Iowa-Class Battleships in Operation Desert Storm 

More of like bringing an artillery gun for a machinegun nest

@@turtletheturtlebecauseturt6584There is a story I saw on Quora, a guy who was a Forward Observer in Vietnam, and a pesky group of bad guys just wouldn't die- so he called in for an Artillery strike, but all available guns were busy - so they patched him through to the USS New Jersey ... he talked with them and they fired one 5" round , directly on target, and it killed the bad guys... but , wanting to see more, he tried to convince them, "Look, it didn't work, you are going to have to break out the Big Guns..." ... and they basically radioed back, "I think we both know you just want to see the results of the 16" rounds, but if you really need more support, we can send you another 5"..." .... "I'm good..." lmfao,.

It is an unconventional warfare tactic but it works

@@Ser_Arthur_Dayne I was making a joke and I was rewarded with pure gold

Actually a modernized medieval trebuchet

Missouri and Wisconsin should be brought back into service; we may have Aircraft Carriers sure; but THESE send a message to don't screw with us

@@ShiroColdkeyesTheHedgehog yeah I'm not American but if i see my country producing such legendary ships, that'll be the governments best way of spending my taxes (my country doesn't have any legendary ships but I'm sure for Americans these ships means more to them)

"hold my cordite"

@@ShiroColdkeyesTheHedgehog Now imagine of Flucky was still around. He performed the first flight test of a Japanese freight train in WW2 right after attaching rockets to his submarine and redefining and evolving submarine warfare.

@@charliekk3377 more like hold by brains inside my skull

That’s crazy and awesome

There's AB52 that a father son and grandson all flew. You can look it up.

They weren’t doomed. They’re retired.

@@grahamstrouse1165 buy the airdales

They actually strongly considered re activating the Des Moines cruises at the same time as the Iowa’s. But the cost wasn’t worth the return. The Newport News was decommissioned in the 70s.

Was aboard your ship, BB-64, at Stapleton Naval Dock , Staten Island, NY, in 1991. Impressive ship. Thank you for your service.

God Bless You.!!! Thankyou!!!

Sean Quinn God Bless to all the young men and women currently serving!!

machia0705 Hope you had a great tour of the ship! Me and a few fellow Vets are going to Norfolk in August for a mini-reunion!

Are the floors of your house made of teak? lol

Reflex Point I bet you 15 cwis on the baby could handle it

This is just a guess, at the end of WW2, Britain was still licking its wounds and focused more on rebuilding. With resources depleted, the country had to utilize everything they could to rebuild, including scrapping the steel, copper, and other resources from their fleet and other war machines. It was a good source of materials and the world (for the time being) was more focused on keeping the peace after a gruesome war. On the otherside if the world, while the war had left its mark on the Americans, the country was booming with the rekindling of industrial might after the Great Depression. After the war, many ships, fighters and equipment were saved from being scrapped, used primarily as museums but also in reserve. However, many ships were also scrapped as the country was changing. The population boom after the war prompted the need for increased production in vehicles, appliances, and other goods. The materials had to come from somewhere, so many ships, vehicles, and equipment were scrapped. The United States has a lot of equipment left over from its war time production. Unused jeeps, tanks, planes, etc. The country was also exporting a lot of goods to aid the country’s directly affected by the war.

@Reflex Not necessarily. Battleships can tank anti-ship missiles through sheer armor. However, they are outdated in what it costs to maintain them and they’re rather slow compared to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

@@pcmld2267 That is actually false. Because of the large frame they are faster with their steam engines than nuclear powered carriers and smaller destroyers. Nimitz and Ford carriers top at 30 knots while the Iowa's at 35. Modernized they would have a good viability, they are just too costly for what they do. For instance Chinese destroyers would have second thoughts about ramming US vessels during freedom of navigation exercises if they would be facing 45000 tons of displacement. However spending 2 billion just for that and the occasional shore bombardment would be a bad bargain.

@@csfelfoldi I think it would be smart to cut ship production in other areas for a year an modernize all battleships adding anti ship missiles modern anti aircraft weapons and something like the long range rounds designed for the Zumwalt but for the battleship should be cheaper too as it doesnt need to be super high tech to fit into the big shells and then when they are done mothball them and whenever China gets really rowdy send them as carrier escorts or in the event of war with a substantial naval power and you can just retire it and recover it when needed because if China did pearl harbor us with a wide sweeping missile and submarine suprise attack then we will end up using the battleships if our backs against the wall so might aswell make them more potent weapons before storing them away

Yeah lmao Destroyers these days are made of paper

@Duke of Norfolk *p a p e r*

@Duke of Norfolk *t h i c c p a p e r*

@Duke of Norfolk yes, expensive paper with lots of mathematical calculations written all over them. lol

Those little guns is like bringing a knife to a .50 cal M82 sniper battle.

Sadly, they can't. Battleships are just big ass targets for any missile carrying ship or aircrafts, as Missile Equipped Destroyers and Aircraft Carriers proved to be more efficient with almost every task

@@laksamanasuhendra5868 What if we get ramjet-boosted self-guided shells to work? They would have similar long range function to a tomahawk missile but be much harder to shoot down do to higher speeds. Ramjet artillery shells are an active area of research and battleships already have the hardware to store and fire big ones

@@laksamanasuhendra5868 thats what 8 ciws are for. 4 on each side

@@laksamanasuhendra5868 good, they can use that to their advantage. Any shell, missile, bomb, torpedo, or any other kind of munition heading toward a battleship that can handle the beating is a munition NOT heading toward a carriers that cant. They can protect carriers by giving the enemy something else to shoot at.

@@laksamanasuhendra5868 Battleships has the space to carry hundreds of missiles, multiple times than that of a destroyer. Hundreds of SAMs and thick armor will make them very very hard to kill.

The story of the USS York amazes me. She was practically sunk yet returned to service in the pacific in minimal time

Those same compartments were sometimes flooded by the crew to counter any list the ship had from taking on water. Also crews sometimes would flood one side of the ship to give the big guns more elevated angles of fire.

Didn't know 8 years ago time stamps didn't exist

2:14

@@reidenshogun Thank you man xD

Y'all, this is one th Very Few times in one's life that th word Awesome actually is applicable. Reckon ya hadda be there...

Sam Jones Yep, instead you threw the HMS Sheffield at them, look how that turned out lol

+Sam Jones Yeah, Would of loved to see a modernized Vanguard.

+Sam Jones Vanguard ironically would've served the Brits very well during the Falklands campaign.

+Sam Jones Wasn't Vanguard armed with 15-inch guns?

Matthew Kroening Yes it was.

unfortunately with the rise of anti ship missiles and modern weaponry, ship to land artillery bombardment is a dying art. In this specific mission, battleship(s) carried out 81 land bombardment missions. They struggled to get closer to coast. Only 15 of these firing missions were successful (more than light damage)

Yup

My dad was in dessert storm as a combat engineer 299th.

Fair Winds an Followin Seas, Amigo Morris, T.P. BU2 Type Air Det, NMCB 24

A bullet from a garland is just as deadly as a bullet from an m16a4

@@jpogigtxcr1778 I'm guessing you're talking about an M1 Garand? But in any case, no its absolutely not. .30-06 is the standard for Level IV plates for a reason. Imparts far more energy than a 5.56.

@@OtterTreySSArmy It doesn’t matter. My point is it can kill you no matter if it was ww2 tech or a modern bullet. I should’ve made the bow and arrow as an example make make my point clear.

Yup! They wanted 9 orders of extra heavy 16 in pizzas on express delivery!

@@MrOiram46 not sure if that was the 16inches he was talking about?🤔

Desert Buck they are obsolete because they are floating ammo piñatas. The same as having a large modern tank - once you are found and you WILL get found... you are dead.

Desert Buck They don't need to come close, one Exocet missile launched from 100 miles away by a small frigate will destroy a battleship.

Schaffen hausen No. The iowa has a 12 inch armor belt designed to stop 16in shells. One exocet missile isn't gonna do shit. The exocet was designed to kill modern ships, who's armor might as well be wet napkins compared to a battleship's.

wll1500 that may be, but homogeneous steel is utterly redundant against modern armor penetration technology, not to mention that an anti ship missile from a fighter bomber has more range than any aaa on a battleship.

Schaffen hausen That's the old battleship, if it's a new one with anti air capabilities like the Type 45 Destroyer or Arleigh Burke/Zumwalt DDG Technologies it would be a different game entirely. Instead of a carrier which is already so many of them, why not build one or two new battleship with modern tech?! the cost would not be more expensive than a carrier (they need a lot of aircraft --> Hence a lot more money to spend), instead put a massive cruise missile on it and a rail gun.. Bang!!! You've got a new monster right there..

I've been there. I saw that too. Most impressive.

Thats the problem with our stealth ships of today. No visual intimidation.

also protection. no doubt a Destroyer crew would be happy to have a 45,000 ton big sister acting as deterent to those looking to get too close. if its a close fight... your going to win.

They were expensive as Hell to operate. They guzzled fuel like it was going out of style.

+Mojo Risin Yamato and Iowa are pretty sexy, Yamato being the biggest battleship in history with the most powerfull guns

+SuperCratoss Most powerful maybe but with very poor fire control systems.

the mark 7 16 inch is just about the same power as the type 94

@Duke of Norfolk *the enemies are so scared, that they wanted it banned if US wanted to use it when WW3 happens*

This is true.

Well actually they're 6, but USS Illinois and Kentucky were never finished

They were already obsolete in WWII lol. WWII was the aircraft carrier's game.

Uhhh.... Nope the iowa class still escorted carriers and launch shells at beaches like Okinawa.

Can you hear me now? LOL

If only the Yamato wasn’t sunk after being sent on a suicide mission

collin ohlinger I've heard of rail guns, but aren't they still mostly in the sci-fi realm except for some prototypes? The last time I toured the whisky I was chatting with one of her vets about her usefulness in the modern navy and he told me that the 16" guns could handle enough powder without doing damage to them to increase the range of the guns to 50 - 100 miles. Not sure if he knew what he was talking about but if what he says is true, that alone could make them much more viable. It's hard to believe without them using a different kind of powder being theres only so much room inside the breech of the gun and it doesn't seem like they could fit anymore of the powder they normally use in there.

Logistics, cost, manpower, range.

Railguns dont exist yet dumbass.

RampantFury925 Sure they do, the navy has been testing them for quite some years now. You can even build your own if you have some cash to burn, it really isn't that complicated of a technology despite the fact that it sounds futuristic.

how about they will outfit the 16inch gun powder barrel with 16inch rail gun and equip it with LAWS and upgrade the engine to nuclear powered ones and put new sonar and radar

+Carl Miester That makes me think the US military has got lasers now so what would a rail gun and laser bombardment look like? Just for the hell of could imagine a full broadside with 16 inch guns, all the missiles and rockets an Iowa class would have, along with some lasers and rail guns, and every cannon and anti aircraft that ship had firing all at the same time? So much dakka.

+Devin Williams how so?

It was renewed by equipping it with cruise missiles and Close In Weapon System

Korea and Vietnam.

The Iowa's had Nuclear shells capable of being fired out of the main guns

And they went all the way down to the 155mm nuke shells with a 2 kiloton yield. In 1958 a fusion warhead was developed and tested, the UCRL Swift. It was 622 mm long, 127 mm diameter, and weighed 43.5 kg. At its test it yielded only 190 tons; it failed to achieve fusion and only the initial fission explosion worked correctly. There are unconfirmed reports that work on similar concepts continued into the 1970s and resulted in a one-kiloton warhead design for 5-inch (127 mm) naval gun rounds; these, however, were never deployed as operational weapons.

behold the bringer of light