Nuclear Powered Battleships

[Archibald]

Thanks for all the cheers comments guys! It's my first naval whatif, I'am really newby in this field  

BBGNs

I thought about this designation in the train some hours ago, even with my poor naval knowledge  

BB = Battleship
G = guided weapons
N = nuclear

Am I right ?
I suppose the upgraded Iowas didn't received the BBG designations because they were not new-build ships.

Yes, there's the Kirov case. More a battlecruiser than a modern battleship. But it was nevertheless powerfull enough to make the USN comissioning again the Iowas    

[Archibald]

PS Red I-don't-know-where that design of Montan's hull was used for the Midway carriers. I have to check speed of those carriers...  

[monkeyhanger]

Just a comment on the longevity of battleships. HMS Warrior was lauched in 1860. She is an wooden hulled ship with cast iron plates bolted on. Someone realised in the 1980s that she was still afloat in the 1980s! She was serving as a concrete covered refueling pier in Wales. she was towed to Hartlepool (alright, there is the connection) and restored to her Victorian glory from the mid 1980s. So why not refurbish the Nelson/rodney. They were quoted to be in 'poor mechanical condition' before they were scrapped in the late 1940s. But, what a great design for adding missiles and deleting guns.

p.s. I believe the only other fully forward gun design was a French battleship.  

[anthonyp]

The USN did do a Nuclear Powered Battleship, or rather a ship to take over the Battleships puepose in a Carrier Battlrgroup. That was the USS Long Beach, she had nuclear power, fore and aft SAM batteries and close range ones on either beam, plus she was intended to carry Polaris for the mighty punch. She had a long streamlined hull as she didn't need the broad beam associated with battle wagons as no large guns to compensate for.

Not quite.  The USS Long Beach began life as CLGN-160, then CGN-160, then CGN-9.  It was never meant to have the armour or survivability of a battleship, was never to be the center of a task force (as battleships could still do), nor was she meant to engage enemy surface units as per the battleships' role in the fleet.  Plus, her displacement was less than half that of the earlier World War II generation battleships.  The Polaris foundation mounts were one of those fads the USN was going through at the time, as they were looking at putting those things on everything that floated.  The ship was never built to be anything else than an escort, while a battleship was meant to find someone else and beat them senseless.

I'm gonna be jumping around in this post, so stay with me  

The Kirov's official designation is large guided missile cruiser (nuclear powered), but it's always been referenced as a BCGN (nuclear guided missile battlecruiser), especially when compared to the USN's destroyer based "cruisers" of the Ticonderoga class.  The aborted strike cruiser from the 70's was as close to a Kirov's counterpart that the USN ever came.  Even the refit Iowas were outclassed by the Kirov's (until gun range, that is).  That is in a one-on-one engagement.  (I have fond memories of the computer version of Harpoon where an American SAG with the Wisconsin at the center engaged a Soviet one with the Kirov and three Sverdlov CL's.  After all the missiles were expended (and I mean ALL the missiles...  I was sending Standards at the Soviets as ASM's, which was actually kind of funny), I sent the Wisconsin at the seven remaining now gun armed Soviet ships.  None survived due to the Wisconsin's massive range and firepower, and the Wisconsin made it out unscathed, though there was a wake following torpedo running at the Wisconsin from long range...)

The Montanas were indeed the final battleships designed for use by the USN, and it's unfortunate they were never laid down.  Of course, we got more Essex class carriers than we knew what to do with, so I guess there's that trade off.

The Montana hull design was not used as a basis for the Midway class carrier, nor was the Iowa's.  The Midway was a new design, building on ideas and lessons learned from the Essex class.

The Kentucky was at one point going to be redesignated BBG-1, after her proposed conversion to a missile battleship.  This obviously wasn't carried out and she was scrapped beginning in 1959 (after her bow had already been used to repair the Wisconsin in 1956;  a replacement was actually built, but never installed).  Illinois never made it off her slipway, as she was scrapped 22% complete after being canceled on 11 August 1945.  There's a great deal of information on the various proposals for missile battleships in Norman Friedman's Battleship book.  

The refit Iowas didn't receive the BBG designation because they were still geared towards anti-surface warfare, not because they weren't new build ships.  In the USN, surface ships with the primary purpose of air defense get the G suffix to their designation (hence why the VLS Spruances stayed DD's instead of becoming DDG's).

And there ain't no way a nuclear reactor could be retrofit to an existing design, there'd be way too much cutting and redesign to squeeze the thing into the hull.  Plus, like Proditor said, the main things when it comes to speed are hull form and the machinery needed to push the ship to the higher speed.  Look at the South Dakota and Iowa class, and their differing hull shapes and speeds.  The Iowa was lengthened to improve hydrodynamic performance and to provide additional space for the machinery needed to push the ship to 33+ knots.  The Montanas were designed to go slower than the Iowas, so just plopping in nuclear reactors in the boiler spaces wouldn't make it go any faster.

If there was a desire for a new nuclear powered battleship, one would have to be developed from the keel up, much like Canis' ship above.  Though I've always had some refinements to his design, I'll keep them to myself as it's his baby  

There is the possibility that ships after the USN's forthcoming DDG-1000 class will be nuclear powered.  With the change of power in the congress, nuclear powered surface ships became a possibility when the new chairman of a particular committee took over (a large navy shipyard is in his district, and he finally paid attention to how much the dirt burners actually cost to operate).  The new CGX class cruisers may very well be nuclear powered, and have the new AGS, which can lob shells close to 100nm (the DDG-1000 will have two of them).  It's an 8 inch gun, with various guided shells, which entered prototype testing last week.

I'd probably start a new nuclear battleship design around 1960, with construction beginning around 1968 (same time as the Nimitz).  That way, you could take advantage of the lessons learned from the wackjob 50's, er, "decade of experimentation in ship design," and also have experience with modern flag ship roles and needs (after seeing how well the flagship role was handled by the Des Moines class and other WWII vintage ships).  Plus, the last all gun cruisers would be nearing the end of their useful lives, leaving only the in-reserve Iowas for shore bombardment if needed.  Of course, there'd have to be justification from the Soviet side for such a capital ship program, so let's give them Stalin's Soveitski Soyuz class battleships  B)

By the way , the pic below is a painting of what the USS Kentucky might have looked like as BBG-1.  It's rescaled from the original huge pic.

[jcf]

There is the possibility that ships after the USN's forthcoming DDG-1000 class will be nuclear powered.  With the change of power in the congress, nuclear powered surface ships became a possibility when the new chairman of a particular committee took over (a large navy shipyard is in his district, and he finally paid attention to how much the dirt burners actually cost to operate).  The new CGX class cruisers may very well be nuclear powered, and have the new AGS, which can lob shells close to 100nm (the DDG-1000 will have two of them).  It's an 8 inch gun, with various guided shells, which entered prototype testing last week.

While there are noises in Congress on the subject, the Navy hasn't shown much interest.

Their experience with non CV nuclear powered ships was not a happy one, they turned out to be more expensive to operate than oil-burners and spent a lot more time tied up to piers because of higher maintenance requirements. All of the non CV nuke surface ships have been retired.

Those reasons and others makes it rather unlikely that the USN will actively pursue the design and procurement of new non CV nuclear powered surface ships.
Not to mention that having a nuclear power plant aboard automatically places a political limit on where the ship can make port calls...an undesirable handicap given the world's current situation.

[SebastianP]

General thread comments:

First, I loved CanisD's modern battlehip. It looks awesome, and actually quite fast. I'd also like the larger version of the Kentucky pic, as well as any profile that can be found of that config...

About the Long Beach, and cruisers in general...

Some WWII full load displacement measurements:

Light Cruiser (CL): 8,500 to 14,000 tons. A handful completed post-war at 17,000 tons. The really light ones redesignated CLAA postwar.
Heavy Cruiser (CA): 17,000 tons. Three completed post war at 21,000 tons.
Large Cruiser (CB): 35,000 tons. Only two built.
Battlecruiser (CC): None ever built. Some were ordered in 1916, would have been 45,000 tons.
Battleship (BB): 44,500 to 57,500 tons; Montana class would have been 71,000 tons.

Long Beach: Ordered as CLGN-160; 16,000 tons.
Belknap, Leahy, Bainbridge, Truxtun, California, Virginia: All ordered as DLG(N); 8,500-9,000 tons.
Ticonderoga: Ordered as DDG; 10,000 tons.

Present day destroyers: 9,500 to 10,000 tons.

Conclusion: The Long Beach can only be considered "large" in comparison with later, non-cruiser designs pressed into the cruiser role....

[Archibald]

p.s. I believe the only other fully forward gun design was a French battleship.

Four French ships of the 30's had fully forward gun design. The Dunkerke and Strasbourg battlecruisers, the Richelieu and Jean Bart battleship had all four gun turrets. (Dunkerke class guns were smaller than Jean Bart guns, which were
380 mm diameter.)

Richelieu / Jean Bart turrets = four*380 mm guns    

 

Hmmm nuclear Jean Bart with Redoutable reactors