Shipbucket

Alright, I was expecting shuch a harsh response sooner or later, the topic of "battleship" is still a debated, yet arguably unfavorable concept within the current fleet standards. The only way something remotely close to a battleship will be brought into service is the innovation of the railgun, even then they will likely be armored destroyers. In my personal opinion though, the "battleship" is not dead, but simply in a period of hibernation. If man kind ever ventures out into space (talking purely theoretically here) and develops the need for a heavily armed spaceship, I can assure you that it will likely not be a huge aircraft carrier like vessel. In space, the larger the vessel the faster, the larger the weapons the further the reach of said weapons. I am not referring to space battleship yamato, I am referring to popular scientific theory, indeed a space battleship! This may happen if man kind survives long enough (no not talking about the 2012 pansies).

The all-big-gun battle ship of the line is dead.
It will never, ever return in a form we recognize.

There is hope for a gun-heavy warship returning... slim hope, but there still. There are several conflicts in this world that are brewing that would make amphibious warfare necessary. If you wish to support a large-scale amphibious assault there is no other real option but a gun vessel for fire support. Artillery is the only precise, immediate and reliable way to support troop movements, and its presence on the battlefield would be a necessity.
These ships wouldn't be 'battleships'- more like tinclad cruisers using guns in the 6"-8" range (which we could produce now) and having 4-6 guns each with very large magazines and very long on-station endurance. They would provide initial close artillery support for landing forces, providing a two-fold benefit: 1.) giving advancing troops a more immediate strike capability than air-dropped munitions and 2.) freeing up aircraft for deep-strikes into enemy territory.

"It will never, ever return in a form we recognize."

Hence my statement of a "space battleship" though it will not likely be classified as such.

It's still debated amongst amateur enthusiasts, bored people, and officers who are trying to use a unique angle for career advancement because they can't think of anything more original (and that is why they fail at career advancement). No one else is bothering to debate this.

Let me put it in perhaps the most illustrative yet simple terms I can think of.

The Schwerer Gustav is the largest "legitimate" gun-type weapon (as opposed to pure fantasy weapons like "V3" and "Saddam's Super Gun") ever constructed, and likely the largest weapon, in terms of physical size, that could even be conceivably carried on a ship's hull period. A single gun carriage weighs literally as much as a typical WWII destroyer - it's conceivable that a twin-barreled armored turret and its barbette would weigh as much as a heavy cruiser, maybe even an early dreadnaught. It could fire a 7,100 KG shell at 720 m/s with a rate of fire that's literally measured by the day (14, BTW). Let's feel free to be sloppy and say that it takes an hour to fire a single round (it actually took 45 minutes). Its greatest theoretical range is 150 kilometers - and that's with rocket-assisted ammunition (which was never fielded) on a barrel lengthened to 84 meters (which was never forged).

The BrahMos missile is one of the largest anti-ship missiles currently in service - yet it's small enough to launch off a corvette (the entire ship complete with BrahMos launchers and missiles weighing as much as Schwerer Gustav). It weighs about 2,000 KG upon impact (that includes a 300 KG warhead but we'll ignore that for simplicity). More importantly its impact velocity is 1,021 m/s. Its rate of fire is however fast the vessel's weapons officer can press a button. Its range is 290 kilometers.

So for a raw comparison:

Schwerer Gustav: 1,840,000,000 kilojoules at a rate of fire of 1 shell per hour at a max theoretical range of 150 kilometers.

BrahMos: 1,042,000,000 kilojoules at a rate of fire of 8 missiles per hour (expending a ship's entire armament) at a max practical range of 290 kilometers.

So yes Schwerer Gustav still has an advantage on raw firepower, missile vs. shell, but BrahMos's per-hour firepower is 8,336,000,000 kilojoules per hour (and really per 5 minutes, though reloading while underway is a pain so an hour is more realistic) vs. 1,840,000,000 kilojoules per hour. That's well over 8 times the total firepower of a single Schwerer Gustav cannon. But what of eight barrels, as would be typical of a battleship? A single 1,000-ton corvette equipped with 8 BrahMos launchers has equal the firepower of a 500,000-1,000,000 ton battleship equipped with eight Schwerer Gustav rifles. And this corvette can engage the battleship far beyond the range of the battleship's guns. Also, the Schwerer Gustav, even with 8 barrels, cannot keep up a RoF high enough to really hope for any accuracy without some majorly impressive radar guidance. BrahMos, however, happens to have such guidance built-in.

I hope that this finally brings to light why battleships are obsolete. As for NGFS, you don't need a massive ship to bring a massive gun (or even a massive gun - 6-inchers are more than adequate).

EDIT: for an example of how small you can go to carry this firepower: reportedly MEKO-130 type corvettes are being looked at as possible candidates for BrahMos-launching platforms. The lightest ship I'm aware of that will almost definately carry BarhMos is the Godavari class frigate which is a good bit under 4,000 tons (and also carries helicopters, guns and at least some MANPADS-type AA missiles). Frigates that currently embark BrahMos and a complete AAW suite (SA-N-6 + long-range 3D tracking radars) aren't much heavier.

If a corvette can have 8 of those missiles then have many can a Kirov sized ship have?

And a Kirov is about the size of a battleship.

Well it's kinda funny you bring up Kirov since BrahMos (or rather more specifically, the P-700 Granit/P-800 Onix which is in the same family BrahMos is and was developed from) is considered the primary armament of Kirov. It can carry 20 of them (that's well over 20 billion kilojoules of near-instantaneous firepower, about 19-20 times the firepower of a theoretical 8-rifle Schwerer Gustav ship).

Keep in mind that this is hardly maxing out the Kirov hull either - it's still leaving space for 14 Metel anti-submarine missiles (Metel is an interesting case - not only can it be used in an anti-ship role in a pinch but theoretically the same launchers can embark P-120 Malakhit, which is a pure anti-ship missile), 12 ready-to-launch S-300 anti-aircraft missiles with a magazine holding 84 reloads (and with a max speed of 1,700 m/s and with an impact mass of about a thousand kilos, it still packs significant KE to hurt a vessel), 44 defense-range missiles and, yes, 2 100mm rapid-fire guns (which while lacking the impressive raw numbers of Schwerer Gustav are still quite capable of sinking warships and providing NGFS).

So yes, you can build a large ship loaded up with missiles if you want to.

YES, I KNOW ALREADY! when I am speaking of such things I was implying WHAT IF! I am not green to the point that i would suggest that the US Navy build such vessels, hell Im actually against the construction of nuclear carriers because they're TOO BIG AND EXPENSIVE! (we should revert to small carriers and UAVs, that would be more than enough and save us billions.) The reason I made the topic was purely what if. I so much as cough battleship and I am labeled as old fashioned and green. What I'm saying is that a "battleship" is only feasible in destroyer form today or in the distant future if we even make it to space. (for any of those who are politically aware, NO I do not support Newt Gingrich an the moon state)

However I enjoyed reading this information and found it intriguing. The reason I designed my ship (h-11) was for a theoretical federation which has reverted to it as last resort, plus its something to entertain me before class.

Yes, exactly. Like I said, debated amongst enthusiasts and bored people.

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Not if you want it to perform the same mission as the current carriers. First of all if you want the UAVs to take over the role of manned aircraft then they'll need the same performance as the aircraft they're replacing. As a result it wouldn't be any smaller, any cheaper or any less maintenance intensive. There's a reason why UAVs are still restricted to surveillance and COIN roles.
As a result you'll need a carrier about the same size as the current one to deploy the same number of aircraft. A fully loaded Nimitz has an aircrew in the vicinity of 250 people at most. Ad some catering and service personnel and you could conceivably remove three hundred people from the crew. Of course a lot of those people will be replaced by additional technicians and maybe a few pilots to remote control the UAVs just in case. What you won't see is a reduction in mechanics and deck personnel. Remember, we're dealing with fast jets here and until you come up with a robotic mechanic you'll still need brown shirts, red shirts, purple shirts, yellow shirts and white shirts.
In conclusion, as long as the US Government wants the navy to be able to do what it does now an all UAV force won't confer anywhere near the amount of savings people talk about.
The problem is that with the exception of a few high altitude recce birds UAVs have by and large replaced low-end aircraft were crew cost is a major factor. Once you get into fast jets the pilots wages becomes peanuts compared to all the other operating costs.

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