Change timestamp format for existing index

I read the date time is one of the only mappings that can be altered for an existing index. I'm attempting to alter the date format as follows:

curl http://localhost:9200/web/_mapping/_timestamp?include_type_name=true -X PUT --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d "`cat thing`"

{
  "timestamp": {
    "properties": {
      "format": "basic_date_time_no_millis"
    }
  }
}

The Elasticsearch API is giving me:

{
  "error": {
    "root_cause": [
      {
        "type": "mapper_parsing_exception",
        "reason": "Root mapping definition has unsupported parameters:  [timestamp : {properties={format=basic_date_time_no_millis}}]"
      }
    ],
    "type": "mapper_parsing_exception",
    "reason": "Root mapping definition has unsupported parameters:  [timestamp : {properties={format=basic_date_time_no_millis}}]"
  },
  "status": 400
}

What am I doing wrong?

this used to work in earlier versions of elasticsearch, but due to issues this has been removed in more recent versions.

Creating a new index with the new mapping and reindexing sounds like the best approach here to me.