A question about the battle of Saltash

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually modern DDs are pretty singularly unsuited for disabling or sinking an old BB. None of their weapons are good for more than taking out vulnerable unarmored items like antennas or radar dishes.

That's because their primary weapons in missiles and nobody really builds anti-ship missiles designed to deal with thick homogeneous armor belts; (much less ones small enough to mount on a DD). (Some of the old ex-Soviet air-launched anti-ship missiles designed to kill carriers might do it; but not the normal kind of anti-ship missile anybody deploys)

Of course nobody builds missiles capable of that because there aren't actually targets for them. It'd be easier to build a missile than a BB; so anybody actually building modern heavily armored warships would likely face in-service missiles capable of dealing with them before the ships were even commissioned.


But as it is a modern DD has a few types of weapons:
1) Land attack cruise missiles - basically useless in an anti-ship role.
2) Anti-ship missiles (like Harpoon) - not designed to penetrate heavy homogeneous armor. Likely to simply break up on that waterline main armored belt.
3) AA missiles (some of which have a secondary anti-surface role) - again not armor piercing and even smaller warheads that the dedicated anti-ship missiles. (But possibly better able to be re-targeted away from the waterline)
4) 5" gun - Backed by capable radars and fire control computers it should be more accurate than anything the BB carries. And at least the 5'/54 carried by modern USN destroyers outranges than 5'/38 dual purpose guns used as their BB's secondary armament. But it has barely 60% the range of the BB's main guns.
5) Torpedoes - lightweight anti-submarine models with less range than their guns and relatively small warheads designed to punch a hole in a sub's pressure hull; not break the back of a heavily built ship. I'm not even sure if those torpedoes have a back-up surface attack mode.
6) CIWS - Phalanx close in weapons systems, 20mm Gatling gun firing depleted uranium slugs. Probably capable of penetrating the BB's superstructure; but at ranges of less than 2 miles; far far shorter than the effective range of the BB's many secondary guns.

Given those the modern DD has a good chance of wrecking the BB's exposed upper works, antennas, radars, light AA, etc. But it's got little chance of taking out the BB's heavy guns much less disabling or sinking the it. And if it did get tagged by even a secondary weapons it'd probably be a in world of hurt.

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually modern DDs are pretty singularly unsuited for disabling or sinking an old BB. None of their weapons are good for more than taking out vulnerable unarmored items like antennas or radar dishes.

That's because their primary weapons in missiles and nobody really builds anti-ship missiles designed to deal with thick homogeneous armor belts; (much less ones small enough to mount on a DD). (Some of the old ex-Soviet air-launched anti-ship missiles designed to kill carriers might do it; but not the normal kind of anti-ship missile anybody deploys)

Of course nobody builds missiles capable of that because there aren't actually targets for them. It'd be easier to build a missile than a BB; so anybody actually building modern heavily armored warships would likely face in-service missiles capable of dealing with them before the ships were even commissioned.


But as it is a modern DD has a few types of weapons:
1) Land attack cruise missiles - basically useless in an anti-ship role.
2) Anti-ship missiles (like Harpoon) - not designed to penetrate heavy homogeneous armor. Likely to simply break up on that waterline main armored belt.
3) AA missiles (some of which have a secondary anti-surface role) - again not armor piercing and even smaller warheads that the dedicated anti-ship missiles. (But possibly better able to be re-targeted away from the waterline)
4) 5" gun - Backed by capable radars and fire control computers it should be more accurate than anything the BB carries. And at least the 5'/54 carried by modern USN destroyers outranges than 5'/38 dual purpose guns used as their BB's secondary armament. But it has barely 60% the range of the BB's main guns.
5) Torpedoes - lightweight anti-submarine models with less range than their guns and relatively small warheads designed to punch a hole in a sub's pressure hull; not break the back of a heavily built ship. I'm not even sure if those torpedoes have a back-up surface attack mode.
6) CIWS - Phalanx close in weapons systems, 20mm Gatling gun firing depleted uranium slugs. Probably capable of penetrating the BB's superstructure; but at ranges of less than 2 miles; far far shorter than the effective range of the BB's many secondary guns.

Given those the modern DD has a good chance of wrecking the BB's exposed upper works, antennas, radars, light AA, etc. But it's got little chance of taking out the BB's heavy guns much less disabling or sinking the it. And if it did get tagged by even a secondary weapons it'd probably be a in world of hurt.

You forget, the original version of the Tomahawk cruise missile was an anti ship NUCLEAR missile - The T-LAM and T-LAM-C are later variants of the missile. The nuclear variants of the Tomahawk have been retired, (as is the anti-ship versions), But if a couple were laying around, a Burk could fire one, pretty much ruining a BB's day.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:Another thought on this: Pit a WWII BB (since they didn't have SDs) vs a modern DD. The exact same scenario--the only question is if it has enough birds in it's magazine.

Actually modern DDs are pretty singularly unsuited for disabling or sinking an old BB. None of their weapons are good for more than taking out vulnerable unarmored items like antennas or radar dishes.

That's because their primary weapons in missiles and nobody really builds anti-ship missiles designed to deal with thick homogeneous armor belts; (much less ones small enough to mount on a DD). (Some of the old ex-Soviet air-launched anti-ship missiles designed to kill carriers might do it; but not the normal kind of anti-ship missile anybody deploys)

But as it is a modern DD has a few types of weapons:
1) Land attack cruise missiles - basically useless in an anti-ship role.

2) Anti-ship missiles (like Harpoon) - not designed to penetrate heavy homogeneous armor. Likely to simply break up on that waterline main armored belt.

3) AA missiles (some of which have a secondary anti-surface role) - again not armor piercing and even smaller warheads that the dedicated anti-ship missiles. (But possibly better able to be re-targeted away from the waterline)

4) 5" gun - Backed by capable radars and fire control computers it should be more accurate than anything the BB carries. And at least the 5'/54 carried by modern USN destroyers outranges than 5'/38 dual purpose guns used as their BB's secondary armament. But it has barely 60% the range of the BB's main guns.
5) Torpedoes - lightweight anti-submarine models with less range than their guns and relatively small warheads designed to punch a hole in a sub's pressure hull; not break the back of a heavily built ship. I'm not even sure if those torpedoes have a back-up surface attack mode.
6) CIWS - Phalanx close in weapons systems, 20mm Gatling gun firing depleted uranium slugs. Probably capable of penetrating the BB's superstructure; but at ranges of less than 2 miles; far far shorter than the effective range of the BB's many secondary guns.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Except the Harpoon has a terminal pop-up maneuver specifically to avoid the problem of smashing into the armor. It's going to be plunging down at the moment of impact, the attack goes against whatever top armor the ship has, not against the heavy stuff around it.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:Except the Harpoon has a terminal pop-up maneuver specifically to avoid the problem of smashing into the armor. It's going to be plunging down at the moment of impact, the attack goes against whatever top armor the ship has, not against the heavy stuff around it.

Actually only the original block 1A harpoons always pop-up. The mark 1B version remove the pop-up in favor of a straight in near-waterline side impact (much worse against BBs), but yeah, the latest deployed mark 1C makes it selectable between those two previous attack modes.

But even a pop-up isn't going to help much against a BB. More likely to do topside damage to antenna, radars, or anybody manning a WWII style light AA gun. But battleship main armor, at least for ones designed after the mid 20s, was designed to degrade or stop armor piercing 500 lbs bombs dropped by dive bombers from a couple thousand feet. That's probably enough to stop a Harpoon from penetrating, certainly from penetrating in working order, given that the missile lacks an armor piercing warhead.
Sure because of the greater area and higher elevation it's not a patch on the thickness of the main armor belts; but you're still talking about a couple inches deep of horizontal armor deck, with splinter decks below that to catch any spalling.

So yes, you have a bit of a point, a new (or very old) Harpoon doing a pop-up attack will likely be a bit more effective than one making a straight in side attack. But not enough to prevent the BB from carrying out whatever gunnery mission it might care to perform. (And certainly not enough to sink one)

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually modern DDs are pretty singularly unsuited for disabling or sinking an old BB. None of their weapons are good for more than taking out vulnerable unarmored items like antennas or radar dishes.

That's because their primary weapons in missiles and nobody really builds anti-ship missiles designed to deal with thick homogeneous armor belts; (much less ones small enough to mount on a DD). (Some of the old ex-Soviet air-launched anti-ship missiles designed to kill carriers might do it; but not the normal kind of anti-ship missile anybody deploys)

Of course nobody builds missiles capable of that because there aren't actually targets for them. It'd be easier to build a missile than a BB; so anybody actually building modern heavily armored warships would likely face in-service missiles capable of dealing with them before the ships were even commissioned.


But as it is a modern DD has a few types of weapons:
1) Land attack cruise missiles - basically useless in an anti-ship role.
2) Anti-ship missiles (like Harpoon) - not designed to penetrate heavy homogeneous armor. Likely to simply break up on that waterline main armored belt.
3) AA missiles (some of which have a secondary anti-surface role) - again not armor piercing and even smaller warheads that the dedicated anti-ship missiles. (But possibly better able to be re-targeted away from the waterline)
4) 5" gun - Backed by capable radars and fire control computers it should be more accurate than anything the BB carries. And at least the 5'/54 carried by modern USN destroyers outranges than 5'/38 dual purpose guns used as their BB's secondary armament. But it has barely 60% the range of the BB's main guns.
5) Torpedoes - lightweight anti-submarine models with less range than their guns and relatively small warheads designed to punch a hole in a sub's pressure hull; not break the back of a heavily built ship. I'm not even sure if those torpedoes have a back-up surface attack mode.
6) CIWS - Phalanx close in weapons systems, 20mm Gatling gun firing depleted uranium slugs. Probably capable of penetrating the BB's superstructure; but at ranges of less than 2 miles; far far shorter than the effective range of the BB's many secondary guns.

Given those the modern DD has a good chance of wrecking the BB's exposed upper works, antennas, radars, light AA, etc. But it's got little chance of taking out the BB's heavy guns much less disabling or sinking the it. And if it did get tagged by even a secondary weapons it'd probably be a in world of hurt.

Theemile wrote:You forget, the original version of the Tomahawk cruise missile was an anti ship NUCLEAR missile - The T-LAM and T-LAM-C are later variants of the missile. The nuclear variants of the Tomahawk have been retired, (as is the anti-ship versions), But if a couple were laying around, a Burk could fire one, pretty much ruining a BB's day.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well not so much forgot as omitted because, as you said, they'd be retired from service.


Though even an airburst 150 kt W-80 warhead might not disable the propulsion on a BB; and I really don't think it has much chance of sinking one. Certainly the Able test at Bikini Atoll, though only 23 kt, failed to sink any of the larger warships - despite the lack of any damage control.
Still it'd kill everybody out on deck, really screw up the unarmored bits, and the EMP would probably fry plenty despite the relatively greater survivability of tube based electronics.

But AFAIK the TASM-N wasn't design to dive short of the target for subsurface nuclear detonation; and that's what's you really need to sink (not just mission kill) big ships.
Still I imagine even if you can steam along a nuke to the face would encourage a BB to head the other way

Fox2! wrote:The Iowas have seven and a half inches of armor on their decks, at least over the parts anyone cared about (propulsion, magazines, etc) and 14 inches on the conning tower. A 500 lb non-AP warhead will just result in the traditional call, "Sweepers, man your brooms!" after a 2000 lb HE round puts your DD in the arms of Davy Jones

And that assumes the Harpoon gets through the gantlet of Sea-Sparrows and CIWS that awaits it.

Somtaaw wrote:

Fox2! wrote:The Iowas have seven and a half inches of armor on their decks, at least over the parts anyone cared about (propulsion, magazines, etc) and 14 inches on the conning tower. A 500 lb non-AP warhead will just result in the traditional call, "Sweepers, man your brooms!" after a 2000 lb HE round puts your DD in the arms of Davy Jones

And that assumes the Harpoon gets through the gantlet of Sea-Sparrows and CIWS that awaits it.

I don't think old WWII battlewagons had Sea Sparrows and CIWS to stop a Harpoon. They had to physically man their guns and muscle-point them at aircraft. There were enough guns, than there's a chance one of them might get lucky and intercept, but Harpoons also travel one helluva lot faster than the aircraft WWII battleships would encounter.