Topic: SH3 (Silent Hunter 3) Revisited

[IAF Lyrkiller]

Just reinstalled and i am downloading the mod that Lyrkiller recommended now, looks like the mod has a huge amount of cool features.

Looking forward to trying it out.

Good for you, Crim

[Commander La'ra]

Nope. She was a South Dakota, fresh build for a new war. 16"x45caliber main guns, and 20 5" secondaries.

Man...why'd I think she was older?  Perhaps I got her confused with the Texas.

16 inchers means she had the firepower advantage, too.  Tirpitz only had 15's, I think.

Dracho:  Don't be so dismissive of those old 'pre-war scows'.  The ones re-raised at Pearl blasted the hell out of the Japanese fleet at Leyte Gulf, and both Texas and Arkansas had very active wars....

USS Arkansas
USS Texas

[J. Carney]

Nope. She was a South Dakota, fresh build for a new war. 16"x45caliber main guns, and 20 5" secondaries.

Man...why'd I think she was older?  Perhaps I got her confused with the Texas.

16 inchers means she had the firepower advantage, too.  Tirpitz only had 15's, I think.

Dracho:  Don't be so dismissive of those old 'pre-war scows'.  The ones re-raised at Pearl blasted the hell out of the Japanese fleet at Leyte Gulf, and both Texas and Arkansas had very active wars....

USS Arkansas
USS Texas

The Texas is quite possibly the grandest of our preserved fighting ships, and the Arkansas should have, like ALL our old battlewagons and the Enterprise, should have been preserved as a war memorial- especially since they had clear channel to gether to port in her State.

I've always wanted to visit the Texas. She's third on my list of ships to see, behind only the Connie and the Olympia.

[Dracho]

I think Texas may be one of, if not the last of the true "Dreadnaughts" that is still in existence.

[IAF Lyrkiller]

Of all the times I have been down to Houston, I have yet to go see her.

One of these days I will.

[Dracho]

From the Texas you can run down to Seawolf park in Galveston and see a WWII fleet sub on display too.  It's pretty cool.

[J. Carney]

From the Texas you can run down to Seawolf park in Galveston and see a WWII fleet sub on display too.  It's pretty cool.

LOL... in Mobile, they have the Alabama and the Drum within walking distance (a relative term when one 'display object' is 668 feet long, and the other is 312 feet long).

Drum is in bad enough shape that they had to take her out of the water and sit her up on land, and the Alabama is in the process of recieving some MAJOR hull patching, but both are still as pretty and well-preserved inside as ever (there are even rumored to be some 5" rounds still on the Alabama ). The repairs to the Alabama's hull are going to be guarenteed for at least 50 years, and since it's just the lower part of the hull where the metal is thin (compared to a 16" armor belt), it's not that big of a job.

I do wish that they would simply cement around her and seal off the lower hull, though. Something akin to what the Japanese did to the Mikasa, the only unconverted pre-dreadnaught left in existance.

She's #5 on my list of 'gotta see ships'- and that low only because she's permanently grounded at the old Yokosuka naval base.

Top is the official site Yokosuka city website; the bottom is the Wiki site, which has better pics of the way that she was cemented in.
http://www.city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp/e/mikasa/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Mikasa
She's a real treasure... only she and the Protected Cruisers Olympia and the Russian AURORA survive from that time period. (I was wrong, see below)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Aurora
http://www.phillyseaport.org/historicships/olympia.html


EDIT: Holy Crap... guess I was wrong. Naval History Buffs, prepare to empty your pocketbooks! Here's a list of pre-dreadnaught ships around the world! There are a LOT more than just the three I knew about, and many of them are still floating and in prime condition!

http://www.oz.net/~markhow/pre-dred/index.htm

[Commander La'ra]

We have the USS Razorback afloat in North Little Rock at the Maritime Museum.  I have, to my shame, yet to go to see it (largely because two or three of my friends want to go and we want to make it a group affair...but something always screws up the scheduling).

She's a Gato-class, but recieved a Guppy-conversion in the '50's.  Both me and Governor Ran'jar from Fan Fiction want to see her pretty bad as neither of us have ever seen a boat from that era.

Cool story behind getting the Razorback...the US sold her to the Turks and she served in their Navy for a long time...they were going to scrap her, but when the Maritime Museum made inquiries, they gave her back...gave, not sold, though I think we had to foot the bill for transportation.

Her last Turkish commander was at the opening ceremony when they started giving tours.