I remember reading something like that from WWII. They put ships filled with ping pong balls in torpedo alley because they reckoned they would still float after getting blown up. My alternative plan was to recommission the battleships and put an IDMS rig on them and sail them through the Persian Gulf after filling them with ping pong balls. I figure with battle ships the sweep wire and cutters could be 12 to 15 miles apart and you could sweep the entire Gulf in a week. Beat the hell out of doing it at 5 knots on lanes 250 yards apart.
I can relate too wood boats sinking all of a sudden and for no good reason. sinking boats never have a good reason for sinking. they are like airplanes designed with wood structure. the essential fact that wood will eventually rot when exposed to water is lost on many designers of vessels who design vessels to last more than a few years. I make allowances for that simple fact and inspect accordingly. I do like your thoughts on 1) using BBs as anti-mine warfare vessels-anything to bring BBs back on line I am for- and 2) pushing the demining gear ahead of the ship. in the first case, the money spent on LCS would keep a BB at sea for how long? and in the second case, robotics! ain't technology grand?
I'll believe it when I see it. U/W tech always seem to be in the future and never now. It's like lasers at sea. One always hears that it's going to be there and yet it never works. One of the beauties of being an officer at sea. I did auxiliaries, fire control, cheng, XO and for a glorious few minutes, CO. You see and hear all the pipedreams and myths at captain's mast. OTGH, I could hear the same things as legal officer on first ship, first shore command and final shore command. If I wasn't hearing the case at MAST, the JAG wanted me as judge at the summary court martial.
one should ask the surviving iraqi troops who surrendered to the Wisconsin's drome about the effectiveness of a BB in support of littoral combat. was once not by choice near-two klicks-to. five hundred pound bombs that detonated, I cannot imagine what sixteen inch HE raining down in a steady downpour is like. I am with the believing it when it's working. I recall the ec121t/willie victor aew and working with a singer kearcroft airbone computer system to attempt a SAGE like operating system of automated air intercept. I am talking very old school, as in vacuum tube and paper tape reader programing level technology. in all the years of pushing electrons thru it, only got about two hours of effective use. and then the AWAC E3 arrived and we believed. so sometimes it does happen.
5 comments:
How about pumping ping pong balls inside the hull instead?
I remember reading something like that from WWII. They put ships filled with ping pong balls in torpedo alley because they reckoned they would still float after getting blown up.
My alternative plan was to recommission the battleships and put an IDMS rig on them and sail them through the Persian Gulf after filling them with ping pong balls. I figure with battle ships the sweep wire and cutters could be 12 to 15 miles apart and you could sweep the entire Gulf in a week. Beat the hell out of doing it at 5 knots on lanes 250 yards apart.
I can relate too wood boats sinking all of a sudden and for no good reason. sinking boats never have a good reason for sinking. they are like airplanes designed with wood structure. the essential fact that wood will eventually rot when exposed to water is lost on many designers of vessels who design vessels to last more than a few years. I make allowances for that simple fact and inspect accordingly.
I do like your thoughts on 1) using BBs as anti-mine warfare vessels-anything to bring BBs back on line I am for- and 2) pushing the demining gear ahead of the ship. in the first case, the money spent on LCS would keep a BB at sea for how long? and in the second case, robotics! ain't technology grand?
I'll believe it when I see it. U/W tech always seem to be in the future and never now. It's like lasers at sea. One always hears that it's going to be there and yet it never works.
One of the beauties of being an officer at sea. I did auxiliaries, fire control, cheng, XO and for a glorious few minutes, CO. You see and hear all the pipedreams and myths at captain's mast. OTGH, I could hear the same things as legal officer on first ship, first shore command and final shore command. If I wasn't hearing the case at MAST, the JAG wanted me as judge at the summary court martial.
one should ask the surviving iraqi troops who surrendered to the Wisconsin's drome about the effectiveness of a BB in support of littoral combat. was once not by choice near-two klicks-to. five hundred pound bombs that detonated, I cannot imagine what sixteen inch HE raining down in a steady downpour is like.
I am with the believing it when it's working. I recall the ec121t/willie victor aew and working with a singer kearcroft airbone computer system to attempt a SAGE like operating system of automated air intercept. I am talking very old school, as in vacuum tube and paper tape reader programing level technology. in all the years of pushing electrons thru it, only got about two hours of effective use. and then the AWAC E3 arrived and we believed.
so sometimes it does happen.
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