If you look closely at the midships side plating, you can see the small ports for the galley oars... ;-)
(and the drum goes "boom, boom, boom". The Chief Bos'n Mate yells, "Stroke, stroke, stroke")
Posted on 10/06/2012 2:14:18 PM PDT by Evil Slayer
The U.S. Navy's newest destroyer class warship, the 510-foot USS Michael Murphy, recently laid anchor at New York City's Pier 88 for its commissioning ceremony.
On Saturday, the ship will participate in a long standing naval tradition, the commissioning ceremony, which marks the moment a new ship is formally placed in active service. Of course, we will be there tomorrow to cover the action. The US Navy will also be live streaming the event.
The new ship consists of a crew of 290 well-trained Navy service-men and -women led by Commander Thomas E. Shultz. The ship is named after Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy, who risked and lost his own life in 2005 in an effort to call for aid for his men and himself after being ambushed by over 50 anti-coalition militia fighters in Afghanistan.
Lt. Murphy and his team were doing reconnaissance as part of Operation Red Wing, 3 members of the 4 person team, including Lt. Murphy, died in an intense firefight, and an additional 8 Navy SEALs and 8 Army Stalkers died when their helicopter was shot down as they rushed to the aid of Lt. Murphy and his team. Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (SEAL) Marcus Luttrell was the lone survivor of the mission.
While ships are usually named for cities or states or famous and notable Americans, this ship was named after Murphy because of the bravery and commitment to others he displayed in the 2005 mission.
The ship relies on the Aegis Combat System and is capable of multi-mission, Anti-Submarine Warfare, and Anti-Surface Warfare. It is a deadly beauty.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
...if anything gets inside the CIWS, I doubt chaff and flares is gonna help a whole lot...
"Maritime" standard is without the "extras" that those giant flat phased arrays can deploy, in addition to radar.
It's very hard to get inside the CIWS of scalar weapons... LOL!
If you look closely at the midships side plating, you can see the small ports for the galley oars... ;-)
(and the drum goes "boom, boom, boom". The Chief Bos'n Mate yells, "Stroke, stroke, stroke")
If you ever get to take a tour of The Bath Iron Works in Maine, do it. There is a superb maritime museum there, and the tour of the shipyard is fascinating.
The modular construction is very cool-they have large sections of the ship they build upside down, because they found it was much more efficient and easier for the shipworkers to bend over and work at their feet than stand on ladders with their arms over their head. They they would turn the pieces over, transport them to where there whole ship was being assembled, and attach it.
When done, they move the entire ship into this floating dry dock below, and take it out into the middle of the Kennebec river, flood it, and...voila, the ship is launched.
Now, I am a purist, and I wish they did it in the traditional fashion, sliding down the ways, but...whattaryagonnado?
Hers is an interesting story...she was a Sumner class, but had the hull number of a Gearing class, as described below:
Bristol's "800" Designation Number
In the early 1940's, the Navy's Bureau of Ships Department originally drew up the designs and ordered 198 Sumner Class Destroyers to be constructed. The Contracts for the construction of these Destroyers were spread out through many of the country's ship building yards. Sometime in approximately 1943, it was decided to modify the basic Sumner Class Destroyer (short hull) blueprint design and add a fourteen foot midsection (long hull) addition to the basic hull design.
This addition was for additional fuel tank capacity which would give the Destroyer an extended operating range. With this modification a new Class of Destroyer was designated which was the Gearing Class Destroyer. At this point in time, it was decided that only seventy Sumner Class Destroyers would be completed. Sumner Class Destroyers range in designations from 692 to 857, and the USS Bristol DD 857 was the last of the Sumner Class Destroyers to be built. At the time when the decision was made to commence the modified construction of the basic Sumner Class hull to the new Gearing Class hull, the Bristol construction was too far along to incorporate the new Gearing Class modification. Because designation numbers had been previously assigned, the hull number of 857 stuck for the Bristol.
Many of the other Sumner Class hulls that were under construction were not far enough along in construction to preclude the fourteen foot modification be incorporated and, as a result, were now being designated as a Gearing Class Destroyer and whatever designation number had been previously assigned for this hull under construction the designations numbers stuck. The Gearing designator numbers range from 710 to 890.
The combined total number of Sumner and Gearing Class Destroyers actually built were 175 of the original 198 ordered. Twenty-three of these originally ordered Destroyers were canceled before they could be constructed. Thus is explained the often asked question about the USS Bristol DD 857 designation number and why it is so far out of sequence with all of the other Sumner Class Destroyers built.
I knew that there were some gaps in the numbering. Thanks for the additional information. Hoel was an Adams-class. It's now being used as a power barge somewhere in South America.
My other ship, USS Harry E. Yarnell (the Hairy Urinal, DLG-17 in my time, later re-designated CG-17), is awaiting scrapping back in Philly.
Somehow, reminders of ships long gone by have a way of making me feel really old.
Holy smokes, I guess, but...who has a hypersonic missile out there now besides possibly us on the drawing boards, and maybe the Russians or Chinese (doubtful)?
I know how you feel, Bob.
A ship is not just a hunk of metal, there is more to it. I saw a book one time that was all about scrapping old warships, and was filled with pictures of ships in various states of desconstuction. I wish to hell I could find it, because it was fascinating.
But, there was on picture that affected me. It was a heavy cruiser being scrapped, can’t remember which, and the bow from the first turret forward had been removed.
It looked to me just like a face that had the nose removed. And it had the same psychological effect on me, too. Interesting.
It is a sad comparison as an American. Israelis can be proud of their leader.
Today is the 69th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, by the way. Which Bibi fought in, of course.
Hey RL,
Check out my post #31...another Sumner Class Can...in fact, if memory serves, the Ault was sister ship to the US Sumner.
That would be USS Sumner
Classic indeed! I did think they were beautiful vessels...
I knew what you meant...:)
He reported to her as a LTJG in June 1951 at San Diego, CA, they went via the Panama Canal to Newport, RI, where they operated up and down the East coast until April 1952, when they went BACK down to the Panama Canal and on to Korea where he spent four or five months operating in and around Korea. They went into the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, and back to Newport, RI in April 1953.
During that deployment, he had proposed to my mom in a letter, and the wedding date was set for May 9th, 1953. When my dad's ship came in just a couple of weeks before the wedding, and he was able to finally get off and head up to Massachusetts for the wedding that was to take place in the next few days, he realized he had forgotten his dress shoes and the marriage license in his rack after he arrived home.
He drove all the way back to the ship in Newport got his shoes and license, but when he got back up the Massachusetts, he couldn't find the wedding license. He went back down again and went aboard the ship where he scoured the compartment and his rack, to no avail. Crestfallen, he had to go back without the license, but the office was closed for the weekend and he was unable to get another one. Someone he knew pulled a few strings, got the guy to come back in and he got a license, so the wedding went ahead as planned.
In the early Eighties, my mother got a call from South Korea (I think, but not sure) and the guy said they were breaking up a ship for scrap, and they had found a wedding license with her and my dad's name on it. They were breaking up the USS Rooks, and when they were tearing the compartment apart, they found it in a bulkhead. Apparently what had happened, was my dad had got the certificate, put it on his rack, raised the mattress up to get the shoes underneath, and when he did, the license must have slid down a minuscule gap into the bottom of a dark bulkhead where it lay for 30 years until they tore it down. They offered to send it to her, but I think my parents had been going through some tough times at that point, and the last thing on her mind was a piece of paper from her past, so I don't think she had them send it!
I hate the Navy commercials.
A Global Force for Good?
Screw the globe, I care about ONE country only.
I am with you completely on that.
Some of the things I have heard about what is going on in the USN make me want to disown the fact that I served in it, as did my dad.
I have a hard time doing it, though. It is different now, and NOT for the better. But the talking heads won’t say that...they will say it is a “force for good”.
It has ALWAYS been that, but not in the sense those liberal jerk-offs mean it.
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