US Carrier Pictures?

I have a lot of pictures of my voyage aboard the USS John C. Stennis, CVN 74 I could post if there is any interest.

In the mean time, watch this video. It is my son's gun mount. Port side aft.

Phalanx CIWS Firepower | Military.com

I would love to see them. I have a lot of photos but they are all in my head! Best one is the Enterprise with a bow wave up to her flight deck in the first Gulf War.

When I got my Surface Warfare signed off I got to shoot the CIWS. It's a very cool piece of hardware. We had to load the rounds by hand using a speed wrench. Then when we removed the spent casings, they showed us the power of a pneumatic impact wrench.

I used to have one of the depleted uranium rounds in our shop on the ship....till they found out we had it.

1957 Bellingham Trawler
3 Eddyline Kayaks
1 Tahe 585 Kayak
1972 GB 32 Sedan (pending)

That is fantastic, any idea what each projectile weighs?
congrats and many thanks to your son.

100 grams. (.22 pounds each) She can send her entire magazine (1550 rounds) down range in 20 seconds. That's 342 POUNDS of lead in 20 seconds.

Not sure the weight. 20mm round in a brass casing. Fires up to 5000 rounds per minute. 100 round burst takes just a second or so. If you watch closely you will see it tracks in a circular pattern that gets smaller as it closes in. A massively impressive piece of weaponry.

Yep. They track the bullets as they leave the mount on a radar unit. It actually fires in a pattern that closes on the target.

Here we go

The carrier is amazing. There are four 2 Megawatt generators on board. They do not offer propolsion, just power for the ship.

Boy do I miss those days. Got flown over the the Missouri one time to fix her MARS Station. Stuck my head into the breach of the center gun of turret 2.

The Phalanx Barrel

One more.

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I served 3 years ships company as a Tactical Action Officer or TAO on USS Enterprise. My job was defending the ship from all threats day or night, air or surface or sub surface. We only had 3 CWIS mounts and 2 NATO Sea Sparrow launchers.

We were required to PACFIRE the CWIS mounts every 45 Days. We also had to qualify with a clean kill on the Sparrows and the CWIS on towed targets.

Hardest 3 years of my life but also the best. BIG E is deactivated now. I was at her deactivation in December. My Dad served on her in Vietnam and my Son was baptized in her bell. She was a great ship and a friend.

We unrep'd her many times in the Gulf. Cat shots while maintaining romeo corpen at adout 100 feet of separation was exciting.

Bob Cofer said:

We unrep'd her many times in the Gulf. Cat shots while maintaining romeo corpen at adout 100 feet of separation was exciting.

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Bob, yep. Always fun on Big E. I cruised on her 2000-2001. Ship yards after that. Over 30,000 former crew and families came to her deactivation ceremony.

I was ships company on the Connie and the Lincoln. Getting to live aboard and deploy many times on both sure made you appreciate nuclear power.

BigJim said:

The carrier is amazing. There are four 2 Megawatt generators on board. They do not offer propolsion, just power for the ship.

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Who's the "wench" with the wrench?

BigJim said:

The carrier is amazing. There are four 2 Megawatt generators on board. They do not offer propulsion, just power for the ship.

Click to expand...

Most people don't realize the incredible amount of energy it takes to get a nuclear reactor up to sub-critical reaction temps. The same is needed to shut down a reactor. There is a quench period that cools the fissile material to below sub-critical and holds the reaction there.

Normally this is done pierside, but if that is not possible it needs to be done underway (or at least from the SSDGs). It takes weeks to wake up a reaction under normal deployment scenarios, but it can be done in less than 24 hours if needed without causing damage to the cores.

Those SSDGs (Ship's Service Diesel Generators) are key to getting a nuclear powered boat underway. When 9/11 happened we were making preparations to have the Lincoln TOWED away from the pier and conduct a fast start on the reactors if necessary. It never came to that though thank goodness after everyone realized there would likely be no second wave of attacks.

BigJim said:

The carrier is amazing. There are four 2 Megawatt generators on board. They do not offer propolsion, just power for the ship.

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A normal containership can produce that much. Some can produce more than that just using waste heat from the main engine exhaust - that is in addition to the 6 to 8 mW available from the diesel generators.

It takes a lot of power to keep a load of reefer containers cold near the Equator.

But don't forget the two Westinghouse A4W's

They are publicly rated at 550MWh each.

Blue Heron-a long time ago, did carrier qualls in an F-4 on the Enterprise. USMC Air. We had a program back then, '69-'72, to teach USAF F-4 pilots how to really fly. They got to practice on a land based Cat launch/retrieval system, at Bogue Field, Cherry Point. I can till hear the first USAF pilot as we circled the carrier about 50 miles out of Mayport, FL. at about 3,000 feet. His came on the radio, "I am headed back. no eff'n way I can land on that!". In an F-4j, at 250 knots and 3,000 feet, that sucker looks really small!

Folks a wrench in my day. I had to take my Greatest Generation Sailor to Cancer surgery today. Been a long day. I will try for more pics soon.

SeaHorse II said:

Who's the "wench" with the wrench?

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PO3 Woods. She cannot open the hatch to the gun mount, nor hump a box of 20 MM ammo. Go figure.

They are amazing shots !

All those pictures make the boat look big.

From 300 ft pattern altitude and 1/2 mile back , it looks like a postage stamp.

Happily today there are autopilots.

THD,

Yep. F4J were in my dads time for sure but I remember seeing F4S flying as late as 96-98? On the Midway.

Air Force guy may have lacked stones but he certainly had more common sense!

Awesome pictures. Thank you all for your service. Pop was a carrier pilot in Korea, mostly on the Antietam but he did stints on many others. My only claim to fame is about 6 nights on the Hornet in Alameda with the Cub Scouts. Keep the pictures coming.

Damn bird farms......

Don't get stung!



(TBF on USS Midway)