USN now smallest since before WW1.

[lord of the mark]

Re: Port

Originally posted by pchang
Of course, ships go to port to give their crews a break too, terrorists or no. If an enemy launched a sneak attack, you have to accept that a certain fraction of your entire fleet will be in a port somewhere. The key is having good enough spies so that you are not caught totally unaware by the sneak attack. If I recall, there were no carriers at Pearl Harbor despite the fact that they were non-nuclear.

Cause they were busy shuttling fighters Wake and other islands (Guam? PI?) where an attack WAS expected. As it was not at Pearl.

[pchang]

exactly

sneak attacks are unpredictable for both the attacker and the defender.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Japher


Would the ships gain more payload space by switching to nuclear power? I mean no large bulk full of ship fuel? Replace that space with more jet fuel or ammo and the likes... So it could probably stay out longer...

There are a lot of engineering, fire control and damage control issues - propulsion fuel bunkerage is well below the waterline, in double hulled tankage with transfer pumps, etc., to minimize loss and fire/explosion hazards.


Replacing that mostly static storage with extra ordance requires more handling, loading and offloading equipment, access space, blast containment, and other stuff along the path the ordnance has to be moved to get it on the ship and into storage, then out of storage onto attack aircraft.

A lot of weight and space gets taken up by that.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

There are a lot of engineering, fire control and damage control issues - propulsion fuel bunkerage is well below the waterline, in double hulled tankage with transfer pumps, etc., to minimize loss and fire/explosion hazards.

Replacing that mostly static storage with extra ordance requires more handling, loading and offloading equipment, access space, blast containment, and other stuff along the path the ordnance has to be moved to get it on the ship and into storage, then out of storage onto attack aircraft.

A lot of weight and space gets taken up by that.

This may be a bit of miscommunication. I think he wasn't talking about actually switching to nuclear power with an already built carrier but designing one from the ground up. You can put things that work down in the space which would have otherwise held the fuel. It may be that there are all sort of issues that prevent you from simply stacking ordinence in the excess total carrier volume freed up by the switch, but since the original ordinence volume had the same issues, you're still looking at a percentage increase that's significant.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Master Zen


Not really. The U.S. battle fleet in WW1 was the third largest (by far) in the world, and in overall tonnage it was also third with around a million tons IIRC (Royal Navy was over 2 million and the German Navy between 1.5 and 2).

I don't have the exact tonnage figures at hand but here's a list of the units in Aug 14:

10 - Dreadnoughts
23 - Battleships (pre-Dreadnoughts)
12 - Armored Cruisers
27 - Cruisers (incl. light cruisers)
50 - Destroyers
27 - Submarines

Total - 147 ships.

I was thinking of the US navy during WW1. After the war's end the USN mothballed over one hundred and fifty destroyers! In the 1940s the US gave 100 of them to GB via lend-lease, but still had plenty left for itself.

I might add that it was the destoryers which saw action during the war. The big ships just sailed over to GB and looked pretty all tied up at dock alongside the British battle fleet, which was also all tied up at dock.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


I was thinking of the US navy during WW1. After the war's end the USN mothballed over one hundred and fifty destroyers! In the 1940s the US gave 100 of them to GB via lend-lease, but still had plenty left for itself.

I might add that it was the destoryers which saw action during the war. The big ships just sailed over to GB and looked pretty all tied up at dock alongside the British battle fleet, which was also all tied up at dock.

I think that's a little exaggerated. According to this, the US built around 64 destroyers between 1914-1918. With 2 losses, taht leaves 114 at war's end.

By 1939, the US had 181 destroyers. 50 of them were given to the UK in exchange for 8 base rights in the Atlantic.

[TCO]

Don't just look at the combat usage issue. Look at usage in normal operations. Transits, showing the flag, etc. Conventional carriers are not bad, but I think nukes still end up being a little bit better in carriers.

And of course in submarines, nuke power allows you to have a true submarine.

[Tuberski]

Re: full operations

Originally posted by pchang
I meant full combat operations - under those conditions, ordnance has to be replaced every 3 days. jet fuel, a little less often.

As for refuelling under normal operations, this is most often done at port for non-carriers. No need to change things for carriers.

Having spent 3.5 years on a conventional ship, a destroyer to be exact, over half of our refuelings were via underway replenishment.

ACK!

[TCO]

You mean a "target". BTW, you look gooood in crosshairs.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by TCO
You mean a "target". BTW, you look gooood in crosshairs.

That's what we said about you......

ACK!

[TCO]

You know the preferred method of ASW detection for a destroyer?

Green flare.

SEriously, one 637 could cause a wake of destruction for a US SAG or CVBG.

[Tuberski]

Depends on the sub's captain. We are targets for the first attack, but it's the extraction that we will get you.

In theory.

ACK!

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Tuberski


That's what we said about you......

EDIT: Wrong word, for us change target to whale......

ACK!

[TCO]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Depends on the sub's captain. We are targets for the first attack, but it's the extraction that we will get you.

In theory.

ACK!

It's a lot of theory. I have done a buttload of periscope appraoches. And have also spent time at AS on a CVBG. It is night and day.

The surface-pukes celebrate when they find us. We watch you guys all day long. EVen when not in exercises. We have a loaded gun pointed to your head all the time...


BANG!

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Master Zen


I think that's a little exaggerated. According to this, the US built around 64 destroyers between 1914-1918. With 2 losses, taht leaves 114 at war's end.

By 1939, the US had 181 destroyers. 50 of them were given to the UK in exchange for 8 base rights in the Atlantic.

Sometimes these figures include reserves, sometimes they don't. You also have to consider different classes of ships. Sometimes escorts are included as destroyers, sometimes they aren't.