by Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
Delivering high-volumes of supportive fires, two Iowa-class battleships performed their final mission during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The famous, heavily armed warships were large WWII-era warships resurrected in the 1980s and brought back to service as part of President Reagan’s effort to build a 600-ship Navy.
Prior to this, the Iowa-class battleships are famous for decades of successful service in support of the US Navy, as they also performed with success during the Korean War and WWII. During the WWII war in the Pacific, large Iowa-class battleships functioned as “escorts” for the Essex-class carriers.
Some have questioned whether Iowa-class ships should make a comeback, given their sheer firepower and ability to “blanket” enemy areas with attacks.
Large battleships may seem like slow, large attractive targets for enemy aircraft and coastal land fired missiles, yet there do appear to be ways the kind of firepower brought by the Iowa-class could add tremendous value in maritime warfare.
In one respect, the ability to support amphibious or coastal Naval operations with heavy ship-to-shore fire is still relevant. In enemy areas with shorter-range, less-precise munitions, a large battleship could support an amphibious landing with supportive fires and be equipped with new generations of sensors and long range weapons.
Since US Navy battleships were configured to launch aircraft and use radar, a modern battleship could launch helicopters and vertical-take-off-and-landing aircraft such as an F-35B. In less contested areas, a battleship of this kind could offer warfare reinforcement and function as a floating home or seabase for aircraft and large weapons systems.
Although they can be equipped with radar, a ship of that size would be seen quite easily by drones, satellites, and surveillance planes. Potential adversaries now operate with new generations of longer-range, precision weaponry positioned to be successful against a large battleship.
“Mass Fires”
Perhaps large battleships could bring lethal fires to launch aircraft with massively upgraded modern sensors and targeting systems? For example, the US Navy has also increased the number of over-the-horizon deck-fired missiles, such as the Naval Strike Missile. In an excellent power engagement, an ability to “mass” precision, long-range fires to “scale” an attack would likely be extremely significant.
The most relevant or significant element of this possibility is that heavily armed large battleships could be massive “attack” platforms protected by cruisers and destroyers in a Carrier Strike Group. Much like carriers are protected with ship-based radar and interceptor missiles launched from cruisers and destroyers, perhaps battleships could bring unparalleled firepower yet be protected as part of a group of ships.
Not only is there a tactical reason why large volume ship-to-shore fires would remain extremely important in maritime combat, particularly against a less advanced adversary, but there are likely emerging layered ship defenses and non-kinetic weapons that could address survivability concerns with the ships.
EW, lasers, and Vertical Launch Tube-fired interceptor missiles, supported by long-range, high-fidelity radar systems, could all prove quite effective with efforts to protect the ship. In any large-scale war, scale and volume will have significant consequences.
Chinese Coastline
Should the US Navy need to bombard the Chinese coastline to protect Taiwan or Japan, the fleet would need to attack miles of shoreline and simply need more than a smaller number of precision weapons to support an amphibious landing.
Sensors and targeting technology could help identify targets for Iowa-class guns, many of which could be upgraded to fire precision munitions as well as “mass” or “area fire.” The sheer size of the Chinese Navy and weaponry along its coastline would need to be attacked with large amounts of firepower.
Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. Navy wouldn’t be crazy to consider a few more deployments for the Iowa-Class battleships under the right conditions.
This essay first appeared in 1945
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University