Navy thread

The U.S. built a huge number of destroyers during World War II. Post-war many were placed in reserve. When the scope of the Soviet program to build submarines became clear, a number were pulled out of mothballs and modified for antisubmarine warfare.

One of those was the USS Eaton, originally DD 510 but here with ASW modifications as DDE 510.

You've got to pity any sailor on duty on the weather decks on the day of this photo: Wet and miserable.

Llarry wrote

The U.S. built a huge number of destroyers during World War II. Post-war many were placed in reserve. When the scope of the Soviet program to build submarines became clear, a number were pulled out of mothballs and modified for antisubmarine warfare.

One of those was the USS Eaton, originally DD 510 but here with ASW modifications as DDE 510.

You've got to pity any sailor on duty on the weather decks on the day of this photo: Wet and miserable.

I was on an LPD and we took green water over the bow a time or two! Fortunately, our lookouts were on the wings of the bridge. The aft lookout was probably hunkered-down and secured to something, if that post was even manned!

Aircraft carriers can also take a pounding in very heavy weather. Water washing over the bow and forward flight deck is not an unusual sight. In 1969 we got word of an impending cyclone while on station in the Gulf of Tonkin. The day before it hit us we launched all aircraft not already stowed on the hanger deck and sent them to safety in Da Nang. We then hunkered down and waited. That night I caught the first watch as petty officer of the deck (8;00PM - midnight for you land lubbers) responsible for 6 flight deck watch standers (2 forward; 2 midships; and 2 aft). They had to stand their watch outside in the catwalks unless specifically given orders to come inside. As the petty officer of the watch I got to hang out in Flight Deck Control with a backgammon game going on, and endless coffee. Ahh.. the privileges of rank. I did however have to make hourly rounds of the watches, and enter so in the ship's Log. It only took one trip up to the bow to realize that white water was now washing over the foredeck with nearly every wave, and the foredeck watches were in grave danger of being washed overboard.

When I got back to Flight Deck Control I called the Bridge and explained the situation to the Officer Of The Deck. He made the call to bring the foredeck watches inside, but they still had to come out every 15 min. to eyeball the Flight deck then go back inside. The other watches (midships and aft) still had to hang out in the catwalks, and I still had to make my hourly rounds. That night and that storm were the worst I have ever experienced aboard ship.

AUKUS update and recap...

AUKUS is an Australia/UK/US agreement that has two pillars:
I) Provide the Royal Australian Navy -- in cooperation with the UK and the US -- with a force of at least eight nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs).
II) Enhance cooperation between those three nations in a wide range of topics such as advanced technology, AI, intelligence, etc. Pillar II may have participation by other nations as well; Canada, India, Japan and New Zealand have all been mentioned.

Pillar I has received the most attention, with the RAN planned to ultimately own and operate up to eight SSNs. RAN personnel are already undergoing U.S. nuclear power and submarine training and assignment to U.S. Pacific-based Virginia-class SSNs and to UK Royal Navy Astute-class SSNs.

The RAN SSN force is scheduled to comprise of:
-- A used U.S. Navy Virginia class SSN to transfer to the RAN in 2032
-- A second used Virginia class SSN to transfer to the RAN in 2035
-- A newly constructed US-built Virginia class SSN to be commissioned in the RAN in 2038
-- Five RAN SSNs based on the UK SSNR design to be commissioned in the 2040s. The UK Royal Navy force of SSNs has totaled 7 boats in recent years and therefore I predict that the total to be built will be a dozen: 7 RN and 5 RAN.

All RAN conventionally powered submarines are currently based at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia and current plans are for the SSN force to be based there as well, replacing the conventional SSs. In addition, HMAS Stirling will see both RN and USN submarine visits as boats of those nations deploy to the region. The RN plans to keep one SSN (of the total of 7 in the Navy) forward deployed to HMAS Stirling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia-class-submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSN-AUKUS

Llarry wrote

The RAN SSN force is scheduled to comprise of:
-- A used U.S. Navy Virginia class SSN to transfer to the RAN in 2032
-- A second used Virginia class SSN to transfer to the RAN in 2035
-- A newly constructed US-built Virginia class SSN to be commissioned in the RAN in 2038
-- Five RAN SSNs based on the UK SSNR design to be commissioned in the 2040s. The UK Royal Navy force of SSNs has totaled 7 boats in recent years and therefore I predict that the total to be built will be a dozen: 7 RN and 5 RAN.

A major issue that the Australians will face in their program to acquire nuclear submarines is the difference in officer training between the RN and the USN. In the RN, the "front end" (non-engineering) portion of the submarine is the domain of submarine warfare officers, while the nuclear powerplant and other engineering components are overseen by specialist nuclear engineers. In the USN, by contrast, all submarine officers (except supply officers) undergo lengthy nuclear propulsion training as well as submarine school before being assigned to a submarine; an officer generally qualifies in "back end" duties first. The Aussies will presumably have to decide on the best approach for the RAN.

Some quick searching indicates that the RAN is at present pursuing an "all of the above" approach with some officers undergoing U.S. nuclear power training and assignment to USN SSNs -- where they will no doubt follow the U.S. pattern -- and some officers undergoing RN submarine nuclear engineer training, following which they will likely be assigned to RN SSNs for engineering duties only. Given the future SSN force (3 U.S.-built Virginia-class SSNs, to be followed some years later by 5 UK- or Australian-built SSNs) I suppose that is reasonable. Over the long term, the RAN shall likely have to choose one alternative or the other.

Given the timeline for the actual delivery of active RAN submarines, they will have some experienced officers (and enlisted personnel/ratings) to operate the initial RAN boats.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command, which operates the civilian-manned support ships of the Navy, is short-staffed. MSC is now considering a plan to place a number of ships in reserve due to the lack of available mariners. These would include as many as a dozen fast expeditionary transports and three underway replenishment ships.

Two commissioned Navy ships are also included in the plan; two large expeditionary sea base ships (ESBs), which have crews of 101 military personnel and 44 civilian mariners, are also being considered for inactivation. The ESBs are valuable assets that provide support for mine countermeasures helicopters and for special operations forces in regions that may not have suitable shore facilities.

During the early years of the U.S. Navy, the most important combatants were sailing frigates, which were rated at about 30 to 40-plus guns. While frigates were lethal ships, the British Royal Navy -- and other European navies -- had large numbers of ships of the line (what we might later term a battleship) rated at 60 to 80 guns.

In the 1830s, the U.S. Navy decided to build some ships of the line. The largest was the USS Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania was completed in 1837, was quite impressive and reputedly handled well. But ships of the line were manpower-intensive, and Congress balked at the running cost. Pennsylvania ended up being placed in reserve only a year after completion and was never in active service thereafter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pennsylvania_(1837)

U.S. President George H.W. Bush directed the removal of all nuclear weapons from U.S. Navy ships in 1992. The only exception was the nuclear warheads on Trident missiles of ballistic missile submarines, which play a major role in the U.S. strategic arsenal.

One of the weapons withdrawn from fleet use in 1992 was a nuclear-tipped version of the Tomahawk cruise missile. Those missiles were placed in storage with the option of putting them back in service should circumstances require such action. After years of storage the missiles were disposed of by 2013.

Given the somewhat troubled state of the world, a new nuclear sea-launched cruise missile program was initiated a few years ago. No missiles are yet operational, but they are under development. The goal is for a low-yield nuclear warhead.

This is a controversial program, as you might imagine. Among other factors, a low-yield nuclear warhead was developed for ballistic missile submarine-fired Trident missiles and became operational in 2020; some feel the cruise missile would be redundant.

It is not clear to me whether the new cruise missile would be a version of the existing proven Tomahawk cruise missile or an entirely new missile. It would make more sense to use the tried-and-true Tomahawk.

Holy crap Batman! This thing uses the W80 warhead which is the du jour "low to intermediate yield" warhead delivered by aircraft and cruise missiles. The yield can be selected between 5kt nuclear, and 150kt thermonuclear. 150kt thermonuclear is now considered "intermediate yield"??? That is a large city melter.

My how things have changed. Back in my day (1966 - 1970) our low yield weapon was the B57 which had a variable yield of between 5kt - 20kt. Our "intermediate" weapon was the B61 which also had a variable yield (10kt - 340kt). This weapon in it's latest Mod is still in the inventory today, but the highest yield is now 400kt. There were larger yield warheads available (up to an estimated 1.5mt) but all of these were too large and heavy to be carried by tactical aircraft. Only the B57 bomber, and Poseidon missiles could carry them.

We carried both of these weapons aboard ship at all times. I don't know if this is still practiced today.

Boomer 2019 wrote

Holy crap Batman! This thing uses the W80 warhead which is the du jour "low to intermediate yield" warhead delivered by aircraft and cruise missiles. The yield can be selected between 5kt nuclear, and 150kt thermonuclear. 150kt thermonuclear is now considered "intermediate yield"??? That is a large city melter.

My how things have changed. Back in my day (1966 - 1970) our low yield weapon was the B57 which had a variable yield of between 5kt - 20kt. Our "intermediate" weapon was the B61 which also had a variable yield (10kt - 340kt). This weapon in it's latest Mod is still in the inventory today, but the highest yield is now 400kt. There were larger yield warheads available (up to an estimated 1.5mt) but all of these were too large and heavy to be carried by tactical aircraft. Only the B57 bomber, and Poseidon missiles could carry them.

We carried both of these weapons aboard ship at all times. I don't know if this is still practiced today.

I don't think there are any nukes aboard Navy ships today with the exception of the SSBNs. That may change with this new nuclear sea-launched cruise missile. I don't think carriers or surface warships carry any nukes at all and haven't since the early '90s.

This whole discussion of nuclear warheads leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I do not fault President Truman's decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki given the circumstances at the time, but the genie was let out of the bottle. I was relieved when nukes were removed from Navy warships.

So let me introduce the two thermonuclear warheads currently used by the Navy:

-- The W76 is the less powerful of the two, with a yield of 90-100 kilotons or -- in low-yield form -- 5 kilotons. Up to 8 warheads can be delivered by a single Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile. (Actually, the missile can accommodate 12 but the number is limited by international treaty.) Those warheads can be independently targeted at multiple aim points. The W76 -- in low-yield form -- is also a possible candidate for a nuclear cruise missile.

-- The W88 is the more powerful warhead, with a yield of 475 kilotons. The Trident can carry up to 8 independently-targeted warheads; for extended missile range, fewer can be carried.

The illustration is of a generic nuclear warhead and its re-entry vehicle. The photo is of a Trident D5 SLBM being launched from a submerged submarine.

Hopefully these weapons will never have to be used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W76

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W88

USS Midway. Might require a bigger tug.

Lady Jane wrote

USS Midway. Might require a bigger tug.

LOL

My Midway story: In the summer of 1983 I spent a couple of months on USS Leahy, a missile cruiser that was escorting Midway in the Western Pacific. On one occasion, we were to enter Subic Bay in the Philippines but a typhoon was in the vicinity and the seas were too rough, so we ran back and forth outside the entrance to the bay until the seas moderated.

Midway was almost 40 years old at the time and had seen many alterations and additions during that long period of service. Unfortunately, those modifications had negatively impacted her seakeeping ability. Although we were in high seas, it was not raining and the visibility was pretty good; I watched Midway take some substantial rolls.

In 1986, in an effort to tame Midway's ride, blisters were added to broaden the hull and provide additional buoyancy. They made the problem worse and assignment to the Midway was not a plus for those prone to motion sickness; the ship would roll dramatically even in moderate seas. Not too many years later, Midway was retired; today she sits at a pier in San Diego and has no seakeeping issues at all.

The aircraft carrier Midway (CV 41) was an interesting transition from the older 1940s straight-deck carrier to the more modern angled-deck design. Midway was built during World War II as the lead ship of three CVBs (large carriers) -- the first U.S. carriers with armored flight decks. She was commissioned just after the war; had the war continued into 1946 she would have seen combat against Japan.

Midway and her sisters -- USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB 42) and USS Coral Sea (CVB 43) were the pride of the fleet in the late 1940s/early 1950s. They were all converted to angled-deck carriers in the 1950s. Coral Sea was enlarged considerably in the early '60s and the Midway was given an even more dramatic enlargement in the late '60s. The FDR ended up being retired earlier due to the great expense of these reconstructions.

My Dad served aboard FDR in 1951-52 flying F9F Panther jet fighters before the angled-deck era and then again served aboard Midway in 1959-60 in her intermediate configuration -- after the angled-deck alteration but before the further enlargement of the late 1960s.

Midway was the last survivor of the class, serving in the Gulf War of 1991 shortly before retirement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Midway_(CV-41)

Lady Jane wrote

USS Midway. Might require a bigger tug.

I think I remember Police Chief Brody once saying something similar.

After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy downsized its Naval Shipyards. From a high of eight such facilities and as many as 62,000 workers, the ship construction and repair facilities dropped to four shipyards and just 21,000 employees. Those four are at Norfolk, Portsmouth, Puget Sound and Pearl Harbor.

A recent essay at the U.S. Naval Institute by a naval officer (behind a paywall) made the case for a fifth shipyard. There are many obstacles in the way -- for instance, the shipyards that were closed were turned over to local governments and in some cases considerable changes have been made to the repurposed facilities. Two locations mentioned in the essay as potential candidates are Alameda, California, on San Francisco Bay and Sparrows Point in Baltimore, Maryland.

The construction of an aircraft carrier-sized drydock is a major undertaking and using a World War II-built dock would be a major savings but most of those are in areas where the other facilities needed to establish a shipyard would be difficult.

In addition, given the current labor market it is difficult to see how an adequate work force could be established.

Progress! The aft section of the future USS Columbia (SSBN 826), the first of class of the new ballistic missile submarines, was built in Virginia and recently shipped to Connecticut. The X configuration of the stern planes is clear in this photo. The dozen planned 826 class SSBNs will be the most complex and most expensive U.S. Navy submarines ever built.

Visit to Charleston last week including the Yorktown, Laffey, and CS Hunley, the first submarine to effectively attack a surface ship.

billnchristy wrote

Visit to Charleston last week including the Yorktown

My Dad served in combat in 1944 on both the Yorktown (now in Charleston) and the Lexington (now in Corpus Christi) and was a squadron commander aboard the Midway (now in San Diego) in 1959-60; I regret that I have not visited any of these three aircraft carriers. I should note, though, that all three of the ships are modified considerably from when he was aboard.

Llarry wrote

My Dad served in combat in 1944 on both the Yorktown (now in Charleston) and the Lexington (now in Corpus Christi) and was a squadron commander aboard the Midway (now in San Diego) in 1959-60; I regret that I have not visited any of these three aircraft carriers. I should note, though, that all three of the ships are modified considerably from when he was aboard.

I remember walking on board the Midway my first time and immediately recognizing the smell! I'd been out of the Navy for probably 30 years at that point.

Here's an interesting photo of a submerged USN Los Angeles class attack submarine at periscope depth being overflown by a P-3 Orion. The airplane's shadow is visible on the sea surface.

The subject of lack of submarine building capacity has been discussed previously in this thread. Now one of two submarine-building companies, Electric Boat, has signed a contract with AUSTAL USA -- the Australian builder of aluminum vessels that is now expanding into the fabrication of steel vessels -- for US$450 million to expand the production of submarine components in Mobile, Alabama.

A third submarine-building facility is badly needed in the USA, but this move will hopefully take some of the pressure off EB's Connecticut yard and allow slightly increased production of submarines.