Question guys, I read that article in PM many years ago about the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) for short. They talked about the ships that had gottne SLEPS and so on and so forth. The main ship that they talked about was the USS Constellation CV-64. I think that the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67 was next on the list to get one. I know that after the JFK got her SLEP they shut down Philadalphia Naval Ship Yard (PNSY), so I was wondering if maybe the America never got one and that was why they retired her before some of the ships that were older than her. Any ideas? Let me know. Just my curiosity seeking through again.
The America got a SLEP, Although a SLEP may make the ship more modern, it may not make it economical. Every year, each ship goes through a review that shows the overall condition of the ship and what economic impact it will have on the fleet. If one ship needs more in maintenance and repair than another, then it may be deemed that they retire that ship regardless of age, but how it impacts the budget. That is what happened to the America by retiring it before the Constellation and why the Connie was just retired and why the Kitty Hawk is still in service.
This same thing happend to the Forestal class ships as well. And we may see it with the Nimitz class.
Scott
Scott I never knew that is how it worked. I always thought it was by age and use not deterioration. I always thought that they took good care of the whole fleet and not better care of one or another.
Is that your Lexington? What scale is it? send me some photos by email. Looks great from here.
Ships are like cars, some can be lemons from the day they left the yard. The Franklin Roosevelt had a long history of maintenece problems since she left the yard and is speculated why she, the last of the Midway’s, to be decomssioned almost 20 before her two sisters. The maintenence of a ship falls upon the skipper, so some shipe are better taken care of than others. Other ships may have more “milage” and hard work on them. Take the Lexington, after WW2, she didn’t see a lot of hard action, from 1945 to 1953 she was laid up, was practically rebuilt, then in 1961, became a training carrier which didn’t put a lot of wear and tear on the ship, thus why she was in commission until 1991. Other Essex class ships, like the Oriskany for example, which was a younger carrier, worked non-stop (except for two SBC conversions) from her launching in 1948 through a number of very hard cruises during Vietnam. By 1972, the ship was worn beyond the economic scope to keep it in service, also, she was obsolete. Just like the oil burning carriers (Kitty Hawk and Kennedy) now, they just cost much more to operate that nuclear carriers. On the Constellation website, the skipper explains this very well when asked why the Connie was being decomissioned. He compared the fuel bill of the Connie to that of the Ronald Reagan like that of a SUV to a Geo Metro.
Politics has something to do with it as well. The Enterprise, as compared to the newer nukes, is way past it’s economic prime, but too many brass are too close to the ship to allow her to leave the fleet. She has too much public and sentimental value, and they claim to be testing her to see if the new supercarriers can maintain a 50 year service life.
The Lex is a 1/700 Hasagawa Essex kit I conververted back in 1991to her 1956 appearance for a former crew member. I should have some pics ready later in the week.
Scott
Speaking of the Enterprise, I just this minute got back to the office from a little inspection on the Big E. Fresh paint can hide a lot of flaws and the Enterprise has always been kept well painted and for good reason. She was and is an ongoing experiment in the use of multiple reactor plants and is holding up fairly well. The America was a workhorse and not a showboat like the Enterprise and was beaten to death. She was not a lemon like the Kennedy.
Not to be foolish, if they wanted to would it be econimical or possible to upgrade the Big E with newer reactors? I read on one of my emails that they were even considering doing that with the Indy, which made no sense to me. The email claimed they were going to “cut her in half” then remover her boilers and lengthen her. It just made no sense to me for them to do that. Not only that this was long after Indy was in mothballs. Just didn’t seam realisticly possible.
The ship (Big E) was refueled about five years ago (for the last time) . It would not be feasible to install new reactors (they don’t make them any more) and since the ship is configured for eight little reactors the type the Nimitz class uses won’t fit (two big ones). Converting a fossil fuel burner into a nuke would be more costly and difficult than building a new ship from scratch. The Kennedy was supposedly slated to be a nuke but the new designs for the Nimitz’s were still coming down the pike and the Navy didn’t want to delay the building of the Kennedy because of all the old carriers reaching the ends of their days. If you look at the Kennedy you can see it is a unique design (check out the funnel).
I read somewhere that the fate of the America is to be sunk as a target, I hope that doesn’t happen.
You got to be kidding me. Are you serious? You know enough of this. I can’t believe the Navy would do that. I sure hope it isn’t true.
Carriers are targets… I’ve seen the America Shes big and Beautiful and served proudly…but It would be better to train a few attack sub crews with live fire rounds on "retired "carriers than Mothballing them… It would be cheaper to… Just a thought…
It would be interesting to see what kind of damage they could take, and how long it would take to sink. The Navy has pinned all there hopes on ships that have no idea how much real damage they could take.
It would take a lot of torps but it wouldn’t be a fair evaluation since there wouldn’t be any damage control teams to fight the damage.
You’d need to throw in some cruise missiles too.
Actually only one torp…
Hell I’ve been out since 75 and back then we had MK 37s and 45s ( baby nuke) that would do the job… Serious business guys…
Anybody see the price of scrapmetal lately??? Up over $3 /lb for sheet steel and beam. She’s probably going to fetch a good price is the Feds to drag their feet too much.
Look up the USS Stark. she was a Frigate but she took 2 Exocet ASMs, one in the hull below the bridge and another in the CIC, and stayed afloat. I imagine a carrier could take many similar hits.
Remember, the Navy uses a lot of the stuff from a de-commisoned carrier,ie anchors, props, rudders etc. I remember her being tied up at pier 12 in Norfolk after some of her sea trials. What a ship. I was on the Forrestal, & even tho it will get scraped out, that is a whole lot better than a target practice. That was my [2c] worth.
It’s all in the compartmentization of the hull. There are voids, berthing spaces, offices , shops etc. that are all water tight that surround the more vital spaces… Only large, open spaces like the engineering spaces could admit enough water to cause real problems. Even the Yorktown didn’t sink until she was scuttled. Torpedoes ideally explode under the hull where it is the most vulnerable. You could probably break the thing up into individually floating chunks I suppose. And the notion of nuclear torpedoes would work pretty well against a submarine, too. I think there used to be some kind of nuclear depth charge at one time or another.
[:-,]What a waste! Little to be gained by such target practice.[V]
Let’s turn 'em into low-income housing, a naval museum, an Al Queda prison hulk, Sadaam’s new temporary palace, a casino for a coastal Native American Tribe, an R/C plane airfield, a modern sculpture in some harbor, etc. etc. [:p]
[:(] Yeh, I know…some group would have to agree to maintain 'em, make sure they weren’t a hazard to navigation, etc. It would cost a lot of $$$. [:(!]
[:-^] Oh, well…I can dream.[;)]
“Should we prosper it shall be as is our custom…by Miracle!”[4:-)]
Yup, it’s right here