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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 3:30 am 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

To me, it sounds sad about the over-reliance on high tech. The new concept of drones making surgical strikes and no military man needs to be put in danger ignored the fact that war is the taking and occupying of the enemy's land, Drones can not occupy land.

It is also amazing that the same types do not understand that War is the last stage of diplomacy (by non-diplomatic means) and if you will not back up your sanctions or threats with your military, the enemy will not take you seriously. Please note that the longest war in US history is still going on. It was started by North Korea invading South Korea in 1950. There has never been a peace treaty - just a truce.

All the sanctions and embargos against Cuba has not put the Castros out of power.

Having a battleship or two stationed at Gitmo would be a way to keep Cuba honest.

I'd like to see at least a pocket BB in commission.

Oh well, I've seen and been on the USS Texas and the sub Sea Wolf (next to the Texas). I think my chances of seeing an Iowa class are as good as me seeing a Big Boy run - age and health are against me.

Doug vV


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 9:32 pm 

Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:40 pm
Posts: 386
Location: San Francisco, CA
to keep this on a preservation focus: the BB #59 North Carolina has been on display at Wilmington, NC for many years.

Like many steel hulls, she has plate problems along the waterline. So a company has developed a coffer dam arrangement to move along the hull to make repairs in a dry environment.

So far only the USS Massachusetts and the USS Texas have been to dry docks for repairs. This new system sounds like a lifesaver for these battleships and the steel cruiser Olympia, which is silted in place.

Ted Miles, Maritime Curator, retired


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 10:06 pm 

Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:01 pm
Posts: 117
Location: Bath, Me
USS Massachusetts a couple of years ago. I was in Fall River, MA one day and decided to go onboard. The last time I was on the ship was in the late 1980's and I was surprised how bad the external condition of the ship has become in the last 30 years. You used to be able to go up to the bridge but everything was closed off due to unsafe conditions and there were visible leaks inside the super structure.

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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:50 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

I do not recall which ship I visited, but I recall her sitting on sand in a coffer dam (permanent) to help prevent deterioration (I thought it was the BB Texas). For most ships, preserving them in a waterfront place (proper historical presentation) is also a very destructive and hard to preserve environment.

Considering how heavy these BBs when a hurracane c1980-1985 hit Mobile and refloated the USS Alabama and washed her several miles inland and set her on a mud flat in an upright condition.

Doug vV


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 9:26 am 

Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 am
Posts: 1998
The relocation of the USS SLATER to Albany a number of years ago was done in part to get the ship north of the salt front in the Hudson River. It has worked well for the vessel and slowed the deterioration so that the restoration work has a much longer life before requiring the next cycle of repair.

When the USS MASSACHUSETTS was moved for replacement of hull plates it was a very urgent matter because some tanks and voids were at that point open to the sea. The matter of the deterioration of superstructure and deck fittings will become an increasingly urgent issue for the ships that are docked in salt water as the years go by.

Another long term issue for museum ships is the decline in "business" from veterans groups as the World War Two generation is passing away. At one time the USS MASSACHUSETTS hosted a very active flow of World War Two ships crew reunions. That has declined rapidly in the last few years, impacting lodging and tourist related business activity in the Fall River area. A veteran who was 20 years old in 1941 would be about 96 this year. A friend who served in USN Underwater Demolition Teams during WW2 passed away recently, he was about that age. There is no group coming along that can make up for the loss of business activity for the museum vessels as the World War Two veterans have passed away.

The unfortunate reality is that some of these museum ships are not going to survive unless there is a massive expenditure of public money to support them in the future.

PC

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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 4:41 pm 

Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 8:43 pm
Posts: 46
Would like to hear more about that 1980s hurricane that blew USS Alabama miles upstream onto a mudflat. The Battleship Park at Mobile suffered some major damage during Katrina, and the battleship was left with an 8 degree list:

https://www.facebook.com/USSALABAMABatt ... =3&theater


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 7:14 am 

Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 12:30 am
Posts: 290
Dougvv wrote:
I'd like to see at least a pocket BB in commission.


I've long thought that revisiting the British monitor concept would be wise. Just keep it simple, dedicate it to the mission of gunfire support with a pair of 16" guns in a single turret, and let it rely on escorts for such things as air protection.

Image

You'd be able to bring battleship caliber guns to bear on shore targets for a fraction of the cost of a full fledged fast battleship.


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 2:22 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

As for the 1980's hurricane, I could not find any information on it. I thought it was Katrina that had refloated the USS Alabama but apparently it had not. The next closest was Camille c1970. I was 14 at the time.

I might have heard a tall tale about Camille and my bad memory is now showing up more now (61 and a brain tumor removed in 2000). I usually have enough correct that others can fill in the details but this time I seemed to have missed the train.

Sorry about that.

--------

As for the British monitor, I seem to recall that first aircraft carriers were built on converted battle ships and the Main Guns of the BB would be needed in self defense. I want to say one design had the flight deck forward of the "island" with a main gun just aft of the "island". Thoughts were still along the lines of face to face surface actions.

--------

I also seem to recall a war game in Central America (Panama) in the 1930s by the USA where the first sneak attack by aircraft on BBs at anchor occurred. I also seem to recall that the Japanese studied what the US Navy called a fluke for designing their Pearl Harbor attack.

Doug vV

P.S. My Mom always told the story in the 1930s of one April when the Harrisburg paper printed a photo of the USS Pennsylvania tied up to the shore in Harrisburg, PA. It had been a retouched photo for April Fools day. My grandmother was ready to run down to see it. Of course she was also one who fell for "The War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles (1938). She wanted to grab flash lights and go to the roof to watch for the poison gas cloud coming from New Jersey. Nana was always a "when in doubt panic" sort of person.


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:51 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:44 am
Posts: 740
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Slightly OT, but I remember as a child driving with my family to Florida from Utah and passing through Mobile on I-10. Suddenly, there was the USS Alabama looming over everything! It seemed absolutely gigantic! Being from Utah, it was probably the first ship I'd ever seen, certainly the first battleship.

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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:28 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

As a preservation idea that has huge hurdles, I keep thinking of the USAF storing aircraft in the desert in Arizona.

Much of the Colorado River is siphoned off for the southern CA area. However, if some sort of agreement between the water owners, Mexico, the USA, and Arizona could be arrived at, several navel vessels could be stored as museums near the London Bridge by towing them around Baja California and up the Gulf of California - up the Colorado for a permanent display. Hey, having a BB taken up the Colorado might make illegal aliens and drug lords pause a second. <GRIN>

Doug vV


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:38 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:31 am
Posts: 119
Location: Northern Illinois
Dougvv wrote:
. . .I seem to recall that first aircraft carriers were built on converted battle ships . . .


The second and third U.S. carriers (Lexington and Saratoga) were built on battlecruiser hulls that would otherwise have been scapped under the terms of the post-World-War-I naval disarmament agreements.

Dougvv wrote:
I also seem to recall a war game in Central America (Panama) in the 1930s by the USA where the first sneak attack by aircraft on BBs at anchor occurred. I also seem to recall that the Japanese studied what the US Navy called a fluke for designing their Pearl Harbor attack.


There was an exercise in the 1930s wherein the aformentioned Lexington and Saratoga raided the Panama Canal. Some U.S. Navy war plans in the run-up to World War II against "Orange" (the color code for Japan) even assumed there would be an "Orange" carrier air raid on Pearl Harbor to start the war.

Whatever conclusions the Japanese drew from watching American naval exercises, one actual attack they did consider in drawing up their Pearl Harbor plan was the British attack on the Italian Fleet base at Taranto on November 11, 1940. Using obsolete bi-planes from the Fleet Air Arm, they successfully torpedoed several Italian battleships in a shallow harbor, the exact tactical problem the Japanese needed to solve in designing the Pearl Harbor raid.


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:48 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

Quote:
British attack on the Italian Fleet base at Taranto on November 11, 1940


Toranto toggled my memory. It was the one I was trying to recall. Danged if I was off base with Central America.

Thanks.

Doug vV


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 9:47 pm 

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:17 pm
Posts: 321
Location: Houston, TX
The U.S. Navy actually had several fleet problems in the 1930's where the carriers attacked Pearl Harbor, at sunrise, on a Sunday, and by surprise, but somehow the Navy never seemed to get its own message. When Admiral Kimmel became CINCPAC in 1941, the entire scenario was laid out for him again by several of his officers who were air minded, just as it was before. Sunday, fleet in port, Sunrise, and Surprise from the North. It did not sink in.


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 4:02 am 

Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:41 am
Posts: 3911
Location: Inwood, W.Va.
While looking for other things, these videos turned up.

The first one is a training film on the main turrets and their guns and auxiliary machinery. Parts of the film seem to be missing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2sYtq7hI74

A newsreel or PR film on battleship operations in the Korean conflict.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGIS3-qGLA4

Finally, what appears to be a very well researched animation of the Japanese Yamato's main armament, showing what was apparently very similar technology, though some elements suggest Japanese technical wrinkles. One commentator noted, "The thing that really stood out in this video is the propellent loaded off the skip went straight into a flash suppression shielding tube before rammed into the breach of the gun. This is an unseen safety feature that American battleships did not have."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T3rvxlz03U


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 Post subject: Re: Off Topic (Marine Preservation)--U.S.S. New Jersey
PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:52 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:26 am
Posts: 4642
Location: Maine
In a related case, the engineering report on the current hull condition of the R.M.S. "Queen Mary", in Long Beach, California, is extremely bad. A report PDF of something like 300 pages is available online, although I don't have the URL at my fingertips.
I would suspect we are looking at the breaking up of this ship in the not too distant future. "A ship is a hole in the water, into which your throw (or in this case, pour) money".
Makes RR preservation look like child's play.

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