Yup. But the USN wanted to get rid of the battleships really bad. So they went along with the Springfield Monorail.And they decided to go with some new rocket/shell hybrid of some sort and found out that it was going to cost something like $2B to supply a single ship with a full supply so they axed it. Of course the guns were designed to fire that specific round so now they don't have any long-range guns at the moment.
FWIW, putting a shell on something is a lot cheaper than flying a plane to drop a bomb. And faster, too.
Battleships were amazing. I've seen the Missouri fire her guns. It was incredible.
The US still has battleships in operation?
That's not even close to being true in the real world. If you have a battleship and a carrier on station then yeah, it's cheaper to fire a couple of shells at a single target than it is to launch a plane. But the carrier is mutli-role and does a lot of different things and if you want to project power you need the carrier and you need it every day. So dropping that bomb is just another role for a weapon you have to have anyway. The battleship on the other hand is a dinosaur with no real mission, so you're paying to operate it, staff it and maintain it so you can use it 20 minutes every other year. What's the REAL cost of putting that shell on the target? It's way cheaper in the long run to drop a bomb or bombard with smaller ships from shorter range.
Yep, real spectacle. The power of 9 16" guns going off together is amazing. But if you're an enemy sitting in a bunker 20 miles away would you rather have the Missouri fire a broadside at you that might hit and moght miss by 5 miles or a single unimpressive looking missile flown precisely up your ass?
Congress and Reagan. They were retired after Vietnam, until Reagan started his buildup and they were dug out of mothballs. Retired again after GW1, but Congress kept demanding they be kept in ready-reserve, etc. It was only a few years ago that they got put away for good.
FWIW, putting a shell on something is a lot cheaper than flying a plane to drop a bomb. And faster, too. But you have to be within range, and frankly, the old supplies of ammunition and powder for the old guns was left over from WWII and was probably more dangerous to the ships themselves than to the enemy.
That's not even close to being true in the real world. If you have a battleship and a carrier on station then yeah, it's cheaper to fire a couple of shells at a single target than it is to launch a plane. But the carrier is mutli-role and does a lot of different things and if you want to project power you need the carrier and you need it every day. So dropping that bomb is just another role for a weapon you have to have anyway. The battleship on the other hand is a dinosaur with no real mission, so you're paying to operate it, staff it and maintain it so you can use it 20 minutes every other year. What's the REAL cost of putting that shell on the target? It's way cheaper in the long run to drop a bomb or bombard with smaller ships from shorter range.
good luck hitting anything at that distance, when your flight time is 1 minute.
also, the Yamato was scary AF. The guns were heavier than the Iowa and they had longer range, the armor was ridiculous and the construction was very modern. It's a miracle they didn't turn the tide of the war.
battleships might be useful to a developing nation, shelling random rebels or pirates, but the technology is obsolete.
for a first world nuclear power, the main threat is a nuclear icbm. and that can only be countered by an anti-icbm missile (or another nuclear icbm). a submarine can serve a dual purpose: 1) swat down an icbm 2) provide the counter-strike. aircraft carriers are useful too, but with missile technology the way it is, in a first world conflict they can be easily sunk by missiles or torpedoes.
anyway, i'm just a nasa contractor
good luck hitting anything at that distance, when your flight time is 1 minute.
also, the Yamato was scary AF. The guns were heavier than the Iowa and they had longer range, the armor was ridiculous and the construction was very modern. It's a miracle they didn't turn the tide of the war.