If The Cold War Got Hot: Battleship Edition 

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There is a great section of "The Hunt For Red October" where the commander of the New Jersey battle group was deliberating whether he should be at gun (20 miles) or missile (50 miles) range from the Kirov, as his mission would be to kill it with his first shot if fighting broke out.

Red Storm Rising... man, I haven't read that in a long while. Might have to break it back out. That and 'Cardinal of the Kremlin". Clancy was an excellent writer.

the iowa class ships defense against air craft, and other ships were her escorts. just like a CV, they didnt go anywhere alone. an iowa's main purpose during the cold war was the tomohawks they carried.

Hate to say it, the BBs were completely obsolete the moment missiles became the primary weapon. They were on their way out in WW2 when the CVs became the dominant vessel. Missiles are the primary armament of ships and jets now. Big guns, while beautiful and my favourite, are meaningless now. The overlap when weak countries didn’t have missiles and the BBs were still useful really wasn’t that long. EVERYONE has missiles with a longer range than the big guns now. An absolutely majestic part of history, but utterly useless today. I’ll never stop loving the battleship of any country, but they’re now just an historical relic. Good thing I love historical relics.

If you want to game this scenario out, grab an old copy of Harpoon. It featured several scenarios of BB battle groups in the North Sea and guarding the GIUK Gap.

The Commander - In - Chief of the Soviet Navy during the 1980's was Admiral Sergei Gorshkov who famously stated that he felt the Iowa class Battleships were our most formidable ships and the ones he was most fearful of. He stated that the Soviet Fleet would expend all their weapons against the Iowa's and then they would steam up over the horizon and proceed to sink the balance of their Fleet. We will never know whether Gorshkov was right as the Cold War never went hot.

"Red Storm Rising" was the first Tom Clancey novel I read! I think part of having the Iowa's deployed in the 1980's was also for psychological value. Their perceived capabilities are at least as important as their actual capabilities.

I have to say that this time I disagree. It probably would have been the other way around. As much as we love the Iowas, they were more expendable than a carrier in the 80s. I think they would have been sent where it was hot and also where the air cover would have been provided by land based fighters, so in the Med or in the North Sea because those areas were surrounded by NATO countries.

Any ship can get involved in surface combat, whether they would belong there or not. The Battle off Samar illustrates that. The key would be to figure out how to use them in the surface role most effectively. If an Iowa could pretend to be a carrier battlegroup, then they could be a potent decoy. Or if the Iowa could catch the enemy fleet at night after a high speed run.

There's a section in Clancy's Red Storm Rising where Iowa and New Jersey get into a gunnery duel with a Soviet 152mm artillery battery on Iceland. Great read.

The Iowa Classes biggest contribution would be to General Dynamics profit margins....

At the time, there were a couple of blood-n-guts SWO talking about how the armor of an Iowa would allow rather a lot of "duking it out" at sea. Most anti-ship missiles of the day were not designed to cope with 3-5" armored deck plate, let alone the hull's armored belt. There's a logic there, if one reminiscent of how JPJ basically rammed /Bonnhomme Richard/ versus /HMS Serapis/.

Yamato is back on Crunchyroll

Think the Fulda Gap is a little too far inland even for the 16" guns...

At one time there seemed to be a lot of discussion of EMP's taking out electrical systems; I used to imagine analog weaponry like the Iowa's being dusted off and brought out as a result. The "Battleship" movie kind of relegated this idea to the goofball bin some years back, but I would imagine this would not have been completely ignored in the '80's and '90's.

If the Cold War got hot, at least it would have been over quickly 😅

aw yeah getting that War Thunder sponsorship!

There's very little chance, in my opinion, that, by the 80s we would have forward-deployed the Iowas. If for no other reason than: prior to the collapse of the USSR and subsequent leaks of highly classified Soviet capabilities, we dramatically over-estimated the Soviets' aerial and, particularly, satellite reconnaissance abilities. We were always able to track Soviet satellites - so we knew what orbits they were in and therefore precisely when they would overfly various parts of the planet - but we thought they might have significantly greater imagery (infrared and radio-spectrum mapping) and photographic (visible-light mapping) capabilities than what they ultimately were discovered to have had. The Navy had genuine fears (rightfully so) that the Soviets had the intelligence capabilities of keeping track of precisely where ALL of our surface fleet was at any particular moment in time. We have since determined that they had a pretty good idea in what general region most of our major warships were deployed at any given time - but this was mostly the result of aerial recon and espionage as opposed to an actual ability to track our ships from orbit.

The last images of the Yamato flash in my mind thinking of what battleships face today…

Ryan if you ever get the chance to play the computer game Red Storm Rising based on and with input from Tom Clancy you will find that the majority of the battle between NATO and Warsaw pact naval forces were back and forth between submarines and the majority of surface combatants play a minor role.

I really enjoyed the video game Red Starm Rising (1988), While set on a submarine, the game hit all the beats of the novel.

At the very least the Iowa class battle groups would have constituted a "fleet in being." The Warsaw Pact would have had to deploy forces that could otherwise have been attacking convoys just to guard against them. If the Iowas were able to fight their way to within range of a naval base or other shore facilities they could have had a devastating effect. Imagine an Iowa sailing along the coastline shooting up terminals, ships, energy production facilities, and the like. And if the US were to combine two or more surface action groups and their escorts, the Soviets would have had a pretty tough time countering it. Another role the Iowas might have filled would be convoy escort. While they can't do much against subs and aircraft, they CAN support the smaller ships with provisioning, repairs, medical assistance, fueling, etc.

Red storm rising is a free audiobook on YT, folks, excellent reader too.

I choose to imagine like 100 dudes with Stingers on an Iowa class's deck if things got hot in the 1980's. I also wonder how much more a BB could contribute to fleet defense by not having any ammunition onboard. If there was zero risk of a secondary detonation from the BB's own missiles or ammo for the guns, it could soak up a lot of hits without sinking, and it would be the biggest radar return in the region. If the destroyers stay a few miles behind the BB, they might just never actually get targeted.

In a hypothetical conventional WW3 NJ and other WW2 ships would be likely sunk (or be disabled) by a single torpedo, as their TDS is designed against side attacks. In contrast, modern torpedoes detonate under the bottom of the ships, where NJ's TDS is limited to a triple bottom.

the Iowa's as they were brought back I think would be primarly up against shore bombardment missions and maybe go up against the smaller surface forces of the Soviets. had the the Cold War went on into the 90's and 2000's, then I really think they would have undergone a massive overhaul which would seen them armed with a significant amount of missile defenses. with vertical launch tubes and those Rolling Airframe Missiles. which along with the other anti-air type ships would have provided a pretty tough nut to crack for the Soviets. If battleships were needed for longer, then a new class would be created that was specifically built for both shore bombardment, anti-ship and anti-missile defense.

The one thing I will say that it, outside the carriers, the Battleships had the best ability to take hits in the entire 1980s navy. Not that I'd want to test that in a combat scenario, but it is there. I get that shore bombardment role is their most likely role: that said, I think we all tend to sell them a bit short in the surface combat role. Backed by a big carrier group (like they are in Red Storm Rising, with 3-4 carriers at various times), Or even operating under the NATO umbrella of aircraft from the UK/Iceland (assuming the scenario in Red Storm Rising doesn't happen/is fended off), the Iowas would have made a serious threat to the Russians had they attempted their intended naval invasion of Norway--oddly enough as they do again in Red Storm Rising. And in the Pacific, where Russian Naval Aviation wasn't as powerful, they could've easily run roughshod over the Pacific Fleet (and a part of me would find it deliciously ironic if a battleship got the drop on the Red Navy a-la Tsushima). especially if Japan is convinced to allow American aircraft to actually fly sorties from their bases...frankly at that point you'd almost have Tsushima in reverse, with the Pacific fleet trying to break out of Vladivostok and Kamchatka.

Ryan finally got me to download warthunder… 50-year-old kid lol

For at least part of WWIII the Iowas would have been like Tirpitz. Parked close enough to make them nervous but not used as a front line asset. Except for some special cases.

How the heck do you have those consoles looking active?

Red storm rising is the best book ever written

To be frank, friends / shipmates and I "wargamed" scenarios set in the 1980s and the Iowa class ships couldn't do much unless the majority of the Tomahawks aboard were the T-ASM flavor, and even then if they were spotted / located an Iowa would face a terrible test and would be quickly neutralized (mission kill) or outright sunk. All the armor and your escorts' antiair missiles in the world won't save you if targeted by 50 of those huge air launched "carrier killer" missiles the Soviets loved so much or if a submarine detonated a couple of 533mm torpedoes under your keel.

I met Clancey a few times for book signings when I lived in the Washington/Baltimore Corridor. I remember reading Red Storm Rising when it first came out. I liked The Cardinal of the Kremlin from his later books, as the war setting of Red Storm Rising was too close to real at the time. I lived just a few miles from the NSA in those days. I have a signed copy on my shelf of Cardinal that I handed to him at a signing, "To Mike," at K Street in Washington. I remember in an interview in the 1980s, an Admiral said the battleships could take missiles and keep going, and that is why we can still use Battleships. Not sure I agree. Would the armor have stopped a hit?

That's what I thought when you said the battleships were upgraded with Phalanx as an anti-ship missile countermeasure. Would it be enough against a couple of missiles launched from a submarine, a surface ship, an aircraft or shore.

Heavy battleship in aviation age can work only together with carriers. Carriers and their escort provide air defence with many light longrange rockets from ships and planes but cant strike to anything heavy, battleship crushes any possible enemy with short range overkill shells but cant defence itself. But it is extremely complex to control setup. Several capital ship, nuclear and oil powered, with different environment requirements, with their own way trained crews etc working together, as parts of single war system. Its possible but unreal.

THIS is a tremendous backdrop for a video. WOW

Battleship New Jersey would have more battle stars and Project Katie would have been very popular.

They also showed up in the RTS World in Conflict!

If things got hot. The only thing that will survive is the nuclear submarines in a nuclear war.

I think most likely they would have been parked of soviet friendly shores, but not the union itself. It would send a strong message to those nations to be very very quiet now and they would likely not have enough weapons to really pose a danger to such naval units.

Fast oilers and flag vessels for the modern missiler frigates and destroyers doing the brunt of the work.

Absolutely love, red storm rising!

Ha! Told you it was prepping!

The Russian navy would likely have had blinders on and specifically sent large battle groups after our battleships when they spotted one much as the U.S. Navy did against Yamato and Musashi and how the Royal Navy went after Bismarck and Tirpitz with probably the same results unfortunately.

Personally, I suspect that if one or more of the Iowas was active when the Cold War became Hot due to actions by the Soviet Union then at least some of those actions would involve attempts to sink the Iowas - and possibly much of their battlefleets.

Back in the mid 1970's as a teenager I and some friends played a serious wargame that was named "Red Star/White Star", a table top game (not minatures) of mostly strategic/operational level covering the outbreak of a NATO/Warsaw Pact conflict in Eastern and Central Europe. In the game notes it was believed that a US CV group (a carrier battle group) had an estimated survival time of something like 13 minutes.) of course usiung nuclear weapons. What it is today I have no idea of the exact number but I wouldn't at all be shocked if it's even less now. Of course NATO had a much more formatable ground component back then with a much better and larger German Bundeswehr and the Soviets had the Warsaw Pact which has basically just switched sides and equipment. The air forces were both much bigger but the thing that has remained the same is the rediness being much higher for the Soviet/Russian side. Our's is very low and our equipment generally needs a lot of servicing and overall upkeep. I guess that was the price for a higher sophistication level. Russian submarines can still dominate the concoy routes from the USA to Europe. How long and how effective they'll be at, who knows? Hopefully, we won't have to discover just who is the stronger of the naval two forces. It really is too scary to even contemplate but it's important to understand that the bulk of what we send to any combat zone front in Europe has to cross the Atlantic by ship. Another game from the 1980's was called "Harpoon". A serious wargame that was too good for the Navy to let get any better. I spoke to a friend of about it, a former US Naval Leutenant (equal to army Captain) who was quite impressed with it as well. We were on the same Softball team. At the time I was involved in other gaming subject matter (Napolionic and US Civil War gaming mostly) so we never were able to face off against each other. Anyway it was a very interesting and accurate naval combat simulation game of mostly hypothetical actions. I remember one istorical sceanario of trhe US attakc on Ghaddafi in the eartly 1980's wherein the French wouldn't let us overfly French territiry with our land based bombers to get to Libya from the UK that May have a newer and more tamed version out. I believe we ended missing him and kill ih his daughter. This was in the wake of the the Lockerbee bombing I think but I may be wrong. I think lockewrbee was in 1988.

My thoughts are affected a lot by my desire, but I think Iowa class battleships would have been used as the carrier battle group's surface engagement asset and decoy. Yes, the carrier battle group could handle the soviet surface force easily, but that would risk its planes, and they don't want to risk their planes because their pilots and planes are not easy to replace. Furthermore, while doing that, it cannot do other jobs. By letting Iowas deal with the surface force, the carrier battle group can focus on the other mission that Iowas cannot do. If the soviet Air Force or subs attack the Iowas, the CV can support them. They could weaken the soviet Air Force or subs without risking the CVs, and if Iowas took some hits, they had a better chance of surviving compared to other ships.

I have a question Ryan. Knowing that the navy doesn’t want you guys to reactivate any part of the ship. If you could pick any system to reactivate what would it be ?

Were the 5" dual purpose guns not useful against 1980s cruise missiles and aircraft? What was the problem, the directors, tubes, or projectiles?

Better add 12 CWIS Phalanx mounts for todays hypersonic missiles and drones.

I wonder if they would have been best used in the eastern Mediterranean / Black Sea as part of the NATO southern flank; the proximity of Greece and Turkey means that they could get land based air cover to mitigate the lack of carrier air group. Would secure the supply routes through Suez (particularly oil) and force the Soviets to keep their own forces in the Black Sea to counter them, rather than reinforcing the northern fleet

Very interesting discussion

Seems like the Iowa's would have best served as either a pinning or a follow-up force. They could be deployed somewhere that keeps opposing forces from being moved somewhere more useful and where it would have been costly in resources for the USSR to stage a massed attack. Or they could be placed somewhere so they can quickly move in after the USSR expends their load taking out something with better defenses. In either case, the goal would be a chess move to increase the cost of "going hot" without actually being engaged.

Spruance class destroyers were coming online with vls systems being installed on them, so the number of tomahawks seems to be minor for the battleships, but with Ronald Reagan wanting 600 ship navy and placed a huge value for diplomacy, could that be another reason why they spent the money to bring back the Iowa class ships?

A relative of mine who served in Department Of Navy said to me about how would the Navy use the four Iowas in case of war. the Iowas would have their own task force, a surface action group, centered around one or two Iowas, escorted by at least 4 destroyers, two frigates and one or two cruisers, similar composition to a Carrier strike group. The SAG with Iowas would eithe conduct naval bombardment mission, baiting mission or just old fashioned surface action against enemy ships.

Ryan = what costs more to operate, a carrier or a battleship?

You don't put all your eggs in any one basket and that particular BB basket is already quite full. It would always travel within a task force and be utilized as the right tool for the job only when that job is right for its capability's and its assigned designated role.

a lot of steel for building useful stuff.

Sadly probably shore bombardment. But if attacking possibly as a sort of anti ship missile arsenal ship.

i hear high pitch ringing throughout the entire video.

Beehive shells. We cant just fail once and give up. Someone call Japan. Together we can make them work this time.

I do believe, the iowas. Where not made for the amount of electoral power needed to move forward with new updated equipment

Interesting video. As for warthunder I've not played for over 8 months Twice, and never got jack for clicking links on YT channels like this either time, also WT shitty support won't even reply because they're too cheap to do the right thing.

If pressed into a surface battle. I'am sure they would've done just fine. Except in the case of a submarine attack.

How about a discussion of the different rates aboard…Was there special training for the capts like the CO’s of submarines? Talk about the daily job of some of the officers 🤩🇺🇸👍🏻

How many cruisers and ships have the US Navy or government ever sold to other countries? Ships that were actually used in service, not from the dry docks being built purposely

Interesting , Thank You

I have a question if the Iowa class would have enter the Cold War when I got hot what would have happened if the US navy brojght back the South Dakotas Uss massachusetts and Alabama plus the Uss north Carolina

Is there a specific Tomahawk storage battery that you think could have stored nuclear weapons?

That glorious moment in Pine Valley when the fire control officer of the U.S.S. Missouri comes in over the radio and blasts a whole Soviet motor rifle regiment back into the stone age... World in Conflict will never be topped. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A7b8d-ROs1M.htmlsi=HvF1A2W7GFh6Ar1t

I don't think the battleships would have been useful at all in a hot war with the Soviets. I also think they'd be prime enough targets to warrant their own nuclear strikes if they showed signs of heading somewhere that mattered to be involved in any serous use. Without triggering MAD, I do not believe the US/NATO and the Soviet Union would be willing to achieve hot war.

Mr. Ryan, do you actually play War Thunder? Spill the beans please!

Could you imagine an Iowa against a kirov class heavy cruiser in its current configuration.... definitely not ideal.

I was playing WoWS earlier and saw an Iowa. I am sorry Ryan for what I did to it. (How cool would a collab be with Ryan as a special Captain and the New Jersey? ) EDIT: I typed this comment before WT sponsor

I think they would have been so effective in the surface role that they'd never get the chance to do it - if an Iowa showed up, the Soviet ships would just run away and let their planes go in.

Why we never got Warm Wars

Block the Soviets in the North Sea, the Med and Bearing sea

Get em back in service! I know, a dream, but a good dream.

COMERCIAL!!!

World of Warships video gamming ( WoW) have Iowa's in the game, BUT KTNJ is NOT represented. Is this by accident or do we (BNJ) refrain from entering the cyber sphere of (WOW)???🤔 Inquiring minds wish to know🤨.

Ryan, you used a clip showing a Soviet warship. I was there just behind the cameramen on the bridge of USS Springfield (CLG-7) ComSixthFleet Mediterranean Sea. It was one of our most memorable moments and evolutions. Here is the full video. VADM Gerald E. Miller USN is shown. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SAbUk-Ywivg.htmlsi=qpsw_Z4hlGDDXjqM

Not Russian Navy but Soviet Union Navy

Isn't there a saying "you train to fight the last war" then you find out the new way of fighting? Look at the Ukraine... something like 40% of the combat is small first-person-view drones dropping artillery shells and other explosives. It's pretty chilling watching them chase down and kill individual trucks and soldiers. It's also interesting to watch them thread through a tiny hole into a storage area to destroy tanks and other equipment. What do you do when 100+ drones swarm your battleship? Each one is carrying an artillery shell and you can't afford to let many through, but you're going to quickly expend your expensive missiles. Only now is the DoD taking drones seriously and developing electronic drone countermeasures.

During the Reagan administration, I remember that given was the battleships' survivability.

I continue to read Red Storm Rising etc al. There are piles of books from various sources of that era. Fast forward decades and it becomes a Network War. A few years ago we had a chance to create and build arsenal ships. But did not. Maybe still again based on the new S. Korean concepts. Based on RSR story, going into Iceland was plasuable and I have fought with a dear friend on Avalon Hill 2nd fleet and other fleet board table games over a week or so day and night other actions. Later into computer games of that era. As a result Ive always believed that if the Soviet Aviation on the T-22s and Bears and so forth etc would have been in due time able to fire say 1000 missiles against a carrier group with the hope of saturation. I understand our Navy has been directed to learn to reload VLS Tubes now in Open Ocean currently because when the tubes of escorts etc al are empty they have to retire to port to reload say to Little River or some place. Then what? I have followed Janes Fighting Ships in annual editions at library closely the USSR Navy with the Kirov etc. I am pretty happy that that never came to pass. There was one Kirov that Russia wanted to refit with modern S500 based and convert their 20 VLS antiship into hypersonic by the hundreds of rounds and other improvements. But I think their Economy being about the size of either Texas or California showed the ships were money pits. In addition the one cruise of the USSR Carrier breaking down and pouring smoke down the English Channel some years ago showed that the RU has some problems. I believe China has been carefully paying attention and now shes got three carriers with 50 more planned (Semi Hyperbole) And suddenly she will have ten, 20? more escorts and so on. She is doing. The Battleship is a wonderful instrument for what it was built for and I suppose would be too great a target as configured in the cold war era. Some of the modern RU weapons would be detected in bound and by the time the Group completed the General Quarters Evolution the missiles would have arrived close aboard doing damage across the board. So we are into a new and really dangerous war. Almost too fast for a human to sit and manage the dots as it were. Its a computer war at this point. The Moskva Sinking was created by causing the RU warship and her People to focus intensely in one direction against incoming sea drones which is valid but as humans, they did not look over their shoulders or maintain adequate 360 on the ship's then older Analog or semi digital stuff aboard. She was a good ship but badly managed when the UKR Neptunes arrived from that uncovered side. By the time they were detected it took too long to configure some sort of defense in a hurry on a exposed uncovered axis. I believe future war if Tom Clancy was alive today and wrote a sequel to Red Storm Rising the battle space situation in the Atlantic, Baltic, North Cape, Pacific and over towards roughly Malaysia and Bering Straits would be different and include the now new Arctic passage situation on the top of the world. Who knows. But these Iowas have had their day and I suppose are in a position possibly to be made ready but sigh... theres hardly any industry on land to support them. Even if they did they will become valid targets for RU. We cannot depend on them surviving in our current situation of essentially nakedness compared to say Israel. I suppose the USA is working on the problem but again theres no money or will of the people to seriously bulk up and get onto war footing. To do that would require factories to end making of cars, windmills, furnature and so on for domestic and world trade peace stuff and convert in a hurry to war. With what money and more importantly our National Materials Stock Pile does not matter at the moment in any meaningful amount. SPR has been drained too much. So the USA would fight with everything we have for maybe a month globally and then end up here at home to wait for invasion. And the issue would be decided here at home. And Im not sure if we still have enough people able to do it as we once did. I did not type this to be negative, I grow old and will pass on at some point. The hope is in the future the USA will continue to do well and improve while theres time to do so. And maybe we will not have to resort as the Russians are now to the old Museum stuff towards modern war as its playing out today.

Delve?!?! Does Battleship New Jersey use AI to write these scripts!!!

And here I thought the Vietnam War was the Cold War gone hot courtesy of the Domino Theory.

👍👍👍👍👍

There might actually be a chance for them to see surface action. Considering what Gorshkov wrote on the use of Soviet blue water surface combatants (i.e. uses of Soviet navy outside of the protection of 'bastion' and anti-carrier missions), since would be positioned around the worlds to support political objectives during peacetime, in wartime those ships would transition into 'risk fleet' that tie down resources even without even actually interdicting SLOCs. USN would need to spread out to deal with Soviet ships in the period leading up to the war unless they want to be caught by surprise when those ships start wreaking havoc here and there if they were left unchecked once the shooting starts, especially as allied navies are usually geared toward ASW rather than surface action (they can't exactly just send some frigates to hunt down a Kirov). Sending battleship battlegroups against Kirovs, for example, would help free up carriers for major operations just like showing flags in peacetime.

MY HOME 68-69 VIER NAM

Hey Ryan, did you know you're going bald?

Ryan, I just saw a video that claimed that the New Jersey was going to be permanently museum berthed at Port Alliance in Baltimore's harbor. Is this true?

Did they have long range shells with rocket assist?

A battleship would be nothing more than a target for a nuke

If the Cold War turned hot...? What do you think the Korea, Vietnam, Grenada was?

Iowa class battleships could take on anything Russia has... except submarines. Lets be honest, based on Russia's performance in Ukraine, the USA would demolish the Russian navy in about a week and a half.

Couldn't watch it with that big commercial right in the way.

you lost me at war thunder..

With your permission, I repeat my question: If Russia or China wanted to buy the Iowa ships, would the US government agree to the sale?