twodollarss
Banned Idiot
Just a thought.. 
Perhaps, it won't flip over, but what kind of damage will it exert?
Perhaps, it won't flip over, but what kind of damage will it exert?
Does a hurriance have the strength to flip a supercarrier over??
- Thread starter twodollarss
- Start date
Just a thought..
Perhaps, it won't flip over, but what kind of damage will it exert?
You are kidding of course?!
No navy on Earth would allow such an asset to navigate through an hurricane. I know in the case of the USN if a hurricane is headed towards an CVN the CVN leaves immediately. If the ship is in port and cannot get underway everything is battened down to the best extent possible.
What kind of damage? Radar mast and exposed electronics would be damaged. Any aircraft let on the flight deck would be probably severely damaged.
Admiral Halsey did have several carrier groups ride through Typhoon Cobra back in 1944, so there is a historical precedent for something like that.
Jeff Head
Here's a GREAT story about how a young Lt. Ford, reacted to that circumstance on the Monterey...Gerald Ford.
(I'm beginning to uderstand and accept more and more why the new class carrier will be named after this man.)
Overall, due to Typhoon Cobra, 3 ships, 795 men and over 150 aircraft were lost.
Here's a picture of another light carrier, the USS Copwens during the storm.
Despite all of this, no fleet (larger) carrier was damaged significantly.
Typhoon Cobra, in Dec 1944, sank 3 destroyers (which capsized), and a fire caused by a plane on the USS Monterey (a light carrier) caused significant damage, almost leading to the loss of the vessel.
Here's a GREAT story about how a young Lt. Ford, reacted to that circumstance on the Monterey...Gerald Ford.
(I'm beginning to uderstand and accept more and more why the new class carrier will be named after this man.)
Overall, due to Typhoon Cobra, 3 ships, 795 men and over 150 aircraft were lost.
Here's a picture of another light carrier, the USS Copwens during the storm.
Despite all of this, no fleet (larger) carrier was damaged significantly.
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Vlad Plasmius
Junior Member
Just a thought..
Perhaps, it won't flip over, but what kind of damage will it exert?
The RMS Queen Mary was nearly capsized by a rogue wave caused by a storm. It is roughly the same size as a Nimitz-class carrier.
Ambivalent
Junior Member
A typhoon or hurricane won't capsize something as large as a CVN. The US Navy moves it's ships to sea to ride out hurricanes, they are safer there than in port. It is more than thirty meters from the flight deck to the surface of the water. It takes an uncommonly high wave to even put white water over the bow of one.
Vlad Plasmius
Junior Member
Rogue waves are uncommonly high waves that can be 30 meters high or more and have nearly capsized ships similar in size to a carrier. One major cause of rogue waves are hurricanes though they can even happen in apparently calm waters. I don't know of any recent rogue wave encounters by carriers though.
Ambivalent
Junior Member
A general rule of good seamanship is to never take a quartering sea in a storm. Bow on a carrier could ride out a typhoon. I have done one myself in a 20,000 ton auxilary, the same displacement as a Yorktown or Majestic class of carrier in WWII. It was no fun, we were taking green water on the superstructure and twenty degree rolls, but we were never in danger of being sunk. Something the size of a Nimitz isn't in any danger of being sunk.
Here is a photo taken from the bridge of USS John F. Kennedy riding out Hurricane Floyd at sea outside Mayport Florida.
Flight ops in a snow storm are possibly tougher.
This is very dangerous work for the flight deck crew. Check out this video from the old Kitty Hawk. Now this is a storm.
I like this video from the VMF. Everything is pretty calm on the Kuznetsov despite waves coming over the bow, but the crew of the Sovremenny are taking a real beating. You don't want to know what the heads and galley look like when a ship is doing that!
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