Proposed refit of US NAVY battleships

[MAKO69 186]

Found surfing the web.

 

In the 1980s, as part of President Ronald Reagan's plan to rebuild the U.S. military and create a 600-ship Navy—which would counter the new Soviet Kirov-class battlecruisers all four of the battleships were reactivated and modernized under the 600-ship Navy program. During this reactivation, several concepts entailing removal of the aft 16 inch turret were considered by the Navy, including Martin Marietta's proposal to replace the turret with servicing facilities for 12 AV-8B Harrier STOVL jumpjets, Charles Myers' proposal for replacement of the turret with vertical launch systems for missiles and a flight deck for Marine helicopters. Naval Institute Proceedings proposed a canted flight deck (complete with a steam catapult) and arrestor wires to operate F/A-18 Hornet fighters. Plans for these conversions were dropped in 1984.

Edited January 19, 2012 by MAKO69

[+Typhoid 231]

Having sailed on one of them in 1989, they were magnificant warships when they were modernized and operational. The various ideas for rebuilding different configurations were all dropped as being too costly for relatively little return. The actual conversion included addition of CIWS point defense, the Harpoon launchers, and the Tomahawk Armored Box launchers.

 

In that configuration, these were excellent ships to provide a degree of striking power for support of amphib ops or to fill in for a carrier that wasn't available, or to supplement a carrier.

 

It should be noted that in Desert Storm, two of these ships took on 4 Iraqi divisions that were deployed along the coast to block a threatened USMC amphib assualt and utterly destroyed them at the cost of ammo expended.

 

An outstanding model of the 80's configuration is available here;

 

http://combatace.com/files/file/12012-idiot-team-iowa-class-battleship-80s/

Edited January 19, 2012 by Typhoid

[Icarus999 70]

There were several proposals submitted and most were based around the "assault ship" concept which was geared towards amphibious operations and utilized the type of air wing you would find on an LHA. The most capable submission was the Anderson design which would have operated conventional aircraft. At the same time there was also a plan to reactivate a couple of Essex class carriers... from what I read years ago the fixed wing portion of the air wing would have been made up mainly of light attack aircraft and light fighters, the A-4M skyhawk was favored for the attack role, perhaps a squadron of A-6's for heavy attack and at the time there was serious consideration to taking a few squadrons of F-8J crusaders out of mothballs and modernizing them to serve aboard retrofitted, modernized Essex class carriers. The air wing on the Anderson design was geared around the same light attack concept, probably A-4M's with a small detachment of F-8J's.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Icarus999

[Murphy'S 15]

such conversion would have been a shame

 

these were designed as pure battleships and nothing else

 

it would have been like turning a ferrari into a family car

[Icarus999 70]

such conversion would have been a shame

 

these were designed as pure battleships and nothing else

 

it would have been like turning a ferrari into a family car

 

My thoughts are mixed on this one , the Anderson design would have been one hell of a ship, but I see your point, the 80's Iowas were sexy ships and those tomahawks were like having an air wing in a compact area.

[the test pilot 5]

By the way, wouldn't have been too dangerous landing on the moving ship with the turbulence from all those superstructures right ahead of the deck, especially with fixed wing aircrafts?

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Besides HMS Furious for a while in 1917, there were few such attempts to convert a noble battleship into a hybrid monstrosity rather than to a full aircraft carrier. The Japanese battleships IJN Ise and Hyuga, converted as seaplane carriers with big guns, proved useless in this role.