Posted on 11/30/2020 2:13:44 PM PST by Lower Deck
“One has to ask if the ship was designed for war with advanced fire suppression why did it burn up so easily?”
Whoever was in charge paid no attention to the seven “Ps:”
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
According to several articles, the fire suppression systems and equipment were off-line.
The original Bon Homme Richard was lost to damage in the battle against Serapis that made John Paul Jones famous .
Keep the tradition going with the name.
In WW2, the Navy had a new Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp. They just renamed ships already being built to carry them name forward.
>>I haven’t seen any mention of the cost to replace.<<
The unit cost for one of the newer America class LHAs is $3.4B to $3.8B. The estimate to repair the Bonnie Dick is $3B. Eleven of the America class originally were planned, though to date only two have been built, and one is under construction. Big chunk of the Navy’s budget for just one additional hull, though they may have to bite the bullet.
It’s a light carrier, not a big fleet Nimitz class carrier.
Thanks! Not that much more for new and improved ship.
LOL
Compared to what we build today, those were nearly empty hulls. The real money is in fitting them out with the weapon systems. Today, the aircraft and their weaponry, spare parts and support systems alone are probably worth almost as much as the rest of the ship.
I hadn’t heard that they were removing the well-deck. Not sure that’s even do-able as they could simply build another USS America version of the basic aviation-optimized LHA. But it appears that the Navy has had enough of those. Now what I had heard is that they were modifying the underside of the flight deck to add 2 landing spots for the F-35.
It is known that the fire first broke out in a lower cargo area where cardboard and drywall supplies were kept. The small aircraft carrier that transports Marines was undergoing maintenance at the shipyard when the blaze began, which made the fire suppression system inoperable at the time.
I was never in the Navy but I work in a nuclear power plant that is run much like a nuke navy vessel because most of the management were Navy Nukes.
From this experience I would guess that they would have hourly fire watches. They would also need to have fire hoses laid out to areas where fire protection had been disabled. Portable fire extinguishers would also be strategically located.
One thing that surprises me is that since I know that Shore Power is hooked up to ships in dock so that they can shut down their engines, why not shore Fire Water?
Regardless, Bonhomme Richard should be considered one of the most audacious and successful ship name traditions in the naval service, thanks to the original.
“One has to ask if the ship was designed for war with advanced fire suppression why did it burn up so easily?”
The ship was tied to the dock and the Fire suppression system was deactivated. At least that was what the article stated.
Thank you for adding experience to the obvious. If Trump can’t pull this election out of the anti-American Dems, will any of it matter anymore? Can a volunteer professional force be led by a woman like Harris? Or whomever will be in charge?
Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. Not a real carrier as we think of them but housed and deployed aircraft.
With no military background, sure looked lie a carrier to me, in the dock pics.
Often with odd things, such as the re-namining of a vessel. I can't recall any WWII historians mentioning that with regard to the same-name replacement of lost carriers during the 1940s (Hornet, Lexington, Wasp, Yorktown...).
The Navy needs to find a creative way of channeling superstition into an effective fire watch while in port.
The USS Kamala Harris ?
I forgot to mention that there would be a continuous fire watch anywhere there was Hot Work taking place.
That is; if there was welding, grinding or cutting going on there has to be a dedicated person available with a fire extinguisher to put out the fire should one start.
Imagine if the ship of this class, built in numbers, was damaged in combat! Disgraceful! I thought the swabbies were supposed to be ,first and foremost firefighters. Seems like the Navy is more concerned with turning their squids into drag queens. Sorry, former Marine here, so I have a bias with the Navy. The Navy my father was part of was quite different.
“Thar She Blows!!”
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