Re: Aircraft Vs Dreadnoughts (Which is what the topic mutated into :o)

From: <ShldWulf@aol.com>

> I'll take your word on the Sea Sparrow, I only worked with the
Aircraft
end
> of that bird. As I recall the land-based Chapperal was the same idea.
(Take
> and existing system, in this case the Sidewinder, mate it with an
existing
> launcher and use it till something better comes along.)

There's also Sea Chapperal, used by the Taiwanese Navy IIRC.

> I seem to recall reading an article right after the Gulf War about an
idea
to
> fit VLMS with Standard missiles on the BB's IF, (really big "if" even
in
the
> article :o) the Navy kept them active.

Much as I like BBs, and would think them to be really useful, it's not a
goer.
Big Steam powerplants like those are really outrageously dangerous
unless
maintained to Nuclear standards. The Asbestos problem is huge - the USN
unlike the Navy-formerly-known-as-Soviet doesn't consider a reduction in
lifespan of its crews of 2-5 years on average to be "acceptable".

There's a reason why it took us ages, and much $$ to get the two ex-USN
LSTs into RAN service. The Hulls were good. But much of the internals
were toxic waste. There's a reason why the USN gave them away.

Personally, I'd like to see the manufacture of new BBs. It'd only cost
as much as 5 Nimitz's to get the infrastructure in place,  then less
than a Nimitz each.

For 4 BBs this would still be cheaper after 5 years than keeping the
current ones in service. The huge crew size required, the training in
1930s
and 1940s technology needed, the upkeep of "we haven't made those parts
for over 50 years" equipment etc are all very very costly items.

All of the above are my own back-of-the-envelope estimates, based on
various
reports to the US Congress and articles in the USNI Proceedings. So take
em with a grain of salt. It might be 4 Nimitz's, or 6. It might be 3
years,
or 10.
The "5 Nimitz" figure assumes construction techniques borrowed from the
Nimitz class BTW, more of a monocoque construction than the 5-keel-
stringers in the Iowas.