickness&source=bl&ots=a9K2NAt5Ot&sig=-dR5AI9_uvTGcUnUr5fZ0gpAupk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnrdTbo97aAhWItVkKHZsgDgYQ6AEIiQEwDQ#v=onepage&q=naval%20shell%20wall%20thickness&f=false
 
[3]Maritime website, “U.S. Explosive Ordnance”, OP 1664 Vol 1, 28-May-1947,  BuOrd,
https://maritime.org/doc/ordnance/index.htm
 
[4]Quora website, Duc Quyen,  retrieved 6-Sep-2018,
https://www.quora.com/How-large-would-a-detonation-from-a-800mm-artillery-shell-make-compared-to-other-munitions
 
[5]NavWeaps website,
http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php
 
[6]Pacsci Emc website, “Properties of Selected High Explosives”, Robert Weinheimer
Published: 27th International Pyrotechnics Seminar, July 2000
https://psemc.com/resources/pyrotechnic-white-papers/properties-of-selected-high-explosives-rev/
 
[7]Navy Matters blog comment, Ray D., April 8, 2017 at 10:33 PM, Navy Matters comment, “Syrian Tomahawk Strike”,
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2017/04/syrian-tomahawk-strike.html

Carrier and Battleship “Throw Weights”

I suspect that a lot of people believe that nothing can match the weight of ordnance (“throw weight”) that an aircraft carrier (meaning, its air wing) can deliver.  It’s significant, without a doubt.  Just for fun, I wonder how a battleship compares to a carrier in “throw weight”?
 
Just so we’re clear, the general definition of ‘throw weight’ is the total weight of shells a ship could deliver in a broadside.  Obviously, carriers don’t have a broadside and that’s not really a useful way to compare a carrier and a battleship so we’ll modify the definition to suit our purposes.  A carrier’s equivalent to a broadside is a maximum effort air strike which, depending on the distance to the target, takes place over several hours.  Thus, a carrier can fire a broadside (strike) once every several hours as opposed to a battleship which can fire its guns continuously.  For our purposes, the comparison, then, should be the weight of ordnance delivery over some time period with the obvious time period being the duration of a carrier strike mission.  Unfortunately, a carrier mission time period is highly variable so, just for the sake of convenience, let’s pick an arbitrary time period of one hour instead of a more realistic several hour period and we’ll assume the carrier’s weapons delivery occurs within that one hour.  The time period doesn’t really matter and won’t change the subsequent conclusions.
 
With that settled, let’s take a look at carrier and battleship throw weights over a one hour period.
 
We need to start with a few assumptions and stipulations.
 

• The carrier’s ‘broadside’ is assumed to be 40x FA-18-E/F aircraft.  Each aircraft has six bomb hard points capable of carrying a 2,000 lb Mk84 bomb for a total load of 12,000 pounds per aircraft and a total of 480,000 pounds for all 40 aircraft. This is the theoretical maximum full sortie capability. Two sorties of the entire wing is the single day maximum.[1]
  
  
• A battleship is assumed to be able to maintain a firing rate of 1 shell per gun per minute which is 60 shells per gun per hour.  A battleship has 9 guns in three triple mounts.
  
  
• The battleship magazine is 1220x 16” shells (per NavWeaps website).

 
With those assumptions in hand, we can derive the following table which shows the one hour throw weights for a carrier and a battleship.  The battleship is shown with the alternate cases of high explosive and armor piercing shells.  For our purposes, it’s one or the other but not both.
 

 

So, what do we learn from the table?
 

• The table shows that a battleship has 2-3 times the throw weight of a carrier in a one hour period.
  
  
• If we extend the time period to, say, two hours, the battleship’s delivery is doubled while the carrier’s delivery remains unchanged as the aircraft are unable to deliver any more ordnance.
  
  
• We also clearly see the folly of trying to use a carrier to provide ground support.  It just can’t deliver the required firepower effectively.

  
Now, before we take these observations and run with them, let’s note some ‘reality’ considerations that impact our table observations.
 
A carrier’s theoretical maximum throw weight can never be achieved due to the necessity to keep a significant portion of the air wing reserved for strike-related, concurrent tasks such as carrier defense, tanking, protection of high value targets (HVU) such as E-2 Hawkeyes and Growlers, target combat air patrol (TarCAP), barrier combat air patrol (BarCAP), etc. as well as the inevitable ‘maintenance-down’ aircraft.  Thus, our maximum strike does not consist of 40 aircraft but, instead, some significant number less.  Thus, the use of ‘40’ as the air wing size is utterly unrealistic.  A more realistic maximum strike package might be 10-20 which reduces the carrier throw weight to 120,000 – 240,000 lb.
 
In addition, an F-18 would rarely (never?) carry six 2000 lb bombs.  The weight would drastically cut into the aircraft’s range, speed, and maneuverability.  A far more realistic scenario would see a Hornet with just 2-4 bombs with two being the most likely.  Thus, the carrier throw weight is further reduced to 40,000 - 160,000 lb.
 
Magazine capacity is an issue.  We know exactly what a battleship’s magazine composition and capacity is.  I have no information on what a carrier’s magazine composition and capacity is.  It could be that a carrier doesn’t even carry 240x 2000 lb bombs.  Or, perhaps it has several times that.  I just don’t know.
 
Related to magazine capacity is ‘emptying’ time.  A battleship, firing all guns at a rate of 1 rd/minute can empty its magazines in 135 minutes.  That would be a staggering total of over 2.5M lbs of munitions delivered in a short period.  A carrier, cannot deliver such large pulses of firepower but because of that limitation can – and must – spread out its delivery.  Of course, a battleship can spread out its delivery period, too, if desired.
 
 
Discussion
 
The above should not be interpreted as saying that a battleship is overall superior to a carrier.  For example, a carrier has a distinct advantage in delivery range.  Both types have strengths and weaknesses and the purpose of this post is not to debate one over the other.  The purpose is to point out the shocking firepower a battleship can deliver under the right circumstances which can only lead one to wonder why we ever retired the battleships?
 
An examination of throw weights tells us that battleships can effectively relieve carriers of some missions and, for some missions, would be vastly superior.  One of the major problems crippling the fleet is the deteriorating physical state of our carriers due to overuse and the resulting deferred/skipped maintenance.  Common sense says that if we would use battleships to take on some of the carrier’s missions, the fleet would benefit enormously.
 
With all due respect (none) to Navy leadership, it is, was, and always will be firepower that wins wars (yes, and logistics and manufacturing and …), not networks and data.  In the final analysis, you have to be able to kill and destroy and, under the right circumstances, nothing does that like the firepower of a battleship.
 
 
 
____________________________

 
[1]“Joint and Interdependent Requirements: A Case Study in Solving the Naval Surface Fire Support Capabilities Gap”, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, Shawn Welch, Colonel, Army Corps of Engineers, 17-May-2007, p.81-83

USS Colorado Battle Damage – Why We Had Battleships

Battleship critics and proponents have argued back and forth for decades, however, there is one overwhelming and undeniable reason why we had battleships and why we need them today:  they’re able to fight, absorb damage, and continue to fight.  The WWII history of the USS Colorado, BB-45, amply illustrates this capability.  Following are three instances where the Colorado sustained potentially serious damage that would have incapacitated or sunk any other type of ship.
 

USS Colorado - Note the cluster of three 5" shielded
mounts on the forward superstructure. The
open backs of the mounts can be clearly seen.

Tinian
 
While providing gun support during the amphibious assault on Tinian on 24-July-1944 she sustained 22 shell hits from 150 mm Japanese shore batteries which caused 43 deaths and 198 wounded.  Colorado reported one 5”/51 gun and one 5”/25 gun knocked out. Note that both guns were unarmored, open mounts.  Despite the damage, Colorado continued shelling the island and providing fire support for the ground forces until 3-Aug-1944
 
Does anyone think a Burke could absorb 22x 150mm shell hits and continue its mission (or even stay afloat)?
 
 
Mindoro
 
Colorado returned to the US for repairs but arrived in Leyte to provide fire support for the assault.  On 27-Nov-1944, the battleship sustained two kamikaze hits, Colorado reported that one did no damage but the other knocked out two 5’/51 gun mounts and one 40 mm mount.  Casualties were 19 killed and 72 wounded.  Again, all three mounts were unarmored, open mounts.  Shrugging off the damage, Colorado bombarded Mindoro from 12=17 December 1944 before withdrawing to Manus Island for repairs.
 

USS Colorado Moments After Kamikaze Hit

 

Does anyone think a Burke could absorb two Kamikaze (each roughly equivalent to a cruise missile) hits and continue its mission (or even stay afloat)?
 
 
Lingayen Gulf
 
Colorado then took part in pre-assault shelling of Lingayen Gulf.  On 9-Jan-1945, she was hit by friendly 5” shells which hit the Sky Control (air defense station) superstructure, resulting in 18 dead and 51 wounded.  After repairs at Ulithi, Colorado joined Task Force 54 for the pre-invasion shelling Okinawa.
 
Does anyone think a Burke could absorb 5” shells and continue its mission?
 
 
 
In each case, Colorado was hit hard and yet was able to stay in the fight and continue its missions.
 
It is also noteworthy that Colorado was able to absorb significant damage and remain combat effective despite being an older armor design as opposed to the newer North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa class battleships.  The later classes would have been even less affected by the Colorado’s damage.
 
Note that in the first two incidents, all the reported damage was inflicted on unarmored, open mount guns (depending on the time period, the mounts may have had open-ended, lightweight, weather shields).  Being an ‘old’ battleship, relegated to secondary duty, Colorado was armed with the older style open mount guns instead of the armored, closed 5” mounts that were standard on the newer battleships.  Had Colorado had the newer, armored, closed 5” mounts the damage would have been minimal to non-existent.  The casualties were largely due to the multitude of open mounts resulting in sailors being exposed on deck.
 
 
Discussion
 
Now consider what will happen when our top end surface combatant, the Burke, gets hit in a future battle/operation.
 
For starters, the ship will likely sink from anything remotely approaching the kind of damage that Colorado absorbed without missing a beat.
 
Beyond that, almost any hit will result in a mission kill, at the very least.  This means thet ship’s tasking in the operation will be missing and either that task will go wanting – likely leading to further difficulties/losses for the overall force/operation – or it will necessitate pulling another ship from some other tasking to take over the mission killed task.  Of course, that leaves a gap somewhere else.  And so on and so on with ripple effects extending throughout the fleet and the theater.
 
If 22x 150 mm shells had mission killed the Colorado, either vital gun support would have been reduced, leading to increased difficulty and risk for the ground troops, or some other battleship or heavy cruiser would have had to have been pulled off its tasking to take over for Colorado which would leave a gap in whatever the new ship was previously doing. 
 
Do you see the value (the force multiplication, in a very real sense) that battleships, or any armored ship that can take a hit and keep fighting, bring to the fleet commander?
 
Consider, also, the element of risk.  The WWII naval commander could, for example, task Colorado with close range bombardment without unduly worrying about some enemy artillery hits (or 22 of them!) sinking or badly damaging the ship.  In contrast, today’s commander can’t even entertain the thought of placing a Burke within range of enemy artillery no matter how vital the gun support might be for success of the ground operation.  The battleship offers a greater range of options because of its toughness.  That is not the case with Burkes.
 
What we have to recognize is that it’s not just a question of absorbing damage and not sinking, it’s a question of continuing the mission (staying in the fight), fully effective, not having to leave the combat theater, and not needing another ship to be pulled off other duty to take the original ship’s place.  It’s that secondary, ripple effect that the battleship’s armor, size, and toughness eliminates and, in so doing, makes the battleship even more effective and valuable.  Being able to continue fighting and continue the mission is a force multiplier for the fleet. 
 
We have no ship, today, that can sustain even a fraction of the damage that Colorado did, let alone shrug it off and continue to fight.  This is what a ship – battleship, in this specific example – that can absorb battle damage and keep fighting/operating brings to the table.
 
We’ve lost this capability and we need to regain it.
 

Battleships - Naval Massing

One of the foundational principles of combat, throughout history, is local massing of firepower.  Let’s examine that principle through the historical lens of battleship operations.  If ever there was a ship that could successfully operate alone, it would be the battleship, one would think.  However, in WWII, battleships always operated in groups, when possible, in accordance with the principle of massing of firepower.  Thus, despite their individually impressive firepower and armor, naval commanders of the time understood that massing was the proper way to employ battleships.

 

For the US, earlier in the war, battleships sometimes operated as single units – though still as part of larger groups such as a carrier group – due to inadequate numbers.  Later in the war, as numbers became available, battleships operated in groups, as discrete battleship task forces.

 

One of the earlier examples of US massing of battleship firepower was the pairing of the Washington and South Dakota to form Battleship Division 6 at Guadalcanal, culminating in the famous engagement and sinking of the Japanese battleship, Kirishima.

 

Oldendorf’s Task Force 77.2 consisted of the old battleships USS Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Tennessee, California, Maryland, and West Virginia at Leyte Gulf.

 

The never-formed Task Force 34 at Leyte Gulf would have consisted of the battleships Washington, Alabama, New Jersey, and Iowa along with escorting cruisers and destroyers.

 

Task Force 58/38 included the battleships Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin although, of course, the individual ships rotated in and out of the Task Force as operational needs and availability dictated.

 

The British Home Fleet included 2^nd Battle Squadron with the battleships HMS Royal Oak, HMS Royal Sovereign, HMS Ramilies, HMS Nelson, and HMS Rodney although, again, the ships rotated in and out as needs and availability dictated.

 

When the principle of naval massing in combat was violated, it usually didn’t turn out well:

 

• Bismarck operated alone and was sunk after inflicting only insignificant damage on Allied shipping.
• Tirpitz operated alone and was sunk having accomplished little.
• Kirishima was the only Japanese battleship at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and was sunk in the famous battleship duel with Washington.
• Graf Spee, a so-called pocket battleship, operated alone and was trapped and scuttled for little return.
• Yamato and escorts faced the firepower of several of Task Force 58’s carriers and was sunk.
• Yamashiro, of the Japanese southern force at Leyte Gulf (Fuso having been sunk earlier), was sunk after facing a US force of several cruisers and six battleships.

 

 

Of course, merely assembling multiple battleships doesn’t guarantee success.  For example, the British Force Z battleship, Prince of Wales, and battlecruiser Repulse operated together but insufficient escorts, lack of air cover, and an operationally untenable position doomed the group regardless of their massing because their cumulative mass of firepower was less than the enemy’s.  In other words, the enemy achieved greater local mass of firepower despite the pairing of the two ships. 

 

This leads to the pointed reminder that massing refers to firepower, not numbers.  One could assemble six battleships but if the enemy can assemble eight, it is the enemy that has achieved superior local massing of firepower.  Similarly, assembling multiple battleships is pointless if the enemy can assemble superior firepower in the form of aircraft.

 

The need to achieve local massing of firepower seems obvious, now, right?  So why are we belaboring it?

 

One reason is the persistent tendency by so many people to make the one-versus-the-entire-enemy argument for why –fill in the blank- weapon system or ship can’t succeed in naval combat.  The reality, as revealed by WWII naval combat, is that it’s never one-versus-the enemy but a group-versus-the enemy.  We should be evaluating systems and ships as groups because that’s how they’ll fight.  How many times have I heard the argument that a battleship is as good as sunk against the enemy’s missiles, aircraft, submarines, and mines?  As if a single battleship is ever going to attempt to take on the entire enemy war machine single-handed!  The real question is whether, say, four battleships operating as a group with escorts and properly supported by air power, reconnaissance, and submarines has value for the kind of operations we envision (assuming we had a naval strategy … which we don’t).

 

Task Force Entering Ulithi

I don’t want to turn this post into a battleship debate because that’s not the point.  I’m using battleships just to illustrate the point about massing firepower.  It’s not the firepower of a single battleship that matters.  It’s the firepower of a group of battleships, relative to our operational plans and the resources of the enemy, that is the proper basis for evaluations.

 

Another reason to hammer on the principle of local massing of firepower is the Navy’s ill-conceived distributed lethality concept which envisions ships operating alone – the opposite of massing of firepower.  Why is the Navy insistent on pursuing distributed lethality using the LCS which is the polar opposite of a battleship?  If battleships have been shown to be unable to successfully operate alone, why do we think an LCS is going to sail blithely around in enemy territory?

 

Finally, we’ve thoroughly discussed the massing of carriers but we have not explored additional forms of massing of naval firepower.  We should be exploring tactics for massing the firepower we have which, for the surface navy, is Burke class destroyers.  Can a group of Burkes accomplish anything useful?  How many ships would constitute a useful and effective force?  How would they operate?  What tactics would they use?  What support do they need?  What constraints should they operate under?  Of course, not only are we not doing this but I haven’t heard anyone in the Navy even broach the subject of examining a Burke surface group.  The idea may have merit or it may not but it should, at least, be examined.

 

One might be tempted to claim that a group of Burkes is never going to be used as a massed firepower unit but the same might have been said of Oldendorf’s group of obsolete, resurrected battleships and yet they wound up facing a Japanese battleship at Suriago Strait.  One never knows what circumstances might arise and it’s best to be prepared and have thought/exercised through the possibilities before they happen.