5 Ways To Kill A Battleship

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Michael Peck, National Interest: Everything You Need to Know: 5 Ways to Kill a Battleship

What’s the best way to sink a battleship? Put a hole in it.

Easier said than done. Yet for all their vast hulls, big guns and thick armor plates, these titans of the sea have proven quite mortal since their debut in the early years of the twentieth century. More than a hundred battleships and pre-dreadnoughts have succumbed to various causes, according to one vigorously sourced list.

So here are the top five ways in which battleships die. Note: some cases are ambiguous. For example, the Bismarck was damaged by a torpedo launched by British Swordfish aircraft, which slowed the German battleship until the Royal Navy’s battle fleet caught up and sank the Bismarck with gunfire. So should credit for the kill be shared?

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WNU Editor: One can say the same thing about aircraft carriers .... with a few more hits to kill them.

What Would A Future Battleship Look Like

The USS Iowa fires a full broadside. Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Dr. Robert Farley, FoxTrot Alpha: What A 21st Century Battleship Could Look Like

President Donald Trump seems to like big, “bold” ideas. Throw nukes around? Sure. Rip up the deck of an aircraft carrier to install the “goddamned steam?” Okay, fine. But what if we brought back one of the biggest military statements America has ever had—what if we brought back the battleship?

It’s not that the current American capital ship, the aircraft carrier, is obsolete. But the the Gerald R. Ford-class of aircraft carriers are remarkably, enormously expensive, and potentially vulnerable to many kinds of attack. Many of the Navy’s other surface ships exist essentially in order to support and defend the carrier, making a carrier battle group a huge investment of national treasure.

What if another kind of ship could take on some of that load?

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WNU Editor: For all those who dream of the age of battleships .... this is a must read.

Is Now The Time To Bring Back The Battleship?

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Robert Farley, National Interest: Is It Time to Bring Back the Battleships?

What if America had a true successor to the classic battleship, designed to both deal out and absorb punishment?

Is it time to bring back the battleship?

For decades, naval architects have concentrated on building ships that, by the standards of the World Wars, are remarkably brittle. These ships can deal punishment at much greater ranges than their early 20th century counterparts, but they can’t take a hit. Is it time to reconsider this strategy, and once again build protected ships? This article examines how these trends came about, and what might change in the future.

WNU Editor: I think the obstacle to building these ships in today's environment is cost. To say that each one would cost billions of dollars is an probably an understatement.

A Photo Gallery Of The US Navy's Most Powerful Battleship Ever

Spectacular Photos Of The US Navy's Most Powerful Battleship Ever -- Sploid/Gizmodo

This is the USS Iowa, the first of the largest, most powerful battleship class ever in the United States Navy, equipped with nine 16-inch (406mm) guns that could fire nuclear shells—the only American ship in history with this capability. This photo series is old but still stunning.

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My Comment: The above video is cool to watch. From YouTube .... This World War II era training film shows the function and operation of the large main guns on a US battleship. Really fascinating!

The Top 5 Battleships of All Time

Top 5 Battleships of All Time -- James Holmes, National Interest

Ranking the greatest battleships of all time is a tad easier than ranking naval battles. Both involve comparing apples with oranges. But at least taking the measure of individual men-of-war involves comparing one apple with one orange. That's a compact endeavor relative to sorting through history to discern how seesaw interactions shaped the destinies of peoples and civilizations.

Still, we need some standard for distinguishing between battlewagons. What makes a ship great? It makes sense, first of all, to exclude any ship before the reign of Henry VIII. There was no line-of-battle ship in the modern sense before England's "great sea-king" founded the sail-driven Royal Navy in the 16th century. Galley warfare was quite a different affair from lining up capital ships and pounding away with naval gunnery.

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My Comment: Bottom line .... technology has always changed how wars are fought .... and for battleships, their end happened with the introduction of coordinated aircraft attacks.