USN Carriers to be Scrapped

[blidgepump]

Almost ....

That'll be the next CVN class. The island will be on a towed barge aft.

I think the "island will be done away with completely !
Back in Washington, flyops will be directed from a bunker!
Maybe the USN will move it to Cheyenne Mountain....

If they placed the island on a barge, another class of ship would be needed ???

[tbm3fan]

Is that the Ranger moored on the other side of USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) ?

Yes, that is the Ranger. Facing forward on the Ranger bridge you had Stennis to starboard and then Indy and Kitty Hawk to port. The big gap in between Ranger and Indy was were Connie was and which was removed just before we got there. More later on in the evening.

[tbm3fan]

Last ditch effort to save Ranger on CNN. Really last ditch

Group makes last-ditch effort to save 'Top Gun' carrier - CNN.com

(CNN)In the climactic final battle in the 1986 movie "Top Gun," an officer tells Stinger, the battle commander, that the aircraft carrier's catapults are broken and it's unable to launch planes.

Stinger asks how long a fix will take.

"It'll take 10 minutes," the officer replies.

"Bull---- 10 minutes! This thing will be over in two minutes! Get on it!" Stinger says.

Fast-forward to 2015, and the fate of the carrier in "Top Gun" is in similar peril.

The USS Ranger, decommissioned by the Navy in 1993, is scheduled to be towed from storage in Bremerton, Washington, to a wrecking yard in Texas in about a month. Coming in with a bid to save it is Top Gun Super Carrier of Long Beach, which hopes to stop the carrier's final journey in the California port city, with hopes to turn it into a tourist and business destination.

"Right now, we just want a stay of execution," Michael B. Shanahan, project manager for the Long Beach rescue effort, said in a statement on a Change.org petition to save the carrier. "This is our last chance to stop the loss of an irreplaceable cultural and historic asset."

That chance appears to be slim.

In December, the Navy paid International Shipbreaking of Brownsville, Texas, a penny to take the 56,000-ton warship off its hands. The shipbreaker makes its profit by selling the parts of the ship for scrap.

Although the Ranger was decommissioned in 1993, the Navy kept it around for possible reactivation until March 2004, when it was stricken from the Naval Register and made available for donation to a group that could preserve it. An attempt by the USS Ranger Foundation to turn the carrier into a museum in Oregon fell short financially, and it could not figure out a way to get the huge ship up the Columbia River to Fairview, Oregon, according to a Navy statement.

When it finalized the contract to scrap the Ranger in December, the Navy said it could not afford to maintain it indefinitely while waiting for a suitable organization to take it over.

Shanahan said the Top Gun group will cover all costs to keep the Ranger from the scrapyard.

"Sparing the ship now presents NO financial risk to the federal government," he said in a statement.

The group says it has secured $14 million in donations so far and will cover the $200,000 in annual maintenance costs until a permanent berth for the ship is found, according to a story in the Long Beach Post.

But Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, which was responsible for disposing of the carrier, told the Navy Times that the Top Gun plan wouldn't pass muster.

"We cannot take private funding for inherently military purposes, so it's not accurate when the group says it can raise funds to keep the ship on donation hold," the Navy Times quoted Johnson as saying.

So unless another plan comes together quickly, the Ranger is likely to follow two of its predecessors in the Forrestal class of carriers -- the Forrestal and the Saratoga -- to scrapyards in Brownsville.

Another carrier, the USS Constellation, part of the Kitty Hawk class, was towed to Brownsville late last year. Like the Ranger, the Constellation was stored in Washington and because of its size had to be towed all the way around the southern tip of South America, as it would not fit through the Panama Canal. The Ranger's final journey is expected to take four to five months, the Navy says.

The Ranger spent more than 35 years on active service, including missions off Vietnam and in support of Operation Desert Storm.

[ChrisV71]

Last ditch effort to save Ranger on CNN. Really last ditch

It worked for the Hornet! She was taken back from Astoria Metals after being sold. Granted Ranger is being disposed of on a procurement contract as opposed to a sales contract, so the terms may be different. Frankly, I'd just give the scrapyard Independence and leave the contract otherwise intact.

[TopHatter]

Absolute insanity to attempt to make a supercarrier into a museum unless you've got Bill Gates as a lifetime benefactor.

[desertswo]

Absolute insanity to attempt to make a supercarrier into a museum unless you've got Bill Gates as a lifetime benefactor.

Yeah, I give mad props to tbm3fan and the rest of the dedicated souls who keep Hornet, Intrepid, and Midway running as museums, but unless one has served in one, it's really difficult to get a feel for just how much more territory, and therefore work involved, there is in anything from Forrestal on. The so called "supercarrier" really is that, and if Bill Gates isn't your benefactor, it will be a losing proposition, period.

[Gun Grape]

Yea , just look at the problems that the SS United States group is going through. And thats just a shell of a ship.

This is a pipe dream thats never going to happen.

[TopHatter]

I was talking with a fellow who seems to be a bit "in the know" about these "pipe dream" museum groups going after essentially impossible projects like the United States or any of the post-Midway carriers.

His rather cynical opinion (fact?) was that the people on the boards of these groups know damn good and well that they'll never "get" their desired ship.

Their point in continuing to "fight the good fight" is to ensure that the donations continue to flow in, which ensures their continued employment on the board (full or part time) and thus their continued paycheck, their access to politicians, civic and business leaders etc.

He remarked that even far smaller and seemingly far more obtainable ships like the Charles F Adams were also pipe dreams without, for example. the faintest clue of what it'll take to even tow the ship from Philly to Jacksonville. But the whole point was to keep the paid members of the board employed.

I take a lot of things he says with a grain of salt and it'll be interesting to see what happens with the Adams. The board has promised that she'll be here in Jax before the end of the year.

Well, we'll see.

[surfgun]

The DD Forrest Sherman group could not even to get the USN to approve the move to Maryland or Delaware, much less a move to Florida from Philadelphia!

[tbm3fan]

I was talking with a fellow who seems to be a bit "in the know" about these "pipe dream" museum groups going after essentially impossible projects like the United States or any of the post-Midway carriers.

His rather cynical opinion (fact?) was that the people on the boards of these groups know damn good and well that they'll never "get" their desired ship.

Their point in continuing to "fight the good fight" is to ensure that the donations continue to flow in, which ensures their continued employment on the board (full or part time) and thus their continued paycheck, their access to politicians, civic and business leaders etc.

He remarked that even far smaller and seemingly far more obtainable ships like the Charles F Adams were also pipe dreams without, for example. the faintest clue of what it'll take to even tow the ship from Philly to Jacksonville. But the whole point was to keep the paid members of the board employed.

I take a lot of things he says with a grain of salt and it'll be interesting to see what happens with the Adams. The board has promised that she'll be here in Jax before the end of the year.

Well, we'll see.

I wouldn't doubt it as one thing board members and administrators are good at is perpetuating their jobs at the expense of others.

[DonBelt]

I think the "island will be done away with completely !
Back in Washington, flyops will be directed from a bunker!
Maybe the USN will move it to Cheyenne Mountain....

If they placed the island on a barge, another class of ship would be needed ???

There will always be an island or tower of some sort. Where else could the high muckety mucks put a seat where they are higher than everyone else?

A serious question though- the metal being salvaged out of these ships, is it just going on the open market or will any of it be reused in American Naval ship building? (That is if we ever build any new steel ships.) What types of steel where these hulls made of? Is it something in short supply or is it even used anymore?