USS Iowa begins its journey from Benicia's 'Mothball Fleet' to Los Angeles

Vallejo Times-Herald ^ | 10/27/2011 | Sarah Rohrs

[Nachoman]

North Carolina for instance is not only in fresh water, she's ALSO completely silted-in.

Not only that, she's surrounded by alligators. I think she's there to stay.

[paddles]

I was a pilot aboard the USS Coral Sea in the summer of 1989. Iowa joined us in the Med later in the deployment. One of the most memorable moments of that cruise was walking up on deck and seeing her plying the water next to us.

[Rodney Dangerfield]

There’s a bunch of old Battleships out there at the “graveyard” in Benecia, CA

Some will be sold for scrap, and the graveyard is about half the size it once was.

Google Earth will give you a nice view of the “graveyard”

[tanknetter]

Aircraft carriers are too big with too little Protection (see U.S./U.K. Aircraft Carrier Armor during WW2)

The USN went to armored decks with the Midway class and has never looked back. For survivability (by which I mean sinking - the standards for rendering a ship combat-ineffective are different), one only needs to look at the Vietnam-era conflagrations aboard Forrestal and Enterprise to gain a good understanding of what kind of punishment these ships can take. A few years back the USN spent 4 weeks putting every type of weapon in its arsenal, short of nukes, into the hide of the old ex-USS America ... and it still took a deliberate scuttling to put her under.

One of the big lessons of WWII, and particularly early-WWII, was that carriers were incredibly survivable. Specifically Yorktown and Hornet, which showed (in their stubborn and prolonged refusal to sink despite massive damage) the benefits of a high degree of compartmentalization and the maintenance of significant reserve buoyancy.

As an aside, years ago I worked with a guy who was a sailor on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (the second Midway-class carrier) during her final deployment. He went into great detail about what a complete sh*thole she was -- that her hull was so warped that her compartments didn't line up properly anymore. As it turns out, I learned sometime later that was a damage-protection FEATURE of the Midway-class; the compartments were designed NOT to line up so that she could absorb more punishment.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

For those who don't know, there were nearly six Iowa class BBs built.
The first four were in order: BB-61 Iowa, BB-62 New Jersey, BB-63 Missouri, BB-64 Wisconsin.
Then came BB-65 Illinois (scrapped when 25 percent complete in August, 1945.
Lastly, BB-66 Kentucky, (construction suspended in 1947 when 72 percent complete. The bow of the Kentucky was removed and fitted to BB-64 Wisconsin after a collision. The Kentucky was finally scrapped in October, 1958.

[KC_Lion]

Alright, you learn something new everyday, I guess amour isn't everything when it comes to survivability, I just cringe though when I hear that the Tico-crusiers are protected with “Kevlar” armor, I just worry about a missile breaching the hull and setting off all their missiles and the ship going Pop!

[HereInTheHeartland]

How cool is that! Drove near Suisan bay last year to try to get a look at her while visiting the area.
Was fortunate to walk the decks of the Missouri back in 1988, while living in that area. The Missouri was docked in San Francisco for Fleet week.
She was an active battleship at that time.

[CrazyIvan]

If you dredge the river, I’ll buy the fuel to bring it up!

[nkycincinnatikid]

That’s Crazy Ivan

[CrazyIvan]

That’s Crazy Ivan

LOL!

[Wallop the Cat]

[Wallop the Cat]

Yikes!! I had no idea the picture was that large. Sorry, but it does do a good job of showing her in all her glory.

[CrazyIvan]

Very cool pic! There’s a another Freeper here who makes .44
mag loads with almost that much muzzle flash! (you know who
you are)

[iowamark]

Width reduced to 400 pixels:

[iowamark]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-27/world-war-ii-era-uss-iowa-leaves-for-los-angeles/50968324/1