Battleship

A **battleship** is a type of Naval ship first conceptualize for Naval Warfare which are of the late 19th and early 20th century design. Battleships are traditionally very large, heavily armored warships with armament consists of several main battery of large caliber guns. On Earth, they heavily dominated Naval Warfare during the First World War and saw continuous although lesser important use during the Second War World.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, with the advancements of technology and changing of Naval Doctrine, battleships were superseded by other Naval Vessels namely the Modern variants of Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates. As a result, many Nations do not possess Battleships in the Modern Era.

In the New World, the only Nations that has the capability of producing Battleship types are the Superpower states of Mu, Holy Mirishial Empire and Gra Valkas Empire. Additionally, the Ravernal Empire as well as their descendants, Annonrial Empire are known to operate Battleships. Due to nature of Naval Doctrine of the 21st Century, Japan does not possess any Battleships at the time of their transference.

## Overview

The battleship's main role is to direct heavy firepower upon an opponent or target. It was originally meant to be a front line weapon, supported by smaller gunships such as cruisers and destroyers, as well as from above by aircraft. They were often used as command ships in a fleet as well as commerce raiding against enemy supply lines.

## Strategic Value and Economic Cost

Before the advent of nukes the military strength of great powers was roughly measured by how many battleships a country could build and maintain. Mainly for two reasons, one before the mass production of long range strategic bombers, warships was the fastest way to deliver massive death and destruction to enemy countries (gunboat diplomacy). Second, a naval blockade or commerce raiding could starve a country. So it become both a matter of deterrence and a matter of national pride. Quality could in theory overcome quantity to an extent. For example if country X build a battleship with enough armor to shrug off enemy gun shells of country Y, X could ignore Y's superior numbers in a battle. This led to an arms race with every new battleship growing bigger with more armor and bigger guns in response to the other countries building better battleships in a never ending vicious cycle. At some point it become obvious for everyone that the arms race was putting a big strain on their economies and an arms treaty limiting mainly battleships was needed for avoid bankruptcy. Until WWII when nukes become the most feared weapon at strategic level, leading to another arms race and another arms treaty this time limiting mainly nukes.

## Why Battleships are obsolete?

The military-industrial complex have a buzzword, "game changer".

**HEAVY ARMOR**

Nuclear arsenals changed the game of war. Nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll against decommissioned battleships showed that a single nuke could decimate a battlefleet if used correctly.

All that expensive heavy armor was rendered meaningless in a flash by the power of the atom, as the radiation effect can obliterate the entire crew, albeit the armor would resist from nuclear explosion. During Operation Crossroads, Nevada and Nagato capable of resisting two nuclear blasts, with the latter sunk due to unattended damage control with high radiation exposure. Nevada would later delivered coup de grace with aerial torpedo attack two years later.

The "tactical nukes" was developed in the cold war, like the ones mounted in supersonic "carrier-killer" cruise-missiles that the Soviet Union planed to use against the US carriers should World War III breaks out. That's why Earth's modern warships gave up using armor. Instead they use "stand-off weapons" like long-range anti-ship cruise-missiles (weapons that allow fire from outside the maximum range of the enemy weapons), "hard-kill" active defense like anti-air missiles and CIWS (intercept the incoming projectile), "soft-kill" active defense like ECM and decoys (blind the enemy or fool it) or "stealth" passive defense like angular shapes, radar absorbing coating and reduced infrared signature (minimize the chance of being detected).

**BIG GUNS**

Aircraft-carriers changed naval warfare, aircrafts have way more range than battleship's big guns. Then the anti-ship cruise missiles was invented and even warships much smaller than carriers become able not only to outrange big guns, but also with a much higher chance of score a hit. Today naval guns are seen as backup weapons in case of running out of missiles, for dealing with low level threats not worth expending a missile or a way to provide fire support to friendly forces close to the coast.

During World War II, it's more often used as Naval Artillery Support rather than Naval Combat. Therefore, it devalues the Battleship's role as a main warship.

**BIG SIZE**

Volunteer make a better fighting force than conscription. Because you have professionals. Battleships are not only costly, big vessels, they also need big crews. Large crews are becoming unaffordable for modern navies that pay salaries. Even if a big warship use a lot of automation for reduce the crew, the "arsenal-ship" concept (a simplified warship with a small crew carrying 500 cruise-missiles) was rejected because it put "too many eggs in a single basket". In a conflict with a peer or near peer adversary such a big warship will be a "fire-magnet" at the start of the hostilities. After all it have the firepower of five Aegis destroyers. It will be more survivable to distribute the missiles in several smaller "magazine-ship" (unmanned with 100 or less missiles) that are more difficult to detect if they are dispersed in a wide area. With new weapons like hypersonic missiles in the horizon, the US Navy is moving away from big warships.

Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress October 20, 2021

*...In particular, the new fleet architecture is expected to feature a smaller proportion of larger ships (such as large-deck aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, large amphibious ships, and large resupply ships); a larger proportion of smaller ships (such as frigates, corvettes, smaller amphibious ships, smaller resupply ships, and perhaps smaller aircraft carriers); and a new third tier of surface vessels about as large as corvettes or large patrol craft that will be either lightly manned, optionally manned, or unmanned, as well as large UUVs (Unmanned Underwater Vessels)...*

## Tactics and Doctrines

Before the advent of VLS that allow to fire the all missiles in any direction, warships armed with guns could deliver more firepower to the sides than to the front or rear. Turrets reduced these weakness, but the best situation still was to have the enemy in one of your broadsides so you could fire all your main guns at it. The tactic trying to exploit this strength and weakness was "crossing the T", a fleet moved in a single file line aiming to stand in front of the enemy advance path. Looked from above some naval battles resembled two snakes trying to get in each others paths. These kind of maneuvering made high speed just as important as heavy armor and big guns.

The most famous doctrine for battleships is the Japanese "decisive battle". Originally an idea from American navy officer and historian Mahan. That a war was going to be decided in a final big battle by battleships. The Imperial Japanese Navy invested a huge amount of national resources in this idea trying to repeat the victory of the battle of Tsushima against Russia and lost the war because carriers made battleships obsolete. By the time IJN tried to rebuild their battleships into carriers, it was too late, Japan lacked the time and the resources for make it happen.

Another doctrine was "Fleet in being" that just by existing but staying safely in port a smaller force could tie a bigger enemy fleet. It give up control of the sea and attacks like Pearl Harbor by airplanes made questionable the safe part. So it depends on the how strong are the land based defenses. Modern navies think that warships are safer at sea for avoid preemptive strikes like the "six days war" when Israel bombed Arabs aircrafts in their airbases achieving air superiority at the start of the conflict. Especially if the potential adversary have nukes.

The "Jeune École" (young school) by the French tried to counter the quality of English big warships with quantity of heavily armed small warships. It centered on the torpedo and made torpedo boats and submarines very threatening for battleships. This gave birth to the destroyer whose main job was to form a screen for fend off both torpedo boats and submarines. We can interpret the US Navy new Distributed Maritime Operations concept as a modernized version for reduce the risk of rely too much on a few big airbases and big aircraft-carriers that can be heavily damaged with a massive preemptive attack, but this time it center on still experimental small unmanned warships.

## Weaknesses

The heyday of the battleship would end during World War 2 on Earth, due to the introduction of new weapons and the inherent weaknesses of the battleship itself.

* Battleships are meant for direct-ship or visual range combat. In other words, it can only engage opponents within the range of its own guns.
* Battleships are extremely expensive to build and maintain, as well as requiring huge numbers of crew
* Battleships are virtually helpless against an opponent with Beyond Visual Range capability. Unless they have defenses against such attacks, they prove to be easy targets. During World War 2, the battleship proved to be no match against the aircraft carrier.
* Smaller ships with greater firepower, submarines and aircraft prove to be more cost effective weapons against the battleship and fulfill many roles that the battleship cannot.
* Most ammunitions were used for artillery support requested by Army or Command to suppress enemy ground units instead of fighting another warships.
* Dispersion rate is the highest amongst warships, with 32% of accuracy for another battleship-sized target from nine miles away.

## Battleships in the New World

### Third Civilization Area and Outside the Civilized Areas

Naval warfare in the Third Civilization and beyond is still reliant on boarding tactics or ships of the line. Artificially propelled ships are not even possible yet. So while the nations in these areas are aware of what a battleship is, none are able to build or operate any.

### Second Civilization Area

Mu is the only Second Civilization nation to have what can be considered battleships: its La Kasami-class Battleships. In terms of technology, they are similar pre-dreadnoughts. During the New World War, they proved especially vulnerable to Torpedos and air attack. To counter this, Mu domestically upgraded many of its battleships with improved anti-air armaments.

### First Civilization Area

The Holy Milishial Empire fields Mercury, Gold, and Mithril class battleships. These ships are equipped with Magic Detection Radar, Magic Anti-Aircraft Cannons, and basic fire control to aid in gunnery. Though very capable, they remain vulnerable when utilized carelessly. Like Mu's battleships, Milishial battleships were vulnerable to torpedos. They were also vulnerable to air strikes; despite the ample anti-aircraft weaponry, Milishial sailors didn't initially believe aircraft could sink battleships.

In response to the challenges of the New World War, the HME recreated the Orichalcum-Class Magic Battleship, which was equipped with both large magic cannon batteries and anti-ship and anti-air missiles.

### Gra Valkas Empire

The technology of the Gra Valkas military reflects that of World War 2 and therefore their battleships are very similar in both size and function to that era. Back on their home planet, aircraft carriers were replacing battleships as the centerpiece of most fleets and relegating them to lower intensity fronts. In the New World, due to the lower fighting capabilities of the native populations, the Gra Valkas have embraced battleships as major assets again.

The Grade Atlastar is a unique super-dreadnought battleship and the pride of their nation, boasting a larger size and more firepower than the Hercules and Orion class battleships.

Gra Valkas battleships are infamous for their armor, being able to withstand hits from the Pal Chimera's guns, the Large Magic Bomb Jibil, and even Japan's guided missiles without always sinking. The Grade Atlaster famously survived over 200 cannon shells and seven missiles before being disabled.

### Japan

Much to the amazement of Mu and scorn of the Gra Valkas, Japan currently has no battleships nor the tools to produce them. This was not due to the fact that Japan had lost the technology as Mu engineers like Myrus Leclerc thought. It was because that Japan's advanced weapons and tactics have made the battleship obsolete. There was no need to engage in direct-ship combat if a torpedo or anti-ship missile could sink a battleship from beyond visual range. Fire-Control Systems had advanced to the point in which smaller ships could confront larger ships or a larger number of enemies and win. Even a single aircraft could sink a battleship with one shot.

However, after the Great Naval Invasion of Japan, Japan captured the battleship Grade Atlastar and planned to refurbish and refine it for modern warfare.

### Annonrial Empire

According to Japan's satellite images, their magic battleships can rival or slightly stronger than Holy Mirishial Empire's battleships. Not much is known about their tactical features yet.

### Ravernal Empire

Both the *Adamant-Class*and the *Orichalcum-Class*magic battleships are far more stronger than the Mithril-class Battleship and the ships are also in possession of the Holy Mirishial Empire but can't be used by the HME due to lack of skills and they are used for research. Not much is known about their tactical features yet.