Sadly yes to the above. It's too bad there is no AMARK type option. Salt water is a bitch.

Screw scrapping her, let her go with Grace.





USS Oriskany:


 

I googled AMARK, but didn't come up with an explanation.  What is it?

+1

Try AMARC instead.   Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.  "The boneyard", where US military aircraft not in service are stored, whether for later use, resale, parting out, or scrapping.



There is no Naval equivalent.



CJ

Its hard to move a ship on dry land.

Probably.  Midway was a training carrier until the late 90s IIRC.  

I'm in.

Museum ships are the shit.

I visit the USS Texas and USS Lexington semi-regularly here in Texas.

Humph, I was on the Sara back in the day. Sad to see her go. USS Forest fire is her sister ship

I can still remember the Chief grabbing a PKP extinguisher and running towards the aircraft early in the video right before the first big explosion.



Right after, he wasn't there anymore.



Someone posted his name here once but it escapes me now.



It's going to be a sad day when they have to make the same decision for the Big E.

I vote reef or museum.

ETA: The video of that fire, btw was required viewing in Basic for us back in 2000.  Pretty sure it still is.

Thanks for the correction.  I remember looking at whatever it was and thinking it was rather austere looking.  No aircraft on it of course, and that made it look "hollow", or "abandoned".

The Enterprise is not save-able. The cutting needed to remove the reactors will almost assure her destruction.

Indeed. I'd love to dive the Oriskany!

I vote for museum or reef.

China would love to buy it!  Look what happened to the Varytag (Red Navy Carrier).

I tried to go back to her when I came up for orders during shore duty, she was coming out of the yards and doing workups for her next deployment.



Detailer told me it would be bad for my career, I said I didn't care, I wanted to go back but I got sent to a Spru-can instead.



She was a great ship and still is.



Sorry for the hijack.



 

But these are old and broke, and have power plants that not only are ridiculously obsolete, but there are very few people around that have the needed skills to run them.  You can't get spare parts, The combat systems are old and obsolete, and are only partially interoperable with the modern systems.  You would have to train up a few thousand people just to run the physical plant side of things.  Then you would need aircraft and aircrew, etc etc etc.  You could run a total re-build on them and still have a ship that was state of the art 40 years ago.  Once the nukes came along these were on the road out.  

If we ever have a war that needs a bunch of carriers we aren't going to have time to bring these back anyway.

Most of the ships that were set out like these had just about anything and everything of value removed.  The only reason they haven't been scrapped is that nobody can figure out a way to come close to even making a profit doing it.  The Coral Sea taught some major lessons one of which is scrapping a carrier is NOT a good thing to do.  Sink it is about the only way to go.  

Talk to the folks where they have big ships on display about how expensive it is just to keep a small portion of the ship fit to be visited, and the rest preserved to not fall apart.

That was the Hornet IIRC

and you can't believe the shit the Skipper gets in the threads here.

I have to look them up, I have pics from the day she came back into San Diego for the first time after coming back from Yoko flying her Homeward Bound pennant.  Gloomy day gliding in, got locally rainy then too.  Saw the OKC come in with her pennant. I was OOD and didn't get any pics of that

Some good explanations in this thread.  A carrier isn't an Iowa Class BB, it appears (more complicated in some ways).   I was thinking of keeping these ships preserved enough for a very short service life under emergency circumstances, but it sounds like they're used up right until the day of their last cruise with no service life left in them.  Talk about squeezing blood from a stone...




   

Guys Forestall, like ex-America will not go down in vain.

We have access to some (and probably all) of Russia and China's best anti-ship missiles.
The Navy won't say what they fired at the ex-America, but here's a good guess at one of them.
Buy hitting the old carriers with this stuff the Navy can build much better future carriers.


Boeing/Zvezda-Strela MA-31

My Granddad was  Master Chief on the Forrestal when they had the fire.
And he came back with when it was decommissioned.

He seemed to think it would be better to build a new one that try to make this one battle worthy again.

Sir, WADR I must disagree with just about everything you have posted.  FWIW, I've spent a career in the overhaul and repair of our US Navy aircraft carriers as well as quite a few other ships in various capacities.  The list of ships I've spent considerable time on include "Forrestfire" but the reality of my experiences surpass any nostalgic feelings I may have for her.  The mention of the ship sweating the smell of deceased former shipmates is ludicrous.  The drenching of JP5 and stench of actual living individuals long since drowned out the acrid smoke of the welding that replaced major portions of decks and bulkheads after the fire.  When we actually decide to decommission these ships, very little of the major components actually "work" what ever that may mean to you.  When we decommed JFK one of the published reasons was due to largely dysfunctional catapults.  An aircraft carrier without functioning aircraft launch and recovery systems serve little purpose regardless how fast she can plow through the water.  I've spent many a day working to repair JFK over the years, I can personally attest to the fact that there was a lot more than just catapults that didn't "work".

The reality of ships like the Forrestal, America, JFK, Mo., Wisconsin, et al is that major components such as main engines, turbo generators, boilers, feed pumps, and mind boggling ranges of various valves are no longer manufactured.  Even if a given manufacturer still exists the actual shipboard components are long since out of production.  Replacement of such components with similar machines involves major structural design and often results in rearrangement and relocation of other systems and components in a sort of domino effect.  All this means that most of the major components are beyond practical repair simply due to a lack of spare parts.

FWIW, one of the major obstacles currently being addressed aboard USS Enterprise, CVN65 involves replacement of some critical propulsion plant pumps which we have repaired so many times over the life of the ship that there's nothing left to work with.  All just to extend the service life of a ship almost as old as Forrestal for just one more deployment.

I don't really care how we dispose of these ships, but there does come a time where disposal is the most practical option.  If some historical society can come up with the money to preserve them, great but the expense of preservation should not be at taxpayer expense when it already costs so much to maintain an active fleet of eleven nuclear powered aircraft carriers.  The information we gained from the sinking exercises of CV66 are invaluable to the design of future ships, we need to have more like that.  I vote for making her and artificial reef after we have at her with every weapon we can muster!  JMHO, 7zero1.

Melt it down and use it in another Carrier.

I was with VA-65 then. We lost four men and one aircraft damaged.
I had just gone to sleep (o3 level just under the forward cats) when it happened. I'll never forget the sound those 1000 pounders made when they cooked off. Not like an explosion as you'd think....it was as if the entire ship was a giant gong.

As it turns out,  "old" ships (and any of our carriers that is due for retirement would qualify) are made of steel that is universally considered to be of much higher quality

than the recycled steel that's used to build new ships these days.       From a metallurgical standpoint, using old ships as raw material for new ones would be very good,

nearly as good as using virgin steel made from mined ore with no recycled content.





CJ





 

Shooting range on the flight deck, obviously.  Rifles range at the bow and stern.  Pistols port side and skeet starboard side.  FTW

I know there was a group that was desperately trying to bring the Forrestal to Baltimore as a museum.  My Father served on that ship, and my parents live within an hour of Baltimore.  Would have been nice to get to go on Dad's old ship.

Trillions in bailouts but not one red cent for keeping an aircraft carrier in ready reserve!

when we group buy it let's go scair the shit out of some greenpeace hippies

If they're gonna melt it down, the least they can do is the steel in the Ford or the next carrier.....

Artificial reef or museum is the only answer.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=41.527431,-71.315045&spn=0.005446,0.009645&t=h&z=17&iwloc=lyrftr:w2t.97,17980647883787895659,41.526114,-71.316118

Sounds good, some company could probably recycle them much more efficiently if the gov. would provide them with a schedule of x# of ships a year to recycle rather than having it be a one time project.

Yeah!!! That's been my idea all along! All this combat equipment,we don't need! We'll have all the popular bands,comedians,a small golf tournament,kiddie room in the bridge(so mommy and daddy can have fun downstairs). And a big flat deck so all the helicopters can land(and there'll be lots). We'll make soo much $$$,that President Printmore will come visit,to ask for a loan.

The Big "E" too! We can use her,in addition to forementioned above,as a training platform for all the budding nuclear powerplant engineers(and this will be paid for by the power companies,yet another win for $$$)

Damn,I'm smart!

this!

We can park it off Somalia and shoot at pirates.

I wonder if we could sell it to China, North Korea, or Iran ... then get to use it for target practice later

CVN-70 was home ported in Alameda as well until 92/93 when they changed her home port to Bremerton WA when she came out of the yards (refit).

Lots and lots of regs involved,which make it hard to make a profit.

Think the SS United States is still in Philly.

I was ships company on the Vinson 89-93. I also had the pleasure of spending several days exploring the following ships while we salvaged some equipment off them. USS Bon Home Richard CVA-31, Oriskany and USS Hornet CVS-12, I toured the Midway during fleet week in Seattle before she got mothballed.

Off topic, but I never understood the logic of carying upto 15,000 troups in a single ship during a time of war...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_United_States

... a couple torpedos or big anti ship missle and that is a huge loss ...

Anyways, sorry for the tangent.