Navy Plans To Sink America - MSNBC

Damn that Rumsfeld!!!



<snip>

WASHINGTON - The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosive tests this spring, an end that is difficult to swallow for some who served on board.

The Navy says the effort, which will cost $22 million, will provide valuable data for the next generation of aircraft carriers, which are now in development. No warship this size or larger has ever been sunk, so there is a dearth of hard information on how well a supercarrier can survive battle damage, said Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

The Navy’s plan raises mixed emotions in Ed Pelletier, who served on the America as a helicopter crewman when the ship cruised the Mediterranean shortly after its commissioning in 1965. He said he was “unhappy that a ship with that name is going to meet that fate, but happy she’ll be going down still serving the country.” Pelletier, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is a trustee of an association of veterans who served on the America.

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Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7081234/

I think I'll just let this... thing... speak for itself!

:shrug:

I hope some editor gets a raise.

Priceless!!!

Finally, we are of benefit of nature!

:evilgrin:

The last thing I'd want to see is this monster end up 1000 ft down where it won't do much good for reef-building.

For anyone who is about to write and say how insensitive that is to the former crew, other than the ships that were sunk during WW2, they used a bunch of ships in the NuKiller :nuke:weapons tests, and nobody crying for those troops ships.:eyes:

Plus, if done correctly, these old ships become artificial reefs.:hippie:

And I'd really hate to see her sunk, she was decommissioned shortly after the America. I still have dreams I'm aboard her and I left in 1986. Two Westpacs and an overhaul at Bremerton shipyard.

Turn it into a museum? I've been on a few smaller navy boats (and the German U-boat they have in Chicago), but never on an Aircraft Carrier yet.

My Dad served a few years on the FDR (CV 42) and the Saratoga, when it was brand new (CV 60), But I lucked out. Vietnam ended 7 years before I turned 18, and now I'm too old to even apply for the FBI. They won't even let you apply, if your over 35.

I found a web link to the Kitty Hawk Class ships below, but if you click "FAS" up in the top left corner, it takes you to page with links to almost every ship, jet, or bomb you can think of.

<http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/cv-63.htm>

...as an artificial reef:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/64.htm

USS CONSTELLATION (CVA-64)
CLASS - KITTY HAWK
Displacement 60,100 Tons, Dimensions, 1047' 6" (oa) x 129' 4" x 37' (Max)
Armament 4 Terrier-SAM, 100 Aircraft.
Armor, Unknown.
Machinery, 280,000 SHP; G.E. Geared Turbines, 4 screws
Speed, 34 Knots, Crew 4154-4580.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operational and Building Data
Contract awarded on 1 July 1956 to the New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y. Laid down 14 September 1957, launched 8 October 1960, commissioned 27 October 1961. Reclassified as a "Multi-Purpose Aircraft Carrier" (CV-64) on 30 June 1975. Decommissioned 7 August 2003. Struck from the Navy List on 2 December 2003.

Status: Stricken, to be disposed of, type of disposal not known (Maintenance Category X). NAVSEA Inactive Ships On-site Maintenance Office, Bremerton, WA. In April 2004 Navy officials identified ex-Constellation as one of 24 decommissioned ships available to be sunk as artificial reefs.
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If you want to visit an aircraft carrier, you can do so in New York City. The USS Intrepid, CV-11, is now an air and space museum tied up in the Hudson River. Now, granted she's a WWII carrier, commissioned in 1943, but she is still pretty impressive.

She is to be sunk in 6000 feet of water. Think this is to deep for artificial reefs.

We the People will not like this.

Bad ju ju. All around.

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."
- George W. Bush, Aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

Why does the Navy have to get involved?

at all.

Like when Columbia blew up over Texas (and not just TX, PALESTINE, TX). And there have been others, but this is the one that comes to mind.

There's got to be a few gazillion tons of steel there. If we still had a viable manufacturing economy, perhaps we could use it to build some new ships, or cars, or something.

Pay back some of that money we owe them?

The article I read on this, stated it would cost the U.S. Navy about 65 million dollars to scrap the ship as opposed to 22 million dollars to prep it for sinking.

Testing this spring would be just in time for the rumored invasion date of June/July 2005.

Drive her into the gulf (via remote control) at the start of hostilities.:(

What are they planning that they have to see how much damage a ship this size will take before it goes down?

No offense to Navy veterans.

:evilgrin:

This one has no particular historical value.

Let it go.

Rummy & co. can't account for $2.3 TRILLION ! Plus they might want to investigate the USS Cole and USS Stark damage ... might cost less, you know ?

You knew it was coming!

something more appropriate, like "USS Sink Test"?

When a Navy ship is stricken, they refer to them as the USS ex-(name).

All of this is appropriate, given that we live in ex-America...

this just made me realise we will be seeing a USS GWB in the near future.... :puke:

They're plenty of buyers out there. The Republic of India used to buy up all the ex-Royal Navy carriers and might be interested.