It should also be mentioned, that Like the U.S.S. Texas, Bb-35, the U.S.S. New Jersey recently completed a $10 million USD refit/overhaul in June 2024.

Details of what was done are on the battleship New Jersey website.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, October 02, 2025 - 10:11 pm: Edit

It seems that I was not totally correct about the recent refit of the USS New Jersey…

Quote:” Most of the Iowa-class battleships have been recently refitted or overhauled for museum and preservation purposes, not for naval service. The Iowa-class ships were last in active service during the early 1990s and have since been decommissioned due to their cost, large crews, and obsolescence compared to modern naval technology.
Recent overhauls were conducted for the following museum ships:
USS New Jersey (BB-62): Returned to its home in Camden, New Jersey, in June 2024, after undergoing a $10 million, 12-week restoration at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The work included cleaning, repairing, and repainting the hull for the first time in over 30 years.
USS Iowa (BB-61): Is addressing significant deck and corrosion issues. It requires painting, underwater hull preservation, and corrosion control to continue its service as a floating museum in Los Angeles.
The other two Iowa-class battleships are also maintained as museum ships:
USS Wisconsin (BB-64): Is part of the Nauticus Maritime Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. It was reactivated in the 1980s but has been a museum ship since 2006.
USS Missouri (BB-63): Is a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was last overhauled during its 1980s reactivation and was donated for museum use in 1999. ”

AI generated, parts may not be accurate.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, October 02, 2025 - 10:44 pm: Edit

Another issue on the USS Iowa, the explosion in number 2 turret was not repaired.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 12:54 am: Edit

Sorry Jeff, If you find yourself interested try this site, It is part of the NavWeaps site. www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/index_nathan.php It will not link automatically since I took out part of the header, but it should work it a cut and paste. A great deal of the information is very technical. Some I understand some not so much I found the information years ago when I was doing research for a couple of WWII navel miniature's games we were working on.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 05:32 am: Edit

Sorry Eddie, the post above that read in part “I did intend…”
Was a typo, it should have been “I did not intend…” didn’t catch the error until just now.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 09:48 am: Edit

In other news:

Apple Computer, as reported this morning by Fox Business cable channel, is taking the app “ICE Block” (an app designed to Track Immigration Customs Enforcement Federal Agents locations) down from Apple Store.

It has been asserted, that the app (and others like it), endangers the lives of ICE agents while legally performing their duties.

By Burt Quaid (Burt) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 10:55 am: Edit

I’m n my opinion as a civilian, then resources that would be used to make a new battleship would be better utilized to boot strap getting our ship building industry back to building frigates, destroyers, and subs at scale along with transports.

My 2 cents.

Burt

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 11:06 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Apple Computer, as reported this morning by Fox Business cable channel, is taking the app “ICE Block” (an app designed to Track Immigration Customs Enforcement Federal Agents locations) down from Apple Store.

---

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 11:12 am: Edit

Jeff That is what I figured when I saw your response.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 11:22 am: Edit

Burt a good idea. I was just looking at an aerial view of the Shipyard in Wisconsin that is building the new Constellation class Frigates. 4 are now setting at dockside being worked on and the dry dock is empty wait ing for the 5th one to start. Owned by an Italian Company. Interesting place for a shipyard building warships.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 11:49 am: Edit

Long history of ship building on the great lakes.

Quick google search:

“During World War II, Great Lakes shipyards played a vital role in the war effort by producing a wide variety of military vessels, including submarines, cargo ships, tugboats, and landing craft. Major shipbuilding centers were located in Wisconsin (Manitowoc), Michigan (Ecorse), Ohio (Cleveland), and Illinois (Chicago), with companies like Manitowoc Shipbuilding, Great Lakes Engineering Works, and American Shipbuilding Company contributing significantly to production. The construction of these ships was a massive undertaking, mobilizing skilled labor and contributing to the regional and national economy.
Key Locations and Companies
Manitowoc, Wisconsin: The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built 28 submarines for the war effort, alongside landing craft and fuel barges.
Ecorse and Ashtabula, Michigan: Great Lakes Engineering Works (GLEW) built ore freighters and contributed to the war effort, earning significant contracts in the early 1940s.
Cleveland, Ohio: The American Shipbuilding Company had a major shipyard in Cleveland, producing military vessels and other war-critical ships.
Other Areas: Shipyards in Chicago, Illinois, and Bay City and Sturgeon Bay, Michigan, also built various military vessels and were crucial to the mobilization.
Types of Vessels Built
Submarines: Opens in new tabThe Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built a large number of submarines during the war, including the Gato-class.
Cargo Ships: Opens in new tabMany shipyards were involved in building cargo ships for military use and for transporting vital materials on the Great Lakes.
Tugs and Barges: Opens in new tabShipyards also produced tugboats and various types of barges to support military operations.
Landing Craft: Opens in new tabThe Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built tank landing craft (LCTs) for the war effort. “

AI posting, some parts may be in error.

Y.M.M.V.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 03:13 pm: Edit

As mentioned in my previous post, I am skeptical that acquiring adequate stocks of 16" ammunition would save as much money as sometimes claimed. My misgivings could be sorted into three separate (though related) categories.

1. How many projectiles do you need to actually get the job done?
If you have an expensive guided projectile that costs, let's say, 10 times as much as a "dumb" projectile of comparable destructive power, but you need to fire 20 times as many of the dumb projectiles to get a comparable P_k (probability of kill), those dumb projectiles are actually more expensive, per target destroyed. The issue isn't the effect on target if a 16" shell hits. But for certain hardened but small targets, how many shells do you have to fire before you actually get a direct hit? The relative effectiveness could also be affected by ease of jamming or intercept of an incoming missile. Jeff has suggested above that missiles are easier to intercept than shells. That's... partly... true and seems to be an argument in favor of the guns. But as "stealthy" and/or hypersonic missiles become more common (though note that it's hard to make a hypersonic projectile truly low observable), that may become a lot less true. It's a complicated question and the answers aren't obvious. But this consideration should at least call into question a too-easy assertion that 16" projectiles would be a huge money saver, given the up-front costs of reactivating battleships in the first place.

2. "Feature Creep"
One way to address the above problem (assuming it really is a problem) would be to equip the new shells with guidance kits. But this would obviously increase the cost per shell to much higher levels than previously quoted. Also, there would be definite R&D costs associated with developing the guidance kits for 16" projectiles. It would not be a matter of simply "scaling up" existing kits for smaller caliber artillery. Consider the "square/cube" law here. Suppose, hypothetically, that we have an existing precision guided 8" projectile that we wish to use as a basis for a 16" guided projectile. Assuming exactly the same shape for the two shells and only the size being different, the 16" will have 4 times the frontal area but 8 times the mass. It's ballistic coefficient will be completely different from the smaller shell. But in addition, the shell shapes will probably not be exactly the same and the barrel twist rates will be different. So just scaling up the 8" shell's guidance kit is unlikely to provide satisfactory results. Given that we already have a functional guided shell, and given modern computer modelling capabilities, developing a kit for the 16" should be quicker and easier than designing one from scratch. But some actual R&D, including test firing, would still be required. And even once a workable kit is completed, the actual manufacturing costs per shell would increase.

Another upgrade that might be considered would be the use of rocket-assisted projectiles to improve range. The considerations discussed above regarding guided projectiles would also apply here. The Government might choose to ignore possible upgrades and simply produce new ammunition to duplicate performance of the WW2 ammunition. But "human nature" suggests (at least in my opinion) that "feature creep" is likely, making the new ammo both more capable and more expensive.

3. Economies of Scale
The case of the "Zumwalt" class destroyers and their "Advanced Gun System" is instructive here. According to what I have read, this isn't a case of the AGS not working. The system worked very well but the special ammunition (Long Range Land Attack Projectile - LRLAP) was too expensive. But why was it so expensive? The R&D ammo was essentially assembled individually, a very expensive process. But only a relatively small number of rounds were needed for test firings. The intent had been to then set up a production line to produce the actual operational ammunition more cheaply. But problems with the Zumwalt destroyers themselves, independent of the gun system, meant that the number of destroyers planned was reduced several times, from an original planned 32 hulls, down to 3. This meant that the costs for establishing the production line in the first place would be spread over a much smaller number of shells and the cost per shell would be unacceptably high.

Suppose it costs $100,000,000 to set up a production line and once the line is set up you can produce individual projectiles for $25,000 apiece. If you only produce 1000 projectiles you are spending $25,000,000 in actual production costs, plus the $100,000,000 to set up the line. A total expenditure of $125,000,000 for 1000 shells; or $125,000 per shell. But suppose instead that you produce 10,000 shells. Now your total expenditure is $350,000,000 for 10,000 shells; $35,000 per shell. The total cost is higher, but if you are likely to actually need that many shells, the much lower cost per shell makes it worth it. But with only three Zumwalts being built, the total ammunition requirements were too high to justify individual assembly of LRLAP but too low to justify the cost of setting up a line for mass production.

Note: The above is my understanding of what happened with the AGS and LRLAP (though the numbers were just made up). But I'm less familiar with the Navy than the Air Force and if someone else has a different understanding, Id like to hear your interpretation.

I think the LRLAP issue is similar enough to the case of new-production 16" ammunition that it should at least inspire caution about cost estimates for 16" ammo production. Note that while there were only 4 Iowa-class, the 16"/45 used by the North Carolina and South Dakota classes could use the same "super heavy" shells as the 16"/50 on the Iowas. So in WW2 these shells were being produced for 10 battleships rather than only 4.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 03:26 pm: Edit

Jeff, It is just interesting that the number of Naval shipyards that have been closed over the years. Also the number of civilian, a lot of may be the result of steel being produced else were in the world

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 03:31 pm: Edit

My (old) copy of the Naval Review has an article in it about an upscaled Mk. 45 that never went into production.

Could it be brought out of mothballs, and if so, could it be used aboard new construction Burkes to give the U.S. Navy some heavier shore bombardment capability?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

I appreciate the work you put into your last post.

One small quibble.

You refer to 10 battleships, 2*North. Carolina, 4*South Dakota class, and 4*Iowa Class ships.

Production of 16 inch shells were not ever intended for only 10 ships.

There were two more Iowa Class ships laid down and construction begun on the Planned USS Kentucky BB-65, and the USS Illinois BB-66.

There were also 5 units planned for the Montana class.

So your analysis for cost purposes base is at least 17 ships, not just 10.

And an argument could be made to include the three Colorado class ships, that were also armed with 16 inch guns.

I realize that you could make a case for not including the Colorado,Maryland and West Virginia, but at the end of World War Two, there were planners and senior navy officers suggesting that all of the older ships mentioned built prior to the Iowas should be re-engined with new higher pressure boilers to increase their service speed.

Ultimately, it was the high cost that defeated the efforts, but if the war in Korea had led to a larger conflict, perhaps with Russia, things might well have changed.

If the Colorado class had been retained, it might have been feasible to change the older style 16 inch guns to match those installed in the Iowa class, particularly if you consider the 60 or 78 16 inch gun barrels produced for the two additional Iowa class ships (9 barrels each, 9*2=18.) and the 60 guns produced for the 5 additional Montana ships (12 guns in four triple turrets, 12*5=60).

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 04:45 pm: Edit

Hypothetically, if one took out the two forward turrets on one of the remaining Iowa class BB, how many VLS cells could fit into each? Assume the turret space is completely redesigned and reengineered for VLS use.

100 per turret? More?

--Mike

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Colorados 16"45 could only fire the 2260 lb AP shell, they could fire the 1900 lb HC shell though like the others.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Mike that was one of the plans in the 1990s, remove the stern turret, it was the same launch cell that is in the bow of the Burkes, so is that 96 missiles

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 07:46 pm: Edit

Eddie,

The picture in google maps of the yard in Wisconsin is of four LCS class ships. The superstructure of the LCS is a wedge and the Constellation is flat.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 08:13 pm: Edit

Thanks Ryan

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 08:26 pm: Edit

I would think you could put a VLS cell on several destroyers for the cost of operating a battleship. They could be in more than one place at a time.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, October 03, 2025 - 11:02 pm: Edit

Yeah, the value of a BB is in the armor, if you don't have faith that the armor will let them opperate places that other ships can't, then something newer and smaller with something like the AGS/LRLAP rounds gives better range, accuracy, ability to penetrate defenses, and likelihood of a kill against most targets.

We can in fact build a better gun system than a system designed over a hundred years ago (the 16"/50 Mark 2 gun was designed for ships under construction when the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 caused their cancelation).

The question is, is a really good gun a useful thing to have. I tend to think yes, and think something designed to use something like the AGS/LRLAP would be a good thing to have (or just use the already designed gun and ammo). But the navy isn't building it, and it wouldn't be cheap to build.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, October 04, 2025 - 07:32 am: Edit

Japan, seems to make progress with ship mounted railguns. A turreted railgun is trialled on the JS Asuka.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, October 04, 2025 - 09:07 am: Edit

The problem with rail guns isn’t being able to accelerate a munition to high speed.

Its the air resistance inside earths atmosphere. Friction from the gaseous atmosphere heats the projectile. Distance and time traveled result in a very high temperature increase as the projectile proceeds on the ballistic trajectory.

The U.S. navy experienced a lot of temperature related failures during multiple test programs. (Note: not talking about individual trials, programs testing different rail guns and different types of projectiles with separate trials per program overmany years.)

Perhaps Japan solved the problems, or perhaps not. Have to await real live experience with the Japanese rail gun to determine what value (if any…) it might have in combat.

The U.S. tests were… disappointing.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, October 04, 2025 - 09:15 am: Edit

EMALs (electromagnetic acceleration launchers) are not a simple project.

U.S Navy discovered challenges in their EMALs on the Ford Class Carriers.

China built a EMALS on the prototype carrier, then cancelled the next carrier that was already laid down. The issue seemed to be every aircraft launched using EMALs was damaged or destroyed due to the extremely high acceleration, and the subsequent failure to correct the problem.

The Chinese PLAN sent the carrier and two escorts on a cruise to the South China Sea recently. Instead of demonstrating all of the new technology, the PR campaign amounted to “See! It floats!”