Navy Set To Retire CV 67 Kennedy

CNO via NAVADMIN 373-06 | 21 Dec 2006

[rlmorel]

Thanks for that riposte.

[rlmorel]

Though some people keep trying to characterize the JFK as obsolete, there is no doubt, none at all, that if she were kept up, could do the job just as well as a nuclear powered carrier.

She can certainly go just as fast as far as I know. I doubt the nuclear power gives them more in the way of top speed, and I know for a fact the JFK could throw up a roostertail and outrun her escorts.

From an operational perspective, they just do not have to worry about refueling the vessel itself when it is nuclear.

[PeterFinn]

The Brits also took out the General Belgrano with a nuc boat which reinforces the point that you don't get near a modern carrier group without their permission.

[PeterFinn]

Nuclear Carriers are steam powered

A friend of mine who is serving as a nuclear machinists mate tells everyone that his MOS is, "boiling water".

[cva66snipe]

The oil burner carriers are fast as hell though. My buddy's former ship which was a Tico cruiser couldn't keep up with Kitty Hawk at full speed maneuvers.

Speed wise the KITTY HAWK class and JFK should be able to go nose to nose with a nuke carrier maybe actually a hair faster due to shorter length. Both operate on 1200 PSI systems. You can hear and feel flank speed on a KH Class too. The ride is completely different once you get up to flank speed.

Most memorable full speed run was one night when we transited the Straits of Messina several times. If you're down in the forward pump room you better have some rope to tie off with too.

[Mr. Silverback]

One of my favorite novels, I reread it about every couple of years.

[rlmorel]

When I was on the JFK, we did a high speed run across the Atlantic...

I woke up (I was berthed in the compartments right under the flight deck arresting wires) and the entire ship was pounding....


WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP

At a tempo of I think about 300 WHUMPS a minute. I went back and looked off the fantail, and she was kicking up a rooster tail...:)

[cva66snipe]

Hey I got a question for you. Were you on the JFK 1979 when the Iranian crisis broke out? If so thanks a bunch seriously. You guys spared us a trip to there. We were fixing to hit NNSY dry-dock for a year when the alert went out. We had closed ship and a removed brow till the Pentagon made up it's mind which one of us was going. I was counting down my final year too. After that though in 1981 AMERICA was the first carrier to transit the SUEZ since 1968 I think. I was back home though.

I can't remember what the flank RPM's were or rather the general neighborhood. I never got to go down to FWD IC during it check the true speed either :>{

[rlmorel]

No...I wasn't on her then. I got an early release from the Navy to go to college (got out in October instead of December) So I was in college with some very disturbed Iranian students. Most were pretty upset about it, but there were a couple of dickheads who needed to get their noses punched in. I liked nearly all the Iranians I met, except for those two.

When I was in "A" school in Millington, TN back in 1975, there were a whole boatload of Iranian guys studying how to fix jet engines. The Shah's boys. And they were a really funny bunch of guys. I have often wondered what happened to those men.

I was an airdale, but had a lot of respect for you guys. I was never cut out for working below decks. Never felt safe. Had a nightmare one time, ship had been attacked and was sinking, I was in the water several hundred feet astern of her, when her bow begins to rise out of the water. I'm treading water, looking up that this thing...going up...up...vertically hundreds of feet above me, then...begins to fall right my way on top of me, then I woke up before it hit me. Whew. I could have never been a snipe or a submariner. I always thought that took a certain mindset.

[cva66snipe]

The closest I came to getting killed wasn't in "The Hole". I was A-Gang and when we went to the MED first time I was T.A.D. to the Boat Shop as a boat snipe. I about got my ticket punched laying up against the windshield one morning of a PB {officers boat} waiting to make a run. I heard someone yell my name {first name} to jump and I dove into the deck as I looked back a swell had caught the boat and smashed the windshield against the Deck House ladder. I didn't think anymore about it till I got home on leave a few months later. My dad picked me up at the airport and asked if I had been in danger. I said yea once and told him. He said that my mom woke up yelling for me to jump. Add to that most guys I worked with didn't use my first name they called me by a nick name I had. Weird one.

Bad dreams? LOL, when I got out I got married and one night woke my wife up yelling get out get out now FLOODING!! LOL I was getting dressed and thought the compartment was flooding. I hadn't been in any floods. I was on Fire Department for 9 months a lot of it as 1 on 1 but never a flood. Oh well.

[exnavy]

Apparently you and I did a lot of steaming together. I was active Jan '75 to Jan '81. Was delivered to the South Carolina(CGN-37) Oct of '76, via the Nimitz. Did a lot of Med cruises, spent the year 1980 of the coast of Iran. I was an FTM.

[Killborn]

I'd rather walk through broken glass than either. Xe

[Paul Ross]

If the U.S.Navy has decided that are going to decommission the JFK,they are doing it for a reason,It cost to much to run. The Navy is cutting ships left and right trying to prove they are underfunded to Congress who pays their bills.

Actually it is the Executive Branch...the President and his OMB, more than Congress...which is fighting to sink the U.S. Navy...

[thinkthenpost]

IMO, the JFK is not obsolete, but rather worn out. Overuse and a canceled or shortcahanged SLEP has made her,.... in bad shape.

[rlmorel]

That is what I think as well.

[PAR35]

but is there another bird farm that'll come into service soon to take the place of the Kennedy?

Short answer, No.

This is planned as a real reduction in the number of available carriers. The original plan had been to do a major overhaul on the Kennedy, and then use it to replace the Kitty Hawk for Japan basing. The Bush administration then decided to scrap both ships. A deal was cut with Japan to allow the basing of a nuclear powered carrier there.

The Bush will replace the Kitty Hawk. The Kennedy won't be replaced, and the Next Generation carrier, if completed, will replace the Enterprise.

[CFC__VRWC]

The Kennedy is oil fired - you can tell from the hull number (CV-67). A nuclear ship always has an "N" in the hull designation (e.g. CVN-69, the USS Eisenhower).

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

For some reason, I don't think we'll ever see a USS Richard M. Nixon or USS Bill Clinton. Neither party would stand for it. My guess is that the RATS will try and slip in a carrier for X42, and the GOP will then demand one for Nixon. Stalemate...

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

I agree the Navy is too small - just as is the Army, IMHO.

This 11B would have to agree. The Army is too small, especially if we're going to raise the troop level in Iraq.