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S. Korea: Cheonan's Bow Salvaged(many photos)
Yonhap News ^ | 04/24/10

Posted on 04/24/2010 8:05:46 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

S. Korea: Cheonan's Bow Salvaged



TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: actofwar; bow; cheonan; nkorea; norkssunkthisboat; rememberthemaine; roknavy; rokscheonan; skorea
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To: TXnMA
Thanks for painstakingly putting them together to give us the big picture.

What you have shown is almost exactly the same one which a local military expert in SK suggested, more than a week ago.

61 posted on 04/24/2010 5:59:48 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster (The way to crush the bourgeois is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation)
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To: TXnMA

Carriers are not invincible by any means, but they are tougher than many people give them credit for.

The USS Forrestal, a first generation supercarrier, had 10-12 1,000 lb bombs cook off, plus numerous smaller ordinance, and she was able to steam. Granted, as you said, a torpedo under the keel of any ship is difficult to survive. But, ships CAN be very tough, just look at the survivors of Bikini Atoll.

I agree with your analysis of the salvage...great job. I presume they covered up the exposed areas with tarps to prevent as much as possible, speculation. (Personally, I don’t have to speculate, I am convinced.)

When I was a kid living in Subic Bay, PI, they towed in the remains of the USS Frank E. Evans that was sliced in half by the HMAS Melbourne. My bus went by that dock every day where the floating stern section was tied up, and I could never tear my eyes off of the exposed innards of the ship.

There is something disturbing about damage to a ship.

I have always been into aviation but seeing wrecked planes or even chopped up planes (as was done for SALT II) does not seem to have the same visceral effect on me that seeing damage to a ship does.

I read a book once years ago, and I have not been able to find it again since. It was a book that contained photographs of ships being broken up for scrap. Almost all of them were WWII ships, cruisers, battleships, carriers, destroyers, etc. There was a picture of a WWII heavy cruiser almost completely intact with all of its guns, superstructure, etc still intact, but the bow was removed just forward of the #1 turret.

That picture stuck with me. For some reason, it had the same effect on me as seeing a face with a missing nose. Very odd. I have always believed that ships do indeed have personality to them (I know it is a silly thing, but that is just the way I feel...I have always felt them to be “she” in a very non-inanimate way.)

I know other sailors who feel the same way, and some of those men who served on them in combat definitely feel that way. I have talked to men who to this day, shed tears at the loss of a ship.


62 posted on 04/24/2010 6:15:40 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Thank you for posting this, TLR. I always appreciate your perspective of that side of the globe.


63 posted on 04/24/2010 6:17:09 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE

Excellent analysis, as always...

We sure don’t make them like we used to, that is for sure. but then, nobody does.


64 posted on 04/24/2010 6:19:24 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: TXnMA

That is awesome.

May I post that on another site?


65 posted on 04/24/2010 6:28:59 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com << Get your science fiction and fiction test marketed)
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To: jonascord

Good point. I had heard that same point made some years back.


66 posted on 04/24/2010 6:35:44 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: rlmorel
I'm a USAF guy, but I know what you mean. Not too long after her turret explosion, we pulled up right alongside the Iowa in Newport Bay. Now she's with the "mothball fleet" in Suisun Bay, CA. On Google Maps, You can actually see her at the moment she was being pushed up against the other floating hulks by a tugboat.

The rest of those ships there are a sorry sight -- missing most of their superstructures and heavily rusted...

IMHO, Davis-Monthan is a far more honorable "graveyard". There's a view that will blow your socks off!

67 posted on 04/24/2010 8:08:01 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: GeronL
You are welcome to copy and use it. However, filespace in that domain account is right at its limit, so I am removing files as fast as I can. If you link to it where it is, the link won't work for very long at all.

Go ahead and download it to your computer and make good use of it.

...and, if you feel so led, credit it to an ancient Texan out in the Texas Piney Woods... '-)

68 posted on 04/24/2010 8:14:46 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: TXnMA

I credited your FReeper name, I can update it.


69 posted on 04/24/2010 8:17:38 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com << Get your science fiction and fiction test marketed)
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To: GeronL

“TXnMA” is fine...


70 posted on 04/24/2010 8:19:20 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: TXnMA

**thumbs up**

Thanks very much fellow Texan!


71 posted on 04/24/2010 8:23:53 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com << Get your science fiction and fiction test marketed)
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To: TXnMA

I went to Davis-Monthan a few years ago and took the tour. It was amazing to see. Interestingly, I went to the Pima Air Museum with my wife after that, and I saw an A7E Corsair on display, the kind I used to work on. When I walked over to show my wife, I saw that not only was it an A7, but it was from my old squadron (VA-46)!

Furthermore, it was one of the very planes I was a plane captain on (right after we transitioned to A7E from A7B)

Boy, did that ever twist my head, a real coincidence!


72 posted on 04/24/2010 8:33:03 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Hmmmm..... looks to me like there was a fight going on.


73 posted on 04/24/2010 8:38:02 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: TXnMA

You may be a USAF guy, but your understanding of this issue shows that your knowledge is pretty “cross platform” in my opinion.

Thanks for your service!


74 posted on 04/24/2010 8:39:35 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: namsman

Ping!


75 posted on 04/24/2010 8:41:28 PM PDT by SW6906 (6 things you can't have too much of: sex, money, firewood, horsepower, guns and ammunition.)
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To: rlmorel
A7s -- were those the birds whose wings had variable angle of incidence?

~~~~~~

If you go to that Google Maps link and look in the upper left (NW) corner of the "yard", in the second row, you will see four A/C with trapezoidal wings. Those are B-57 Canberras.

A couple of groups down to their right are three A/C with long, broad wings -- apparently missing their flaps. In the 60's, I was on the secure comlink when the msg came in to our unit that those guys were operational. Can you guess what they are? '-)

76 posted on 04/24/2010 8:46:34 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: TXnMA

To a regime who has no regard for human life, and a people who have no reason to think their OWN lives are useless - if not downright so horrible that death IS a better life ... Then a human-guided torpedo is easier to build.

Cheaper to build.


77 posted on 04/24/2010 8:49:41 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: TXnMA

No, that was the F8 Crusader, a superstar in it’s own right. Pilots LOVED that plane, it was a HOTROD for its day!

I loved them as an aviation buff.

As a kid, I would go to Cubi Point in the Philippines and walk around the tarmac. Things were so different then, an 11 year old boy could just wander in and out of the planes, peering into their intakes, up their tailpipes and around the wheel wells. So different then. When the pilots came out, I would walk over and follow them on their pre-flight walkarounds. I would ask them all kinds of questions, look at what they were looking at and check out their equipment. I remember thinking how amazing these guys were, in their olive colored flight suits and g-suits walking with their helmet under their arm, the oxygen mask dangling down. I looked at their boots, the way they laced and tucked them in. But I found the helmets with all the stuff painted on them completely intriguing.

But most of all, were the very few times I would get them to let me sit in the cockpit, and though I never asked, I never did get to wear one of those helmets. I would sit in the cockpit and soak it all in, looking at the instruments, the throttle, the stick.

I know this is all sickening kid hero-worship, but yeah. I thought guys like he and my dad were amazing.

The reason I bring this up, is because this one pilot I followed around let me sit in the cockpit, and then as he climbed up, he bent over to me and said: “Watch what I do when I take off!”

I walked over to the edge of the tarmac, and creeped as close as I could get to the runway side without attracting attention, and I watched this guy take off in an F8 Crusader at Cubi Point.

He took off in full afterburner (actually the Crusader only has on/off I think) and as the wheels left the runway, he retracted them, and instead of taking off gradually in the plane, kept it pretty level after raising his gear to build up speed.

When he hit the end of the runway (Which stuck out like a finger into the water at Cubi Point) he pulled the nose up to what I guess must have been a 70 degree climb, and that frikking plane climbed like a rocket. I had never seen that before. Flight ops at Cubi were pretty controlled, and I know because I watched them all the time. There was never anything unusual.

But the coolest thing was, as he pulled up the nose and steadied into that climb, he began doing full deflection aileron rolls. I only remember three, but that is only because I stopped counting with my mouth hanging open. That plane just screwed into the sky, going up, up, up, roaring.

It was unbelievable. And he had told me he was going to do it.

When I saw them on the JFK (They were the RF8U Crusaders, stripped down with cameras in them. They were beautiful in flight, but I always thought they looked ungainly, like gooney birds as they came in to land with those wings in the “up” position. When they landed, they always looked to me like they were going to break up on landing, or at least have the nose gear break off. After they caught the wire, the nose gear would hilariously (to me, for some reason) spin 180 degrees so it was completely backwards. It looked so clumsy and awkward.

But when they took off, man did I ever love that. They still used the cable to launch those, but once they got them settled in and the jet blast deflector up, the engines would spin up as the cat officer wiggled his fingers in the air.

As soon as they reached full power, they would kick in the afterburner. When it kicked in, you felt the concussion.

The afterburner on the F8 was odd to me, because the only other plane on the ship with an afterburner at that time was the Tomcat, and when they fired up the afterburners on those, they came up gradually. They roared, roaring louder and louder as the flames would get bigger and bigger. They were yellow, and the gas margins were kind of jagged on the edges, just a massive, heavy stream of burning hot gases overwhelming you the same way a wave does when it hits you gradually.

On the Crusader, the afterburner would come on...POW! No pussyfooting around, no massive river of burning gas, it was sharp, precise and focused more like a welding torch than a flamethrower. Often their gas margins were extremely sharp with the inner and outer zones of somewhat transparent burning gases, usually colored mostly blue. Efficient. Occasionally you would get some concentric rings on the cone of exhaust, and I think I even remember seeing diamond patterns on occasion.

But as beautiful as it looked, it was the WHAM as it came on that was awe inspiring to me.

I saw one go into the drink off the bow cat one time, too. As soon as it left the deck, the plane did a sharp roll to starboard and went straight into the water. Amazingly, I recall the pilot ejected almost immediately, but the plane drilled nose first into the water and simply vanished. Disappeared. I even recall seeing a spout of water come out the tailpipe as it went in. Funny, as I get older and think of these things, they are as vivid in my mind’s eye as they were when I saw them, like a videotape played over and over, but I begin to question, do I have these details right?

It is a very strange feeling, and...I am not that old!


78 posted on 04/24/2010 9:38:42 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: TXnMA

Are these the guys?

I guess if it was secure comlink from that type, the mission that might fit would be these guys? (From the hated Wikipedia)

RB-57E
Though intended as a bomber and never before deployed by the USAF to a combat zone, the first B-57s to be deployed to South Vietnam were not operated in an offensive role. The need for additional reconnaissance assets, especially those capable of operating at night, led to the deployment of two RB-57E aircraft on April 15, 1963. Under project Patricia Lynn these aircraft provided infrared coverage using their Reconofax VI cameras.[5] Later in August 1965, a single RB-57F would be deployed to Udon, RTAB in an attempt to gather information about North Vietnamese SAM sites, first under project Greek God and then under project Mad King. In December another RB-57F would be deployed for this purpose, under project Sky Wave. Neither project garnered useful results and they were terminated in October 1965 and February 1966 respectively.

Would these be them?

(LOL, I know YOU know the answer, I am just being rhetorical...:)

79 posted on 04/24/2010 9:54:50 PM PDT by rlmorel (We are traveling "The Road to Serfdom".)
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To: driftdiver

<<
IMO the fact they are covering up the damaged end is key. There must be something there they don’t want the world to see.
>>

They do that to ensure that remains of any crew members won’t wash out of the opening as they lift the hulk clear of the water. They recovered several of the crew from this piece of wreckage.


80 posted on 04/24/2010 10:18:47 PM PDT by noblejones (Obama rules!)
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