What would be necessary conditions for battleships in the modern era?

[Lord Sovereign]

What it says on the tin. What would be the needed developments or conditions for big gunned warships to become relevant again? My money is on railguns, likely brought on to counter improving CIWS via hurtling a very big shell at insane speeds at the target. As I understand it, given that modern warships aren't nearly as heavily armoured as their predecessors (because missiles make it vaguely useless), a single salvo from a Queen Elizabeth class super dreadnought would sink any vessel afloat.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Perhaps counter-measures effective enough to futz with any guidance system that can fit/work inside a missile or aircraft, but not those that fit inside a Battleship?

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Perhaps counter-measures effective enough to futz with any guidance system that can fit/work inside a missile or aircraft, but not those that fit inside a Battleship?

I'd imagine that buggering the guidance of a 15inch shell is a bit harder than frazzling a missile's systems. Good old Isaac Newton.

 

[Orangeduke38]

Well it depends, if you just mean warships with big guns and decent armor (but not up to the old battleships standards) then there is an argument that they could be useful today in the Red Sea. The area is constricted enough that some sort of monitor to escort oil tankers would be useful. The armor would be able to take some hard hits and guns (8in maybe?) would have the range and firepower to sink anything floating today.

 

[Zachowon]

You need active defense systems, (CWIS), as well as electronic warfare capabilities of some sort, as large caliber guns are only useful for bombardment

 

[Bear Ribs]

Hmm, I can't see that the Red Sea is worthwhile though, in waters that constrained there's no advantage to specialized ships over having generalized aircraft based nearby that can do it.

Fundamentally, battleships quit being viable because aircraft and missiles massively outrange big guns with no significant disadvantages over the same. To make the battleship useful again you have to either nerf the aircraft and missile or find some way the big gun can be buffed enough to compete again.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

To make the battleship useful again you have to either nerf the aircraft and missile or find some way the big gun can be buffed enough to compete again.

The former is entirely possible given the rapid development of anti-air systems. CIWS are mean bastards to get past.

 

[King Arts]

You need some way to neutralize aircraft and missiles or some way to make it so that your battleship has so much armor on that is so strong that conventional weapons that can be put on a rocket or plane will be useless.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Yeah, assuming the current crop of laser weapons like Iron Beam mature well, we could potentially see an era where missiles have near-zero chance of reaching the target intact and planes or drones never survive to even fire. At that point, "Lob a giant chunk of metal from below the horizon" could become the dominant strategy again.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Anti torpedo torpedo tech would need a massive improvement

 

[The Whispering Monk]

You'll need a few things.

1. Armor, Defensive Systems that enable the ship to survive massive attack and remain mission capable.
2. LOS weaponry: this means rail/gauss weapons and/or battlefield capable lasers that can drop missiles and aircraft in large numbers from many divergent angles.
3. Heavy attack from mounted weapons, these could be turreted cannons like the BFGs on the Missouri or possibly just heavier rail guns.

If the 1st and 2nd take place, then you'll see a massive reduction in carrier based attack at sea. It just won't be feasible against a similar opponent. You'll have to be able to take the punishment until you can dish it back out.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

If the 1st and 2nd take place, then you'll see a massive reduction in carrier based attack at sea. It just won't be feasible against a similar opponent. You'll have to be able to take the punishment until you can dish it back out.

Fleet battles in such a scenario would be nigh apocalyptic. It would be like Jutland on steroids.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Hell, light enough rounds from a powerful Rail Cannon would potentially make ICBMs pointless. Enough velocity and they are effectively LOS capable into high orbits. Could catch ICBMS in the mid-launch before they turn back to Earth.

EDIT: Totally divergent from OP so fee free to ignore this comment.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Fleet battles in such a scenario would be nigh apocalyptic. It would be like Jutland on steroids.

You're not wrong.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

At that point, it's Energy vs Energy. Whoever has the most power for their systems will probably win.

No metallurgy I know of would be able to deflect/stop a fraction of the kinetic energy delivered in systems we're proposing. You'd have to diverty kinetics to try and intercept incoming fire, bullet on bullet fratricide with stupid fast computers and amazing radar/lidar.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Proposed defensive system against Directed Energy weapons at sea:

Outriggers with super-misters. They just create a huge area of water droplets above the water that dissipate and scatter the energy of laser weapons before they can contact the hull.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Something that makes missiles and drones that drop bombs irrelevant. Perhaps some sort of amazing, easy to produce missile interception/AA tech, like Israel's Iron Dome, but with an even higher interception rate that makes it impractical to try to use missile spam. So you go back to using artillery as it can't really be intercepted.

 

[ATP]

What it says on the tin. What would be the needed developments or conditions for big gunned warships to become relevant again? My money is on railguns, likely brought on to counter improving CIWS via hurtling a very big shell at insane speeds at the target. As I understand it, given that modern warships aren't nearly as heavily armoured as their predecessors (because missiles make it vaguely useless), a single salvo from a Queen Elizabeth class super dreadnought would sink any vessel afloat.

Question of money.Are money we could save thanks to use railgun instead of missles are worth of building well armored ship ? if so,they would be built,if not - not.

 

[Bassoe]

At that point, "Lob a giant chunk of metal from below the horizon" could become the dominant strategy again.

The question being, why'd you use a battleship as the delivery system as opposed to an aircraft or missile launching an unguided projectile which inflicts damage via kinetic energy like a scaled-up version of this. Or a rod-from-god killsat?

 

[Bear Ribs]

The question being, why'd you use a battleship as the delivery system as opposed to an aircraft or missile launching an unguided projectile which inflicts damage via kinetic energy like a scaled-up version of this. Or a rod-from-god killsat?

The aircraft flies over the horizon and has a thin aluminum skin, hence can be lasered. The satellite is visible from the ground and has a foil skin, hence can be lasered. The battleship, by contrast, has armor four feet thick, uses the ocean as a heatsink, and laughs at lasers even if there isn't a horizon between it and the laser.