To think that some smaller navies continue to keep comparatively older ships in service (like the two modfiied ex-USN Tench class submarines still in Taiwanese service, the British-built Brazilian carrier Minas Gerais in reserve or even that Dutch-built Peruvian missile cruiser Almirante Grau still active) or in reserve while these are being scrapped.

From an article last year from the NAVY TIMES:

quote:

As of February 2008, Constellation is scheduled to be disposed of by dismantling in the next five years, along with USS Independence.

Sinking

These ships will be disposed of by sinking in the listed fiscal years.

* 2009: destroyer tender Acadia, destroyer Conolly, both no longer in service, and research ship Hayes.

* 2010: combat store ships Concord, San Jose, Spica and Niagara Falls.

* 2011: combat store ship Saturn and ammunition ship Kilauea.

* 2012: ammunition ships Flint, Shasta, Mount Baker and Kiska.

The decommissioned auxiliary aircraft landing training ship - and former carrier - Forrestal and destroyer Arthur W. Radford also are expected to be sunk, but no time frame has been determined.

Scrapping

These decommissioned ships are scheduled to be dismantled in the next five years:

destroyer tender Puget Sound;
command ship Coronado;
submarine tenders Simon Lake, L.Y. Spear and McKee;
cruisers Yorktown, Vincennes and Thomas S. Gates;
aircraft carriers Independence and Constellation;
amphibious transport dock Austin;
helicopter amphibious assault ship New Orleans;
dock landing ships Anchorage and Fort Fisher;
submarine Trout;
and nuclear submarines Drum, Omaha, Cincinnati, New York City, Groton, Birmingham, Phoenix and Baltimore.

The fast-attack submarine Los Angeles, still in commission, also is on the list to be dismantled.

At a time when the Navy's mission is expanding, we are scrapping and sinking warships...
Does anyone remember what the Naval officers in the Philippines said after Pearl Harbor?...
They wondered why all of those destroyers in mothballs in San Diego weren't being brought back into service...
The point was, those destroyers from the first world war were there, now, we aren't even allowed that?...
Yes, these ship are old and some are best scrapped and the metal used to build new ships, some are not, some we can still use, the question is why are they being destroyed, when they can be used?...
Yes, it will cost to bring them out of mothballs, those that haven't been already reduced to uselessness by taking parts from them and giving those parts to museum ships and for use in commissioned ships, which are of the same era as those in mothballs...
A survey should be conducted and those that are of use, should be used...
IMHO...
Respectfully, SUNLINER81

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SUNLINER81,

USS Oriskany


USS Oriskany was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in August of 2006 to make an artificial reef.

Don

How much Asbestos is still on these old Navy warships?
How much jet fuel, oil, toxic paint and lead are there.
I recall the old French carrier was so toxic with these chemicals in couldn't be sunk, scrapped or even stored at dockside.
I don't think there will ever be a need for these old ships again.

USS Independance (CV-62)



"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Independence_(CV-62)"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: EAG154,

I watched them sink the USCG Cutter Bibb off of Key Largo just off of Molasses Reef. The day before, the sister ship, USCG Cutter Duane was sunk in the same area.



As far as oil, asbestos, etc, I was told the ships have to go through a major inspection by Environmental Depts. before they can be sunk.

Not just for cleanup but hatches are welded, etc, for the safety of the divers who will visit them.

Don

USCG Cutter Duane


Years later, the USS Spiegel Grove was sunk near Carysfort Reef off of Key Largo in shallow enough waters for the ship to be viewed by snorkling instead of a deep dive.

They had a good documentary of the stripping and sinking of the Oriskany; there ain't dust left aboard when those reclaimators get finished!

The New Orleans? Heck, she was stuck from the rolls back in late 1998!

I thought that she went to the breaker's yard long since!

She wallowed like a beached Whale in heavy seas, but she took me to the Po the first time, and that was a fine way for the lady to wish me bon chance!

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck_Centaur:
To think that some smaller navies continue to keep comparatively older ships in service (like the two modfiied ex-USN Tench class submarines still in Taiwanese service, the British-built Brazilian carrier Minas Gerais in reserve or even that Dutch-built Peruvian missile cruiser Almirante Grau still active) or in reserve while these are being scrapped.

From an article last year from the NAVY TIMES:

quote:

As of February 2008, Constellation is scheduled to be disposed of by dismantling in the next five years, along with USS Independence.

Sinking

These ships will be disposed of by sinking in the listed fiscal years.

* 2009: destroyer tender Acadia, destroyer Conolly, both no longer in service, and research ship Hayes.

* 2010: combat store ships Concord, San Jose, Spica and Niagara Falls.

* 2011: combat store ship Saturn and ammunition ship Kilauea.

* 2012: ammunition ships Flint, Shasta, Mount Baker and Kiska.

The decommissioned auxiliary aircraft landing training ship - and former carrier - Forrestal and destroyer Arthur W. Radford also are expected to be sunk, but no time frame has been determined.

Scrapping

These decommissioned ships are scheduled to be dismantled in the next five years:

destroyer tender Puget Sound;
command ship Coronado;
submarine tenders Simon Lake, L.Y. Spear and McKee;
cruisers Yorktown, Vincennes and Thomas S. Gates;
aircraft carriers Independence and Constellation;
amphibious transport dock Austin;
helicopter amphibious assault ship New Orleans;
dock landing ships Anchorage and Fort Fisher;
submarine Trout;
and nuclear submarines Drum, Omaha, Cincinnati, New York City, Groton, Birmingham, Phoenix and Baltimore.

The fast-attack submarine Los Angeles, still in commission, also is on the list to be dismantled.

Seems like they could recycle the metal and cut into the huge volumes of foreign steel and aluminum we're buying for cars and such... Maybe ever reduce the price in the process. But that makes too much sense, doesn't it!?!?

its always sad to see one of them go down... too bad they couldnt open them as musiems or something...

Well they only need so many museums.

If it is a choice of scrapping over sinking. I would choose scrapping. The ones they sink during "weapons testing" are pretty far fetched, the weapons they are "testing" such as harpoons and tomahawks have in service for years and are well tested, have even been used in actual combat so it is a stretch to say any actaul testing gets done.

Also before a ships gets sunk millions of dollars gets spent on it for enviromental cleanup, the goverment/Navy has to pay for that, on the other hand if they are scrapped maybe it is only pennies on the dollar that we get but we do get something instead of it being a cost.

S/L

I have for some time thought and expressed this belief in other threads that ever since the 90's the leadership of the Navy and many members in congress have been far too willing to to de-comm perfectley good ships that had years worth of life left in them so they could then build new ones.

In the 80's on there first overhaul they could have Kiddized all the Sprucans and for far less than the cost of building 31 Burkes and had 31 more Kidd type DDG's, didn't do it, building Burkes was "more important" oh it employed an lot more yard birds in MS and ME.

I pre-commed the Yorktown and retired off her in 01 she still looked, ran, shot like new, she was only 20 years old at de-comm and was supposed to last 30 years.

All the non VLS CG's were de-commed, the reason give was because they could not shoot Tomahawks, BFD the world does not revolve around shooting Tomahawks and if that were so important they could have easily added a pair of ABL's like the BB's had on the Fantail and took care of that "problem"

The Kidds went away for the same reason.

Sprucans because they didn't do AAW, convienent how that worked out.

After spending who knows how many million NTUing all the oil burning CG's and DDG's starting in the mid 80's, none of them made it another 10 years, some were barely 2-3 years from being NTU'd when they were de-commed, they were supposed to be around for at least another 10 years. But no DDX and coming down the road CGX were more important.

Now we see the same thing in aircraft, are we retiring maybe "early" P-3's just to create an "artificial demand" for the P-8? F-14's so we can buy super hornets? Early model hornets so we will need the F-35?

just think of all the S. American, African and Asian countries these ships could be sold to, making money instead of wasting more money.

quote:

Originally posted by SUNLINER81:
At a time when the Navy's mission is expanding, we are scrapping and sinking warships...
Does anyone remember what the Naval officers in the Philippines said after Pearl Harbor?...
They wondered why all of those destroyers in mothballs in San Diego weren't being brought back into service...
The point was, those destroyers from the first world war were there, now, we aren't even allowed that?...
Yes, these ship are old and some are best scrapped and the metal used to build new ships, some are not, some we can still use, the question is why are they being destroyed, when they can be used?...
Yes, it will cost to bring them out of mothballs, those that haven't been already reduced to uselessness by taking parts from them and giving those parts to museum ships and for use in commissioned ships, which are of the same era as those in mothballs...
A survey should be conducted and those that are of use, should be used...
IMHO...
Respectfully, SUNLINER81

I'm in total agreement with 'Liner. There is no good reason to scrap or sink a ship that, with a moderate amount of effort, can be "modernized" to the point of being an asset to the Navy today. Even a ship that is mothballed can't require an extraordinary amount of money to keep it afloat and viable. If warranted, that ship can be ready for sea trials in a minimum amount of time.

My 1.5 cents.

The "reason" good bad or otherwise is that for far to long too many Admirals and way to many members of congress from states/districts that build ships, think Ingalls and BIW here would rather sacrifice perfectley good ships that are already in the fleet just so we can keep building new ones.

Look at the examples I cited of current ships competing with new ships, in every case which one won out?

Another example was LHD-8, the LHD program was only supposed to be 7 ships, enough to replace the LPH's, that was all the Navy wanted. Well in his last days as Senate Majority leader Trent Lott puts an "earmark" into the defense budget to build an 8th one. To accomadate LHD-8 they de-commed an LHA "early"

Now you hear talk that because "they" want to build another generation of IMO un-needed LHA's they will decomm the four LHA's we have.

If they are not going to keep ones we already have that are doing the job then it is ten times the stretch to re-activate one that is already de-commed

quote:

Originally posted by ETCPJ:
The "reason" good bad or otherwise is that for far to long too many Admirals and way to many members of congress from states/districts that build ships, think Ingalls and BIW here would rather sacrifice perfectley good ships that are already in the fleet just so we can keep building new ones.

Look at the examples I cited of current ships competing with new ships, in every case which one won out?

Another example was LHD-8, the LHD program was only supposed to be 7 ships, enough to replace the LPH's, that was all the Navy wanted. Well in his last days as Senate Majority leader Trent Lott puts an "earmark" into the defense budget to build an 8th one. To accomadate LHD-8 they de-commed an LHA "early"

Now you hear talk that because "they" want to build another generation of IMO un-needed LHA's they will decomm the four LHA's we have.

If they are not going to keep ones we already have that are doing the job then it is ten times the stretch to re-activate one that is already de-commed

I'm assuming you are correct, Chief, but it still sucks. I know I'm just too brain-dead to fully understand...but it really stinks.

quote:

Yes, these ship are old and some are best scrapped and the metal used to build new ships, some are not, some we can still use, the question is why are they being destroyed, when they can be used?...

It's the nature of the Politico-war machine. Top brass, in Washington, want NEW, and ask for it. Politicians, realizing that they can do better by thier districts in getting "new" contracts-v- rehab of old ships, also push for new.

Sadly, due to cost, we realize only a fraction of what is needed. Until those "in power" begin to think rationally, instead of with thier personal bank accounts, we will never see an expanding Navy, again. I wish the Generals and Admirals in D.C. would stop acting like chair-polishing azzes and start thinking like they were actually on the ground (or back at sea), once again......

A retired serviceman can dream, can't he???

Sadly, my first ship Milwaukee (AOR-2) has been towed from the Inactive Ship Facility on the James River to a salvage yard in Chesapeake to be reduced to razor blades.

USS BARACK OBAMA

Jeez- Indy, Connie, and Forrestal. Makes me wonder if Enterprise is next.

As an old Machinist Mate, I know what a pain in the rear it is to maintain and man these old ships. Many of the old ships have no new parts in the Navy supply system at all and are recycling old parts that are worse than the junk they are to replace. Training boots to run and maintain the old antique equipment is another nightmare. The new ships are much cheaper to operate and maintain. Also, the new ships don't have to spend 12 hours preparing to get underway (hydro the boilers, light fires, get up steam,find the steam leaks,repair the equipment again etc.) as they can push a button and get underway.
The new weapons system are awesome too. Crewmen sit behind computers now and get a "hit" almost every time. I can remember days when our gunners firing the old guns would fire away all afternoon and not get a hit (we did have a lot of nice brass shell casings to make ash trays out of though!).
I noticed the Navy is keeping some of the old Charleston class LKA vessels in mothballs, Why? I couldn't get parts in the 80's, good luck getting them underway now! USS Coronado and that class of LPD's need to be reefed also for similar reasons.
Our sailors deserve good equipment that doesn't kill them while they are trying to serve worldwide on 6-12 month deployments. These old ships aren't cars that "Bubba" can do a "resto-mod" on. I have been in Engine-rooms during main steam leaks and I am lucky to be alive. Some weren't so lucky.
Keep the memories (if they were good) and lose the clunkers.

These are ships with no useful life left. Several of them would actually be a danger to their crews if we tried to operate them. The Coronado comes to mind.

Also, there is a benefit to sinkex's. Sure these are weapons that may have been tested, but as a weaponeer I can tell you with surety that the software in these weapons changes at an astounding rate. Tomahawks do things now that would have dropped our jaws 5 years ago, and the MK48 advanced capability torpedo has been growing into new missions over the past decade with new modifications to the sensors and logic - changes that require the kind of testing that can only be proven one way. Operational success. A sinkex is as close as we can get.