USS America to be sunk off East Coast

I just read in Defense News that the carrier USS America is going to be sunk
in tests off the East Coast of the US. They will detonate various
explosives aboard her to determine how much damage she takes. Six A-7
Corsairs will be located at various positions to see how much damage they
take. The Navy will also detonate large explosives in the water nearby.
Finally, they will set off scuttling charges.

The USS Oriskany will be sunk as an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico.

The article implied that most of the retired supercarriers will be disposed
of this way. Forrestal is probably next. Saratoga and Ranger are on a list
for possible preservation, but the Navy leadership is trying to change the
rules to get ships off of the preservation reserve list faster. And I doubt
that anybody is going to be able to save the kind of money necessary to
preserve a supercarrier (and certainly not more than one--the goal should be
to save the Enterprise when she is eventually retired).

Scuttling at sea is now cheaper than scrapping due to the environmental
costs.




D

D wrote:
I just read in Defense News that the carrier USS America is going to
be sunk
in tests off the East Coast of the US.
snip

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

By John J. Lumpkin
ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:07 p.m. March 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America
to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosive tests this spring, an end
that is difficult to swallow for some who served on board.

The Navy says the effort, which will cost $22 million, will provide
valuable data for the next generation of aircraft carriers, which are
now in development. No warship this size or larger has ever been sunk,
so there is a dearth of hard information on how well a supercarrier can
survive battle damage, said Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea
Systems Command.

The Navy's plan raises mixed emotions in Ed Pelletier, who served on
the America as a helicopter crewman when the ship cruised the
Mediterranean shortly after its commissioning in 1965.

He said he was "unhappy that a ship with that name is going to meet
that fate, but happy she'll be going down still serving the country."
Pelletier, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is a trustee of an association of
veterans who served on the America.

Issues surrounding a vessel bearing the name of its country are often
more sensitive than for other ships. In 1939, Adolf Hitler, fearful of
a loss of morale among his people should Germany's namesake ship be
sunk, ordered the pocket battleship Deutschland renamed for a long-dead
Prussian commander.

Since its decommissioning in 1996, the America has been moored with
dozens of other inactive warships at a Navy yard in Philadelphia. The
Navy's plan is to tow it to sea on April 11 - possibly stopping at
Norfolk, Va. - before heading to the deep ocean, 300 miles off the
Atlantic coast, for the tests, Dolan said.

There, in experiments that will last from four to six weeks, the Navy
will batter the America with explosives, both underwater and above the
surface, watching from afar and through monitoring devices placed on
the vessel.

These explosions would presumably simulate attacks by torpedoes, cruise
missiles and perhaps a small boat suicide attack like the one that
damaged the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

At the end, explosive scuttling charges placed to flood the ship will
be detonated, and the America will begin its descent to the sea floor,
more than 6,000 feet below.

The Navy has already removed some materials from the ship that could
cause environmental damage after it sinks, Dolan said.

Certain aspects of the tests are classified, and neither America's
former crew nor the news media will be allowed to view them in person,
Dolan said. The Navy does not want to give away too much information on
how a carrier could be sunk, she said.

Why the America? No other retired supercarriers were available on the
East Coast when the test was planned, Dolan said. The others - the
Forrestal and the Saratoga - were designated as potential museums,
she said.

In a letter to Pelletier's group, Adm. John Nathman, the Navy's
second-in-command, called America's destruction "one vital and final
contribution to our national defense."

"Ex-America's legacy will serve as a footprint in the design of future
aircraft carriers," he wrote.

Although no larger warship has ever been sunk, bigger civilian vessels
have gone down. The largest ship in the world, the supertanker Seawise
Giant, was sunk by Iraqi warplanes in the Strait of Hormuz during the
Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Fully loaded, it displaced more than half a
million tons. It was later refloated and renamed.

The America, which is more than 1,000 feet long and displaces about
80,000 tons, exceeds the size of the Japanese World War II battleships
Yamato and Musashi, and the carrier Shinano, which all displaced close
to 70,000 tons. The Yamato and Musashi fell to American warplanes, the
Shinano to a U.S. submarine.

The America was the third carrier of the non-nuclear Kitty Hawk class,
and the first to be retired, a victim of post-Cold War budget cuts
after 31 years at sea. It launched warplanes during the Vietnam War,
the 1986 conflict with Libya, the first Gulf War, and over
Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-1990s.

Pelletier and other veterans who served on the America said their
farewells in a Feb. 25 ceremony at the ship in Philadelphia. Some
artifacts have been removed for museums and veterans' groups; in
addition, Pelletier's association will place a time capsule on board.

The Navy has several other carriers awaiting their fates. Environmental
regulations make breaking warships up for scrap metal largely
unprofitable, though some still are dismantled. The Oriskany, a smaller
carrier that was commissioned in 1950, is scheduled to be sunk as an
artificial reef off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., late this year.

Sigh. That's two of my ships that'll make homes for the sea critters.
Well, at least I won't be shaving with them.

R / John

"D" wrote in message
nk.net...
I just read in Defense News that the carrier USS America is going to be
sunk
in tests off the East Coast of the US. They will detonate various
explosives aboard her to determine how much damage she takes. Six A-7
Corsairs will be located at various positions to see how much damage they
take. The Navy will also detonate large explosives in the water nearby.
Finally, they will set off scuttling charges.

The USS Oriskany will be sunk as an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico.

The article implied that most of the retired supercarriers will be
disposed
of this way. Forrestal is probably next. Saratoga and Ranger are on a
list
for possible preservation, but the Navy leadership is trying to change the
rules to get ships off of the preservation reserve list faster. And I
doubt
that anybody is going to be able to save the kind of money necessary to
preserve a supercarrier (and certainly not more than one--the goal should
be
to save the Enterprise when she is eventually retired).

Scuttling at sea is now cheaper than scrapping due to the environmental
costs.




D

----------
In article , "John Carrier"
wrote:

Sigh. That's two of my ships that'll make homes for the sea critters.
Well, at least I won't be shaving with them.

Actually, short of becoming a museum, this is the most honorable end to a
proud ship. After all, data gathered from the tests will be used in the
design of new ships and will help save lives.




D

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 04:09:45 +0000, D wrote:
Scuttling at sea is now cheaper than scrapping due to the environmental
costs.

Isn't that just a bit hypocrytical? Simply dumping waste is obviously
cheaper than disposing of it in an environmentally friendly way. But isn't
that what the government is doing in this case?

Rob

wdossel wrote:

Agreed -- it was exceedingly painful to watch Coral Sea die a death of
a thousand cuts from the breakup torches over on the south branch of
the Elizabeth River. A very sad, forlorn sight indeed

Will Dossel
Last of the Steeljaws (VAW-122)


Yes...similar to us watching the torching of the whole fleet
(33) of our CP-107 Argus ASW aircraft a few years ago, they
melted them down for the aluminum. Tough to watch that big knife
slicing off wings, tails etc.
--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)

Not really. After thest tests the ship will be sunk as an artificial
reef for fish and other sea life. IT has been quiet common to do this
with old aircraft, the A-6 being an example, in the last decade or so.
I was on the Coral Sea, Midway, Ranger, Kitty Hawk and Constellation.
I even highlined over to the Oraskiny and stayed overnight once.
America was my last ship and I'd sure rather see her go this way that
under a cutting torch .

Walt
ISC, USN Ret.

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:09:51 +0100, Rob van Riel
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 04:09:45 +0000, D wrote:
Scuttling at sea is now cheaper than scrapping due to the environmental
costs.

Isn't that just a bit hypocrytical? Simply dumping waste is obviously
cheaper than disposing of it in an environmentally friendly way. But isn't
that what the government is doing in this case?

Rob

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 08:10:40 -0700, Walt Morgan wrote:

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:09:51 +0100, Rob van Riel
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 04:09:45 +0000, D wrote:
Scuttling at sea is now cheaper than scrapping due to the environmental
costs.

Isn't that just a bit hypocrytical? Simply dumping waste is obviously
cheaper than disposing of it in an environmentally friendly way. But isn't
that what the government is doing in this case?

Rob

Not really. After thest tests the ship will be sunk as an artificial
reef for fish and other sea life. IT has been quiet common to do this
with old aircraft, the A-6 being an example, in the last decade or so.

OK, I'm quite willing to take your word for that, but then I must ask,
where is the environmental cost of scrapping them? I mean, if you leave
them at the bottom long enough, whatever comes out of the ships during
scrapping would also come out during decay. What am I missing?



America was my last ship and I'd sure rather see her go this way that
under a cutting torch .


I agree. It might be more logical to recycle the lot of them, but this has
to do with human emotion, and logic has no business in that arena.

Rob

----------
In article 1110208238.2941b4e94385527f9fa18beac50c08a6@teran ews, Walt
Morgan wrote:

Not really. After thest tests the ship will be sunk as an artificial
reef for fish and other sea life. IT has been quiet common to do this

In the America's case, she's being sunk in "greater than 1000 fathoms." Are
there reefs that deep?



D

"D" wrote in message
ink.net...
----------
In article 1110208238.2941b4e94385527f9fa18beac50c08a6@teran ews, Walt
Morgan wrote:

Not really. After thest tests the ship will be sunk as an artificial
reef for fish and other sea life. IT has been quiet common to do this

In the America's case, she's being sunk in "greater than 1000 fathoms."
Are
there reefs that deep?

Not yet.

Glenn D.