the Civ 3 Fleet

[Triped]

True, but what I am saying is that if we'd invested a decent amount of time and money into shells, they'd probalby do just as good...even now they can't be beat for raw power.

[faded glory]

BullShit


Battleships are only obselete if another country sends them against america.

2 American battleships, plus destroy/SAM cruiser escort could sink any floating navy today! Our big guns can land a shell in a bucket from 30-40 miles away. Thats even out of the range of the majority of SS missiles carried on Foriegn frigates.

The notion that BShips are obselete is ridiculous. If they have Air support and escorts they are practically indestructable.

[Triped]

Hey, how do you get around the *** editing?

[Shiva]

Originally posted by DonJoel

But, I think that using cruise missiles from multiple corvettes and/or airplanes will bring them down quite easily. Or you can use submarines to sneak up on them and take them out with torpedoes.

Not quite, Battleships tended to have battlegroups built around them that had the same abilities as carrier battlegroups. Very little chance of a sub getting in close. Also since the battleship is armored a fair amount of the SSMs that are out there wouldnt do alot of damage when they did manage to get through.

Originally posted by DonJoel
The reason carriers aint so vulnerable is because they often stay well out of the coastline, something battleships cant do if they are want to use their cannons.

One thing about being close to the coast is its alot easier to kill subs than deep water. The only things a Carrier has over a battle ship is its aircraft and that it can absorb alot of damage because of the shear size of it.

[Triped]

While carriers can technically take more damage, a few good hits on the deck and it can't launch or land planes very well...as opposed to a battleship, where destroying all those guns should be a challenge.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Xmudder


But what do I know? I also think the A-10 should be transferred to Army control.

Hear hear, get it out of hte control of the fighter mafia

[Dida]

It's ridiculous to think that Battleships are still useful in modern naval battle. Moderm battles are conducted with Jet fighters and missiles, without having the capital ships from both navy seeing each other. It might be difficult to sink a battleship, but it's even more difficult for battleship to try to sink any other naval ships, because it would be destroyed even before it can see an enemy ship.
Equiping the battleships with SA missle does help, but it doesn't mean enemy aircraft and missile won't be able to penetrate the air defense system. Battleships from British Navy and German Navy only engaged each other a couple times during WWI, and they were proved useless in WWII. During the battle of Midway, battleships from Japanese Navy and US Navy did not even seen each other.

[Triped]

I'm thinking of battleships being used mainly against shores and ports...you're right in the sense that fleets don't see each other that often anymore. That's how we won Midway, after all.

[The Andy-Man]

actually. i think Dida has hit upon the only use left for battleships.

In WW1 and WW2, (in the euro theatre), the British blocked all GErman ports with battleships. In WW1 this was part of the reason they lost.


But in Naval battles, (since the pacific WW2), it has just been an aircraft based thang

[Triped]

But what I'm saying is that we shouldn't try to use battleships in naval battles anymore (unless an opportunity presents itself). They can deliver devestating force over a wide area, and thus would be useful for blockades and seiges, even modern-day seiges.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Dida
It's ridiculous to think that Battleships are still useful in modern naval battle. Moderm battles are conducted with Jet fighters and missiles, without having the capital ships from both navy seeing each other. It might be difficult to sink a battleship, but it's even more difficult for battleship to try to sink any other naval ships, because it would be destroyed even before it can see an enemy ship.
Equiping the battleships with SA missle does help, but it doesn't mean enemy aircraft and missile won't be able to penetrate the air defense system. Battleships from British Navy and German Navy only engaged each other a couple times during WWI, and they were proved useless in WWII. During the battle of Midway, battleships from Japanese Navy and US Navy did not even seen each other.

As I said before the battleships in the 80's mounted the same damn SSMs that your newer cruisers, destroyer, and Frigates mount and in greater numbers. A battleship doesnt NEED to see its enemy any more than a CG does to kill. Also as pointed out the newer main gun shells had a range of over 40 miles. With a helo acting as a laser pointer the main gun rounds would easly devestate any target. It is ridiculous to discount them because of what happened in WW2. Times have changed.

Is anyone saying a battleship is better than a carrier? No. What they are saying is a battleship is still very usefull.

[Christantine The Great]

In civ2, I always explore half the globe with these little triremes. Way too powerful.

Not quite. Any civ from the ancient world could have sent out a few triremes to follow the coast of a continent for as long as they want. They were just too afraid of sea monsters, poor saps. Half of the globe? If a city isn't on the coast you won't see it. Plus you only get one square out of a coastline and one square of the costal square (unless you venture away from the coast for a turn). And then you have the chance of losing it to the elements or of another trireme to wreak it.

The Phonecians did it for Egypt (good chance that the rumor is true).

[Col Bigspear]

Repeat after me : CIV 3 IS NOT A HISTORY SIMULATOR.
ITS SUPPOSED TO CREATE ALT HISTORY.
WHAT IF THE BATTLE SHIP WAS STILL USED TODAY?, thats what the game offers.

So what if they have become obsolete, it won't stop me using it right up until the end of the game.

[ETS]

Battleships:

1) Have horrible clustering of shells. Any Marine would cringe at having fire support from a BB. More likely than not to suffer damage from friendly fire!! Danger Close is so large that you would have to be on another island to be safe.

2) Effectiveness of shore bombardment. Look at pictures of Tarawa after days of bombardment but before the landing. Very small island, we were just bouncing the rubble with last shells.
Then the Marines land and discover that 90% of the defenders and their equipment were undisturbed, and had to be removed, one pill box at a time.

3) Sinking -- in WW2 it took about 6 torpedoes to kill a prepared BB. (water tight compartments isolated with DC teams active)
Modern weapons like the Mk 48 can probably do it with 1 shot.
(An explosion under the keel can break the back no matter how much armor plating and torpedo belting you have.

4) The BB would need protection from a air defense network and submerged defenders to get even close to target and then be of limited use.

The last major unit to try to bully its way into a fight was the General Belgrano and it was a CA, but there would be little difference.

Go over to sci.military.naval and praise future prospects of BBs and watch the experts tear you apart by the numbers as to why it is a waste of money.

(At New London we sat around planning how we could sink US CVNs with a whole battle group including other subs -- our biggest prooblem ; and get away. BBs were considered as practice sessions.)

We no longer have the factories to make large sections of armor plate for BBs, and the only ones left are good only for patriotic monuments sitting on concrete bases to keep from sinking. And then there are the engineering systems (you have no idea how bad a ship gets after 20 years -- and the newest BBs were laid down in 1940, before the US entered WW2!!!)

[Triped]

So-

We use new technology to aim better, and new weapons systems to do more useful amounts of damage.

We build the appropriate factories.

We upkeep the battleships, just like everything else in the Navy.

Any questions?

[Shiva]

Originally posted by ETS
Battleships:
1) Have horrible clustering of shells. Any Marine would cringe at having fire support from a BB. More likely than not to suffer damage from friendly fire!! Danger Close is so large that you would have to be on another island to be safe.

Ummm not quite. You dont have to fire every tube on said mount at once. They also have thier 5 inch secondaries. Quite a few.

Originally posted by ETS
Battleships:
2) Effectiveness of shore bombardment. Look at pictures of Tarawa after days of bombardment but before the landing. Very small island, we were just bouncing the rubble with last shells.
Then the Marines land and discover that 90% of the defenders and their equipment were undisturbed, and had to be removed, one pill box at a time.

Yes this is so however it still does not dispute that it is still far far more effective than current naval ships at firesupport and doesnt have to rtb to be rearmed like aircraft do after a short strike.

Originally posted by ETS
3) Sinking -- in WW2 it took about 6 torpedoes to kill a prepared BB. (water tight compartments isolated with DC teams active)
Modern weapons like the Mk 48 can probably do it with 1 shot.
(An explosion under the keel can break the back no matter how much armor plating and torpedo belting you have.

True, however this hold true for every ship, not just a battleship. And a battleship is still much more able to sustan damage then the thin skined modern crusiers.

Originally posted by ETS
4) The BB would need protection from a air defense network and submerged defenders to get even close to target and then be of limited use.

Once again the myth that you would have to get close to a target to attack. The Iowa class BBs mount at thier last mothballing 32x RGM-74 Tomahawks in 8 quad launchers, 16x RGM-84 Harpoons in 4 quad launchers. The tomahawk can reach out to 250mn in anti-ship. Harpoon 60nm with the Slam-ER version 150nm. And there were plans to add a new round for the main gun that could reach targets 100nm away using GPS. Close indeed.

As for needing air defense and sub defense yes this is true for all ships not just the battleship.

Originally posted by ETS
The last major unit to try to bully its way into a fight was the General Belgrano and it was a CA, but there would be little difference.

Sorry, fell out of my chair laughing. First off it was a CL (the ex-CL-46 Phoenix). Second said ship mounted no SSMs (unlike the battleships) and would be forced to close if it wanted to fight. Third sinking a ship that didnt have effective escorts and was moving away from the battle and outside the exclusion zone sure sounds easy to me.

What the navy has been doing to replace the fire support is to start a new program (if it hasnt been cancelled) ERGM. The ERGM program is a $2.1 Billion program to design, test, and field a new long-range 5 inch gun which can deliver 19 pounds of explosives at ranges out to 63 nautical miles, using GPS guidance. The program calls for fitting one gun to 28 DDG's.

This amount of money could pull 4 battleships (we have 2) out of mothballs and run them for 10 years and also pay for the 100nm rounds developement. Sure sounds like the battleships are a waste of money to me

As for not having factories to make armor that has nothing to do with battleships being effective or not. Especially ones that have already been built. In fact I really dont see anything in what you posted that show that battleships are ineffective at all.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by ETS
Battleships:

(An explosion under the keel can break the back no matter how much armor plating and torpedo belting you have.

One question. Is this a built in attack profile of the Mk48 or just luck. And if it is an attack profile does it work after the wire is broken?

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Shiva
What the navy has been doing to replace the fire support is to start a new program (if it hasnt been cancelled) ERGM. The ERGM program is a $2.1 Billion program to design, test, and field a new long-range 5 inch gun which can deliver 19 pounds of explosives at ranges out to 63 nautical miles, using GPS guidance. The program calls for fitting one gun to 28 DDG's.

The DDG21 and another S??21 (another future surface ship program, forgot the initials) programs are all being designed to use the new gun. I went to a mech. eng. conference last year that had a whole presentation by a gov't contracter discussing all the details of it. The program is alive and well and shows no signs of being on the chopping block. The Marines won't allow that to happen. They mourned the mothballing of the BB guns and have been begging to get a new equivalent for a long time now. The Marines in Vietnam loved the BB guns. Nothing else could deliver that kind of firepower in sustained fire, not airpower, not artillery. There was better forward observer controlling and spotting in Vietnam (communications improvements since WWII). I've never heard of a Marine complaining about the Big Boys raining hell on the enemy across from them.

[Sarxis]

Since we are on the topic of AEGIS Cruisers and Rocketry:

It seems to me that Rocketry should'nt itself allow for the AEGIS: Reason? The first rockets were really quite simple, and didn't need advanced guidance and targeting systems to hit their targets. Missiles on ships like the AEGIS are more complex, and really should come after the invention of computers.


Or something like that.