Iowa and Alaska Class Conversion Projects

[T. A. Gardner]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcxYQBA7Uus

 

[BlackBat242]

It might surprise you to know that when USS Alabama, USS Massachusetts, and USS North Carolina were made into museum ships the USN required that "no alterations which would prevent them from being reactivated are permitted".

The same went for the Iowa class BBs.

None of the battleships have, to the best of my knowledge, been removed from that status.

 

[bobtdwarf]

If only someone had thought about making some "dumb" munitions for the Zumwalt class...nOoO they had to only make high tech wiz bang stuff that costs as much as a squadron of F/A-18's to fill the magazines!

Sure people can think that large scale amphibious operations are never going to happen... but the best way to ensure that you will need to pull an Inchon to save your ass is to get rid of the ability to pull an Inchon to save your ass

You do realize guided munitions are waaay more cost effective, right?
One guided munition does the work of a dozen dumb bombs, and cuts down the number of aircraft and support assets needed to conduct a strike.

They can be, the bunker example would be a good use for a guided munition as it is likely going to take the same overall cost in dumb to do it. However there are times you just want to flatten a grid square and for that kind of stuff dumb will do.

Another advantage dumb has got is that it is not dependent on overseas chip suppliers to work.

 

[Dilandu]

They can be, the bunker example would be a good use for a guided munition as it is likely going to take the same overall cost in dumb to do it. However there are times you just want to flatten a grid square and for that kind of stuff dumb will do.

Actually no, they won't, because due to poor dispercion it would cost several times as much as flattening the same area with JDAM's. Also, using dumb bombs would require you to risk your planes more, so you probably would lose some.

 

[SSgtC]

They can be, the bunker example would be a good use for a guided munition as it is likely going to take the same overall cost in dumb to do it. However there are times you just want to flatten a grid square and for that kind of stuff dumb will do.

Actually no, they won't, because due to poor dispercion it would cost several times as much as flattening the same area with JDAM's. Also, using dumb bombs would require you to risk your planes more, so you probably would lose some.

He wasn't referring (I don't think anyway) to bombs specifically, but to artillery rounds. In which case, you don't actually want pinpoint accuracy. If you're trying to cover an assault, you want your artillery to blanket an area. To cause casualties to the enemy yes, but more importantly, to force them to keep their heads down so they can't shoot at you while you're exposed. You want generalized destruction, not specific destruction of one target.

 

[bobtdwarf]

They can be, the bunker example would be a good use for a guided munition as it is likely going to take the same overall cost in dumb to do it. However there are times you just want to flatten a grid square and for that kind of stuff dumb will do.

Actually no, they won't, because due to poor dispercion it would cost several times as much as flattening the same area with JDAM's. Also, using dumb bombs would require you to risk your planes more, so you probably would lose some.

dispersion on the 16's using the upgraded FC system on their last deployment was less than 0.74% of range not the previous 2-3%(roughly able to put a round within 20-30 meters at 20km).. more than adequate to flatten a grid square.. the accuracy of the modern 155mm is MUCH better than that even with dumb munitions.

SSGT gets it... you want to wall to wall this square with overlapping cones of shrapnel.. and you can do it with dumb munitions for less than the cost of ONE smart munition. The Marines want this for a reason and as much as we might think that we will never have to do an Inchon or Tarawa again... there looms Taiwan

 

[TomS]

Given the low cost of guidance enhancement like PGK, you absolutely can save money compared to a similar suppressive fire using dumb rounds. Because you can fire a pattern of interlocking bursts with fewer total shots fired when you can count on rounds actually going where they need to with significantly greater precision.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

To bring them back today, the Navy would have to either recall to duty a number of retired engineering types to assist in training the crew, or start from scratch training people to operate the propulsion plants on these ships. They alone have boilers. Boiler Tech is a dead rating today. At most, current ships have a small donkey boiler aboard for hotel loads and nothing else. On a modern carrier, one engine room watch would be about 8 to 12 crew total. On a battleship, you have that in one boiler room alone because nothing is automated.

Try to find parts for that (Mk 8 FC computer)

At least the asbestos would already be gone from the Iowas. The other classes would have to have that stripped from everything. The overhaul to get those ships operational would last years.

 

[Firefinder]

And again those are the EASY fixes the Navy need to do.

The Hard one is the Guns.

From my reseach the Wisconsin has the Best barrels of the lot, with the highest being bout 400 shots though it.

The rest are pushing 800 shots average on their guns.

The Iowa Mark 8 barrels are rated for only 1500 shots.

That life goes FAST in training which you will need to do to retrain everyone on the guns.

And we can not make any more barrels nor do we have any spares, those got scrap in the early 00s.

You can see the issue.

They have bout 5 years, maybe if they only use one ship to train them on. After that?

Basically missile barges.

 

[SSgtC]

To bring them back today, the Navy would have to either recall to duty a number of retired engineering types to assist in training the crew, or start from scratch training people to operate the propulsion plants on these ships. They alone have boilers. Boiler Tech is a dead rating today. At most, current ships have a small donkey boiler aboard for hotel loads and nothing else. On a modern carrier, one engine room watch would be about 8 to 12 crew total. On a battleship, you have that in one boiler room alone because nothing is automated.

Try to find parts for that (Mk 8 FC computer)

At least the asbestos would already be gone from the Iowas. The other classes would have to have that stripped from everything. The overhaul to get those ships operational would last years.

It's funny, I just got in this discussion with someone on Facebook, about the Navy lacking the technical ability to operate these ships anymore. For reference, the Wasp class LHDs still use a traditional steam plant. They have 2 boilers each. Meaning across the entire fleet, the Navy has 216 boiler technicians (plus however many are on shore duty). One Iowa class by itself will need a minimum of 144 BTs (6 men per boiler times 8 boilers times 3 watches). Bringing the entire fleet back would need no less than 576 BTs on the ships at any given time. And i have to stress, that is the minimum number needed.

 

[bobtdwarf]

I will once more bring this back to my original statement: Make some dumb rounds, or dumbER rounds for the 155mm. Don't need the 16's you just need more than 127mm and lets try to keep this to about $20,000 a shot max

 

[Colonial-Marine]

The bigger question I think is not the choice of gun but whether or not you want a dedicated fire support ship or to incorporate that capability on the general purpose destroyers of the fleet. Such a fire support ship could be configured in many different ways but I don't think it's going to be a reactivation of the old battleships. Sadly they're too old and the logistics (and manpower) isn't there.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

The US Navy was planning to replace the Mk 8 Fire Control Computer with a modified version of the Mk 160 (Mod 5) prior to being decommissioned.

Wouldn't deal with all of the other problems, and I think modern amphibious operations against a peer opponent would be sufficiently dispersed (not to mention sufficiently dangerous) that a modernised Battleship would unable to provide the necessary support.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

And again those are the EASY fixes the Navy need to do.

The Hard one is the Guns.

From my reseach the Wisconsin has the Best barrels of the lot, with the highest being bout 400 shots though it.

The rest are pushing 800 shots average on their guns.

The Iowa Mark 8 barrels are rated for only 1500 shots.

That life goes FAST in training which you will need to do to retrain everyone on the guns.

And we can not make any more barrels nor do we have any spares, those got scrap in the early 00s.

You can see the issue.

They have bout 5 years, maybe if they only use one ship to train them on. After that?

Basically missile barges.

No, those fixes I'm talking about are not easy. Many of the systems on those battleships cannot be sourced. The technical manuals may not even exist anymore. Drawings and technical data likely have lots of parts that can't even be reliably identified. The ship doesn't work if even the minor and mundane things on it don't work.

On the battleships other than the Iowa's all the berthing on the ship would have to be stripped out and brought up to modern standards. The galleys would have to have the same done to them. The decks in the galleys and mess areas would have to be stripped down to metal and a terrazzo deck installed rather than linoleum.

If some component on any system needs replacing, it's going to be an uphill struggle to find the parts and outright replacement requires you submit drawings and other technical data to the proper Navy bureau for approval before you can swap it out. Been there, done that. It can take months to get approval.

Many systems on these old ships are unsafe by NavOSH standards and would require replacement or modification to make them compliant. Even old lead paint would become an issue.

All the lighting on other than the Iowa's has to be replaced. The old incandescent lighting originally installed is substandard and can be impossible to find today.

There might even be serious issues with the main propulsion because the turbines and shafts haven't turned in decades.

All of this and a lot more would have to be fixed and brought up to usable standards before a single round was fired out of a gun.

 

[Dilandu]

To bring them back today, the Navy would have to either recall to duty a number of retired engineering types to assist in training the crew, or start from scratch training people to operate the propulsion plants on these ships.

I'm afraid, both ways are dead end. Let's not forget, those ships were decommissioned for the last time in early 1990s. So the last sailors that served on them are 50-60 years old. And for the last 30+ years they did not work with anything like those old steam plants at all. Their knowledge is rusty and incomplete.

And training from scratch... have a bunch of theoretically-trained mechanics, operating ancient powerplant half-made from parts, that are not produced anymore? I wouldn't like to be on this ship.

 

[Dilandu]

And again those are the EASY fixes the Navy need to do.

Well, if you consider "diassembling the battleship, throwing out the old power plant and installing new one in place" to be easy...

 

[Dilandu]

I will once more bring this back to my original statement: Make some dumb rounds, or dumbER rounds for the 155mm. Don't need the 16's you just need more than 127mm and lets try to keep this to about $20,000 a shot max

Sigh. Why can't you just use rockets?

 

[that_person]

What purpose would an Iowa reactivation even serve? All the DoD wargames have the next war lasting a few months at the longest. And even then, what will it actually do? That’s hardly enough time to bring a ship from museum status to being combat ready, let alone train her crew. And for a peacetime reactivation, the Navy already has severe undermanning issues, so I don’t think we need to bring in another 2000 man vessel.

 

[Archibald]

And again those are the EASY fixes the Navy need to do.

Well, if you consider "diassembling the battleship, throwing out the old power plant and installing new one in place" to be easy...

The proverbial "keep the name plate plus the ship bell, and rebuild a brand new ship around them. Then said: upgrade done." LMAO.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

There's still more issues and problems. Except for the Iowa's (assuming this equipment wasn't removed) none of these ships have electrical power plants that come close to supplying what they need for modern electronics and systems. None have a 400 Hz system at all (necessary for missiles and some other electronics along with support for operating helicopters).
The generators are just too small that are aboard.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

And again those are the EASY fixes the Navy need to do.

Well, if you consider "diassembling the battleship, throwing out the old power plant and installing new one in place" to be easy...

The proverbial "keep the name plate plus the ship bell, and rebuild a brand new ship around them. Then said: upgrade done." LMAO.

The Navy's done that before:

USS Puritan as originally constructed:

USS Puritan as rebuilt as BM-1

The ship went from being a late Civil War monitor to being a quasi-battleship of the 1880's... There was little or nothing of the original left when the conversion was finished.

 

[bobtdwarf]

I will once more bring this back to my original statement: Make some dumb rounds, or dumbER rounds for the 155mm. Don't need the 16's you just need more than 127mm and lets try to keep this to about $20,000 a shot max

Sigh. Why can't you just use rockets?

you can. the advantage of a gun system with an internal magazine is you can just keep firing in bad weather without worries about moving tubes on deck. I mean HIMARS has been doing journeyman work in Ukraine and performing brilliantly... still nice to have a simple, stupid arty tube that fires a round free from a cheap chip built somewhere else that can get crimped off.

 

[SSgtC]

What purpose would an Iowa reactivation even serve? All the DoD wargames have the next war lasting a few months at the longest. And even then, what will it actually do? That’s hardly enough time to bring a ship from museum status to being combat ready, let alone train her crew. And for a peacetime reactivation, the Navy already has severe undermanning issues, so I don’t think we need to bring in another 2000 man vessel.

While i do agree that bringing the Iowa class back makes no sense, at the time the ships were decommissioned, they only had about 1500 or so. Still more than anything else in the fleet that isn't a carrier, but...

There's still more issues and problems. Except for the Iowa's (assuming this equipment wasn't removed) none of these ships have electrical power plants that come close to supplying what they need for modern electronics and systems. None have a 400 Hz system at all (necessary for missiles and some other electronics along with support for operating helicopters).
The generators are just too small that are aboard.

The only missiles that would be installed on any battleship reactivation would be harpoon and tomahawk. And they could operate those (in theory, there are some questions as to whether new models of it Tomahawk could be used with the armored box launchers on the Iowas).

 

[that_person]

What purpose would an Iowa reactivation even serve? All the DoD wargames have the next war lasting a few months at the longest. And even then, what will it actually do? That’s hardly enough time to bring a ship from museum status to being combat ready, let alone train her crew. And for a peacetime reactivation, the Navy already has severe undermanning issues, so I don’t think we need to bring in another 2000 man vessel.

While i do agree that bringing the Iowa class back makes no sense, at the time the ships were decommissioned, they only had about 1500 or so. Still more than anything else in the fleet that isn't a carrier, but...

There's still more issues and problems. Except for the Iowa's (assuming this equipment wasn't removed) none of these ships have electrical power plants that come close to supplying what they need for modern electronics and systems. None have a 400 Hz system at all (necessary for missiles and some other electronics along with support for operating helicopters).
The generators are just too small that are aboard.

The only missiles that would be installed on any battleship reactivation would be harpoon and tomahawk. And they could operate those (in theory, there are some questions as to whether new models of it Tomahawk could be used with the armored box launchers on the Iowas).

That’s assuming the ABLs and Mk143s still work (which I doubt). Chances are the they would all be replaced by VLS cells, as seen in the 1995 limited modernization study. Essentially they would’ve ended up raising the superstructure by half a deck.

Also, you can’t mount any SAMs on the vessels either; the overpressure from the guns destroys their sensors (and the illuminators, albeit we seem to be moving to ARH missiles).

 

[Kat Tsun]

Speaking as a Marine, we are always going to want the biggest guns, on the biggest ship, with the heaviest armor to shoot us in when we have to hit a beach. That basic doctrine hasn't changed since the age of sail. And it likely won't ever change. Having a 16" armed battleship parked offshore is the stuff wet dreams are made of for Marines told to hit a beach.

What that paper is articulating is what the Marine Corps sees as needed to fulfill its tasking, namely amphibious assault. The Navy's issues with reactivating and manning 4 battle wagons isn't our problem. Our problem, is we need more than a couple of five inchers parked offshore to shoot us in. How the Navy addresses that, is their problem.

The Corps could stop thinking it's job is to repeat Tarawa. It's not happening. Large-scale opposed landings are dead as the proverbial LVT. The current commandant at least gets that (as much as one can quibble with the details).

Berger understands modern Marine Corps needs when he cuts the air landing capacity, sea landing capacity, and adds marginally more short range rocket artillery and cruise missiles? Cutting the airlift capability of the marines by a third or a fifth or whatever (depends on what aircraft we're talking about) isn't exactly congruent with the idea that the Marines can also conduct landing operations.

It seems the future Marines are moving from amphibious/airlanding operations and more towards a repeat of the 1930's Advanced Basing Forces. Less Tarawa, more Wake Island. That's the only way to explain why they're so interested in anti-ship capability and small island hopping ships instead of fast action airmobile raids and heavy lift helicopters supported by DL and VTO aviation like F-35, of which you'd expect an expansion rather than a contraction, to counteract the reduction in organic armored vehicles and AAV sealift.

While large scale opposed landings with 16" guns might be dead, the future US Marines aren't exactly going to be in a position to repeat Mattis's massive assault lifts into Afghanistan, or the air/sea landing operations into Al-Faw, either. This might all be temporary just to eat the fat cost of both JSF and CH-53K, which are fiscal black holes, but it's the weird emphasis on long-range anti-ship missiles and stuff that gets me to think it's a bit more than that.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I will once more bring this back to my original statement: Make some dumb rounds, or dumbER rounds for the 155mm. Don't need the 16's you just need more than 127mm and lets try to keep this to about $20,000 a shot max

Sigh. Why can't you just use rockets?

you can. the advantage of a gun system with an internal magazine is you can just keep firing in bad weather without worries about moving tubes on deck. I mean HIMARS has been doing journeyman work in Ukraine and performing brilliantly... still nice to have a simple, stupid arty tube that fires a round free from a cheap chip built somewhere else that can get crimped off.

What you really want if it is rockets, is something like the USS Carronade IFS 1. That ship hurls rockets continuously for fire support

 

[Archibald]

Why is it so hard to take a 21 kt amphib and turn it into a NGS ship - with some 5- or 6- or 8- inch guns plus a crapton of HIMARS / ATACMS launchers ?

 

[uk 75]

Have a look at this thread

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/usn-fire-support-gun-proposals.38683/

 

[uk 75]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/battlewagons-for-the-21-century.32355/

 

[uk 75]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mk-71-lightweight-8-gun.1077/#post-16879

 

[uk 75]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/naval-gun-projects.1672/page-5#post-494478

 

[uk 75]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/thanks-smurf-us-fire-support-ship.1178/#post-399321

 

[bobtdwarf]

there is a YouTube channel by a group of DCS enthusiasts.. think they are called the grim reapers; they have recently turned on a "scoreboard" on their war games sims: It is a running cost total of the munitions and vehicles expended in the fight.
When you are doing a sim between a PLAN carrier groups squaring off with a USN one and you see the ticker cross the BILLION buck mark before any aircraft get downed... yeah I love me some high tech as much as the next Gen X American but we need some seriously brain damaged/STUPID cheap alternatives if for no other reason to maintain operational tempo during the lag of rearming the whiz bang stuff.

 

[BlackBat242]

And again those are the EASY fixes the Navy need to do.

Well, if you consider "diassembling the battleship, throwing out the old power plant and installing new one in place" to be easy...

The proverbial "keep the name plate plus the ship bell, and rebuild a brand new ship around them. Then said: upgrade done." LMAO.

The Navy's done that before:

USS Puritan as originally constructed:

USS Puritan as rebuilt as BM-1

The ship went from being a late Civil War monitor to being a quasi-battleship of the 1880's... There was little or nothing of the original left when the conversion was finished.

The terms "rebuild" and "conversion" are deceptive terms deliberately used to trick Congress into thinking that the USN was NOT simply building new ships - which is, of course, exactly what they were doing!

Some wood planking was removed from the old hulls (along with various small instruments etc still used by the USN), some metal items (steel cables etc), and so on - and installed somewhere on the brand-new hulls being built (similar to the portholes from CV-6 Enterprise that were installed in the Captain's Sea Cabin of CVN-65 Enterprise).

The remaining material of the old ships were scrapped.

 

[BlackBat242]

It's funny, I just got in this discussion with someone on Facebook, about the Navy lacking the technical ability to operate these ships anymore. For reference, the Wasp class LHDs still use a traditional steam plant. They have 2 boilers each. Meaning across the entire fleet, the Navy has 216 boiler technicians (plus however many are on shore duty). One Iowa class by itself will need a minimum of 144 BTs (6 men per boiler times 8 boilers times 3 watches). Bringing the entire fleet back would need no less than 576 BTs on the ships at any given time. And i have to stress, that is the minimum number needed.

Indeed - LHD-1 Wasp, LHD-2 Essex, LHD-3 Kearsarge, LHD-4 Boxer, LHD-5 Bataan, & LHD-7 Iwo Jima are powered by 600PSI 900° boilers that are slightly modernized (with better controls and automation) versions of those in the Iowas (as were the former LHD-6 Bonhomme Richard, the 5 Tarawa class LHAs, and the 7 Iwo Jima class LPHs) - but the numbers of boiler techs required would still be nearly impossible to scrounge up... basically every boiler tech that ever served in the Wasp (2 boilers), Tarawa (2 boilers), and Iwo Jima (1 boiler) classes that is still physically capable of working would be required to bring the Iowas (8 boilers each) back into service.

 

[Hood]

I must be going blind. 55 posts and no sign of any Iowa-class projects at all.
If you want to discuss the finer points of US offshore gunfire support (yet again) or cost effectiveness of bombardment options then I'd suggest making a suitable topic in the Military section.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

It's funny, I just got in this discussion with someone on Facebook, about the Navy lacking the technical ability to operate these ships anymore. For reference, the Wasp class LHDs still use a traditional steam plant. They have 2 boilers each. Meaning across the entire fleet, the Navy has 216 boiler technicians (plus however many are on shore duty). One Iowa class by itself will need a minimum of 144 BTs (6 men per boiler times 8 boilers times 3 watches). Bringing the entire fleet back would need no less than 576 BTs on the ships at any given time. And i have to stress, that is the minimum number needed.

Indeed - LHD-1 Wasp, LHD-2 Essex, LHD-3 Kearsarge, LHD-4 Boxer, LHD-5 Bataan, & LHD-7 Iwo Jima are powered by 600PSI 900° boilers that are slightly modernized (with better controls and automation) versions of those in the Iowas (as were the former LHD-6 Bonhomme Richard, the 5 Tarawa class LHAs, and the 7 Iwo Jima class LPHs) - but the numbers of boiler techs required would still be nearly impossible to scrounge up... basically every boiler tech that ever served in the Wasp (2 boilers), Tarawa (2 boilers), and Iwo Jima (1 boiler) classes that is still physically capable of working would be required to bring the Iowas (8 boilers each) back into service.

And, that's the rub. Try teaching some kid today how to do feedwater to an Iowa or S. Dakota class battleship using Yarway sightglasses...

The technology is almost stone age. By today's standards it's crude and requires the operator's constant attention. It is labor intensive when automated controls would work better with greater safety. Then you have to convert the boiler feeds from heavy marine fuel to either DFM or JP 5 because you can't use heavy marine anymore--you can barely even get it.

Well, at least they wouldn't have to have stokers shoveling coal into the boilers...

Then there's the need for an HVAC system aboard. Those older battleships have little to no refrigeration plant aboard. You need that for spaces like CIC and other electronics. There would also be some issues with crew comfort where not having it would be a MWR issue.

You can't even get STS and other older types of special armor plate anymore. Nobody makes it, it may be prohibitively expensive to even try and get someone to make it. That means you have to go with HY 80 or 120, or an ASM 86XX series triple alloy instead. Older processes like Krupp cemented or the equivalent? Forget it. Nobody can make that today.

 

[SSgtC]

The technology is almost stone age. By today's standards it's crude and requires the operator's constant attention. It is labor intensive when automated controls would work better with greater safety.

It's a pain, but that's probably the easiest thing to teach. There are dozens of steam locomotives operating in the US that use manual sight glasses, so it's not too arcane of a skill to learn. But again, that's the easiest thing to relearn. The rest is considerably more difficult.

Then you have to convert the boiler feeds from heavy marine fuel to either DFM or JP 5 because you can't use heavy marine anymore--you can barely even get it.

On the Iowa class, that's already been done. They were converted to DFM during their 1980s reactivation. If, for some batshit insane reason, you decided to bring back North Carolina and the two SoDaks, they would have to be converted from Bunker C to DFM.

Then there's the need for an HVAC system aboard. Those older battleships have little to no refrigeration plant aboard. You need that for spaces like CIC and other electronics. There would also be some issues with crew comfort where not having it would be a MWR issue.

Again, this has already been done on the Iowas during their 1980s reactivation. Even the older BBs had some air conditioning in certain spaces (CIC for instance). But yeah, if you wanted to bring the NC and SoDaks back, they'd need air conditioning along with a complete and total overhaul of their berthing spaces.

You can't even get STS and other older types of special armor plate anymore. Nobody makes it, it may be prohibitively expensive to even try and get someone to make it. That means you have to go with HY 80 or 120, or an ASM 86XX series triple alloy instead. Older processes like Krupp cemented or the equivalent? Forget it. Nobody can make that today.

Not having STS isn't as big an issue. They didn't have it when the Iowas were brought back in the 80s either. IIRC, they used HY80 (or it might have been HY100, not entirely sure which) when new steel was needed. The two types are close enough in their properties that galvanic corrosion isn't an issue.

The bigger issue is the armor plate. Not that it isn't made anymore. If the Navy really needed more of it, they could pay easily pay a few million bucks and get US Steel to start making it again and have it in plenty of time for the ships to recomission. No, the issue is welding it. Class A and Class B armor needs to be welded in a very specific way for it to adhere the the structural steel of the ship. Not only that, the number of people in the world who can correctly weld two pieces of 12.1" armor (or thicker in certain areas) together can be counted on one hand. Even when the ships were in service, the Navy never had more than a handful of people trained in how to properly weld belt armor. Those are deep welds, deeper than any most welders will ever do.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

It's not easy to learn. I've had to do it for real on ships in the Navy. It is a very skilled balancing act. The last time was purely by accident on the USS Brooke where the ship was being handed over to the Pakistan Navy. I was aboard to reinstall a engine room vent fan and had a helper and three riggers with me to do that.
Prayer call went down in the middle of a training exercise to light the boilers off. The Chief from the boiler shop nearly $h!+ himself as the Pakis stopped work to go to prayer. I took Yarway, and had my helper and the riggers safely light the boiler off.
I also had to do major work on the sliding padeye for unrep of Tartar missiles as the two electricians from 51A in San Diego had totally *&#%$ that system up beyond belief.

I speak from long and hard experience. I've seen how shipyards today can't weld up armor because they have no experience with doing it. That was clear on the Enterprise, for example when they had to cut out many of the patches and redo them because they failed in testing.

Been there done that. It isn't something almost any shipyard can handle today.

Yes, I am a retired Navy Chief and have lots of hands on experience with shipboard systems up through the 2000's.

 

[Yellow Palace]

It might surprise you to know that when USS Alabama, USS Massachusetts, and USS North Carolina were made into museum ships the USN required that "no alterations which would prevent them from being reactivated are permitted".

The same went for the Iowa class BBs.

None of the battleships have, to the best of my knowledge, been removed from that status.

Yes, and the CONSTITUTION is still in commission. It's not going to show up on the gunline off some beach somewhere either.

All the ships in question have become unfit for active service without the need for any physical alterations. The fundamentals of their design and operational concept have simply become totally outdated. In the unlikely event someone came up with a compelling argument for heavy guns afloat, it'd be more viable to build new ships that meet modern requirements.