Museum ships

[Patroklos]

and their peak was not in ww2 like the United States.

WWII was certainly not our peak in naval might.

[Lonestar]

Re: Re: Museum ships

Originally posted by germanos


Perhaps the countries spend their money on frifolous things like social security?

Most ship museums here in the States were created through veterans organizations or State monies, not Federal monies. So that isn't really an excuse...

A buddy of mine just came back from London, where he visited some big warship, perhaps not dreadnought size but still - big.

He most likely visited the Belfast, which is a cruiser.

After all, all the Iowa class BB's stayed in service for a fair time afterwards, long enough for people to start thinking of them as historic giving some a reason to save them. Also, the US had made so many ships in WW2 that there were simply more of them to be saved at the end. Scrap yards can only go so fast.

Okay...but the Iowas were in mothballs for a long time, and multiple older BBs made it to museum ship status long before the Iowa's were struck from the Naval registry.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
In my hometown - Gothenburg, Sweden - we have quite a few. Most of them are smaller vessels like a lightvessel. A destroyer and a submarine the only military ones. That there's no larger ships than that shouldn't come as a suprise considering the lack of need for large modern navy vessels like air craft carriers and battleships for the defense of Sweden. No oil interests to consider, the US does that job for us. Then there's the reconstructed 18th century East Indiaman Götheborg that finished it's China-trip a few months ago.

The most well known museum ship of the world is of course the british HMS Belfast. The reason: the venue for the Pogues' second album's, "Rum, Sodomi and the Lash", release party.

Who are the Pogues?

I'd say the Intrepid in New York is the most famous; you can't visit New York City without at least hearing about it, and many, many people visit New York City.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Patroklos


WWII was certainly not our peak in naval might.

true. we are still at that peak, if only because no one else is willing to invest the money into naval technology.

[SpencerH]

Re: Re: Museum ships

Originally posted by VetLegion

Swedes have lifted some old wreck from the bottom of the sea, at great expense, and it is a museum now.

The Vasa is a "must see" for anyone visiting Stockholm. Plus there's a lejonet & Bjornen across the road for some of the worlds best ice cream.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Maybe because in europe lots of civilians died because of the last 2 big wars people here rather try to forget this period in history instead of upholding the memory via museum ships.

Apart from us: HMS Belfast, The Mary Rose...could be something to do with the fact that we won

[Aeson]

USS Midway in San Deigo: (I'll admit... this thing freaks me out a little whenever I go down to the harbor.)

[Dis]

If anything, the U.S. probably has too many ships as museums, but if they are making money, who cares.

I wonder if we will ever put any modern era ships as museums. I wonder if my old ship will ever be a museum. I'm talking about the USS Enterprise (my other ship is on the ocean floor). Doubtful as modern ships have not contributed in major battles, even if they are technical marvels.

not that the Enterprise is a technical marvel. It's just the first of its kind. They made a lot of mistakes. Essentually putting submarine reactors on an aircraft carrier. Though I can see the need for backups in case a reactor goes down, and I think conventionals at the time had 8 boilers, so I guess they figured it needed 8 reactors. You guys can only imagine the amount of primary (and secondary) piping needed for that many reactors.

The biggest problem on decommission will be dealing with the nuclear waste. They could keep everything in tact (aside from removing the nuclear fuel rods), but then they couldn't allow civilians to tour the engineering areas. So most likely they will mothball it and eventually razorblade it.

[Straybow]

The USS Constitution is still on the Naval registry and technically not a museum ship. (Actually, "still" isn't quite right. It was decommissioned, sold off, used as a commercial ship, stripped, repurchased, reconstructed, and recommissioned.)

The BB North Carolina has been a museum ship for at least 40 years.

The CV Yorktown is in Charleston, and another ship, the Laffey (a DD that survived numerous kamikaze and bomb strikes in one battle but stayed afloat).