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Battleships can survive close hits by airburst nukes. To defend against this, the opponent must either use massive overkill, or use underwater bursts near their
by Daniel_Newby 13y ago
Battleships can survive close hits by airburst nukes. To defend against this, the opponent must either use massive overkill, or use underwater bursts near their own coasts. Either approach has dreadful economic costs.
War is the art of making the opponent's costs exceed their resources. One way to create costs is to make weapons that are unreasonably durable—the battleship is the extreme end of the spectrum.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoThere was an airburst test that battleships survived, but the nuke was way off target, even well shielded animals onboard died so if it was crewed it would have been a floating coffin and the nuke was a 20 kiloton device. One single Trident missile holds up to twelve 500 kiloton bombs.
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago1940s battleships were designed for just enough shielding from chemical bombs and bullets. We can assume that future battleships will have comprehensive radiation shielding. Of course, building a fleet to soften up the Chinese coast is more an exercise in science fiction than military planning.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> 1940s battleships were designed for just enough shielding from chemical bombs and bullets. We can assume that future battleships will have comprehensive radiation shielding. We would do better to assume that future battleships won't get built, and that future surface combatants for the foreseeable future will be all carriers and destroyers.