Posted on 10/14/2017 4:10:09 PM PDT by oxcart
The USS Harvey Weinstein, it goes down whether you want it to or not.
The first nuclear sub was the USS Nautilus (SSN-571). Sharing names with Captain Nemo’s fictional submarine in Jules Verne’s classic 1870 science fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and named after another USS Nautilus (SS-168) that served with distinction in World War II, the new atomic powered Nautilus was authorized in 1951, with laying down for construction in 1952 and launched in January 1954, attended by Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States, wife of 34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and commissioned the following September into the United States Navy. Final construction was completed in 1955.
Our third commissioned nuclear sub USS Skate (SSN-578) made it to the North Pole a week after the USS Nautilus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_(SSN-571)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Skate_(SSN-578)
The naming of USN submarines:
Traditional Conventions: Submarines (SS and SSN) were either given a class letter and number, as in S-class submarines, or the names of fish and marine mammals.
Contemporary ship naming conventions: Fast attack submarines (SSN) names are dependent on class;
Los Angeles class - named after cities, with the exception of USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-709), named for an Admiral who was a pioneer of the nuclear Navy.
Seawolf class - (only 3 boats in class);
Lead boat; USS Seawolf (SSN-21), named for the Atlantic wolffish, and the fourth submarine to carry the name,
2nd boat; USS Connecticut (SSN-22), named for a U.S. state,
3rd boat; USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), named for a former U.S. president, and Naval officer who had served aboard a nuclear submarine.
Virginia class, named after U.S. states, with the exception of;
USS John Warner (SSN-785), named for a former Secretary of the Navy, U.S. Senator and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-795), named for an Admiral and pioneer of the nuclear Navy. This is the second boat to carry the name (see USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-709)).
As Hyman Rickover pointed out, fish don't vote...
waste of taxpayer dollars
Adm, Rickover once was asked why we still didn’t name Subs after fish....his response was that fish don’t vote.
The design was butchered to meet TREATY obligations that only the United States honored after World War I.
However, in some sense, this World War II battleship was in a anti-aircraft battleship.
In one of the battles around Guadalcanal, this ship protected the carrier USS Enterprise.
But it had a terrible time that when its 16 inch guns were fired, it tripped all the ELECTRIC CIRCUITS on the ship and CRIPPLED the ship.
The official US Navy Historian of World War II labeled it an unlucky ship
Of course, its bad luck was that it was the victim of the US honoring a TREATY that no one else honored (aka Germany and Japan).
However, the USS Iowa class fixed all that (follow on class).
My father was on the commissioning crew of the battleship Iowa. I decided to wear that cap today.
God, Family, Country.
That are the priorities of our life:
God first.
Our families second.
Our country is number 3. Still very important.
That is not a picture of USS South Dakota that fought in World War II. Might be a ship of World War I, or even part of the Great White Fleet.
All subs were named after fish or marine mammals until the 41 Polaris missile subs were christened. (”41 for Freedom”). They wrecked it.
That is actually the armoured cruiser South Dakota. Commissioned in 1908 served until the late 20’s
A good friend of mine was a LT (j.g.) on the USS Batfish SSN-681, a Sturgeon class attack sub, long since scrapped.
Yes, USS South Dakota (ACR-2)
“...waste of taxpayer dollars...”
Pay in dollars now, or pay in blood later. Your choice.
Of course, the latter choice carries a greater risk of failure.
There is no third choice, though many Americans still think there is.
if it’s such a great investment and so incredibly important - why not raise the funds through voluntary contributions ?
I found it interesting that the US NAVY was formed October 13, 1775.
I guess it was commissioned before South Dakota became a namesake.
I had a relative who at the commissioning of DDG-51. And the namesake of that ship (Arleigh A. Burke) was still alive.
I know something about the Laboratory Model that was the basis of the Seawolf class.
The PRESS has been viciously attacking them to prevent anything useful to be done.
Just have to unwind a little on my day of rest.
“The design was butchered to meet TREATY obligations ... However, in some sense, this World War II battleship was in a anti-aircraft battleship. ... protected the carrier USS Enterprise. ... when its 16 inch guns were fired, it tripped all the ELECTRIC CIRCUITS on the ship and CRIPPLED the ship. ... Of course, its bad luck was that it was the victim of the US honoring a TREATY that no one else honored ... “
Battleships of the North Carolina and South Dakota classes were not “butchered.” They were designed from the keel up to meet the limits placed on warship size written into treaties. Whether the treaties were a good idea in the first place, and how our national leaders chose to honor or abrogate them, are separate matters.
topher’s post neglects several aspects of warship design & testing, and salient details of 1942 surface actions near Guadalcanal.
First, USS South Dakota and USS Washington were at that moment both new ships. Not all bugs had been worked out, and operational testing was a rush job given the exigencies; South Dakota’s electrical-system problems were particularly vexing.
The 16 inch/45 cal main armament of South Dakota and Washington caused multiple problems; crewmembers were not allowed on deck during firing of the big guns, to shield them for the blast and heat.
In the initial stage of night action, muzzle blast set afire two floatplanes (secured but in the open on the after deck) on South Dakota. The next salvo blew them overboard.
(Such system integration problems were never completely resolved. After the 1980s refit of the Iowa-class battleships, it was discovered that the shock of multi-gun salvoes from their 16in/50 cal guns caused a reset of the recently-installed desktop computers).
Power-supply problems during the night engagements sealed USS South Dakota’s reputation as unlucky, according to her crew. Morison (as paraphrased on topher’s “about” page) reported it.
But she was not a standout in terms of anti-aircraft gun equipage. topher’s comments imply that warship fit was static; it was not, especially as naval combat evolved during World War Two. Initial AA armament was found inadequate; USN responded by installed ever-greater numbers of 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors guns, though these were not integrated into any central fire control systems. The 5in/38 cal DP fit was never augmented, but better central fire-control systems and hardware were deployed.
All battleships were subject to these changes, opportunistically, as they could no longer accomplish their primary mission of ship-to-ship engagement. Aircraft had taken it: carrier-launched, and seaplanes, and land-based warplanes.
The obsolescence of their beloved “capital ships” came as a rude shock to senior USN leaders, but they had been in denial for almost a generation. William Mitchell had demonstrated conclusively that warships were vulnerable - helpless when pitted against the primitive aircraft of the early 1920s.
“I found it interesting that the US NAVY was formed October 13, 1775.”
It wasn’t the US Navy.
It was (at most) the Continental Navy: predated by months, any notion of a “United States” as a sovereign entity. The concept of a separate nation grew only slowly among the British colonists; its actual establishment took longer still.
But that slowness did not seriously handicap naval-minded mariners in prosecuting their aspect of the American War of Independence.
Esek Hopkins went forth at the head of a flotilla, attacking the British West Indies. His written orders told him to attack British naval vessels in the Chesapeake Bay area.
John Paul Jones’ first assignment was as a lieutenant. He became the first American officer to hoist the national standard to the masthead.
John Barry, immigrant to the Colonies from Ireland, was in 1775 already a merchant captain of some note - earned the title of “fastest man of the 18th century” for a record-setting run during a return voyage from Europe.
After joining the colonists’ cause, he assumed command of a small warship. Soon after, he went into action against a British vessel, becoming the first American captain to force an enemy vessel to strike it colors.
The United States Navy dates from the establishment of the Navy Dept, following drafting of the Constitution and its approval by a sufficient number of the several states.
John Barry signed up, and was issued United States Naval Commission Number 1.
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