Navy Speedster Doubles Up On Cutting-Edge Technology

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Not only damage control, the FFG I was on had a lot of sailors busy on a daily basis on maintenance. I'm not talking "busy work" maintenance, but rather painting, taking off rust, repairing damage from the last underway (FFG-7s had a real problem with the pitsword -- sensor for finding speed through the water -- breaking), etc. Twenty-six doesn't look like enough people for keeping the ship operational.

Good to see they went with the LM-2500s. There are lots of Navy ships already using those. Good engines, and a proven system.

Edited to add:
I got curious about the FFG-7 in the photo with the "Sea Fighter," checked the pic on the Navy website, and was shocked to find it's my old ship, the USS RENTZ (FFG-46)! Cool!

The hi-rez pic is at:
http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/050801-N-7676W-546.jpg

To see more, go to http://www.navy.mil/view_photos_top.asp and type "sea fighter" in the search box. There are several good, high resolution pics.

Memories... :)

Regards,
Dirty Bob
 
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There goes mine...

Well, at least I know where to find her... :p

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Is that an Adams class DDG

280PLUS

Looks like a Charles F. Adams class guided missle destroyer. If so, which one?

Is the photo on the Navy website somewhere?

Good to see there are other Navy vets in here.

Thanks,
Dirty Bob
 
FYI, for great photos of just about every naval vessel from the past century, visit www.navsource.org.

This was the fleet tug my grandfather served on in the last year of WWII. The first photo was taken by him (John R. Clifton, EM3).

There are some really cool broadside photos in the battleship pages. :eek:
 
Aluminum

I wonder about using aluminum for the hull.

One of the drawbacks of APCs is/was aluminum armor which could burn if hit with an incendiary round...

Did the designers ever think of this? Or, are they hoping that sinking might put the fire out?
 
Beautiful photos, guys

I served with a LT who'd been the boilers officer on Berkeley (DDG-13). The Adams class were great-looking ships. The Oliver Hazard Perry class (like the one I served on) on the other hand, has been called "a shoe box on a canoe." :fire:

Regards,
Dirty Bob
LT (j.g.) in another life
 
Otherguy:

Aluminum on the Perry class was needed, because a steel superstructure wouldn't made the ship top-heavy. Gas turbine engineering plants are lighter than steam plants, so things needed to be lighter up top as well. I understand they've gone back to steel with the new Burke class. Probably moved some of the heavier stuff to lower decks to compensate.

Yes, it burns, by the way. I was on active duty when one of our sister ships -- the STARK -- took two missile hits, but managed to survive! The British ran into the same problem in the Falklands.

Regards,
Dirty Bob
 
The Adams class was also aluminum from the main deck up. We were made fully aware that a .50 cal round would pass right through it. My GQ station was Repair 5 and our location was the mess decks which were on the main deck surrounded by nothing but 1/2" Aluminum plate. I often wondered what good we would do if we took a hit there. We might as well have been sitting outside in lawn chairs. :rolleyes:

This is what a GBU 2000 did to the bridge area. Hmmm, not much left to fight with...

We were also aware that we and the ship were considered expendable. :eek:

uh oh, lightning GTG!!
 

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So does it just carry missles or does it actually have some guns on it?
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StopTheGrays, she is not "armed" per se... Once she passes her Fleet trials, she will have normal security assets aboard. Sea Fox is mainly designed to support experimental operations. And yes she is Aluminium, lighter is better as she is not designed to go in harms way (remember that quote 280Plus?).

Dirty Bob, the little incident in the Falklands was rather interesting... Mainly because the Sheffield had not reprogrammed their CIWS to change the Exocet from friendly to hostile :what: They didn't realize it until it was a hair too late :eek:

Interestingly enough, some of my cohorts that flew the Nimrods told me they were told it had been decided they were to fly ASW missions, from ENGLAND! Of course the Nimrod didn't have air-air refueling at the time, so they build/tested/installed a refueling package in two weeks!!! :scrutiny:

It was so leaky, there had to go to no smoking on the aircraft for the entire flight (16 hours plus). It took three refuelers each way and two crews to fly one mission. Since they were fully weaponed up, they figured if anything happened, there wouldn't even be enough left to make a smoking hole...

I'll echo 280Plus- there are quite a few sailors (and a few airdales) in here :evil:
 
In some of the photos on the Navy site, the Sea Fighter is shown with what looks like 3 M-2 .50 machine guns. Not heavy armament, but a long way from helpless! :evil:

By the way: another benefit of steel and aluminum construction: galvanic corrosion. The whole affair can act as a battery and corrode faster than normal. We had sacrificial anodes that were easily replaced and were to corrode instead of the superstructure!

All my best,
Dirty Bob
 
yup, we had galvanic corrosion problems where the suprstructurewas riveted to the main deck. They would just cut out the bad spots and weld in new aluminum.
 
By the way: another benefit of steel and aluminum construction: galvanic corrosion. The whole affair can act as a battery and corrode faster than normal. We had sacrificial anodes that were easily replaced and were to corrode instead of the superstructure!
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It's the NEW Navy Dirty Bob :evil: I didn't realize they had the M-2 pics up... Gotta check the internal web site more often...

And yeah, this thing will have more welding adding and removing equiment that by the EOL, it will probably be one big weld! :banghead: :banghead:
 
The Coast Guard is interested in a ship with cruise missiles? :scrutiny:
I'd better hide my beer better while boating...

Kharn
 
Actually, I think the Coast Guard is more interested in a relatively large ship that can go fast. The platform is more important than the loadout.

I'm a little wary of aluminum as well. Given the size of anti-ship munitions, I don't see that armor doing much of anything in combat.
 
280: Can you help this infantryman? I'm having trouble finding the "bridge area."
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Absolutely. But keep in mind us below deck sailors tried to avoid the bridge as much as possible, usually if we were headed for the bridge we were in trouble! :evil:

If you look at the pic I posted back there the area towards the pointy end where all the debris is that's where the bridge WAS! That's whwere all the brass hung out. If you check that other pic I posted of her "in better days" you can get an idea of what was there and what's missing.

qwhen I heard she was going to be sunk my old XO happened to be a 3 star Admiral and in charge of the whole pacific surface fleet. I emailed him and asked him very nicely to drop something really big on her for me. To this day I claim that GBU-2000 as MY BOMB!

:D
 
Did someone say Adams class destroyer? Here is mine, the USS Goldsborough, DDG-20 since parted out to the Royal Australian Navy and probably sent to the shipbreakers by now.

05012011.jpg


Expendable? Oh, yeah--it's entire mission was to bodyguard an aircraft carrier. BTW, my general quarters station was the bridge. No way did I want to ever be trapped below decks in the event of an attack. I did learn in 1987-88 that an aluminum superstructure doesn't really do squat against the 12.7mm rounds the Iranian martyrboaters sometimes got lucky with. Fortunately, like all surface action opponents of the US Navy--they did all of the dying.

The Adams class was the last of the old breed, a class of ships whose lines were dictated by the waves as much or more than they were dictated by equipment or radar reflection concerns. They were elegant and a delight to helm.
 
The USS Belknap set the standard for "don't hang around aluminum during a fire" after it collided at night with the carrier USS Kennedy in the Med in 1975 and caught fire.

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