3 ms·

> designers, engineers and welders grapple with something the U.S. hasn’t done in decades: reliably shape hardened steel that is more than an inch thick into a

by cm2187 3y ago

> designers, engineers and welders grapple with something the U.S. hasn’t done in decades: reliably shape hardened steel that is more than an inch thick into a curved, reinforced ship’s hull I don't understand. Aren't modern military ships armoured anymore?

andylynch 3y ago
No, they aren’t armoured nearly as much as WWII era ships; it shorten range, slows them down, and doesn’t really work against guided weapons
- hef19898 3y ago
  Or torpedoes.
- tomatotomato37 3y ago
  Yeah, the dreadnaught arms race of the first part of the 20th century was kinda an anomaly in ship design, especially considering how little big-gun naval battles happened despite two world wars. Turns out up-armoring ships hard enough that they end up legitimately surviving a close range nuclear shockwave (look up Operation Crossroads) is actually a massive waste of resources.
  - leeter 3y ago
    Yes and no, the ship and crew might have survived. But the steel wasn't thick enough to block all the radiation. Moreover traditional ship design up until that point didn't handle Nuclear Biological, and Chemical threats well. They weren't really designed to be completely sealed. It's important to recognize that the assumption that the next war would be atomic killed a lot of technology paths because the people with the money assumed it was a waste of time to continue in those directions. By the time the military started to re-explore those paths the tech had languished. It's why the Iowas went back to sea with the Mk8 fire control computer, a completely analog computer. Because nobody had really bothered to build a better one for large caliber shells since WWII. But it's important to note that before the Iowas were given their final retirements into museum ships the Navy made sure to basically document everything they could about firing large caliber guns. Because when they initially pulled them out of mothballs in the 1980s they were woefully inaccurate, but by the time they were decommissioned for the final time they could hit a proverbial fly on a flag pole (allegedly). The other part of it was that the Soviet Union didn't really have a surface fleet to really speak of. They invested heavily in submarines, so consequently the US Navy focused heavily on ASW. So... nobody really knows how 16" of modern armor would fair against modern weapons, it's literally never been tried. Whereas you can find pictures from way back when they were testing guns, of how various shells fared against various thicknesses and types of armor. Long story short: We've forgotten most of what we knew about surface warfare, and we're starting to forget what we knew about shipbuilding and design. The US has outsourced all it's naval architecture and shipbuilding so long that the necessary skills are either all retired or lost.
ars 3y ago
The thick steel (like the landing deck of an aircraft carrier) is flat not curved. The curved stuff is actually Kevlar, not steel.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Didn't know they had kevlar hulls in WW2.
dmitrygr 3y ago
> I don't understand. Aren't modern military ships armoured anymore? No, no amount of armoring is useful against modern weaponry, but it does increase the "m", thus lowering the "a" you get from your engine's "F".
robotnikman 3y ago
Only the most vital parts receive some armor iirc. But not as thick as the armor found on the old battleships, and probably not curved.
echelon 3y ago
I'm curious as to whether manned ships will continue to prevail in the age of drones. Wire up a cheap boat with explosives and it can sink an expensive naval vessel. The Ukrainians are using this to massively great effect right now against the Russians. What if instead of building one new aircraft carrier, you build an autonomous submersible capable of launching drones with variable payloads? Or instead of a destroyer, build a drone ship that can launch missiles? Or an entirely new class of ship that simply swarms enemy defenses and is laden with explosives? Mass-produced autonomous jet skis with explosive payloads. But faster.
- hwillis 3y ago
  > Wire up a cheap boat with explosives and it can sink an expensive naval vessel. This has been pretty obvious since the Millennium Challenge 21 years ago, when they just called them suicide attacks. Nobody seems to have cared then and not much has changed. I think the issue is pretty tightly limited to boats/sea drones, though. If you're even a few feet under the surface then sonar can see you. If you're a few feet above the surface then radar gets you. Both options die a mile away. I also think Russia is probably not very representative of the overall threat, too. I don't think their navy is running particularly better than their army. I don't know that other navies can do much besides trying to spot ships and blow them up with guns (do top-attack missiles work?) but whether or not they're good at it they'll definitely be much better than Russia. Until there's some sign that countries are actually investing in sea drones I don't think anything will be done, and I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of small top-attack rocket makes it a non-issue. > autonomous submersible autonomous and submersible don't go very well together. Radio contact underwater is terrible. It's not like drones fly themselves; we haven't figure out the whole autonomous thing. > capable of launching drones with variable payloads? Landing a plane on a ship is actually really hard and requires constant maintenance, even for VTOL. Even for helicopters. Smaller the ship, harder it is to land. > build a drone ship that can launch missiles? But like, why? Why not have people on it? Ships are not big because of the people on it. People can treat casualties, repel boarding, land on the ground etc. Ships are also constantly being maintained and repaired. Waves and salt are a real bitch. If you make a ship without people it'll cost almost the same, be almost the same size, be very hard to repair and be much less capable.
mikewarot 3y ago
At the end of WW2, the Japanese had developed, but not yet deployed, suicide airplanes with 2,900 Kg shaped charges built into them. If they were deployed, and managed to get close enough, it's possible it would have blown right through the 12" armor of an Iowa class battleship. It was Mitsubishi Ki0167[2], according to Ryan Szimanski the curator of the Battleship New Jersey, in this video[1]. This marked the effective end of the concept of armor thick enough that it couldn't be breached, and the Battleship. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KlFxbF8hrs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KlFxbF8hrs [2] https://www.daveswarbirds.com/Nippon/aircraft/Ki-167.htm https://www.daveswarbirds.com/Nippon/aircraft/Ki-167.htm
- cm2187 3y ago
  ok but that's 12" armour. But doesn't necessarily mean we went to the other extreme, i.e. that a modern military ship has the same hull than a trawler. A quick google search suggests the thickness of an ice breaker hull seems to be about 2 inches.

by cm2187 3y ago

andylynch 3y ago

No, they aren’t armoured nearly as much as WWII era ships; it shorten range, slows them down, and doesn’t really work against guided weapons

hef19898 3y ago
Or torpedoes.
tomatotomato37 3y ago
Yeah, the dreadnaught arms race of the first part of the 20th century was kinda an anomaly in ship design, especially considering how little big-gun naval battles happened despite two world wars. Turns out up-armoring ships hard enough that they end up legitimately surviving a close range nuclear shockwave (look up Operation Crossroads) is actually a massive waste of resources.
- leeter 3y ago
  Yes and no, the ship and crew might have survived. But the steel wasn't thick enough to block all the radiation. Moreover traditional ship design up until that point didn't handle Nuclear Biological, and Chemical threats well. They weren't really designed to be completely sealed. It's important to recognize that the assumption that the next war would be atomic killed a lot of technology paths because the people with the money assumed it was a waste of time to continue in those directions. By the time the military started to re-explore those paths the tech had languished. It's why the Iowas went back to sea with the Mk8 fire control computer, a completely analog computer. Because nobody had really bothered to build a better one for large caliber shells since WWII. But it's important to note that before the Iowas were given their final retirements into museum ships the Navy made sure to basically document everything they could about firing large caliber guns. Because when they initially pulled them out of mothballs in the 1980s they were woefully inaccurate, but by the time they were decommissioned for the final time they could hit a proverbial fly on a flag pole (allegedly). The other part of it was that the Soviet Union didn't really have a surface fleet to really speak of. They invested heavily in submarines, so consequently the US Navy focused heavily on ASW. So... nobody really knows how 16" of modern armor would fair against modern weapons, it's literally never been tried. Whereas you can find pictures from way back when they were testing guns, of how various shells fared against various thicknesses and types of armor. Long story short: We've forgotten most of what we knew about surface warfare, and we're starting to forget what we knew about shipbuilding and design. The US has outsourced all it's naval architecture and shipbuilding so long that the necessary skills are either all retired or lost.

ars 3y ago

The thick steel (like the landing deck of an aircraft carrier) is flat not curved. The curved stuff is actually Kevlar, not steel.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Didn't know they had kevlar hulls in WW2.

dmitrygr 3y ago

> I don't understand. Aren't modern military ships armoured anymore? No, no amount of armoring is useful against modern weaponry, but it does increase the "m", thus lowering the "a" you get from your engine's "F".

robotnikman 3y ago

Only the most vital parts receive some armor iirc. But not as thick as the armor found on the old battleships, and probably not curved.

echelon 3y ago

I'm curious as to whether manned ships will continue to prevail in the age of drones. Wire up a cheap boat with explosives and it can sink an expensive naval vessel. The Ukrainians are using this to massively great effect right now against the Russians. What if instead of building one new aircraft carrier, you build an autonomous submersible capable of launching drones with variable payloads? Or instead of a destroyer, build a drone ship that can launch missiles? Or an entirely new class of ship that simply swarms enemy defenses and is laden with explosives? Mass-produced autonomous jet skis with explosive payloads. But faster.

hwillis 3y ago
> Wire up a cheap boat with explosives and it can sink an expensive naval vessel. This has been pretty obvious since the Millennium Challenge 21 years ago, when they just called them suicide attacks. Nobody seems to have cared then and not much has changed. I think the issue is pretty tightly limited to boats/sea drones, though. If you're even a few feet under the surface then sonar can see you. If you're a few feet above the surface then radar gets you. Both options die a mile away. I also think Russia is probably not very representative of the overall threat, too. I don't think their navy is running particularly better than their army. I don't know that other navies can do much besides trying to spot ships and blow them up with guns (do top-attack missiles work?) but whether or not they're good at it they'll definitely be much better than Russia. Until there's some sign that countries are actually investing in sea drones I don't think anything will be done, and I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of small top-attack rocket makes it a non-issue. > autonomous submersible autonomous and submersible don't go very well together. Radio contact underwater is terrible. It's not like drones fly themselves; we haven't figure out the whole autonomous thing. > capable of launching drones with variable payloads? Landing a plane on a ship is actually really hard and requires constant maintenance, even for VTOL. Even for helicopters. Smaller the ship, harder it is to land. > build a drone ship that can launch missiles? But like, why? Why not have people on it? Ships are not big because of the people on it. People can treat casualties, repel boarding, land on the ground etc. Ships are also constantly being maintained and repaired. Waves and salt are a real bitch. If you make a ship without people it'll cost almost the same, be almost the same size, be very hard to repair and be much less capable.

mikewarot 3y ago

At the end of WW2, the Japanese had developed, but not yet deployed, suicide airplanes with 2,900 Kg shaped charges built into them. If they were deployed, and managed to get close enough, it's possible it would have blown right through the 12" armor of an Iowa class battleship. It was Mitsubishi Ki0167[2], according to Ryan Szimanski the curator of the Battleship New Jersey, in this video[1]. This marked the effective end of the concept of armor thick enough that it couldn't be breached, and the Battleship. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KlFxbF8hrs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KlFxbF8hrs [2] https://www.daveswarbirds.com/Nippon/aircraft/Ki-167.htm https://www.daveswarbirds.com/Nippon/aircraft/Ki-167.htm

cm2187 3y ago
ok but that's 12" armour. But doesn't necessarily mean we went to the other extreme, i.e. that a modern military ship has the same hull than a trawler. A quick google search suggests the thickness of an ice breaker hull seems to be about 2 inches.