Topic: Famous ships??

[Lurker]

I would say Titanic is the most famous ship of all time.

I've been lucky enough to go on both the Victory and the Warrior as they are moored close to where I live. I think the Victory is still a commisioned ship which I guess would make it the oldest commisioned ship in the world. And let's not forget...

The Mary Rose

The Vasa

The HMS Great Britain.

 

[Strafer]

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Blue Nose

See?
I knew someone would mention it...

[TB613]

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I would say Titanic is the most famous ship of all time.

I've been lucky enough to go on both the Victory and the Warrior as they are moored close to where I live. I think the Victory is still a commisioned ship which I guess would make it the oldest commisioned ship in the world. And let's not forget...

The Mary Rose

The Vasa

The HMS Great Britain.

   

The Victory may be the oldest commissioned warship however, the USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship that is afloat.  

[Lurker]

Really? I thought the Victory was afloat?  

[ChrsLWlstr]

The Iowa Class Battleships... Just love them.  Sad to see them taken out of service, but I believe that two of them are still on the reserve list, although I'm not certain of that anymore.  Too many politics!  They could still be useful today.

 

[BortaS]

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Really? I thought the Victory was afloat?  

The Victory has been in a dry dock since the 1920's.

[BortaS]

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The Iowa Class Battleships... Just love them.  Sad to see them taken out of service, but I believe that two of them are still on the reserve list, although I'm not certain of that anymore.  Too many politics!  They could still be useful today.

 

The Iowa and the Wisconsin are on 90 day reserve.  It was suposed to be the New Jersey and the Wisconsin, but the turrets on the New Jersey were welded in place when it was demilitarized.  This was a bit of politics for sure, as the Iowa never had it's turret fixed from the explosion.  Short of WW3 I doubt we will ever seem them sail again.

[NJAntman]

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The Iowa Class Battleships... Just love them.  Sad to see them taken out of service, but I believe that two of them are still on the reserve list, although I'm not certain of that anymore.  Too many politics!  They could still be useful today.

 

The Iowa and the Wisconsin are on 90 day reserve.  It was suposed to be the New Jersey and the Wisconsin, but the turrets on the New Jersey were welded in place when it was demilitarized.  This was a bit of politics for sure, as the Iowa never had it's turret fixed from the explosion.  Short of WW3 I doubt we will ever seem them sail again.  

May not need to sail to still be useful. I hear tell rumor that when South Jersey succedes from the oppresive regime of New Jersey, us rebels, I mean South Jerseyites, are gonna tow the Big J up the Delaware to capture the enemy capitol at Trenton. Maybe even annex a few choice portions of Pennsylvania along the way. Down with the urban tyrants of New Jersey!!

   

[ChrsLWlstr]

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The Iowa Class Battleships... Just love them.  Sad to see them taken out of service, but I believe that two of them are still on the reserve list, although I'm not certain of that anymore.  Too many politics!  They could still be useful today.

 

The Iowa and the Wisconsin are on 90 day reserve.  It was suposed to be the New Jersey and the Wisconsin, but the turrets on the New Jersey were welded in place when it was demilitarized.  This was a bit of politics for sure, as the Iowa never had it's turret fixed from the explosion.  Short of WW3 I doubt we will ever seem them sail again.  

I've tried to keep up with the Iowas... Seems as if there are groups within the military that still wish for them to be active service. However, there are those pushing for them to be turned into memorials and such as well.

A site I've used to keep up with their status...

 Iowa Class BBs

There is also another organization out there, the United States Naval Fire Support Association. I believe they were working on fighting congress from giving the Iowas the axe... I can't seem to find their website anymore.

A side note, the Iowa actually did have most of the turret repaired after the explosion. The remaining spare parts to finish repairs are still inside the turret itself.  

Talk about the power to intimidate... Reagan, upon the upgrading of the Iowas...

[TheJudge]

Actually, the turret was damaged beyond repair...unless a factory figured out how to make the spare parts (the designs were lost and they would have to be reverse engineered.  Then the factory line would have to be reassembled at great cost.).  

In the early 1990's the parts for the 5"38 gun mounts (my ship had same type as the Iowa BB secondary mounts) were almost non-existent.  We had scrounged parts from nearly every ship in the mothball fleet to keep ours active and even that was not really possible to do anymore.  The 16" mounts were even in worse shape.  Those ships are, for all real purposes, history.  

The Marines have to hope they never really need NGFS from now on....

 

[ChrsLWlstr]

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Actually, the turret was damaged beyond repair...unless a factory figured out how to make the spare parts (the designs were lost and they would have to be reverse engineered.  Then the factory line would have to be reassembled at great cost.).  

In the early 1990's the parts for the 5"38 gun mounts (my ship had same type as the Iowa BB secondary mounts) were almost non-existent.  We had scrounged parts from nearly every ship in the mothball fleet to keep ours active and even that was not really possible to do anymore.  The 16" mounts were even in worse shape.  Those ships are, for all real purposes, history.  

The Marines have to hope they never really need NGFS from now on....

 

Hmm... I'm pretty sure I read that it was nearly repaired.  Have to dig for some information on that one.

And as to the Marines... Their commanders in particular were the ones pushing for the Iowas active service (Fire Support Capabilites Needed) from what I observed in a few articles.
 

[KOTH-Steel Claw]

We were fortunate in that we had a 5"54 (FF-1090, USS Ainsworth) back in the 80's.

[Lurker]

Hmmm...I think you guys might be right.

 

Maybe I was thinking of the Warrior...

 

...which is a most excellent ship too. Lol and to think, I live about 10 miles away from them and you guys were right    

[Blyre]

The N. S. Savannah, the world's first and only nuclear powered merchant ship.

Wallace
 

[TheBigCheese]

H.M.S Revenge

Seydlitz

Cutty Sark  

[TheJudge]

I'll throw in my old ship into this argument:

U.S.S. Long Beach (CGN-9).  The world's first Nuclear-powered surface vessel.  She also featured the first phased-array radar and the most impressive arsenal of her time.  During Vietnam, she was the first warship to shoot down an aircraft with a Surface-to-Air missile in combat.  Decommisioned in 1994, she was the first, and arguably the greatest of all American nuclear-powered cruisers.  At the time of her commissioning she was armed as follows:

2 - Mk 10 Terrier Surface to Air missile launchers (Mod 0 and Mod 1 - Mod 0 held 40 missiles while Mod 1 held 80).
1 - Talos Surface to Air missile system (it was this system that shot down a North Vietmanese Mig)
1 - Asroc anti-submarine rocket launcher
2 - 354 mm anti-submarine torpedo tubes

Shortly after commissioning, 2 Mk. 30 5"38 caliber gun mounts were added midships.

In 1980 she underwent refueling and NTU upgrade.  Her final armaments were:

2 - Mk 10 SM2-ER SAM systems.  120 round magazine.  Each missile capable of ranges up to 125 miles.  Could handle up to 16 missiles in the air at any time.
2 - 5"38 caliber dual-purpose gun mounts
1 - Asroc anti-sub rocket launcher
2 - 354 mm anti-submarine torpedo tubes
8  - Harpoon anti-ship missiles
2 - Tomahawk Armored box launchers (capable of holding up to 8 Tomahawk cruise missiles)
2 - Phalanx point defense systems.

She also featured flag facilities that rivaled any onboard a carrier as well as electronic warfare detection and intercept capabilities far beyond most cruisers.  For sheer amount of weaponry, only the Aegis cruisers could challenge her and she repeatedly outperformed them in every operations exercise that she participated.

Only part of that was thanks the to the excellent crew...

 

[Kmelew]

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I'll throw in my old ship into this argument:

U.S.S. Long Beach (CGN-9).  The world's first Nuclear-powered surface vessel.  She also featured the first phased-array radar and the most impressive arsenal of her time.  During Vietnam, she was the first warship to shoot down an aircraft with a Surface-to-Air missile in combat.  Decommisioned in 1994, she was the first, and arguably the greatest of all American nuclear-powered cruisers.  At the time of her commissioning she was armed as follows:

2 - Mk 10 Terrier Surface to Air missile launchers (Mod 0 and Mod 1 - Mod 0 held 40 missiles while Mod 1 held 80).
1 - Talos Surface to Air missile system (it was this system that shot down a North Vietmanese Mig)
1 - Asroc anti-submarine rocket launcher
2 - 354 mm anti-submarine torpedo tubes

Shortly after commissioning, 2 Mk. 30 5"38 caliber gun mounts were added midships.

In 1980 she underwent refueling and NTU upgrade.  Her final armaments were:

2 - Mk 10 SM2-ER SAM systems.  120 round magazine.  Each missile capable of ranges up to 125 miles.  Could handle up to 16 missiles in the air at any time.
2 - 5"38 caliber dual-purpose gun mounts
1 - Asroc anti-sub rocket launcher
2 - 354 mm anti-submarine torpedo tubes
8  - Harpoon anti-ship missiles
2 - Tomahawk Armored box launchers (capable of holding up to 8 Tomahawk cruise missiles)
2 - Phalanx point defense systems.

She also featured flag facilities that rivaled any onboard a carrier as well as electronic warfare detection and intercept capabilities far beyond most cruisers.  For sheer amount of weaponry, only the Aegis cruisers could challenge her and she repeatedly outperformed them in every operations exercise that she participated.

Only part of that was thanks the to the excellent crew...

 

Wasn't the Long Beach the only other warship to have the same radar system as the USS Enterprise (CVN-65)?  I remember reading that somewhere.  Looking a photographs of her early career, the Long Beach's bridge superstructure looks very similar to the Enterprise's original island.  

[TheJudge]

Yep, oh great, I need to upload some pics...


I'll link to them later, but yeah, the Long Beach originally had the same phased array radar the Enterprise did.  That's why she had a big box superstructure.  They removed it later and installed a standard SPS-48/SPS-49 system later.

The original 1980 conversion was to place Aegis on the superstructure and install the Mk 41 VLS systems.  However this was nixed by Congress for budget considerations.  Too bad, they could have placed three 61 cell Mk 41 launchers in the forward area.  That would have made her more powerful than any of the Tico class cruisers.  

[FatherTed]

CV-6 USS Enterprise.  Her banner after VJ day was so long it needed balloons to keep it aloft in her wake. The most battle hardened and influential(through her actions) ship in US history. Pity she was broken up for scrap when they should have moored her along with the Constitution and Constellation in Boston. If ever a ship earned it, she did.    

[762]

I was kinda sad when they retired  Long Beach. She was definitely unique.

Didn't she displace like 18,000 tons or something like that? Definitely a big ass cruiser.