US Battleships in T2K

[Tegyrius]

The real thing to look at would be barrel life - you can only shoot so many shells thru the gun barrels before they need to be replaced - and even if there are replacements available (there were as far as I know but not sure where they were) you need an active Navy Yard that can take battlehships to do the replacement

I'm not 100% sure on barrels, but most of the other turret machinery was handled by Naval Ordnance Station Louisville in the 1990s.

- C.

[bobcat]

actually i hate to disagree with Admiral Gorshkov but there is a reason the ground forces are still trained to coordinate naval gunfire from the old battle ships. we KNOW how devastating that power can be when wielded properly. my theory is these old gun boats would mostly be used in Korea where they can support the majority of the ground combat.

(personally i still wish they would have taken the Missouri up the Tigris to deal with a few IED factories during the surge. show AQI a real explosion)

[Panther Al]

My understanding is the older engines were able to burn "bunker oil" which is thick, tarry, and very, very sticky. It requires heating to be applied to the fuel in the storage tanks, just so it can be pumped through the lines to the engine.
My guess is as part of the effort to reduce the crew by approximately 900 men (from pre 1980's refit) this heating system was removed. If so, the ship(s) would no longer be able to utilise this type of fuel - the boilers could probably still burn it, but pumping it from the tanks would be impossible.

I would actually say the old preheating equipment is still there: I don't have anything that says yes or no on that, but I have three datums that make me go with this:

First up is the amount of work to strip it all out (A coworker is a ex Navy Nuke who is pretty sharp on all the various sorts of systems the Navy uses is my source) is no small thing: a lot of work, time, and holes to be cut into things to get it all gone. Thats the sort of work that would take too much time and cost to pull off... especially since you just have to never turn it on and you are good to go.

Second, When they recommisioned the New Jersey in the 80's, the budget for the job was considered very low (350 Million - less than the cost of a new Perry Class fig). And they then came in *under* budget. That to me says that since they did a massive electronics upgrade, with radars, CIWSs, Harpoons, and Tomahawks, thats where the bulk of the money went - which might also help with reducing the manning that they managed to a degree since they stripped out a lot of the secondary AAA systems.

And third, they used a lot of the black gang crew off of the Sacramento and Camden (Which used the exact same propulsion plant of the Iowa's) to get the New Jersey staffed, and then later on the rest in the 80's.

Now, this isn't set in stone, but I think its a pretty good argument to say that it would still be able to fuel the BB's with bunker fuel or cruder.

[dragoon500ly]

New Jersey had been refitted for the Korean War as well as for Vietnam, by the 1960s, she had only her 16-inch/5-inch batteries, her light aa had been stripped. She also had a fairly extensive rebuild of her electronics suite for Vietnam. Her Regan-era rebuild was to emplace Tomahawk/Harpoon and CIWS and update her electronics. She had been modified to butn NDF back in the 1960s. The primary drive for that portion was to insure that the fleet only had to transport one type of fuel for the ships. According to a couple of Navy types in my office, the conversion from bunker to NDF involves burner plates and injectors, the supposed figure for the New Jerey refit was roughly 250,000 dollars. I'm checking the Congressional Records from that time to see if there is a detailed breakdown of the budget.

[pmulcahy11b]

Paul, did you check Grimace's fanzine The naval stuff I did earlier is there, and it does include the battleships and the two Des Moines-class gun cruisers.

I'm so behind on my reading it physically hurts.

[mikeo80]

(personally i still wish they would have taken the Missouri up the Tigris to deal with a few IED factories during the surge. show AQI a real explosion)

Or, my favorite thought, park the Missouri off of Somalia. Pirates What Pirates A few well placed 16" in the pirate docking areas.....

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=vj-15O-BTDw

Well, you get the picture....

My $0.02

Mike

[HorseSoldier]

As for manpower - with many more modern ships either sunk or looking at maintenance issues from their high tech gear breaking down the USN may have more than enough manpower to keep at least one BB fully manned even as late as 2000

Once we're talking the 2000 time frame, though, the collapse of good lines of communication and just plain spotty communications themselves are going to come into play. MilGov and CivGov's biggest problems don't involve a lack of resources in an absolute sense, they involve a lack of an ability to move, manipulate, and mobilize those resources effectively across a nation that has collapsed into lawless chaos outside of tiny military zones of control.

[Olefin]

Their areas arent that tiny - MilGov controls a big piece of Colorado, plus a lot of Kansas and down into Oklahoma, from Cairo IL down to Memphis TN, a good piece of Louisiana and a pretty big piece of CA, plus the big areas in the Northwest - thats a lot of territory when you add it up, bigger than most European countries in peacetime - and now they have the Ozarks as well

and I dont use HW and Kidnapped as canon (most likely most dont actually) -
and one place they could get manpower is from all the sailors who manned the Omega evac fleet plus guys who can get retrained from Omega - between all of them (and a good amount of them had to be sailors stranded in Europe when their ships either were sunk, damaged beyond repair or just plain out of fuel) you could easily man a battleship

[The Rifleman]

Their areas arent that tiny - MilGov controls a big piece of Colorado, plus a lot of Kansas and down into Oklahoma, from Cairo IL down to Memphis TN, a good piece of Louisiana and a pretty big piece of CA, plus the big areas in the Northwest - thats a lot of territory when you add it up, bigger than most European countries in peacetime - and now they have the Ozarks as well

and I dont use HW and Kidnapped as canon (most likely most dont actually) -
and one place they could get manpower is from all the sailors who manned the Omega evac fleet plus guys who can get retrained from Omega - between all of them (and a good amount of them had to be sailors stranded in Europe when their ships either were sunk, damaged beyond repair or just plain out of fuel) you could easily man a battleship

Also the museum BBs North Carolina, Masschussets and Alabama do not share the same main armament as the Iowas due, however all of the other spares including the secondary armament is the same. Some parts were taken from them to refit the Iowas in the 80s and frankly, although I could see looters boarding the ships to take some limited machinery, a lot of it is useless to them. For example, turret rings, breech blocks, 5" barrels... there are piles of scrap metal everywhere, why go through the aggravation of trying to carry away a 90 ton gun director

[natehale1971]

Before the Battleships where retired, there was a move to turn them into half-deck carriers that would be equipped with attack helios and harrier jumpjets so they could be used to support amphibous operations... I remember this since i was in the Navy at the time. And our gaming group inculded an Operations Specialist and a Gunner's Mate whom both joined the Ike thanks to their getting recovered after the turret explosion... and they were always talking about the future of the battleships in the future.

And when we played T2k they were talking about how quickly the mothball fleet could be rembilized, and which ships would be first on the list for refit and refurbishment.

[Legbreaker]

...how quickly the mothball fleet could be rembilized, and which ships would be first on the list for refit and refurbishment.

In theory.

Reality would be significantly different given it's not just the mechanicals which need a quick wipe and oil change, but a whole new crew of 1,800 or so (per ship) which need to be found and trained, not to mention the shore bound support crew, replacements for battle casualties, etc, etc, etc. And all this with the background of WWIII ramping up and a serious shortage of the necessary materials and components in the face of competing priorities.

Not saying it can't be done, but there are some serious hurdles to overcome along the way.

[natehale1971]

In theory.

Reality would be significantly different given it's not just the mechanicals which need a quick wipe and oil change, but a whole new crew of 1,800 or so (per ship) which need to be found and trained, not to mention the shore bound support crew, replacements for battle casualties, etc, etc, etc. And all this with the background of WWIII ramping up and a serious shortage of the necessary materials and components in the face of competing priorities.

Not saying it can't be done, but there are some serious hurdles to overcome along the way.

yup, very true. we had an idea for a navy national guard type organization that would provide the bodies if another global war was to come about. Heck the idea of shore bound support crew, and other personnel coming from retirees and navy vets sine they (and other branches retirees and vets) are a resource pool that would be extremely valuable and should be used when the time does come... and the government plans on using them, it's why Defense Department Employees & Vets are not bound by the crazy rules and regs that FEMA has for the way they will do things during the martial law during national emergencies such as WWIII would bring about.

[natehale1971]

I also forgot to inculde Coast Guard personnel as a resource that would help with the bodies to crew the vessels brought out of the mothball fleet. There was a report that was written about that... i just can't remember where I read it.

[pmulcahy11b]

I also forgot to inculde Coast Guard personnel as a resource that would help with the bodies to crew the vessels brought out of the mothball fleet. There was a report that was written about that... i just can't remember where I read it.

I get that all the time...random flashes of memory. I think my mind stores away obscure facts, that may be useful later. Meanwhile, I can walk out to the living room and forget why by the time I get out there...