Here's a photo you may not have (the gal is not very rusty, a real shame to toss her away like an empty beer can):
U.S.S. America, CV-66 (Photo taken in 2004 civilian overflight)
Posted on 03/03/2005 3:02:55 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Navy to Sink USS America, Explosive Final Service That Saddens Former Crew By John J. Lumpkin Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosive tests this spring, an end that is difficult to swallow for some who served on board.
The Navy says the effort, which will cost $22 million, will provide valuable data for the next generation of aircraft carriers, which are now in development. No warship this size or larger has ever been sunk, so there is a dearth of hard information on how well a supercarrier can survive battle damage, said Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.
The Navy's plan raises mixed emotions in Ed Pelletier, who served on the America as a helicopter crewman when the ship cruised the Mediterranean shortly after its commissioning in 1965.
He said he was "unhappy that a ship with that name is going to meet that fate, but happy she'll be going down still serving the country." Pelletier, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is a trustee of an association of veterans who served on the America.
Issues surrounding a vessel bearing the name of its country are often more sensitive than for other ships. In 1939, Adolf Hitler, fearful of a loss of morale among his people should Germany's namesake ship be sunk, ordered the pocket battleship Deutschland renamed for a long-dead Prussian commander.
Since its decommissioning in 1996, the America has been moored with dozens of other inactive warships at a Navy yard in Philadelphia. The Navy's plan is to tow it to sea on April 11 - possibly stopping at Norfolk, Va. - before heading to the deep ocean, 300 miles off the Atlantic coast, for the tests, Dolan said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.tbo.com ...
I just posted the link.
So, do you think Jeane Kirkpatrick, Senator Inhofe and Ronald Reagan are or were nothing but a bunch of CATO pointy-heads?
Imagine!
The Silent Service gets to Sink-ex a Target, er, um--Carrier.
Think we can get seats to the festivities?
The support for this multilateralist wet dream only exists in the ivory towers of academia and diplomacy. Outside in the real world, hardly anyone even knows about it...yet.
But I'd lay real money on the fact that in the real world, support will be almost entirely nonexistent.
Later. I've highjacked this thread away from its intended subject long enough.
Back to your regularly scheduled sinking of massive obsolete warships!
One last question, though. If LOST passes, will the 'Authority' have control over the America sitting on the sea bottom?
I was on LEXINGTON when I first enlisted waaaaay long ago.-After her, I went to the Silent Service. An Uncle was a plankowner on LEXINGTON in '43
She was the only skimmer I ever liked, and was happy to see her avoid the boneyard. How does she look? I never had the time to get to Corpus Christi.
She looks well, Clean and well painted. Of course there are concessions to being a museum. Lots of displays and history photos. Corpus is a lovely city, Mild winter climate, make the trip.
TAIHO was sunk by a fuel vapor explosion following a single torpedo hit. The Japanese were using straight out of the ground unrefined petroleum from Borneo. It was pure enough that the boilers could burn it but gave off a lot of fumes. Some idiot decided to use the ventilation to disperse the fumes from a ruptured fuel tank after the torpedo hit and instead spread them throughout the ship. Six hours later she exploded like a bomb.
Here's a facinating analysis of the sinking of a Japanese CV
Thanks very much for the link...I appreciate it!
That was a fascinating description! You have to feel pity for those poor sailors on the stern of the Shokaku. It must have been like the gaping maw of hell.
Thanks again for the excellent link!
Be sure to check out the home page at http://www.combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm if you are at all interested in the Pacific War.
Wow, thanks-that is an absolute treasure trove of information. I will be spending a lot of time there...
I find it kind of interesting that people look at the IJN, and many people somehow have the caricature of the IJN that many westerners had of Japanese products in the 50's and 60's, somehow made of tin, poorly made and trained, etc.
Before the overwhelming superiority of American manufacturing and training took over, when we fought them on a somewhat even basis, it was very touch and go.
One only need look at the result of the Battle of Savo Island to realize the IJN was a formidable, well-trained force, and were highly respected as an opponent. They certainly cleaned our clock there.
It is the standard view so many take-we won, so winning was pre-ordained...nothing could have been further from the truth.
I am no fan of the Japanese military, I lived in the Phillipines as a kid where I learned all about the Bataan Death March. They deserved every defeat they got. But I do believe they were an intelligent, dangerous and well equipped foe.
U.S. Navy To Blast Retired Carrier in Tests
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
The U. S. Navy is going to do something this spring it hasn’t done since right after World War II: Sink an aircraft carrier.
But this time, the ship will be one of the Navy’s own.
The decommissioned carrier USS America, out of service since 1996, will be the target of tests designed to try out new defense and damage control systems for the CVN-21 carrier program. While old warships routinely have been sunk in recent years as targets or in tests, this will be the largest deliberately sunk by the Navy.
The Facts: FLATTOPS’ FATE
At more than 83,000 tons, the America (CV 66) will be the largest warship ever sunk. The largest warships sunk in combat are three Japanese vessels sunk in World War II; those ships displaced between 71,000 and 73,000 tons. Three earlier U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have been used in noncombat testing:
• Saratoga (CV 3) sank after an atomic bomb test in July 1946.
• Independence (CVL 22) survived the atomic blasts, but was sunk as a target in 1951.
• Reprisal (CV 35), an incomplete vessel, was used for a series of explosive tests from 1946 to 1948, and later scrapped. Besides the America, the U.S. Navy has six other decommissioned aircraft carriers — none nuclear-powered — awaiting disposal:
• Oriskany (CV 34), to become an artificial reef.
• Forrestal (CV 59).
• Saratoga (CV 60), earmarked for possible museum use.
• Ranger (CV 61), earmarked for possible museum use.
• Independence (CV 62).
• Constellation (CV 64).
SOURCE: Defense News research
In fact, the America will be the largest warship ever sunk by any means, in war or peace.
The tests represent a rare opportunity for designers to try out systems on a major-league scale.
“If you don’t try out your ‘bangs’ against big objects, you’re not going to find out if they’re going to sink,” said Norman Friedman, a naval analyst and historian who has authored design histories of American and British carriers.
The bangs will cost big bucks: The Navy is spending $18 million in preparation and execution for the tests, expected to last from four to six weeks.
Designers of today’s 90,000-ton carriers are working from data developed from tests on World War II-era destroyers, the Navy said. Computer models based on those tests “are not validated” for carrier-size ships, the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) said in a response to written questions. Using the America “as a surrogate for CVN 21 is an excellent opportunity to obtain the necessary full-scale data,” NAVSEA said.
“This is more carefully coordinated and instrumented so that information gained from those tests can be rolled back into future ship design,” said Capt. Lawrence Jones, head of the Navy’s inactive ships program. Jones oversees the disposal of old Navy ships.
The America will be packed with instruments, sensors and video cameras to monitor the effect of explosions near and on the ship. Exactly how the tests are done and what they show are closely-held secrets. Design data for aircraft carriers is top secret; even data from the most recent live-fire tests against carriers — performed from 1946 to 1948 — remain classified.
The Navy won’t reveal exactly where the America tests will be carried out, saying only that the location will be more than 50 nautical miles from the East Coast in water depth greater than 1,000 fathoms.
Among the tests to be conducted on the America, according to NAVSEA, are:
• Internal blast — A large warhead will be set off inside the ship to determine the effects of blast and fragments on the ship’s structure and equipment. Six old A-7 Corsair II aircraft will be placed around the ship to check the effects on planes.
• Underwater explosions — Explosive charges will be set off at varying distances from the ship to test the effects of “moderately severe” and “severe” explosions, NAVSEA said.
• Surface attack — Detonation of a surface charge near the ship’s hull.
• Scuttling — Finally, explosive charges will be placed inside the ship to sink it. Sensors will see how the ship floods throughout the process.
At the end, the ship “will slip quietly beneath the sea,” Adm. John Nathman wrote in a December letter to former America sailors while he was still vice chief of naval operations.
Why Sink Old Carriers?
The Navy has struggled to find ways to dispose of its old aircraft carriers. Until the late 1990s, they routinely were sold and broken up for scrap. In 1993, the Navy sold the 1940s-vintage carrier Coral Sea to a Baltimore, Md., scrapper.
The Coral Sea, with a full-load displacement of more than 65,000 tons, remains the largest warship ever scrapped. But after the scrapping turned into a seven-year fiasco, Congress required the Navy to stop selling its old ships and pay to have them broken up in an environmentally safe manner. Instead of receiving a few thousand dollars for old destroyers or cruisers, the Navy now pays millions to have the ships dismantled.
“It costs about $4 million to scrap a destroyer or cruiser,” which displaces less than 10,000 tons, Jones said.
But scrapping an 80,000-ton aircraft carrier is a much more expensive proposition. Jones said a study a few years ago estimated the cost to scrap the America at $60 million. Today, he said, the cost would be “$65 million to $70 million.”
The Navy has provided $20 million over 2005 and 2006 for ship disposal, Jones said — not nearly enough.
The Navy has turned increasingly to sinking its ships at sea rather than pay to have them broken up. Of 28 Spruance-class destroyers decommissioned since 1998, nearly half have been sunk or are planned for sinking. Only one has been scrapped.
While the America will be the first modern carrier “expended” at sea, the Navy already is planning to sink the World War II-era carrier Oriskany as an artificial reef off Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast late this year or early 2006.
Artificial reef sinkings like the Oriskany’s, which do not involve live-fire weapons testing, are seen as beneficial by many environmental groups. The sunken ships attract sea life, and if sunk in shallow waters, attract sport divers.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Jones said. “I believe the best means for disposing of the carriers is by artificial reef.”
The Coral Sea’s sister ship, the Midway, found a home last year as a museum ship in San Diego, but private museum groups trying to financially support super carriers similar to the America find their prospects daunting. None have yet to succeed in raising the money or fashioning a successful plan.
“My long-term goal is to artificially reef the carriers,” Jones said, citing it as “the most cost-effective solution for the Navy.” •
E-mail: ccavas@defensenews.com.
MY COMMENT: We are thus scheduled to dispose of more carriers in the next two years, than we presently have the financial or industrial capability to replace in 20+ years. Sure looks like unilateral disarmament. The USS America could be more productively used in any number of alternative roles, i.e., by being sold to the Japanese Navy or the Australians, or by being semi-automated and used as a "decoy" vessel in high-risk theaters of operation such as the Taiwan strait, where the entire focus of the Chinese navy is built around asymmetric threats to sink the U.S. carrier fleet en masse...utilizing obviously the elements of surprise, nuclear escalation, with massive torpedo, cruise missile and ballistic missile delivery of tactical nuclear devices.
Here's a photo you may not have (the gal is not very rusty, a real shame to toss her away like an empty beer can):
Agreed. There is nothing we are going to learn (we already know the weak points, after all since we own the blueprints) worth losing this vessel which was a rather substantial investment. And it is far more likely that the test results will merely show our enemies how to best hit the carriers. How secure can these results be, if China lifted the entire nuclear data base from the National Labs at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore?
They are sinking her in the deep Atlantic, most likely because they need a healthy zone they can police against surveillance and intrusion, and also so that the ship will not be as easily entered by scuba teams from unfriendly intelligence services. This is the ONLY super-carrier we are tossing away, and its design has much in common with all the other super-carriers. Its submerged site will require remotely piloted drones at the depths planned. Don't know if the Chinese or Russians are quite up to speed in that dept. yet.
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