[shiroiushi]

Yeah, that was an amazing helicopter, and it's really too bad it was cut, but as you say, it just didn't make economic sense any more when UAVs were invented. I guess it's something like the Japanese battleship Yamato, with the largest guns ever installed on a warship. It was amazing, but easily sunk by airplanes flown from aircraft carriers, so it was already obsolete when it was launched.

[ldargin]

I worked with a former army officer / test pilot who was formerly involved with the Comanche project, when the news came out that it got cancelled. He was quite disappointed with that, and disagreed with what was said about it's survivability. He said if they can't see you, they can't shoot you.

[sofixa]

> He said if they can't see you, they can't shoot you.

He should tell the F-117 pilot who got shot down with a few decades old anti-air system that, while keeping in mind that the F-117 flew higher and faster and quieter (relatively).

[bluGill]

aircraft carriers are even more vulnerable. battleships are obsolete not because they are easy to sink but because airplanes are more versitle for most purposes. When doing a shore assult a battleship is more useful than airplanes but that is not enough to be worth the cost of running them.

[jabl]

> battleships are obsolete not because they are easy to sink but because airplanes are more versitle for most purposes.

The main reason really is range. A battleship can obliterate a target within about 25 km (yes, I know the guns can shoot longer than that, but practical accuracy against a moving target such as another ship..) whereas an aircraft carrier can launch strikes from hundreds of km away. Further, the carrier can launch reconnaissance aircraft (nowadays with radar obviously, but thinking of the WWII era when battleships were obsoleted) so it's aware of what's happening around it. So it can, say, stay away out of range of enemy battleships, as well as detect enemy targets at long range to launch strikes against. Yes, mistakes can still happen, see the battle of Samar. And yes, the battleship likely has floatplanes, but compared to a carrier, few of them, shorter range, and needs relatively calm seas to recover them.

All this being said, yes it took a lot of planes launched from a lot of carriers to sink the Yamato. But due to the range issue explained in the previous paragraph, the carriers could safely do this well out of range of the massive guns of the Yamato, whereas the Yamato could do nothing more than sit there impotently taking hit after hit until it finally succumbed.

> When doing a shore assult a battleship is more useful than airplanes but that is not enough to be worth the cost of running them.

In principle, yes. But to do that the battleship needs to get awfully close to whatever it's going to shoot at, running the risk of hitting mines, or being targeted by shore-based anti-ship missiles etc. And if you already have the overwhelming superiority to get rid of all such enemy systems before bringing the battleship in, why not use those same assets to hit the same targets the battleship would hit in the first place?

[picture]

Agreed. Super pedantic comment: it's Battle off Samar.

[bluGill]

You are mostly correct, except for one key point: the battleship was armored so that it could get close to the action and have somewhat reasonable chances of surviving. Most ships today could not take near the hits the Yamato did. (the Yamato shows why it is pointless to try)

[lazide]

Airplanes can do over the horizon missions.

Battleships aren’t useful for that.

Missile cruisers/destroyers are the battleship replacements.

But airplanes can also carry and launch missiles even better, with some warning and planning.

Battleships are useful for the naval equivalent of a bar brawl or a street gang fight. Aka up close, nasty, ‘punch them in the face until they can’t get up again’. They’re the equivalent of Mike Tyson in his prime for that.

Which even now would have some PR value, and no matter the time period will always be a spectacle.

But tactics have evolved more since then, and we just don’t have those type of fights that much anymore. And when we do, we just bring a ‘gun’ instead of relying on our ‘fists’.

Of course, anything is possible and maybe we’ll turn New Jersey into a spaceship to fight our space naval battles in a hundred years. Odds are low though.

[ethbr1]

One reason airplanes are more versatile is because they're modular.

You can swap a carrier air wing to 2 years newer planes.

You can't swap a battleship to 2 years newer tech.

[bluGill]

The versatility is about range. That you can swap them out is a nice bonus, but range compared to the big guns is the real key.