Spruance sunk by Machine Guns
- Thread starter FreeAsia2000
- Start date
Well the ships weren't sank by machine guns, but 127mm naval guns...so the topic headline is bit misleading (very yellow papersih
)
But i'm not suprized at all, naval guns are ment to sink ships....
)But i'm not suprized at all, naval guns are ment to sink ships....
Gollevainen said:Well the ships weren't sank by machine guns, but 127mm naval guns...so the topic headline is bit misleading (very yellow papersih
But i'm not suprized at all, naval guns are ment to sink ships....
Exactly..But I read an account of the sinking that said one of the commanders was surprised how fast the ships went down....The USN has held many SINKEX excersises. Usally the ships go down after taking quite a pounding. I think that that condition zebra was not properly set. Condition zebra is when all watertight doors and hatches are closed...I could be wrong...
That's just my opinion.
By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 16, 2006
NORFOLK - The Navy sank two of its retired Spruance-class destroyers in a day of surface and air warfare training about 275 miles off the North Carolina coast, sending the largest destroyers ever built to the dark ocean floor 12,000 feet below.
The guided missile destroyers Comte de Grasse and Stump, both 28 years old and once based in Norfolk, were felled June 7, the Navy acknowledged this week.
Part of the death knell for the Comte de Grasse was brought by another near-relic: a flight of the last remaining F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, due to retire in September. Navy S-3 Vikings dropped ordnance as well.
An Air Force B-52 Stratofortress, flying at 6,000 feet and B-1B Lancer at a loftier 21,000 feet, took a crack at the Stump.
Plans to fire Harpoon cruise missiles and Maverick anti-ship missiles were halted when the ships sank too quickly.
The exercise was a chance for the military to hone its ship-sinking skills in an era when it hasn't had much experience with enemy navies. It also is a fairly economic way of getting rid of an old hulk without breaking it apart ashore.
Called "Sink-Ex," participating ships were the destroyers Mason, Arleigh Burke, and Ramage, and the cruiser Cape St. George, all based in Norfolk.
"We had a lot of high-tech, coordinated weapons, but the ships were sunk by basic naval gunnery, probably the least technically advanced weapon out there," said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Weeldreyer, operations officer for Destroyer Squadron 28, which led the exercise from the Mason.
"That was somewhat of a surprise to us," said Capt. Mike Franken, the squadron's commodore. "We shot 45 5-inch rounds in the Stump, targeting the waterline, and it went down in short order."
In about 90 minutes, its stern fell below the surface, leaving the bow of the 563-foot, 7,800-ton warship pointed skyward.
"We left the area to let the Air Force at it and by the time we came back, it looked like a phoenix, sticking straight up," Franken said. "It was an eerie feeling, looking into a somewhat hazy sun in the west and seeing this sharp, very defined bow sticking maybe 200 feet out of the water."
Huge bubbles gurgled around the Stump as successive airtight bulkheads gave way under the pressure of the water, he said. In graduated pulsations, it slipped farther and farther beneath the water's surface, ending up on what the officers said was a desert floor, more than two miles deep, void of most marine life.
The Comte de Grass was targeted initially by .50-caliber machine guns to demonstrate disabling fire, then 40 ?mm grenade launchers and 5-inch guns.
The Mason, using a 20 mm cannon for close-in protection, demonstrated how it could disable a ship without sinking it.
"Part of the test was to see how good it was for taking off various parts of the ship, say the rudder post," Franken said.
"We do it to slow the ships," Weeldreyer said. "It was extremely accurate."
These were the first sinking exercises for the Navy in about two years. Plans call for another previously Norfolk-based destroyer, the Thorn, which was decommissioned in 2004 , to be sunk in a similar exercise next month.
A former ammunition ship, the Butte, also is scheduled to be scuttled by a submarine.
The Navy is offering a dozen other decommissioned ships as potential fishing reefs. They include the aircraft carriers Forrestal, Independence and Constellation, plus a handful of cruisers, destroyers and amphibious ships. Their sinkings probably will be closer to shore, to allow sport anglers to reach them.
The farther site for the Stump and Comte de Grasse was picked because of its absence of marine mammals, as well as game fish, that could have been harmed by the firing, the Navy officers said.
Franken said patrol planes dropped sonar buoys to listen for whales and other protected sea life in the area.
"It is a desert out there, deep water, not a lot of eddies of the type to draw a lot of animal life, no right whales," Franken said.
The sight of a sinking Navy ship brought some sadness, Franken said. He had been aboard both ships as a junior officer.
"It's troubling to think about sinking a ship you served on, especially on an impressionable 23-year-old who went from being, in my case, a farm kid, to a naval officer.
"You think, 'Oh boy.' It was your home."
Reach Jack Dorsey at (757)446-2284 or [email protected]
Just to clarify bd popeye: Pakistan no longer seems to be interested in acquiring the Spruance. Right now the PN seems to be beefing up it's frigates bu acquiring the F-22P, the Greek frigates, and are in negotaitions to acquire two Perry class frigates.
DPRKUnderground
Junior Member
crazyinsane105 said:
Greek frigates? What type are they? Are they second-hand Oliver Perrys?
Let's not frget that thanks to missle warfare, you're not going to see guns being used much in fleet warfare.
Popeye, when exactly does the Navy use its guns? I'm going to guess to stop relatively unarmed ships like pirates and civillians.
Popeye, when exactly does the Navy use its guns? I'm going to guess to stop relatively unarmed ships like pirates and civillians.