Actually, those big guns have use besides normal arty, that is more electronics friendly.
Gun-launched missiles; 16-inchers could probably fit ESSMs or a few of the Standard Missile family. More useful than the normal 16 inch shells.
Warship Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
- Start date
Gun-launched missiles; 16-inchers could probably fit ESSMs or a few of the Standard Missile family. More useful than the normal 16 inch shells.
D
Deleted member
Guest
It's a shame that we didn't preserve any turboelectric ships; that were actually all AC and they could have seen a use as museum ships in providing mains power during emergencies and summer grid demand peaks. Might have even been worth removing the turbogenerators to put in diesel gensets at that point. I know that Alabama supposedly has an emergency management command post function, or at least did. Would be better if she could also serve as a base for restoring power to the area.
NORTH CAROLINA and YORKTOWN do.
Not sure I would want my emergency operations center on a ship given the most likely threats in the Carolinas, but nobody asked me.
I have a photo of LEXINGTON tied up at Tacoma right as she commissioned in 1928 or 1929 doing that.
It's not just power and water, though. A warship is a heliport, comms node, secure base camp, storage facility and hospital all rolled up into one. And she's just chock full of strong, fit, young men and women who're both bored and eager to help. Especially if she's an amphib. Amphibs are disaster response gold. Because they also bring LCACs, other landing craft, vehicles, even bigger helicopter decks and hospitals, better comms and more fresh, strong bodies.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
Exactly!! Very well said!! Another advantage with amphibs is we can use the LCACs to take aid supplies to where they are needed instead of allowing the local government to do the distribution with all the favoritism and corruption that entails. Its amazing how honest said government officials get when a couple of Marines are handing out the supplies.
That depends on the local government in question. At least in the US, when stuff starts rolling in, stealing it actually solves more problems than it causes. Donations are a right royal pain in the ass to manage. Stealing the marines might be more fun, though ;-).
Being serious, from personal experience, there's really nothing like a lot of strong backs to do the lifting and the schlepping. Or the counting, the organizing, the stacking, and so forth. But it's not just supply distribution and demobilization. LCACs give emergency management the same kinds of options as they do a brigadier general. They're ideal for evacuating seacoast communities, or getting to them, since they can land on virtually any beach. Having the ability to load up, say, Malibu onto the LCACs instead of having to drive down CA-1 is a massive advantage. Especially if CA-1 doesn't exist any more, due to landslides.
D
Deleted member
Guest
I've long felt we made a mistake in completely getting rid of the naval militias. They could focus high-end assets on minehunters so we actually have enough, and the low end would basically be a systematized Cajun Navy. Museum ships could be the ceremonial flagships. The Army wanting to get rid of the LCU-2000s (grr) could have led to them going to the Naval Militias as another useful asset as well.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
I don't think there is any serious problem with aid supplies in the US; there might be in small localized areas where a single group holds sway but they'd be very much the exception. However, there's a lot of places in the world where the local authorities seize aid supplies and use them for their political benefit. Typically giving priority to areas that support them and withholding aid from areas that don't, in both cases regardless of need. In Indonesia, after the quake/tsunami, there were efforts by local authorities to seize supplies intended for minorities. The Marines and the national government put a stop to that right quick. In Myanmar after the Cyclone, aid supplies simply weren't distributed; three years later, aid delivery material was still stacked alongside the runway, rotting in the sun.
The only problems with using the big-deck amphibs for aid is that lack the ability to sustain a presence. They don't have the supplies of fuel for their aircraft and LCACs for sustained operations (they're optimized for one or two big lifts and then out.) Likewise, they don't have the stores capacity to keep food and water flowing. Finally, they're slow (20 knots average max) and take time to get to the scene. The carriers can run at 30+ knot and that means they stand a better chance of getting their in the golden hours after the disaster strikes. Also, the CVNs have a lot more in the way of fuel and storage spaces.
Tyzuris
Primarch to your glory& the glory of him on Earth!
A computer generated image of the upcoming four Pohjanmaa class corvettes of the Finnish Navy which are to be constructed by Rauma Marine Constructions in Finland and winter proofed by Aker Arctic. Saab will provide combat systems and one of the weapons will be Gabriel missile.
A total of four will be acquired for 1.3 billion € during next decade to replace thee mine ships and four FACs we are retiring.
The length of these ships is 114 meters and the displacement 3900 tons.
I have heard people say these are more like light frigates sold as corvettes due to politics*.
*to make them sound smaller and more affordable.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
Very interesting; thank you for posting that. The ships look very similar to the Netherlands Sigma class or the smaller variants of the French Gowind class but that may not mean too much. I couldn't find any reference to a production license and given the same specification, two competent design teams will produce products that look similar.
There's a rule of thumb when considering how ships are classed. It goes like this. "She's a corvette when the finance is being requested, a frigate when the order is placed, a destroyer when she's launched, a cruiser when she enters service, a battleship when she sails against the enemy and she reverts to being a corvette when they sink her."
There's a rule of thumb when considering how ships are classed. It goes like this. "She's a corvette when the finance is being requested, a frigate when the order is placed, a destroyer when she's launched, a cruiser when she enters service, a battleship when she sails against the enemy and she reverts to being a corvette when they sink her."
D
Deleted member
Guest
The phrase you are looking for, according to United States Naval Academy midshipmen, is "sheep would be too obvious."
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
These days, things have calmed down a lot (on the surface at least). There was a major crack-down on shipboard pranks and so on starting in 2015 and Marine Corps fun and games came to an apparent halt. Another thing is that the old amphibs and so on are long gone; the modern ships all have their accommodation designed so that the Marines are grouped together. That's for operational reasons but discipline had a bearing there too. There's also the point that fewer and fewer ships have Marines on board at all although the increasing prevalence of anti-piracy missions et al are causing that policy to be reversed.
The sort of prank that used to happen? Well, on one occasion all the vehicles on the tank deck of an LSD got parking tickets with a note that the vehicle was improperly parked and the driver should report to the Master-at-Arms NOW. Another was putting a rubber tarantula on a string behind a hatch so it dropped on the first person to come through. Putting rubber snakes in junction boxes was another favorite along those lines. Buying cheap alarm clocks and leaving them in/near people's racks/berthing areas was always a great favorite. Three or four going off at 15-minute intervals was regarded as optimum. Then there was the noble art of kidnapping a squid and leaving them duct-taped to the overhead. Or to a crew seat in an AAV. Or with his wedding tackle dyed Navy Blue (most often before he went on honeymoon. Rumors that one unpopular squid about to go on his honeymoon woke up with multiple tattoos all over his body, each with a different girl's name.
Once classic was a berthing compartment assigned to men swapped occupants with one assigned to women. They did it right, they swapped everything over except the signs and a Gunny's rack. Gunny returns, enters without a thought and finds himself in a compartment full of women. Confusion grows as he sees his rack apparently in the right place. Great hilarity resulted.
The presence of women on board ships was primarily responsible for the crackdown; some of the pranks that are funny between men are seriously unfunny where the victim is female. The complaints from female personnel about pranks got most publicity but once the crackdown started there were quite a few from women complaining that they weren't getting the traditional initiation and thus felt excluded. Some old traditions were modified by quiet unofficial understandings (for example 'tacking on' an insignia. In some (obvious) cases, this was extremely painful for female personnel so the 'tack' was moved upwards so it was clear of the 'sensitive area')
You can't get kidnapped if you are physically stronger than the people trying to grab you. A few people learned that the hard way with me.
I use to be a muscle bound meathead back in the day.
D
Deleted member
Guest
Anyone want to comment on the Army selling off the LCU-2000 class?
