Posted on 07/16/2002 7:56:02 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Lack of maintenance during the Clinton years?
What website would that be?
Goes back further than that and I can prove it. Seems the GHW Bush years wern't to kind to her either. Three six month deployments in three years. That's a five year cycle minus yard times. Proof? Here it is. Drop down to the {below decks} portion. But remember this story started in August of 1993. Here is what was reported then.
The America needs constant attention. Commissioned in 1965, it is showing its age. A month before leaving Norfolk, a senior enlisted crew member complained to his congressman: The ship was operating on only two of its six electric generators, without radar and unable to pump fuel. This would be its third six-month cruise in three years, and without the standard 18 months at home for repairs, salt water and full steaming had taken their toll. AMERICA was history by summer 1996. Seems Clinton didn't do much to stop it though.
Here is the source of that information.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/docs/940224-cr.htm
www.ussamerica.org Click on preservation and look at the letters from Senator McCain. One describes a detiorating hull. From 6 years at Philly or what I don't know.
Why the difference? Statute miles came first, and are probably a contraction of the latin "mille passuum" or "thousand steps." The Roman roads had (actually, the Appian way STILL has) "mile markers," useful for walkers trying to figure out how far they had come, and nominally set 1,000 steps apart. Note that each mile is 5280 feet, so this system assumes a step legnth of 5.2 feet, which seems about right for a full left-right-left step while carrying stuff.
The nautical system is, as one might expect, better for nautical purposes. One nautical mile is one minute of arc across the equator. In case that's not clear, I'll explain in a different way: if you envision the equator as a circle around the planet, then one minute of arc around that circle is one nautical mile. As you can imagine, this makes long-distance navigation much easier. The circumference of the earth in nautical miles is a nice, even 21,600 nautical miles. That same circumference is 24,857 statute miles.
I hope this was helpful.
Mea culpa. You are right.
Thank you for being respectfully correct.
Well, there WAS a war fought with six carrier battlegroups in theater. The Navy's maintenance establishment was very upset over the war, as it screwed up their oh-so-sacred CVBG rotation plans. One wonders how the Navy would have dealt with a NATO/WP conflict if a regional war strained them so hard. BTW, the Norfolk piers didn't get maintained properly, either.
Notice that the Navy never mooted the idea of cutting down the carrier presence in-theater once there was enough land-based air to support offensive ops. They were going to have their piece of the war even if it ruined the Navy in the process.
There's a ton of blame to go around about the overall decline of Naval Aviation. The Navy gets a big share of it (read The $5 Billion Misunderstanding for a gory account of the A-12 Avenger II program--begun illegally, maintained in a steady atmosphere of deceiving the contractors, the Navy civilian leadership, and Congress, and cancelled when NAVAIR told Dick Cheney "Uh, well, we need another few billion dollars" in the middle of post-Cold War euphoria). Congress gets a huge helping (not supporting a 15-carrier fleet--I think 15 is the bare minimum for supporting current OPTEMPO with a reasonable reserve for wartime surge).
It's a manure sandwich, and EVERYONE in DC should be taking a big bite.
And convince the entire world that they're nucking futs.
As China is exporting its aggression towards us, why not mine M.E. choke points as well.
That move threatens us a lot less than it threatens Europe. They need to ask Saddam how well annoying EVERYONE at the same time works.
Since that submarine has been decommissioned, the name is available again. I just think that the next aircraft carrier should be named for an important president. There is no way in hell that it will be name the USS BJ Clinton.
Must be because of the warm beer and driving on the left side of the road :o)
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