Scratch one flattop

woodreau

Well-Known Member
It’s not one of the nuclear powered carriers, but it’s one of the 10 amphibious assault ships.

there is already a shortage of amphibious lift, so this isn’t going to help matters.

it just got the flight deck upgrades to operate the Marine Corps F35s. So.... oopsies



fire is still not yet contained. But looks like this ship will be out a lot longer than planned If it ever comes back.
 
Kind of makes me wonder if they will bring the Pelileu or the Tarawa out of mothballs to fill in for the BHR until she gets repaired.
 
I doubt it - when they decommissioned those things, they cut big holes into the hull to remove the more useful machinery, so they'd have to find parts to put back in. Plus they wouldn;t be able to operate the F-35.

This will put a big hole in the deployment cycle of F-35 capable decks for the Expeditionary Strike Groups and force a deck that is coming off deployment to pull a second deployment - which would require an accelerated maintenance period for it to take care of the more urgent maintenance requirements before going back out.
 
I doubt it - when they decommissioned those things, they cut big holes into the hull to remove the more useful machinery, so they'd have to find parts to put back in. Plus they wouldn;t be able to operate the F-35.

This will put a big hole in the deployment cycle of F-35 capable decks for the Expeditionary Strike Groups and force a deck that is coming off deployment to pull a second deployment - which would require an accelerated maintenance period for it to take care of the more urgent maintenance requirements before going back out.
They were both pretty tired when they were decommissioned and I had no idea they were stripped down that far when they were put into mothballs.
 
This is my shocked face.

Bring back Keel Hauling.

Seriously if this is true that kid needs to be crucified for his actions. He put the strategic readiness of the nation he swore to defend and more importantly thousands of his “shipmates” at risk. It is a miracle nobody was killed in what was probably the greatest feat of damage control since either Forrestal or Stark.

Hang him from a Yardarm.


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definitely not diminishing the damage control efforts on the BHR. doctrinally, fire attack teams have a 15 minute on station time. A scba lasts 30 minutes after lighting off. so you’re always juggling the fire attack teams air supply when you send them inside the smoke boundary. and due to cable/hose runs that go thru watertight accesses because of the maintenance yard work which hindered the ability to set smoke and fire boundaries, attack crews were already on borrowed time as soon as they stepped onboard the ship - not even anywhere close to getting to a point where they could attack the fire.

Cole was a hard fought save too. The bombing knocked all 3 gas turbine generators offline. The crew couldn’t restore power as the generators kept tripping offline. So they had to fight the resulting fire and flooding and dewater with no power. They didn’t find the remains of the bombers until the ship got to the yard in Mississippi. months of spoiled organic matter in the nonoperating freezers and reefers masked the stench of the decomposing corpses.

this fire really hurt. It delays deployment of the F-35 for an expeditionary strike group. Forces the strike group to deploy with the Harriers or come up with some workaround until the next F-35 capable deck comes online. For now in the pacific there is only one f35 capable deck online and it’s forward deployed to Japan. BHR was supposed to the the first one on the west coast.
 
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She's going to be scrapped.

Literally the only navy ship I ever set foot on in my 5 years in the USMC. I was training at NATTC Pensacola in 98 when she was there to be commissioned. They were giving tours and I got to walk around a few hours.
 

She's going to be scrapped.

Literally the only navy ship I ever set foot on in my 5 years in the USMC. I was training at NATTC Pensacola in 98 when she was there to be commissioned. They were giving tours and I got to walk around a few hours.

With the Navy’s current ship building priorities and risk to its strategic future hulls I can completely understand this.

The OPS Tempo to make up for this on the existing Amphibs will suck for those existing hulls, but to the Navy everything right now is about avoiding any risk of delay or god forbid cancellation of Columbia. The Ohio’s will be 50 years old and running up on mandatory refuels to continue being viable when the first Columbia is planned to come on line.


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The Ohio’s will be 50 years old and running up on mandatory refuels to continue being viable when the first Columbia is planned to come on line.

The hardware situation for the entire US military is becoming alarming. We have multiple fleets of vehicles that are being projected to continue into their 50s or even 70 years old with no replacement in sight. If the B-52 gets new engines, then those airframes might wind up flying for over a century.
 
The hardware situation for the entire US military is becoming alarming. We have multiple fleets of vehicles that are being projected to continue into their 50s or even 70 years old with no replacement in sight. If the B-52 gets new engines, then those airframes might wind up flying for over a century.

There is something politically paralyzing about the word “new,” in military budget arguments. This is caused since you have to explain it to people often making a decision based off where those purchases benefit who’s constituents and what the demonstrated platform for the group is at the time. D or R don’t matter when somebody discusses a BrAC we desperately need to have not run by a bunch of people concerned with votes over smart logistical and money decisions.

I’m personally worried about the completely inept effort at replacing all our support aviation assets (IE the stuff flying on 707 platforms that were old when my Dad was newly in the Air Force).

I totally get the Navy’s concern over any risk to the Columbia. Somehow explaining to people that a new submarine is both first 5 years and long run (half century) cheaper than operating a 50 year old hull in its place when you factor operational expense of a very old hull plus higher fatigue of components you don’t have a manufacturing base for plus a nuclear refuel. Nothing short of making the Navy do Sophie’s choice between new big deck nuke carriers would make them prioritize something ahead of that project.


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Hopefully this investigation into one man being responsible for everything isn’t done by NIS/NCIS the same botched way the USS Iowa explosion investigation was.
 
Nah, it was one enlisted's fault. Maybe a petty officer in charge of some sailors who signed-off on broken equipment.

No one else to the left or right of the event can hold any blame for an entire ship burning up while sitting at the dock.
 
Just one eye witness who said the suspect was in the area and an alleged discontenting attitude is pretty thin evidence.

Hopefully the leaked information is only a small part of the prosecution's case. They had the identity of the sailor in question kept secret for a while.

Hopefully this investigation into one man being responsible for everything isn’t done by NIS/NCIS the same botched way the USS Iowa explosion investigation was.

Lets hope so.

That fiasco gave them a black eye for quite a long time. The fact that we are still referencing the incompetent Iowa investigation says something. The same way the ATF fiascos of the early 90s still resonates today.
 
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