quote: NAVY SINKS 'AMERICA' "No one has been able to land a [big] punch on an American [aircraft] carrier for over half a century," StrategyPage notes. "There is no practical knowledge about exactly how sturdy, or not, these big ships are."
So the Navy is going to sink the USS America, decommissioned since 1996, to find out what happens when the 1060-foot long carrier gets hit, hard.
In $22 million worth of "experiments that will last from four to six weeks," the AP reports, "the Navy will batter the America with explosives, both underwater and above the surface, watching from afar and through monitoring devices placed on the vessel."
These explosions would presumably simulate attacks by torpedoes, cruise missiles and perhaps a small boat suicide attack like the one that damaged the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
At the end, explosive scuttling charges placed to flood the ship will be detonated, and the America will begin its descent to the sea floor, more than 6,000 feet below...
Certain aspects of the tests are classified, and neither America's former crew nor the news media will be allowed to view them in person, Dolan said. The Navy does not want to give away too much information on how a carrier could be sunk, Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command, said.
Oh boy. This is all the motivation I need. Let's spend $22 million on finding out how much it takes to sink the type of ship I work and live on. I have a better idea on how they could spend that money. Eh new barracks would be nice. Better MWR programs would be great. The bases need improving (Norfolk is a mess).
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Aircraft Carriers are vulnerable all over. Heck all you got to do is look who built it. The cheapest bidder Northrop Grumman, has been for a while. I hated that place. Right now Pudget Sound Naval Shipyard is busy fixing stuff that NG couldn't do right the first time. An' it's stuff as easy as floor tiles.
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However, sinking them as target practice is generally considered a more "honorable" retirement for a Naval vessel than scrapping, from what I've heard from Navy men.
The sub my dad served on (USS Queenfish) when it was decommissioned was taken out in the middle of the ocean for target practice and sunk, and all the veterans of it seem to think that is a much better retirement than the scrapyard. (Why? I have no idea - must be a guy thing).
But I'm just saying they have been sinking them for a long time -- they are just studying this one to better understand what blows will take it down.
Hey, if something they discover ends up saving even one human life in the future, I'm all for their spending to do it.
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WAS in Norfolk. I am now in San Diego. And I am late for work. I called in so I hope it's all good.
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Looking at it another way, FG, I can envision uses for that $22 million that would save at minimum hundreds of human lives, in the immediate future, guaranteed.
I'm not saying its not worthwhile, actually, just that our overall spending priorities are perhaps somewhat out of balance.
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Personally, I'd like to see the theories the underwater archaeologists will come up with as to who sunk it and why when they find it a thousand years from now...
"But all the weapons that sunk it were American too! And there's evidence for so many different kinds of attacks." "I know, I know, it just doesn't make sense..." "Must've been a civil war. Or stolen weapons. Or a lot of suicidal sailors. *pause* With water-soluble bones." "And a conspiracy to cover it up in the history books because it was embarrassing for the government!" "Could be, could be..."
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