Poll: Super carrier vs. Battleship

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Nimitz carries the day. Provided the aircrew are adequately trained, it is very hard to stop an aerial attack without cover of your own. Battleships cannot launch aircraft (well, besides maybe one or two floatplanes) and the war in the Pacific back in the 40's demonstrated that the battleship is obsolete in terms of an instrument of influencing sea power.

Were going with the updated version of the IOWA class. Meaning the ones with cruise missles and 30 mm AA cannons. If the planes are already launched they would have to do some extreme high level bombing runs and even then the 30mm and the AA rockets will give them a run for their money.

Edit: the Iowa is up to date with the last war she served in

Didn't see that.

Well then, seeing as the Battleship somehow miraculously got that close without being spotted by a carrier's hypothetical screen, it would seem the Nimitz is doomed. This scenario seems extremely unlikely though as no carrier admiral during a time of war would ignore the importance of reconnaissance.

[sub]I was going by the standard of World War II Iowa.[/sub]

 

[gigastrike]

At that range the battleship would win probably before the carrier could get fighters up. Even then an Iowa class battleship has reasonable anti-air capabilities. At (much) longer ranges, the carrier would have a significant initial advantage.

 

[JWAN]

Whoops, I was thinking in the wrong units of measurement.

As Accursed says, Nimitz is better in every aspect. It has MISSILES designed for destroying ships, and they have much further range and accuracy, plus damage, than a cannon shell. That's kinda why out navy barely uses cannons anymore.

And since it's an Iowa class Battleship, I think we can safely say it does not have modern weapons systems.

The range is set at 1 mile so the rage makes no difference. The modern IOWA also has cruise missiles and used them in the gulf war
The IOWA class battleship has cruise missiles and a full array of AA guns.
The 16 inch gun will sink any ship, modern or antiquated within a mile with one shell. No contest.
each shell weighs 1.25-tons meaning they dont need to launch aircraft they just need to punch the button. Within a mile the carrier is toast. If it has launched aircraft they better be above the max effective range of 30mm radar guided cannons and AA rockets

 

[CGAdam]

The whole reason an aircraft carrier is part of a Strike GROUP is that they can't do shit in their own defense. Yes, they have Sea Sparrow missiles, yes, they have Phalanx CIWS systems, but neither one is effective at actually protecting the carrier against a battleship bombardment. CIWS is designed to make missiles explode early, not deflect bullets. At a mile range, the Iowa would win easily.

Now, at 100-200 miles, the carrier would have enough time to launch its fighters. Ideally, though, the carrier's Destroyer escorts would take out the battleship with their SM-2/3 missiles long before the carrier even had to get involved.

 

[Jzcaesar]

Can the sea sparrow and/or RAM even launch in time to shoot down the shells? Looking at a youtube video launch, it takes a about second to even launch one of the darn things. I'm pretty sure in real life situations the missiles are designed to shoot down projectiles launching from many miles away, and would therefore have enough time to track and engage them. From 1 mile (~1600 meters) away, the shell traveling at roughly 750 m/s would have a flight time of something between 2.2-2.7 secs. It doesn't even matter if the battleship has to aim first, because you can't fire the missiles to intercept the shells until the battleship actually fires. Based on that, I would say the point defense of the carrier is useless in this situation.

Also note that the carrier itself carries no anti-ship armament. I suppose you could launch the sea sparrow at the battleship (assuming the missiles, which are designed to destroy fighters, could even damage the battleships), but the shells would still arrive first, because the missiles have a much longer acceleration time.

Another point we can address is whether or not the CIWCS system would be sufficient to stop the shells. Frankly, I have no idea whether or not a stream of bullets can prematurely detonate a 1200kg shell, so I can't say. I would bet, however, that it can't, since it's really only designed to shoot down relatively flimsy missiles.

Also there's the question of how accurate the battleship could be. Again, here I can only guess. The guns are aimed by radar, and have computers to compensate for the carrier's speed and range. Since the travel time of the shells is about 2.5 sec, there really isn't enough time for the carrier to alter course in order to dodge fired shells, so I feel like that isn't an issue. I would say, that since the guns have a max range of 24 miles, a 1 mile target should be relatively trivial. Also keep in mind the battleship can fire twice a minute, so worst case scenario is that the battleship puts out 2 salvos before the carrier's aircraft can fire anything at it.

Humorously enough, the battleship does actually have antiship missiles in it's armament, so I guess that's also a factor. With the point defense of the carrier to take into consideration, I can't say what the result would be.

Finally, if the battleship did manage to hit the carrier with even one shell, I would say the battle is over at that point. Carriers aren't armored to survive 16 inch shell fire, because it's not supposed to stand up to that kind of firepower in the first place.

Given all that, I believe the battleships *should* be able to sink the carrier, although whether or not the carrier can launch at least one plane to try and sink the battleship in return is beyond what I can say.

 

[WanderingFool]

Spoiler: Hmmm, I think...This

Niether will see it coming since they are focused on eachother.

 

[Olinser]

The question isn't very good - are there aircraft already in the air or not? Either way, the battleship is dead, no contest. The best it could hope for would be a draw - it sinks the carrier before being blown away by the aircraft already in the air.

Although to be blunt, I honestly can't stand the 'super carrier' idea. It only works because since WWII there has not been a true war between two naval powers. When that happens the 'super carrier' is going to be so much scrap for one simple reason: With weapons technology what it is today, all it takes is ONE clean shot and bam, you lost an entire air wing, 5000+ crewmen, and only God himself knows how many $$$ on the bottom of the ocean.

In all honesty if we went to war with the Chinese, the Chinese could throw 15 submarines at a carrier, and call it a win even if they lost the whole group taking it down.

 

[direkiller]

Uhhhh...at 1 mile? Oh jeez, hmm...

Well, the battleship will get the first volley, and I think that's going to be the deciding factor. If it hits a reactor or the elevator, it's gg. I have no idea the thickness of carrier armor around vital parts though, so I can't hazard a guess as toward how hard that will be. Alternatively, the battleship can try to damage the launch deck. That'll take some spot-on shooting though.

Assuming the first volley doesn't blow up anything important, the only chance the battleship has left is to close the distance between the ships and pummel away at something that will cause the carrier to blow up, i.e. reactors, ammunition, armed planes. The fastest recorded speed for an Iowa class battleship is around 35 knots; Nimitz carrier speed is estimated to be 30+ knots.

Honestly though, if the first volley fails, the carrier can just kite the battleship and win. The longer you leave the carrier functioning, the more aircraft it can put out.

the 16in guns on the Iowa can shoot about 23miles
the 5in guns(Iowa had 20 of them) can shoot 15rounds per min and are able to shoot 5 miles
hell even the the 40mm AA guns on the Iowa can shoot about a mile and a half(and she has 80 of them)

the carrier is going down it is simply too close to the BB carriers engage at 100s of miles not within 1

 

[direkiller]

Since a Nimitz class carrier has a full complement of aircraft, including bombers and missile-armed fighters, I'd say the Nimitz. What the hell are some 16 cm shell going to do against modern armor?

16in
and that not the length of the shell that's the diameter of the gun bore it equals out to about 16000 lb broadside

 

[Thaluikhain]

NIMITZ Carrier wins no contest. As someone said before Battleships are fast becoming obsolete, anyone who thinks different should do more research on modern warfare.

Though many analyst also believe that the carrier will soon become obsolete too so the face of war is still constantly changing.

It's not actually true that battleships are becoming obsolete, they have been for many years, which is why nobody uses them as anything more than museum pieces. The US, IMHO, kept them around alot longer than they were really useful, as offshore artillery pieces more than anything else, probably due to the political problems with getting rid of something so big and impressive looking.

Carriers...I don't see them disappearing any time soon, they are much more versatile. Super carriers, perhaps, in favour of smaller ones, but not altogether.

I always want to slap people that say ridiculous things like China is going to take over the U.S. soon. Bullshit. They have a huge army that could indeed have the manpower to invade and take ground - but they have no way of getting that army to our soil in great enough numbers to matter.

Yes, it's very annoying when people say that. Though, I'd say that not having aircraft carriers isn't that big a concern in that China, IIRC, doesn't have any deep water ships to speak of at all.

Oh, yeah, and the US has a SSBN fleet.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Air control would win it if they weren't starting so close together already at stations. The carrier seems unlikely to even get aircraft off the deck.

The whole point of aircraft carriers is to get aircraft within fuel range - they don't want to go toe-to-toe with virtually anything much less a battleship.

So basically, in this completely contrived situation, yes, the battleship would win. In any remotely realistic engagement, no, not a goddamn chance.

I'd say the Iowa, the carrier would take too long to get aircraft up, and those are it's primary offensive systems, the Iowa would open up with the 16 inch guns, and the carrier would be practically useless, if the flight deck is targeted, no craft can get up, and the carrier's systems are made to defend against missiles and aircraft, not cannon fire

This guy gets it.

 

[TheTim]

Carriers were proven far superior to Battleships the moment the British Swordfish torpedo bombers took down the Bismarck flagship

 

[theamazingbean]

Surface ships are dead. Developments of in anti-ship missile technology have done to the aircraft carrier what airpower did to the battleship back in the 30s. Millenium Challenge 2002 showed you can't even send carrier battle groups against regional powers like Iran without them getting sunk in 48 hours by swarms of Cessnas and fishing boats loaded with anti-ship missiles. In the event of a shooting war with China, or even North Korea, inter-continental ballistic missiles will turn our carriers into wreckage inside the first week.

 

[ADeskofRichMahogany]

There's a reason that battleships no longer have a place in modern navies, and that reason is aircraft. If you'll take a look at history, especially World War II, most of the Nazi battleships were sunk or crippled by aircraft, not by battles with other naval vessels.

Aircraft made battleships obsolete because air power made naval power obsolete. That's the idea behind carriers: your fleet never actually has to see the enemy to attack them. Kinda makes cannons useless. Also, I'm pretty sure it was the success of aircraft in battles like Coral Sea and Midway that prompted navies to emphasize aircraft carriers, not against the Nazis.

Close the distance? Why? 1 mile is already bizarrely close for an engagement.

I mean literally get right next to the carrier. I mean, you can't let the carrier put too much distance between itself and the battleship (if you're rooting for the battleship that is), it makes it that much harder to hit the carrier. Also being right next to the carrier might limit the attacking ability of aircraft. And who knows, maybe you can ram the carrier? Super kamikaze?

 

[Platypus540]

Normally, I'd say Nimitz 100%. But at that range, it would (probably) take less time for the Iowa to aim and fire its guns than for the Nimitz to scramble its aircraft. If the Iowa's first 1 or 2 salvos destroyed the flight deck, than the Nimitz would be defenseless. However, if the flight deck remained intact, then the Iowa would be completely screwed-- once in the air, the jets can immediately fire at only 1 mile. AA guns would be useless against something so close and fast.

TL;DR-- the Iowa would only win if it hit the flight deck on the first salvo.

 

[evilneko]

Given the knife-fight range involved, the battleship has a small chance. In any other scenario, it would have none at all.

Carriers always have planes in the air. The response would be instantaneous.

The battleship however wouldn't take long to respond either, and probably deliver a full broadside...but only one.

Mutual destruction is the best outcome the Iowa could hope for, and that's assuming their first volley mortally wounded the carrier.

 

[ADeskofRichMahogany]

the 16in guns on the Iowa can shoot about 23miles
the 5in guns(Iowa had 20 of them) can shoot 15rounds per min and are able to shoot 5 miles
hell even the the 40mm AA guns on the Iowa can shoot about a mile and a half(and she has 80 of them)

the carrier is going down it is simply too close to the BB carriers engage at 100s of miles not within 1

Yeah, that sounds pretty fair. I don't think the carrier can put 5 miles between itself and the 5in guns in time. The only unknown factors here are how much damage the aircraft can do in what span of time, and what kind of armor we're talking about on the carrier.

(for those of you who looked up the Nimitz class on Wikipedia, it lists 2.5in Kevlar on vital space; it doesn't mention anything about how thick the actual metal plating is. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the plating was also around 10in)

Also, we're talking about the Cold War redesign of the Iowa. The AA guns were taken off the Iowa when the Tomahawk missles were installed.

 

[Canid117]

Sorry but navies dont fight within visible distance anymore. Why would they only be a mile apart?

 

[Nightmonger]

It depends is Casey ryback on board the battleship? Cause no one beats him in the kitchen ...

 

[Floppertje]

even if the Iowa took out the planes in one salvo (and I don't think they could, that flight deck is a kilometer long), Nimitz still has anti-ship missiles. Nimitz would win.