One complaint that is really a pet peeve. Why can’t the Navy have a consistent naming policy for their vessels anymore? Subs have gone from fish names to cities to states, with politicians thrown in for the sake of ego. Surface ships are even worse. Ships in the same class can be named after people, places, and things, and name categories are spread over many different ships of completely different classes and missions. The system they had in place has been largely abandoned, so now you don’t know what a vessel is based on the name. And why do politicians like Stennis and Vinson rate carriers, while carrier admirals like Halsey and Spruance get destroyers?
Polotics.
The same reason there will be a USS Obama some day.
Pure politics.
Some boat designs don’t make it.
Thresher and Scorpion were prime examples. Although considered Skipjack Class they were not like the others.
Many boats are experimental.
The Narwhal was a one off boat.
USS William H. Bates (SSN-680), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was planned to be the second U.S. Navy ship to be named USS Redfish — for the redfish, a variety of salmon also called blueback, sawqui, red salmon, and nerka — when the contract to build her was awarded to Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 25 June 1968. However, upon the 22 June 1969 death of William H. Bates (1917–1969), the U.S. Representative from Massachusetts’s 6th Congressional District (1950–1969) known for his staunch support of nuclear propulsion in the U.S. Navy, she was renamed William H. Bates and was laid down on 4 August 1969 as the only ship of the U.S. Navy to have borne the name. The reason for her naming by then-Secretary of the Navy John Chafee, breaking with a long-standing Navy tradition of naming U.S. Navy attack submarines for sea creatures, was best summed up by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the then-director of the Navy’s nuclear reactors program, with the pithy comment that, “Fish don’t vote!”[1]
I can sort of understand why the Navy did it...he's a Canoe U grad, and commanded a sub...
IIRC..the Navy first first messed up its naming policy with the USS Hyman G. Rickover. It's understandable why they wanted to honor him..but once you open the floodgates..
I'm really pissed about the Gerald Ford...no way he deserves that.
At least no Clinton or Obama..ever..