Serious Very Last Kick of the Dead Bankrupt Beggar US Navy, Recycling Rusty Scrap Ship !

Karunguni!







Dear Ghost Ships, Uncle Sam Wants You!









http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...tired-carrier-uss-kitty-hawk-out-of-mothballs


US Navy Looking At Bringing Retired Carrier USS Kitty Hawk Out Of Mothballs
Bringing back its last operational conventionally powered supercarrier would help the Navy make its 12 carrier fleet goal a reality.
By Tyler RogowayJune 8, 2017

The War Zone355 ship NavyAdmiral Thomas Mooreaircraft carrierCG-47CV-63FFG-7FrigatemothballsOliver Hazard Perry Classpresident trumpReserve FleetSupercarrierTiconderoga ClassUss Kitty Hawk

Last Stop for USS Kitty Hawk
MC3 Kyle D. Gahlau—U.S. Navy
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As the US Navy struggles to figure out how it can reach its new goal of a 355 ship fleet—up from 275 ships today—as quickly as possible, it has been looking towards extending the life of the ships it already has in service. Now the service is also examining the possibility of selectively pulling ships out of mothballs, refurbishing them, and sending them back to the fleet. One ship in particular may have a better shot than others at sailing the high seas once again—the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)—America's last operational conventionally fueled supercarrier.
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The head of the Navy's Sea Systems Command, Vice Admiral Thomas Moore, stated that while most ships in the inactive fleet are in too sorry a state to be worth reviving, the USS Kitty Hawk may not be: "Of the carriers that are in inactive force, probably Kitty Hawk is the one that you could think about. But we studied that when we decommissioned Enterprise, and the carriers are pretty old."
USN

Certainly pulling a carrier directly back into service would go a long way to bridging America's "carrier gap" and would make President's Trump's demand for a 12 supercarrier fleet much more obtainable. Currently the Navy has 10 operational supercarriers, and with the USS Gerald Ford's (CVN-78) entry into service date murky at best, that number may not increase for years to come.
USN via USNI

Even just the possibility of Kitty Hawk returning to the fleet is likely music to the ears of those in Mayport, Florida, who have been begging the US Navy to return a supercarrier to the naval station there. The facility was never upgraded to support nuclear propulsion, so after the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) was retired in 2007, it has been without a resident supercarrier, which hurt the local economy and also has strategic implications as well. The Kitty Hawk would be an ideal candidate to call the base home without the need for major infrastructure investments.
USN

Some of the other ships that would seem to be likely candidates for revival will probably be passed over—specifically the first five Ticonderoga class cruisers that sit quiet on the Delaware River. These ships didn't feature Mark 41 vertical launch systems, instead being equipped with twin-arm Mark 26 missile launchers and their associated magazines. But still, many have regarded their rickety reserve status a huge waste of latent surface warfare potential. Moore thinks otherwise, and probably for good reason.

The ships are vastly outdated compared to their active counterparts, and would take serious money to get them even close to their fleet counterparts standard. Not just that, but they have been cannibalized for spare parts in recent years. Moore says: "Most of those ships, from a combat systems perspective, are pretty obsolete...We probably wouldn’t bring them back and they’ve kind of been spare-parts lockers the last couple of years."
Bigbird78/wikicommons

The sorry state of the USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) at naval yards in Philadelphia.

Regenerating old ships is all about balancing the cost of bringing them back into service based on what mission sets they could provide, how degraded a capability compared to their modern counterparts is acceptable, and how long they could remain in service once the money has been invested in them.

Aside from the Kitty Hawk, the best candidates for regeneration are the ships that could take on lower-end tasks, and thus not require the huge amount of technological investment as their more advanced cousins require. Primarily this includes the Navy's mothballed logistical ships and especially its Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. The tough Oliver Hazard Perry class ships were retired too soon by many accounts—a symptom of their fiscal neglect more than anything else—and were ripe for a major upgrade like many of the second-hand models operated by allied Navies around the globe have received. Some of these enhancements include the installation of Mark 41 vertical launch systems and upgrades to the ship's sensors and combat systems.
USN

Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate USS Thatch patrols the Persian Gulf in 2009.

"We’ll go look at the FFGs, see if there is utility there... We’ll look at the combat logistics force, see if there’s utility there... So, there is limited opportunity in the inactive fleet but we’ll look at it ship-by-ship."

It is very likely President Trump would support such a plan, in fact we predicted exactly this type of asset regeneration program would occur under his administration. Trump also has a personal history with being very comfortable with operating aging but upgraded vehicles. He even hinted at the possibility of bringing back the Iowa class battleship during his campaign, although that is extremely unlikely to ever happen regardless of the political will involved.

Contact the author: [email protected]




http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/navy-considers-reactivating-mothballed-warships


Navy Considers Reactivating Mothballed Warships
kitty
The carrier Kitty Hawk, second from left, alongside Independence, Constellation and Ranger at NISMF Bremerton

By MarEx 2017-06-08 21:12:31

In a recent interview with defense industry outlet DefAero Report, NAVSEA commander Vice Adm. Thomas Moore raised the possibility that the Navy could reactivate mothballed ships as part of its plan to build up to a 355-vessel fleet. Among the candidates are the remaining Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates and a number of the combat logistics ships, with an outside chance for the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk – the Navy's last conventionally-fueled flat-top.

"We'll go look at the [Oliver Hazard Perry-class] if there's utility there, we'll go look at some of the combat logistics force ships . . . probably of the carriers that are in inactive status right now, Kitty Hawk is the one that you could think about," Moore said. "The carriers are pretty old, so I think there's limited opportunity in the inactive fleet to bring those back but we're going to go look at that ship by ship and put that into the mix." The first hulls in the Ticonderoga class of guided missile cruisers are off the table. "Most of those ships are obsolete and they've kind of been spare parts lockers for the last couple years," Moore said.

The Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates were built in the 1970s and 1980s, and many of the ex-U.S. Navy hulls are still in service with other armed forces around the world, including the navies of Pakistan, Turkey, Poland, Egypt and Bahrain. Australia, Spain and Taiwan liked the design enough to build their own, and over a dozen foreign-built Perry-class ships are still in active service. The U.S. Navy retains about one dozen inactive Perry-class hulls in its Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facilities, several of which are candidates for foreign military sales. Many current operators have modified their Perry-class frigates, re-engining with Cat 3512B diesels, adding SM-2 missiles, Mk-41 vertical launch systems and improved radars. Several American politicians have called for the Navy to take the same approach.

The Perry class has one notable advantage: they are notoriously hard to sink. USS Stark survived two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi warplane in 1987, and USS Samuel B. Roberts managed to stay afloat after striking an Iranian mine the following year, despite severe damage. Both vessels were repaired and returned to service. In a live-fire exercise in 2016, the decommissioned USS Thatch absorbed four Harpoon anti-ship missiles; one Maverick missile; multiple Hellfire missiles; one 2,000 lb. bomb; one 500 lb. bomb; and one Mk. 48 torpedo. She stayed afloat for 12 hours (with calm weather, and without fuel or munitions aboard).

Extending service life

In a recent speech, Vice Adm. Moore also raised the possibility of extending the service life of active vessels as a strategy to enlarge the fleet – so long as the Navy can commit to a regular and consistent maintenance schedule. "We’re taking a pretty close look at what it would take to get them out another five, another 10 years . . . And people will say, well we’ve never really gotten a surface ship past 35 or 40 years, and I will point out all the time that we routinely take aircraft carriers to 50 years," he said. "And the reason we do that is because we consistently do all the maintenance you have to do on an aircraft carrier to get it to 50 years. So we know how to do this." Moore suggested that by extending vessel service life out by one or two more drydocking availabilities, the Navy could reach the 355-ship mark by 2030-2035 at a relatively economical cost.

Moore restricted his comments to steel-hulled vessels. "What happens over 25 years? Aluminum doesn’t quite have the tensile strength, so you’ll have a little bit more flexibility in the hull. We’ve seen this with some of the cracking in the cruise superstructures," he said. The Navy is currently building a series of 13 aluminum-hulled Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships, and the fourth vessel in the class – LCS 8, USS Montgomery – suffered a crack in her hull after colliding with a tugboat last October. Moore did not reference this incident, but he said that "we’ll proceed a little bit more cautiously on extending the service life of aluminum ships than we will steel-hulled ones.”




https://arstechnica.com/information...-old-ships-to-grow-fleet-but-not-battleships/


Navy chief: It may be time to bring back retired warships
Some Oliver Hazard Perry FFGs may be candidates for reboot to help grow fleet faster.

Sean Gallagher - Jun 14, 2017 3:44 pm UTC
Enlarge / The Oliver Hazard Perry-class fast frigate USS Ford (FFG 54) departs Pearl Harbor in this 2010 photo. The Navy is looking at bringing back a handful of the decommissioned ships.
US Navy
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In a speech before the Naval War College yesterday, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said that the Navy is looking at "every trick" to grow the fleet more quickly toward the Navy's goal of 355 ships, including extending the lives of ships already in the fleet and "bringing ships back." And one of the candidates for a comeback, Richardson said, is the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate. (The Iowa-class battleships, despite political posturing by President Trump during the election campaign, have not yet been mentioned.)

The Perry class ships were the Navy's equivalent of the Air Force's A-10 Thunderbolt II—workhorse ships that lacked the glamor of larger, more capable commands that performed missions essential to the fleet. They were originally built as guided missile frigates (FFGs), intended to provide a combination of air and antisubmarine defenses for carrier battle groups. The few ships being considered for reactivation were all built in the late 1980s and decommissioned over the past five years. About 10 are held in the Navy's Inactive Fleet Inventory designated for foreign sale, while the remainder are slotted to be scrapped or sunk as targets.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson speaks at the Naval War College on June 13, 2017.
Enlarge / Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson speaks at the Naval War College on June 13, 2017.
DVIDS/Department of Defense

The Australian Navy has managed to keep three of its original Perry-class frigates (known as the Adelaide class) in service through upgrades to its power plants and other life-extending maintenance. Several other navies still operate former US ships of the class.

But the US Navy moved to decommission all of its Perry FFGs to make room for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) classes, claiming heavy wear from overuse had rendered them too expensive to keep afloat. The move has been seen as more political than operational by many analysts, because the Navy's leadership had neglected the ships for so long—putting off upgrades to the missile system and then dispensing with it altogether and replacing it with M242 Bushmaster automatic cannons. The Navy instead spent its budget on newer, larger, more capable ships (the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers) and on the LCS with its "modular" mission capabilities.

Regardless of the reasoning behind the neglect, the Perry ships were put into mothballs faster than the Navy could replace them, leaving a major gap in the US fleet.

Now, orders for new LCS ships are on hold because that "modular" mission capability turned out to be more of a pipe dream than an actual thing, and the LCS ships in service are woefully underarmed for service in more hostile waters. The Navy is looking at a new frigate program based on a beefed-up version of the LCS designs. But that leaves the Navy short on ships at a time when it is under increased pressure to deal with a growing Chinese fleet in the Pacific, and the antisubmarine role has once again become a high priority.

Richardson said that the Navy needs to look at taking early steps to plan to extend the lives of Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers to prevent further gaps and stretch the lives of those ships 15 to 20 years beyond their present projected spans in order to reach the Navy's goal of a 355 ship fleet in 15 instead of 30 years. But just keeping current ships won't be enough, as construction programs for new ships lag.

So, Richardson said, “We’re taking a hard look at the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates. There’s seven or eight of those that we could take a look at."

He acknowledged that some cost-benefit analysis would need to be done because "those are some old ships and everything on these ships is old… a lot has changed since we last modernized those." Still, other navies have managed to modernize the ships to make them useful. Australia added vertical launch systems to its FFGs, allowing them to carry more capable anti-air and anti-ship missiles. And programs such as the modular Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) being built for the Navy by Raytheon could theoretically be used to modernize the handful the Navy could re-commission.

[video=youtube_share;Wn3QnBZcsXM]https://youtu.be/Wn3QnBZcsXM[/video]


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Never in the world has any country a continuous flow production assembly line to mass produce Nuclear Submarines but the PRC. This factory is dedicated production line for nuclear submarines and at any time there are 6 in the construction, rolling out at the sea launching end, moved by the heavy rails on the floor. No matter how much rotting rusted Ghost Ships US Navy could dig out from it's lame ass, it can never match 1B1R China!








[video]http://i.imgsafe.org/0592948dea.jpg[/video]

Good News for Run-Road PAP Transport Minister RSN Rear Admiral Liu Tuck Yew, he can join US Navy and die on one of their Ghost Ship, and soon Rear Admiral Teo Chee Bye can also join. Chinese Missiles will take good care of them! All the RECYCLED NAVY Inventories Sink Together into Ocean Floor!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a26930/navy-perry-class-frigates/

The U.S. Navy Is Considering Un-Retiring a Bunch of Old Frigates

The Perry-class frigates, retired too soon, may live to sail again.
Most Popular

U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker.
By Kyle Mizokami
Jun 14, 2017

The U.S. Navy is "taking a hard look" at reactivating decommissioned frigates to help it reach its goal of 355 ships. The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigates were retired in the 2000s in a cost-cutting move, but they could be returned to duty for another decade or more of service.

The Perry-class frigate was designed in the 1970s as an escort for U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. Although they weighed only 4,100 tons, the Perry frigates were excellent mixed-mission vessels. Their main weapon system was a Mark 13 guided missile launcher, capable of firing SM-1MR surface to air missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles and fed from a 40-round internal magazine. (Ironically this gave the frigates more potential anti-ship firepower than a modern U.S. Navy cruiser.) The frigates also wielded a single Italian-made 3-inch rapid-fire gun, six anti-submarine torpedo tubes, a Phalanx close-in weapon system for last-ditch defense, and carried a single SH-2 Seasprite or SH-60 helicopter.

Perry class frigate 76-millimeter gun in action.
U.S. Navy photo.

Perrys were designed for anti-submarine warfare, and their hull-mounted and towed sonar arrays—coupled with anti-submarine torpedoes and a helicopter—made them capable sub chasers. But the Navy also designed them as "low-end" vessels capable of handling less demanding tasks that didn't require a destroyer or cruiser. Anti-piracy and convoy protection missions were right up their alley. At the end of the Cold War the U.S. Navy had 51 Perrys-class frigates, and another 20 were built for U.S. allies Taiwan, Australia, and Spain.

The Perry frigates were retired throughout the 2000s and 2010s as the Navy sought to shed less-capable ships while retaining more capable vessels such as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. While the Navy was able to keep these high-end platforms, its move led to ridiculous displays such as $1.3 billion Burke-class destroyers chasing Somali pirates in $1,000 skiffs.

The Perrys were originally supposed to be replaced by the Littoral Combat Ship, but delays in the program meant the Perrys were retired before LCS hit the fleet in any meaningful numbers. A lack of useful armament for the LCS ships and agonizingly slow progress on so-called "mission modules" for the new ships has resulted in the Perrys being replaced by fewer, lesser ships.

USS Rodney M. Davis. Note 25-millimeter gun which replaced the Mk. 13 missile launcher.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Derek A. Harkins.

Now, as reported by USNI News, the Navy is considering bring up to eight of them back. USNI quoted Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson at a Naval War College forum as saying: "We're taking a hard look at the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates. There's seven or eight of those that we could take a look at but those are some old ships and everything on these ships is old… a lot has changed since we last modernized those."

What would a Perry-class frigate returned to service look like? Modifications to the ships would have to be modest while at the same time make it worthwhile to bring them back. One option is to replace the Mk 13 missile launcher, removed from the ships in the 2000s due to the retirement of the SM-1MR surface-to-air missile, with eight Mk. 41 missile silos. This is a modification pioneered by the Australian and Turkish Navies to upgrade their own Perry frigates. Each silo can carry one SM-2 medium range surface to air missile, one SM-6 long range SAM, one SM-3 ballistic missile interceptor, a single Tomahawk missile, or an ASROC rocket-propelled anti-submarine torpedo. A single Mk. 41 can also carry four short-range Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles. All of this means that ships equipped with the Mk. 41 have tremendous flexibility built into them, allowing the Navy to tailor their weapons load to the mission.

The destroyer USS Barry launches an ASROC anti-submarine torpedo from a Mk.41 vertical launch system.
U.S. Navy photo.

In one scenario, a Perry-class frigate could be paired with a Burke-class destroyer, using ship-to-ship datalinks to allow the destroyer to launch the frigate's missiles. This would increase the destroyer's overall firepower. Instead of revamping the Perry's helicopter hangar to bring it up to modern standards, a Perry could be fitted to fly the Navy's TERN vertical takeoff and landing drone currently under development. Instead of installing modern radars, sonar, and other expensive, high-end sensors, the Perry would instead function as a wingman to existing destroyers and cruisers. The Perrys would also act independently in low-end missions, such as anti-piracy missions and showing the flag in low-threat areas.

Whether that's enough to justify what would probably be a quarter-billion-dollar upgrade is another matter.

Could the Perrys come back? As long as the ships are in decent condition and it costs less than a Littoral Combat Ship it is quite possible. President Trump's first defense budget, for all of his campaign promises, did not deliver the funding to start construction of his vaunted 350-ship fleet. A Navy that has received such mixed messages has to plan conservatively. Two things are for certain: There's a hole in the Navy's force structure that needs filling, and not a lot of money to fill it.




http://warisboring.com/its-too-late-to-save-the-battleship/




It’s Too Late to Save the Battleship
Big gun warships could hypothetically return to duty—but there are a lot of obstacles
It’s Too Late to Save the Battleship

WIB sea June 23, 2017 James Holmes
battleships
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There’s a mystique to battleships. Whenever inside-the-Beltway dwellers debate how to bulk up the U.S. Navy fleet, odds are sentimentalists will clamor to return the Iowa-class dreadnoughts to service. Nor is the idea of bringing back grizzled World War II veterans as zany as it sounds.

We aren’t talking equipping the 1914-vintage USS Texas with superweapons to blast the Soviet Navy, or resurrecting the sunken Imperial Japanese Navy superbattleship Yamato for duty in outer space, or keeping USS Missouri battleworthy in case aliens menace the Hawaiian Islands.

Such proposals are not mere whimsy. Built to duel Japan in World War II, in fact, battleships were recommissioned for the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. The last returned to action in 1988.

The Iowa class sat in mothballs for about three decades after Korea—except for USS New Jersey, which returned to duty briefly during the Vietnam War. That’s about how long the battlewagons have been in retirement since the Cold War.

History thus seems to indicate they could stage yet another comeback. At this remove from their past lives, though, it’s doubtful in the extreme that the operational return on investment would repay the cost, effort and human capital necessary to bring them back to life.

Numbers deceive. It cost the U.S. Navy $1.7 billion in 1988 dollars to put four battlewagons back in service during the Reagan naval buildup. That comes to about $878 million per hull in 2017 dollars. This figure implies the Navy could refurbish two ships bristling with firepower for the price of one Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

One copy of the latest-model Burke will set the taxpayers back $1.9 billion according to Congressional Budget Office figures. Two for the price of one—a low, low price!

Or, better yet, the Navy could get two battlewagons for the price of three littoral combat ships—the modern equivalent of gunboats. Sounds like a good deal all around.

But colossal practical difficulties would work against reactivating the dreadnoughts at low cost, despite these superficially plausible figures. First of all, the vessels no longer belong to the U.S. Navy. They’re museums.

New Jersey and Missouri were struck from the Navy list during the 1990s. Engineers preserved Iowa and Wisconsin in “reactivation” status for quite some time, meaning they hypothetically could return to duty. But they too were struck from the rolls, in 2006. Sure, the U.S. government could probably get them back during a national emergency, but resolving legal complications would consume time and money in peacetime.

Second, chronological age matters. A standard talking point among battleship enthusiasts holds that the Iowas resemble a little old lady’s car, an aged auto with little mileage on the odometer. A used-car salesman would laud its longevity, assuring would-be buyers they could put lots more miles on it. This too makes intuitive sense.
USS ‘Wisconsin’ in Norfolk, 2016. Mobilus In Mobili photo via Flickr

My old ship, USS Wisconsin, amassed just 14 years of steaming time despite deploying for World War II, Korea and Desert Storm. At a time when the U.S. Navy hopes to wring 50 years of life out of aircraft carriers and 40 out of cruisers and destroyers, refitted battleships could seemingly serve for decades to come.

And it is true—stout battleship hulls could doubtless withstand the rigors of sea service. But what about their internals?

Mechanical age tells only part of the story. Had the Iowa class remained in continuous service, with regular upkeep and overhauls, they probably could have steamed around for decades. After all, the World War II flattop USS Lexington served until 1991, the same year the Iowas retired. But they didn’t get that treatment during the decades they spent slumbering.

As a consequence, battleships were already hard ships to maintain a quarter-century ago. Sailors had to scavenge spares from still older battleships. Machinists, welders and shipfitters were constantly on the go fabricating replacements for worn-out parts dating from the 1930s or 1940s.

This problem would be still worse another quarter-century on, and a decade-plus after the Navy stopped preserving the vessels and their innards. Managing that problem would be far more expensive.

An old joke among yachtsmen holds that a boat is a hole in the water into which the owner dumps money. A battleship would represent a far bigger hole in the water, devouring taxpayer dollars in bulk. Even if the U.S. Navy could reactivate the Iowas for a pittance, the cost of operating and maintaining them could prove prohibitive. That’s why they were shut down in the 1990s, and time has done nothing to ease that remorseless logic.
The battleship USS ‘Iowa’ firing her 16-inch shells during the Korean War. U.S. Navy photo

Third, what about the big guns the Iowa class sports—naval rifles able to fling projectiles weighing the same as a Volkswagen Bug over 20 miles? These are the battleships’ signature weapon, and there is no counterpart to them in today’s fleet.

Massive firepower might seem to justify the expense of recommissioning and maintaining the ships. But gun barrels wear out after being fired enough times. No one has manufactured replacement barrels for 16-inch, 50-caliber guns in decades, and the inventory of spares has evidently been scrapped or donated to museums. That shortage would cap the battleships’ combat usefulness.

Nor, evidently, is there any safe ammunition for battleship big guns to fire. We used 1950s-vintage 16-inch rounds and powder during the 1980s and 1990s. Any such rounds still in existence are now over 60 years old, while the U.S. Navy is apparently looking to demilitarize and dispose of them. Gearing up to produce barrels and ammunition in small batches would represent a nonstarter for defense firms.

The Navy recently canceled the destroyer USS Zumwalt’s advanced gun rounds because costs spiraled above $800,000 apiece. That was a function of ordering few munitions for what is just a three-ship class. Ammunition was simply unaffordable. Modernized Iowas would find themselves in the same predicament, if not more so.

And lastly, it’s unclear where the U.S. Navy would find the human expertise to operate 16-inch gun turrets or the M-type Babcock & Wilcox boilers that propel and power battleships.
USS ‘Iowa’ alongside the frigate USS ‘Halyburton’ in 1985. U.S. Navy photo

No one has trained on these systems since 1991, meaning experts in using and maintaining them have, ahem, aged and grown rusty at their profession. Heck, steam engineers are in short supply, full stop, as the Navy turns to electric drive, gas turbines and diesel engines to propel its ships.

Older amphibious helicopter docks—LHDs—are steam-powered, but even this contingent is getting a gradual divorce from steam as newer LHDs driven by gas turbines join the fleet while their steam-propelled forebears approach decommissioning.

Steam isn’t dead, then, but it is a technology of the past—just like 16-inch guns. Technicians are few and dwindling in numbers while battleship crews would demand them in large numbers.

I rank among the youngest mariners to have operated battleship guns and propulsion-plant machinery in yesteryear, and trust me, folks—you don’t want the U.S. Navy conscripting me to regain my proficiency in engineering and weapons after 26 years away from it, let alone training youngsters to operate elderly hardware themselves.

In short, it’s as tough to regenerate human capital as it is to rejuvenate the material dimension after a long lapse. The human factor—all by itself—could constitute a showstopper for battleship reactivation.

Battleships still have much to contribute to fleet design, just not as active surface combatants. Alfred Thayer Mahan describes a capital ship—the core of any battle fleet—as a vessel able to dish out and absorb punishment against a peer navy. While surface combatants pack plenty of offensive punch nowadays, the innate capacity to take a punch is something that has been lost in today’s lightly armored warships.

Naval architects could do worse than study the battleships’ history and design philosophy, rediscovering what it means to construct a true capital ship. The U.S. Navy would be better off for their inquiry.

Let’s learn what we can from the past—but leave battleship reactivation to science fiction.

James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star Over the Pacific. The views voiced here are his alone.

US Navy also have to repair and reuse this piece of rotten wreckage USS Fitzgerald!




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-completely-ignored-Japanese-cargo-ship.html


USS Fitzgerald completely ignored Japanese cargo ship before deadly collision as crew attempted to get the Americans' attention by flashing lights and sounding horns

The ACX Crystal container ship tried to get the attention of the USS Fitzgerald before a fatal crash in the early hours of June 17 according to the captain
Captain Ronald Advincula's report claims the USS Fitzgerald ignore his ship as they sounded horns and flashed lights to get attention of the missile destroyer
It was the Fitzgerald that sailed into the container ship's path according to the captain of the Japanese boat, who was forced to steer hard to starboard
The two vessels still crashed 10 minutes after that right turn according to Captain Ronald Advincula's report
Seven crew members of the USS Fitzgerald were killed in the crash
A spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, the Fitzgerald's home port, said he was unable to comment on an ongoing investigation

By Reuters

Published: 18:56 BST, 26 June 2017 | Updated: 20:34 BST, 26 June 2017

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A U.S. warship struck by a container vessel in Japanese waters failed to respond to warning signals or take evasive action before a collision that killed seven of its crew, according to a report of the incident by the Philippine cargo ship's captain.

Multiple U.S. and Japanese investigations are under way into how the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and the much larger ACX Crystal container ship collided in clear weather south of Tokyo Bay in the early hours of June 17.

In the first detailed account from one of those directly involved, the cargo ship's captain said the ACX Crystal had signaled with flashing lights after the Fitzgerald 'suddenly' steamed on to a course to cross its path.

The container ship steered hard to starboard to avoid the warship, but hit the Fitzgerald 10 minutes later at 1:30 am, according to a copy of Captain Ronald Advincula's report.

A spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, the Fitzgerald's home port, said he was unable to comment on an ongoing investigation.

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Wreckage: The ACX Crystal container tried to get the attention of the USS Fitzgerald before a fatal crash in the early hours of June 17 (damage to the Fitzgerald above)

Wreckage: The ACX Crystal container tried to get the attention of the USS Fitzgerald before a fatal crash in the early hours of June 17 (damage to the Fitzgerald above)
Bad shape: A report claims the crew of the Fitzgerald ignored the ACX Crystal (damaged bow above) as they sounded horns and flashed their lights to get the attention of the missile destroyer

Bad shape: A report claims the crew of the Fitzgerald ignored the ACX Crystal (damaged bow above) as they sounded horns and flashed their lights to get the attention of the missile destroyer

The collision tore a gash below the Fitzgerald's waterline, killing seven sailors in what was the greatest loss of life on a US Navy vessel since the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen's Aden Harbour in 2000.

Those who died were in their berthing compartments, while the Fitzgerald's commander was injured in his cabin, suggesting that no alarm warning of an imminent collision was sounded.

The incident has spurred six investigations, including two internal hearings by the U.S. Navy and a probe by the United States Coast Guard on behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board.


The Japan Transport Safety Board, the JCG and the Philippines government are also conducting separate investigations.

Spokesmen from the Japan Coast Guard, US Coast Guard and ship owner, Dainichi Invest, also declined to comment.

Advincula, who is no longer in Japan, could not be reached to comment.

The investigations will examine witness testimony and electronic data to determine how a naval destroyer fitted with sophisticated radar could be struck by a vessel more than three times its size.

Another focus of the probes has been the length of time it took the ACX Crystal to report the collision.

The JCG says it was first notified at 2:25 am, nearly an hour after the accident.

In his report, the ACX Crystal's captain said there was 'confusion' on his ship's bridge, and that it turned around and returned to the collision site after continuing for 6 nautical miles.

Shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the ACX Crystal, chartered by Japan's Nippon Yusen KK, made a complete U-turn between 12:58 a.m. and 2:46 a.m.
Desperate to avoid disaster: The ACX Crystal made a U-turn (path above) to try and avoid colliding with the USS Fitzgerald after the crew ignored warnings sent by the ship using lights and horns

Desperate to avoid disaster: The ACX Crystal made a U-turn (path above) to try and avoid colliding with the USS Fitzgerald after the crew ignored warnings sent by the ship using lights and horns
Heading ashore: Seven crew members of the USS Fitzgerald were killed in the crash (USS Fitzgerald above being taken into port hours after colliding with the ACX Crystal on June 17)

Heading ashore: Seven crew members of the USS Fitzgerald were killed in the crash (USS Fitzgerald above being taken into port hours after colliding with the ACX Crystal on June 17)

A significant portion of the crew on the U.S. ship was asleep when the collision occurred, tearing a gash under the warship's waterline and flooding two crew compartments, the radio room and the auxiliary machine room.

A large dent was clearly visible in its right mid-section as the destroyer limped back to Yokosuka naval base south of Tokyo, home of the Seventh fleet, on Saturday evening.

The U.S. Navy on Monday identified the dead sailors as: Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, Virginia; Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, California; Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, Connecticut; Noe Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, Texas; Carlos Victor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, California; Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, Maryland; and Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, from Elyria, Ohio.

Two of three injured crew members who were evacuated from the ship by helicopter, including the ship's commanding officer, Commander Bryce Benson, were released from the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka.

The last sailor remained in hospital and no details were given about his condition.

Don't they use radio to communicate instead of lights and horns?

Only reason china building massive naval fleet is to keep their people employed since they have completed building the country's infrastructure.

全球资源将耗尽人类灭绝。唯有全球大杀戮是唯一的希望。逃亡外星的机会是妄想的。宇宙还没有发现一个自然有食物生命，水，空气，温度，重力，气压，适合人类生存的星球。也没有任何能力搬家去逃亡。
地球上只要杀戮至千万分之一的人口，资源就可以耐用千万倍时间。杀戮剩一亿分之一人口，资源就可以耐用到一亿倍时间。
太简单，太容易，太有把握啦！⚰⚰☠☠