By 1956, the USS Kentucky (BB-66) was a relic of another era, the Second World War, and the navy no longer saw it useful to complete the unfinished hull. Of course, numerous proposals did spring up to convert her into a missile battleship, but these all came to nothing; mostly due to budget problems. Interestingly enough, several of the conversion proposals survived, and have been recreated by Tzoli from SecretProjectForums. It's not quite Shipbucket, but very similar, you can find their work here:
https://www.deviantart.com/tzoli But, as far as I can tell, nobody has done this proposal; dubbed "BBG-1 Scheme 1".
BBG-1 Scheme one would be the most radical change to an Iowa imaginable. The entire superstructure would have been blowtorched and rebuilt to resemble something like one of the original Long Beach proposals. Instead of the big 16" guns, we all know and love, a mixture of 16 Tartar and Talos launchers would take their place, guided by only 32 directors. Yes, you read that right, 16 launchers and 32 directors - on an Iowa. And to top it off, in the middle of the ship, is an erector launcher for 16 ballistic missiles. To launch these missiles, they would be loaded onto the erector launcher, wheeled off the side of the ship and onto a fixed platform, and launched from there. It was estimated it could launch one every 30 minutes.
There are some other odd notes for this proposal. Most importantly the Long Beach structure, the reference drawing has it as an octagon, with some of the radars being on the “middle sides” and others on the angled sides. The odd thing is the drawing is not big enough to support the radars, so I thought it would be best to replace it with the Long Beach’s superstructure. Other interesting thoughts include there being so many directors, that they begin blocking or canceling each other out. I also find it odd there is no mention of any aviation equipment, and the complete lack of guns. It is said that when JFK has presented with the Long Beach plans, he ordered that it would be redesigned to include a pair of guns, hence the 2 5”/38’s strapped onto it. Another interesting feature of the proposal is that instead of a funnel, 4 “smoke pipes” come out of the superstructure, onto the main deck, and hang over the ship, this was a pain to draw. Everything else apart from the location of weapons, electronics, and the overall shape is completely speculative, note that I had only a very terrible sketch.
I have attached a drawing below to give a brief visual of the concept, note this is based on our previous understanding of the concept, but the same idea applies. The missile is loaded onto the launcher, wheeled off the ship onto the platform, fueled, and launched. The missiles would be stored up and down the length of the ship. Note that this is 1956, before the first launch of the Polaris, so my guess is it would be a liquid-fuel Jupiter derivative.
![[ img ]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/758419405784350781/791345334038298644/unknown.png)
Drawing by ThHappyYatcher
Now for the ship itself:
*Special Notes: This is my best attempt at the proposal and seeing I had very little to go off of, and only one terrible sketch, I can not promise full accuracy. Below I have attached information regarding the proposal, which is once again from here:
https://www.amazon.com/Battleships-Unit ... 1557501742
I'd also like to say a very big thank you to the guys on the Discord, they're feedback helped get the drawing to this stage, I'd also like to say a very big thank you to TheHappyYatcher for his interpretation and guidance on the proposal, their help was immeasurable. Any feedback would be appreciated!
As promised, additional information:
![[ img ]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/748923779505455124/791342936197300244/unknown.png)