The title block is 'Dreadnaught Consulting', which was the name Dick Landgraff used for his engineering consultancy efforts. Based on that, I'd say that it's an extremely unofficial proposal from an informed amateur.
I think this is an excellent summary of the image, but I do have the same feelings about this thread in general tbh.
That's fairly consistent with the theme of 'save the battleships' ideas from the mid-late 1990s onwards. More than a few of which originated from the desk of Mr. Langraff.
Almost certainly a fake. Several obviously different fonts were used, which suggested that parts of text were copy-pasted from different documents.
What I provided in the very first post was what I given as information about the project. That is all I have.
You have any more on that?
Personal correspondence. He also posts on the Naval Weapons forums. That said, there’s no ETA on publication date yet.
They should try to buy Canadian extending arm launchers...
The Brooke-class DEGs actually had a Mk 22. It's a close relative of the Mk 13 with a smaller magazine.
No, I meant for SM-1MR missiles, if they have so much problems with Sea Sparrow's. Just install a pair of Mk-22 launchers in the position of upper forward 5"/38 mounts.
Yep. The Mk-22 main difference was a design of magazine; it have only one (inner) storage ring for 16 missiles, and the ring was immobile. Instead the whole top of the magazine, with loading hatch in it, rotated with the launcher. During reload, launcher turned to the position of the missile chosen, the loading hatch aligned with the missile, and the missile got loaded. The whole system was as compact as possible.
I suspect the real limiting factors on the Mk 22 were weight and diameter. On deck, I think the Mk 22 and Mk 13 would need not dissimilar amounts of cleared area for them to fit, with the Mk 13 being bigger but the moving part being much more compact. The Mk 13 was similar in ship impact to an Mk 42 gun, the Mk 22 similar in ship impact to the older 5''/38 (Twin IIRC?) mount.
My suspicion is that decision of not putting any SAM on Iowa's was mainly caused by "why bother?" attitude. They were mostly relying on their escorts for protection anyway. Against a lone straddler anti-ship missile, the CIWS mount would likely suffice. And if Iowa's would became a target for a salvo of Soviet supersonic shipkillers... well, the battleship would die anyway, no matter would one of missiles be destroyed by SAM, or not. Early 1980s Sea Sparrow wasn't exactly a good missile defense system; and with just a single illuminator radar anyway, it added little to air defense. At most, a single missile may be knocked out; there would be no time for a second launch, considering Sea Sparrow small range.
Actually their key role was to carry a lot of Tomahawk missiles. The whole initial refit were basically born out of inability to stuff enough Tomahawks on smaller ships. The above-deck ABL launchers were heavy; each one added about 26+ tons to the ship upper weight. Most of USN cruisers and destroyers could not handle more than two of them - i.e. just eight missiles in total.
This is not far off from how the early RIM-7 was put in ASROC boxes on top of an 3in mount to create the Mk 25 launcher of the BPDMS.
May I translate this story (with copytight, of course)? It's very educative!
Sure, go ahead.
Thank you!
Adding some more buoyancy forward would allow for adding some more width to the weather deck and direct the spray more to the sides than the existing Iowa shape. I'm not sure how much you'd need to add through there.
A bulbous bow "clown nose" would fix most of the wave at cruising speed.
Exactly.
