Ideal Warship

[Jason01]

What would be the most versatile ship?
It should have/be:
-Relatively good attacking power against other ships
-Fast (30knts)
-Reasonably protected
-Can be a cruiser, destroyer, battleship, battlecruiser

Don't name a ship, design your own!
Any ideas?

[tommy303]

Why have you excluded carriers from the list?

[Rick Rather]

Don't name a ship, design your own!
Any ideas?

A fun challenge. I second the question about "why no carriers?" and would add, "why no submarines?" (although I sort of answer this one below).

Are we concentrating on a specific era? Dreadnought? WWII? Cold War? Modern?

In the Cold War, I was rather fond of the idea of refitting the Iowa-class BBs by removing the rear turret and installing port & starboard ski-jumps for AV-8B Harriers and a cosmic butt-load of VLS Tomahawk cells. I'd replace the 5"/38s with Mk45 5"/54s and double the Phalanxes to 8. If I was really going whole-hog, I'd have put SPY-1 Aegis radars on it and a bunch of SAMs in the VLS. It would have nothing to fear - except submarines.

On fora such as NHF, submarines are often overlooked and under-appreciated. That said, although a modern sub can - with relative ease! - sink any surface ship out there, they are notoriously bad at repelling air attacks, so I personally would leave them off of my list of "ideal" ships.

Oh, alright - an Ohio-class SSBN can (if used pre-emptively) prevent an airstrike from being launched, or ordered, or considered...

In the Modern era, the Arleigh Burke-class DDGs are really great all-around surface combattants. The Flight I & II models have the crucial flaw of not having embarked helicopters. The Flight IIA Burkes corrected this oversight by installing two hangers, but removed the SQR-19 Tactical Towed Array Sonar System. In other words, they gained the ability to engage submarines at long-range, but lost their ability to detect them at long range! :facepalm:

If I was king, I'd take a Flight IIA Burke and stretch it to make a cruiser. Keep the TACTASS and increase the number of VLS cells (no such thing as too many of those). Lastly I would either reinstate the Tomahawk Antiship Missile for the VLS, or replace/augment the Harpoon SSMs with surface-launched SLAM-ERs (or both - what the hell...). This would be my ideal of a surface warship with anti-surface, land-strike, AAW and ASW.

[steffen19k]

My Ideal warship:

625-700 ft long
90-100 ft wide
25-30 ft draft
90-100 ft tallest point on ship

nuclear turbo-electric propulsion

Best available speed: 35 Knots
Maximum Range: Nuclear limitations

main armament: 12 12 inch 70 caliber guns in 4 turrets of 3 independently elevated guns
secondary armament: 16 5 inch 70 caliber dual purpose guns in twin mount turrets (4 turrets per side)
tertiary armament: 12 40mm quad mount Bofors
Point Defense: 6 CIWS turrets and 4 SeaRAM turrets
Torpedo System: 4 Mk 32 Survace Vessel Torpedo Tubes (3 tube)

Other armament:
In port/ anti boarding defense 6 GECAL .50 six-barrel gatling guns on pedestal mounts

Main armament ammo: sabot 8 inch Rocket assisted projectile for shore bombardment. 12 inch AP round for naval targets

Secondary armament ammo: 5 inch Rocket Assisted Projectile, Common type

Teritary armament ammo: 40mm Bofors multi purpose round


Fire Control:
Mainbattery: WW2 Analog Primary Digital Backup
Secondary Battery: Digital Primary, Analog backup
Tertiary: Digital.
CIWS: Self explanatory

Rangefinder:
LaDaR for LOS
RaDaR for NLOS
3 Optical Rangefinder for Triangulation rangefinding.
Sonar for sound ranging in worst imaginable conditions
All weapons and firecontrol stations would be 2 axis stabilized, and synchronized to within .5 Minute of Angle error tolerance

Armor: Main Belt capable of protecting ship against 16 inch gun
Turrets: Roof and Turret Face capable of protecting against 12 inch gun.

Other: TBD

[Rick Rather]

My Ideal warship: ...

Not bad. The things that leap-out at me are:

1.) No area air defense.
B.) No long-range anti-ship or strike capability
III.) No over-the-horizon or long-range targetting.

Of course, all three of these may be taken care of by escort ships. This is not a bad thing, however for me, "ideal" means "capable of independent ops." This isn't always possible, obviously. My "idealized Iowa" listed above has zilch for ASW. Oooh, that reminds me:

Sonar for sound ranging in worst imaginable conditions

You're an ex-tanker. I'm an ex-sonar tech. Believe me when I say, "Dream on!"
Ships that are meant to be good ASW platforms must be designed for it, even if it isn't their primary mission. Ticonderoga-class cruisers, for example, are good at it because their hull, sensors & propulsion were based on the Spruance-class destroyers. On the other hand, Kirov-class battlecruisers have the same sensor suite as the capable Udaloy-class ASW destroyers, but NATO submariners laugh at Kirov and call her a "Navy Cross that hasn't happened yet." In a nutshell, big, fast hulls - especially nuclear-powered ones - have too much flow noise and machinery noise to host effective sonar. It's an imperfect analogy, but it's kind of like mounting a 120mm Rheinmetal gun on the back of a flatbed truck. A tank is built to be a good gun platform. A flatbed is not.
As Kirov demonstrates, this may be obvious to guys who make a living in sonar, but not to ship-designers. The US made the same mistake by spending millions to put the best available sonars on all of its nuclear cruisers in the 60s & 70s and even put one on USS America (CV-66). Sonar techs just face-palm when these are mentioned.

Your ship would be a real animal close to shore, where small-boats and coastal missile batteries live. Your layered point-defense with the armor to back it up would be exellent insurance against surprises. It would be awesome in the Persian Gulf or Aegean Sea, or off of Korea. Again, it would need helicopters and/or UAVs for target identification and BDA (like the re-activated Iowas had). Out in the open ocean, with little/no over-the-horizon capability, its utility would be limited.

[steffen19k]

You're an ex-tanker. I'm an ex-sonar tech. Believe me when I say, "Dream on!"

Fair enough.

Although when I said sonar for sound ranging, I was thinking active sound ranging against surface targets. Definitely no inherent ASW that couldn't be provided better by an LA or Seawolf...sorry for not making that more clear. Not that anything I say really changes anything.

In the end, I'm glad you found something to like about my ship concept. And I have always believed the "ideal" is a bunch of masters of their trade, operating in a mutually supportive action.

[Red Admiral]

Admiral Richmond RN had a go at this between the wars. He suggested that a warship had to armed and armoured enough to defeat an armed merchantman, plus adequate speed, sea-keeping and range. He came up with 6" guns and 7000 tons. Someone must have been listening, as this fits the Leander class light cruisers quite well.

[richtea]

My Ideal warship:

625-700 ft long
90-100 ft wide
25-30 ft draft
90-100 ft tallest point on ship

nuclear turbo-electric propulsion

Best available speed: 35 Knots
Maximum Range: Nuclear limitations

main armament: 12 12 inch 70 caliber guns in 4 turrets of 3 independently elevated guns
secondary armament: 16 5 inch 70 caliber dual purpose guns in twin mount turrets (4 turrets per side)
tertiary armament: 12 40mm quad mount Bofors
Point Defense: 6 CIWS turrets and 4 SeaRAM turrets
Torpedo System: 4 Mk 32 Survace Vessel Torpedo Tubes (3 tube)

Other armament:
In port/ anti boarding defense 6 GECAL .50 six-barrel gatling guns on pedestal mounts

Main armament ammo: sabot 8 inch Rocket assisted projectile for shore bombardment. 12 inch AP round for naval targets

Secondary armament ammo: 5 inch Rocket Assisted Projectile, Common type

Teritary armament ammo: 40mm Bofors multi purpose round


Fire Control:
Mainbattery: WW2 Analog Primary Digital Backup
Secondary Battery: Digital Primary, Analog backup
Tertiary: Digital.
CIWS: Self explanatory

Rangefinder:
LaDaR for LOS
RaDaR for NLOS
3 Optical Rangefinder for Triangulation rangefinding.
Sonar for sound ranging in worst imaginable conditions
All weapons and firecontrol stations would be 2 axis stabilized, and synchronized to within .5 Minute of Angle error tolerance

Armor: Main Belt capable of protecting ship against 16 inch gun
Turrets: Roof and Turret Face capable of protecting against 12 inch gun.

Other: TBD

Nice idea, but why 12 inch AP for naval targets when a pizza box has more armoured protection than a modern surface warship.
Wouldn't you be better off with HE ordnance.

During WWII 14,15 and 16 inch AP shells used to bore holes straight through ships without exploding if they did not encounter armour.

Look at the Prince of Wales hit on Bismarck after Hood had been sunk, the shell hit forwards of the armour belt and just carried on it's merry way without exploding.
Regards
Richtea

[paul.mercer]

"During WWII 14,15 and 16 inch AP shells used to bore holes straight through ships without exploding if they did not encounter armour".
Gentlemen,
In that case, I wonder how many shells from Warspite, Malaya (or was it Barham) and Valiant went straight through the Italian cruisers at Matapan?