Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
 
Old 01-20-2020, 03:11 PM   #81
Guru
 
rgano's Avatar
 
City: Southport, FL near Panama City
Vessel Name: FROLIC
Vessel Model: Mainship 30 Pilot II since 2015. GB-42 1986-2015. Former Unlimited Tonnage Master
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,984
The Big day arrived in April 1984 in Pascagoula, and we were finally going to hold the commissioning ceremony for the Iowa with Vice President Bush attending. The morning was densely foggy. For some reason, I got up at reveille and walked aft. I was standing in the middle of the new helo dack all the way aft and could not see the ship's superstructure nor turret three, not that far away. Then I heard the unmistakable guttural growl of radial engines overhead. Looking straight up I saw a B-25 Mitchell bomber circling us as if to say, "Hey, where have you been these last 26 years?" It was truly one of the most eerie moments in my life.
__________________
Rich Gano
FROLIC (2005 MainShip 30 Pilot II)
Panama City area
rgano is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 05:00 PM   #82
Guru
 
rgano's Avatar
 
City: Southport, FL near Panama City
Vessel Name: FROLIC
Vessel Model: Mainship 30 Pilot II since 2015. GB-42 1986-2015. Former Unlimited Tonnage Master
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,984
Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post
Just remember.....brown shoes put battleships out of business.
Actually, they put the big gun out of business as an offensive weapon (for other than shore bombardment). The BB hulls served well as AA bulwarks to the carriers throughout the war. The Iowa herself could put 80 AA gun barrels into the air. Without that sort of protection as low level and her own planes directed in many cases by fighter director officers in the destroyers and cruisers, the carrier was pretty much toast. In reality, not a lot has changed since WWII in regard to open water warfare doctrine. The carrier performs its vital function of getting planes into the air and then everybody spends their time protecting the bird farm. Missile technology has increased the power of the small boys to where they are included in the strike packages going ashore and or against naval targets - the modern big gun I guess.

One thing that bothered me above all else while serving my three years in IOWA was the emphasis everybody in the chain of command placed on the big guns and thus my time devoted to their care and operation as opposed to the much more effective war fighting weapons (32 Tomahawks and 16 Harpoons) I had in my department. And don't even get me going on those worthless 5"/38 twin gunmounts and their broken down fire control radars. GRRRR.

I could have used a quarter of the men in the turrets to fire all the for-show firepower demos we did for heads of state and lesser lights, but no, the Navy wanted them manned as if we going to face down a Kirov class cruiser in open ocean with them firing a round a minute per gun. One hundred men per turret and another 56 men per 5"/38 gun system of which there were six.
Give me a break.

We could have decommissioned half of the four fire room and four engine rooms (one day of battleship time at sea cost four missile frigates sitting in port), pulled the two inboard props and still have gone 25 knots bristling with missiles. Instead of a 1500-man crew, we could have used well less than half that and still performed the presence missions in Central America which had been the jobs of east coast carriers prior to our arrival on the scene.
__________________
Rich Gano
FROLIC (2005 MainShip 30 Pilot II)
Panama City area
rgano is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 05:29 PM   #83
Guru
 
psneeld's Avatar
 
City: Ft Pierce
Vessel Name: Sold
Vessel Model: Was an Albin/PSN 40
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 28,149
You either made my point or history did.

Sure.... a ready made/floating hull can always be used till at some point keeping it running hurts more than its worth. What comes next? A similar bastardized hull, or one mission made?

Remember I come from the Coast Guard where we had to take many hand-me-down Navy hulls and keep them running for another 20 or 30 years.
psneeld is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 05:51 PM   #84
Guru
 
Northern Spy's Avatar
 
City: Powell River, BC
Vessel Name: Northern Spy
Vessel Model: Nordic Tug 26
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 4,075
Brown shoes, black shoes... Meh.

Most of us wore some kind of shoes on the sub... I had red high top Converse. And sometimes I wore jungle combat boots.


Loved seeing the BBs in Pearl Harbor back in the 80s. Amazing ships.
Northern Spy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 06:15 PM   #85
Master and Commander
 
markpierce's Avatar
 
City: Vallejo CA
Vessel Name: Carquinez Coot
Vessel Model: penultimate Seahorse Marine Coot hull #6
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,559
In the early 1960s, our neighbor was a naval captain in charge of the nearby Naval Weapons Deport. During WWII he was assigned to the USS Enterprise as an AAA gunnery officer, second in charge of the AAA weapons. He considered the battleships assigned for aircraft carrier defense to have been a misallocation of resources.
__________________
Kar-KEEN-ez Koot
markpierce is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 07:06 PM   #86
Guru
 
rgano's Avatar
 
City: Southport, FL near Panama City
Vessel Name: FROLIC
Vessel Model: Mainship 30 Pilot II since 2015. GB-42 1986-2015. Former Unlimited Tonnage Master
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,984
Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post
You either made my point or history did.

Sure.... a ready made/floating hull can always be used till at some point keeping it running hurts more than its worth. What comes next? A similar bastardized hull, or one mission made?

Remember I come from the Coast Guard where we had to take many hand-me-down Navy hulls and keep them running for another 20 or 30 years.
As I said, BB hulls were ready made for more than one activity. Could have been used as arsenal ships with LOT less cost in men and fuel. In a sense, the modern Navy (like the USCG) inherited the WWII BB hulls for free when they were recommissioned. In my professional opinion, very poor choices were made in what was done during the reactivations, but I did a damned fine job with what I was given. Didn't have to agree, just had to do the job. I am not enamored for the BB hulls; I am enamored of saving us all money AND doing a fine job on the Russians at the same time.
__________________
Rich Gano
FROLIC (2005 MainShip 30 Pilot II)
Panama City area
rgano is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2020, 01:41 AM   #87
Master and Commander
 
markpierce's Avatar
 
City: Vallejo CA
Vessel Name: Carquinez Coot
Vessel Model: penultimate Seahorse Marine Coot hull #6
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,559
The BBs were well armored, unlike modern ships. An advantage now ignored.
__________________
Kar-KEEN-ez Koot
markpierce is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2020, 06:03 AM   #88
Guru
 
psneeld's Avatar
 
City: Ft Pierce
Vessel Name: Sold
Vessel Model: Was an Albin/PSN 40
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 28,149
Quote:
Originally Posted by markpierce View Post
The BBs were well armored, unlike modern ships. An advantage now ignored.
Armor may still be important for certain threats but is not really viable for most modern weapons.


I would guess speed being key to keep up with the carriers.....
psneeld is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2020, 08:44 PM   #89
Guru
 
rgano's Avatar
 
City: Southport, FL near Panama City
Vessel Name: FROLIC
Vessel Model: Mainship 30 Pilot II since 2015. GB-42 1986-2015. Former Unlimited Tonnage Master
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,984
BBs were armored to defend against their own main armament. That sounds a bit odd at first, but the idea was that all countries developed battleships in a steady evolution of roughly equivalent classes of BBs and that they were expected to fight against similarly armed ships when the big battle erupted. See the Battle of Jutland as the archetypal example. This armoring and the consequent enormous power plants to push them through the water plus the big guns were significant national investments; so the lesser supporting vessels like cruisers and destroyers were built not to deflect major caliber ammo, but to scout ahead to spot the enemy and to deliver torpedo attacks as ordered by the battle line commander. They had to be lightly constructed.

Fast forward to today where our surface battle fleet is composed of just two kinds of vessels, carriers and destroyer-like guided missile armed escorts. These escorts are the descendents of the light support ships called torpedo boat destroyers first developed around 1900, and like their predecessors are not and cannot be heavily armored. They are, like historical destroyers, heavily ARMED though. Our newest class of Burke destroyers do have more armor using kevlar and such materials to provide enhanced splinter protection, far more protection that the early guided missile destroyers I server in which had ZERO protection for us.

Carriers do have some armor protection I think mostly below the hangar deck to protect the propulsion systems.
__________________
Rich Gano
FROLIC (2005 MainShip 30 Pilot II)
Panama City area
rgano is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


» Trawler Port Captains
Port Captains are TF volunteers who can serve as local guides or assist with local arrangements and information. Search below to locate Port Captains near your destination. To learn more about this program read here: TF Port Captain Program





All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:35 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0
Copyright 2006 - 2012