54light15 Ships speeds are measured in knots, not miles per hour! The S.S. United States could do better than 35 knots and its hull design was classified until it was retired in 1968. Whenever it was dry docked, the lower part of the hull would have canvas awnings covering it.
Ships speeds are measured in knots, not miles per hour! The S.S. United States could do better than 35 knots and its hull design was classified until it was retired in 1968. Whenever it was dry docked, the lower part of the hull would have canvas awnings covering it.
I know. I converted to mph from knots because most folks understand mph better than knots or kmh. The top speeds are classified but my cousin who was a Rear Admiral once let me know that the reported figures were "pretty close" to the actual.
The SS United States (there is a conservancy project) had a service speed of 32 knots (37 mph) and top speed a fantastic 38.32 knots (44.1 mph).
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
And the small "Jeep" carriers built by Henry Kaiser had a top speed of 18 knots. Most of them were powered with Skinner Uniflow engines that had been designed for Great Lakes boats. They did serve well, to their limit, despite having a hull so thin that the primers on 8" Japanese shells did not set the explosives off as they passed through both sides of the carriers--and then exploded when they hit the water on the other side (the water was harder than the hulls).
Reference: Volume II of Jerome T. Hagen's War in the Pacific, pp.209-210.
Johnny
CMStPnP schlimm For cars, you probably need a catamaran-type. How about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSC_Villum_Clausen It could probably make the Manitowoc crossing in 80-90 minutes Yup 55 mph is Modern, IMO but I think they could do better by 5-10 mph. So even if they got that service up and running and it took rail cars. With the congestion around Chicago I think they could reinstate a Michigan to West Coast service that could cut almost a day out of transit time if they had a dock in Wisconsin and the train departed after marshalling the cars off the Ferry. Thats why I am surprised CP or CN hasn't partnered with a MI railroad for this. Interestingly I think CN's track to Manitowoc is still in really decent shape I was just up there last August and it looks like Class I track most of the way into the city of Manitowoc. I think the former GB&W is gone or torn up by now East of Green Bay.
schlimm For cars, you probably need a catamaran-type. How about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSC_Villum_Clausen It could probably make the Manitowoc crossing in 80-90 minutes
Yup 55 mph is Modern, IMO but I think they could do better by 5-10 mph. So even if they got that service up and running and it took rail cars. With the congestion around Chicago I think they could reinstate a Michigan to West Coast service that could cut almost a day out of transit time if they had a dock in Wisconsin and the train departed after marshalling the cars off the Ferry.
Thats why I am surprised CP or CN hasn't partnered with a MI railroad for this. Interestingly I think CN's track to Manitowoc is still in really decent shape I was just up there last August and it looks like Class I track most of the way into the city of Manitowoc.
I think the former GB&W is gone or torn up by now East of Green Bay.
CN (GTW) use to have a Muskegon-Milwaukee car ferry, but abandoned it in the mid 1970s. A carferry that could make the crossing in 2 hours would not make much of a difference. I rode the C&O and AA ferries in the early 80s. The crossing took 4 hours and the loading took about 2 hours, so there was a crossing about every 6 hours, or two round trips per day. the problem is that the Badger could only hold 34 (40ft) cars. So it would take 2 days to carry a 136 car freight train of 40' cars across the lake. A 2 hour crossing time would only knock off 16 hours off the 48 hour time for a full train. The carferry operators usuallly had 2 or more boats going at a time. Faster Chicago transfer transit times are what killed the carferries.
54light15Ships speeds are measured in knots,
Yes I know this as well but converted the Navy Nuke Carriers estimated speed from knots to MPH because most people have no clue how fast a knot is. New Navy ships have a LOT of HP.....go on YOUTUBE and search for "evasive turn", the newer ships just bulldoze millions of gallons of water sideways when they do their sharp turns, amazing to watch on video.....got to put a lot of strain on the structure and rudder both.
People state the M1 tank can only do 45 mph. However I have seen it move a LOT FASTER than that........and again DoD does not want folks to know the actual top speed so one can only estimate using other Defense sources.
Speaking of carriers, when my ship, the U.S.S. Guam was in the yards in Philly, there was a carrier in reserve, an Essex class with a straight flight deck tied up next to two of the battleships, I think the Wisconsin and New Jersey but I could be wrong about that. I was there from 1975-76 and I ate my share of cheese steaks!
Also, not to get away from ships, but the Sloane Museum in Flint, Michigan has a 1943 Buick Wildcat that can still travel at over 60 miles per hour! It's a tank destroyer and the manager of the museum, a young woman said that she rode in it on the old test track and it was fast!
54light, I was in the Philly Navy Yard in May of 1975, and those two battlewagons were the Iowa and the Wisconsin. The Marine Officer Selection Office threw a party for us newly commisssioned lieutenants and a visit to the battleships was part of the agenda. I'll never forget the broadside silhouettes of those ships as the tour bus approached, majestic, powerful, and to use an overused word, awesome.
As they were in mothballs the exterior conditions of the two ships was terrible, peeling paint, rotting decks, but still an impressive sight.
I remember the Guam, an LPH, correct? I spent a few days on her sister ship, the USS Iwo Jima a few years later.
If my records are correct, all Essex class vessels with axial flight decks were gone by then. Any chance it was a few years earlier? Several made it into the 1970's before being sold for scrap.
The Franklin, held in reserve awaiting a final rebuilding design to be settled upon for accomodating jet aircraft (due to her great condition after being repaired after massive wartime damage), became the victim of the super carrier and never was recommissioned. She was sold for scrap in 1966 and never returned to service. The Bunker Hill similarly didn't see a postwar career and was scrapped in 1973 after years serving as an electronics test hulk.
That only leaves the USS Boxer (Retired in 1969/Scrapped 1971), the USS Leyte (Retired in 1959/Scrapped 1970), the USS Princeton (Retired in 1970, scrapped 1971), the USS Tarawa (Retired in 1960, scrapped in 1968), the USS Valley Forge (Retired in 1970 and scrapped in 1971), the USS Philippine Sea (Retired in 1966, scrapped in 1973), and the USS Lake Champlain (Retired in 1966, scrapped in 1972) for ships that didn't receive the angled flight deck.
Is early 1974 a possibility? I show the USS Antietam as having been mothballed there after retirement until being sold for scrap that year. She was the world's first carrier to receive an angled flight deck, but otherwise maintained her classic appearance and didn't see further significant modernization. So she still had her wooden flight deck, the 5" deck guns, the open bow, etc.
If not, at least one must've sat around in Philly for a few years before the scrapper got down to business (Some of my dates are just the year they were sold for scrap)? Not an impossibility that a scrapper had a backlog with the cutbacks in 1970 or so that saw a lot of the wartime fleet be disposed of during that time.
"That allowed the shipyard to build them itself, conserving steam turbines, uniflows (Skinner Unaflows were common engines for medium size warships like escort carriers where speed wasn't crucial), and diesels for other installations."
No shipyard built the engines. They were Hamilton-Standard engines, built by Hamilton-Standard, Joshua Hendey Machine Tools, Iron Fireman, and others. Liberty builders were not established shipbuilders. Those were occupied with military vessels. The war production board governed who built what and they would have never allowed a huge foundry and machine shop just for one company and one type of engine. Shipyards built ships. Foundries poured iron. Machine shops machined what ever was within their capabilities. Huge companies might venture into new ground, such as Ford with B24s and Chrysler with tanks. These were extensions of their primary specialty which was assembly.
Leo_Ames Since we're talking ship speeds now, the USS Wisconsin broke 39 knots in Chesapeake Bay in 1945. Not too shabby for a nearly 900' battleship. :) And her sistership the New Jersey sustained 35 + knots for over six hours on her shakedown cruise in 1968 when she was reactivated for service in Vietnam (A job she did too well at since the North complained in Paris that she was a "destabilizing influence" and Washington in their infinite wisdom sent her back to mothballs and killed a few more pilots on jobs that 16" battleship shells could've handled in a region where most targets were within range of her main guns). And I think the top speed of super carriers remains classified right on down to the Forrestal, which is one of a good half dozen or so American victims in the last 20-25 years that I think is a tragic loss for maritime preservation. The Nimitz class hull profile is an evolution of the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes, so they've kept a tight lid on it. She was the last US carrier laid down with an axial flight deck, first launched with a angled deck, first super carrier, was a survivor of a horrible fire off the coast of Vietnam that came close to forcing her to be abandoned, saw a lot of active service in Vietnam, and she was oil fired and had no nuclear worries that would prevent her preservation these days with the navy's no nuclear museum policy of recent years (Despite the Nautilus and America's sole nuclear powered cargo ship being preserved in earlier years and security and preservation of her nuclear engine room spaces for decades to come being cheaper than the cost of scrapping). If a super carrier is to be preserved, her history made her the best candidate. Not many selections left these days that are even possible. I think only the Kennedy and Kitty Hawk haven't had their death warrants signed or already been disposed of via scuttling or scrapping down in Brownsville, remaining on donation hold the last I heard. CMStPnP I believe another feather in the Badgers cap is it can travel through light ice over conditions on the lake as it has a reinforced hull that will break ice up to a specific thickness..........read somewhere this was true, might not be as I am relying on my memory again which can be faulty. Lake Express is only a fair weather Ferry and cancels the trip in anything resembling moderately rough seas. Too unreliable for rail service, IMO. She was built for year round service and can indeed break a lot of ice. And she's a good heavy weather ship and is able to maintain service, safety, and passenger comfort in conditions that her competitor stays at port for.
Since we're talking ship speeds now, the USS Wisconsin broke 39 knots in Chesapeake Bay in 1945. Not too shabby for a nearly 900' battleship. :)
And her sistership the New Jersey sustained 35 + knots for over six hours on her shakedown cruise in 1968 when she was reactivated for service in Vietnam (A job she did too well at since the North complained in Paris that she was a "destabilizing influence" and Washington in their infinite wisdom sent her back to mothballs and killed a few more pilots on jobs that 16" battleship shells could've handled in a region where most targets were within range of her main guns).
And I think the top speed of super carriers remains classified right on down to the Forrestal, which is one of a good half dozen or so American victims in the last 20-25 years that I think is a tragic loss for maritime preservation. The Nimitz class hull profile is an evolution of the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes, so they've kept a tight lid on it.
She was the last US carrier laid down with an axial flight deck, first launched with a angled deck, first super carrier, was a survivor of a horrible fire off the coast of Vietnam that came close to forcing her to be abandoned, saw a lot of active service in Vietnam, and she was oil fired and had no nuclear worries that would prevent her preservation these days with the navy's no nuclear museum policy of recent years (Despite the Nautilus and America's sole nuclear powered cargo ship being preserved in earlier years and security and preservation of her nuclear engine room spaces for decades to come being cheaper than the cost of scrapping).
If a super carrier is to be preserved, her history made her the best candidate. Not many selections left these days that are even possible. I think only the Kennedy and Kitty Hawk haven't had their death warrants signed or already been disposed of via scuttling or scrapping down in Brownsville, remaining on donation hold the last I heard.
CMStPnP I believe another feather in the Badgers cap is it can travel through light ice over conditions on the lake as it has a reinforced hull that will break ice up to a specific thickness..........read somewhere this was true, might not be as I am relying on my memory again which can be faulty. Lake Express is only a fair weather Ferry and cancels the trip in anything resembling moderately rough seas. Too unreliable for rail service, IMO.
She was built for year round service and can indeed break a lot of ice. And she's a good heavy weather ship and is able to maintain service, safety, and passenger comfort in conditions that her competitor stays at port for.
There is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact.
Firelock, the Guam was LPH-9. I came aboard in June of 1974 and we were on a Med cruise from that October to the following spring and then we went into the yards in Philadelphia and left the yards just before the Bicentennnial. I absolutely remember the straight flight deck carrier moored outboard of the two battleships. I'm pretty sure it was an Essex class as the island had that angled smokestack at its stern part. There were a lot of other interesting ships sitting in the reserve fleet, some WW2 cruisers and lots of early destroyers that were tiny compared to now. Don't know the class of them, sadly.
Another thing, we were supposed to go to New York for the Bicentennial, but our captain had other ideas. We spent the entire summer cruising past Virginia Beach having drills. We'd pull in on Friday and out again on Monday and there were guys who would pay $100.00 to have someone take thier weekend duty so they could see their families. It was so weird, being at sea and watching Norfolk television.
Interesting 54light, I remember the Iowa moored dockside and the Wisconsin moored outboard of Iowa, but don't remember a carrier moored outboard of both at all. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the battleships and just didn't notice.
I do remember those WW2 era mothballed cruisers, 8" gun ships if I remember correctly. Don't remember their names, however.
There were several submarines in the reserve fleet also and they were in the process of selling them to Venezuela as I recall. There was one very large cruiser that looked odd as it had its turrets removed to be converted to a communications ship. I imagine all those ships had long ago been turned into Toyotas. We used to say about the Guam, "Sell this thing to Gillette!" It was sunk as a target in 1999 near Bermuda.
54light15Also, not to get away from ships, but the Sloane Museum in Flint, Michigan has a 1943 Buick Wildcat that can still travel at over 60 miles per hour!
You mean Hellcat, don't you? M18, "the GMC made by Buick..."
Nope, it was called a Wildcat. There's a lot of concept cars in the Sloane museum, such as the Bill Mitchell designed "Silver Arrow" based on a Buick Riviera and other interesting cars. They have a restoration shop there that is a fantasy land for anyone who restores old cars. There's everything a restorer could want! It's part of a local college's program and when I was there the project was a 1953 Buick Skylark convertible.
tdmidget "That allowed the shipyard to build them itself, conserving steam turbines, uniflows (Skinner Unaflows were common engines for medium size warships like escort carriers where speed wasn't crucial), and diesels for other installations." No shipyard built the engines. They were Hamilton-Standard engines, built by Hamilton-Standard, Joshua Hendey Machine Tools, Iron Fireman, and others. Liberty builders were not established shipbuilders.
No shipyard built the engines. They were Hamilton-Standard engines, built by Hamilton-Standard, Joshua Hendey Machine Tools, Iron Fireman, and others. Liberty builders were not established shipbuilders.
Thanks
I'm most familiar with the Great Lakes and here, the shipyard that built the vessel typically built the reciprocating steam engine that went into her.
The main point stands though that going with this older design of propulsion allowed sailers that hadn't been on the oceans recently to go back to sea with technology they were already trained on and intimately familiar with, while allowing the conservation of the limited industrial capacity for producing equipment like reduction gears to be assigned to vessels where they were most needed (such as warships and fleet oilers in the case of geared steam turbines).
The Badger will depart at 9:30 tomorrow morning for her tow to Sturgeon Bay.
tdmidgetThere is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact.
Then how did they extract it from the Nautilus without partially scrapping her?
54light15Nope, it was called a Wildcat. There's a lot of concept cars in the Sloane museum, such as the Bill Mitchell designed "Silver Arrow" based on a Buick Riviera and other interesting cars.
The first Wildcat wasn't until 1953, and was (and probably still is) almost certainly capable of far more than a piddling 60 mph...
(If I'm not mistaken, that's the Sloan Museum's Wildcat II in the background... note that none of these Buicks has a gun of appreciable size...)
Now, there was a Wildcat in the '40s, and it did have guns, and a radial engine, like the tank destroyer -- but it was made by Grumman and had wings.
http://sloanlongway.org/sloan-museum/collections-of-sloan-longway/automotive-collection/1944-buick-m18-hellcat-tank-destroyer
http://sloanlongway.org/sloan-museum/collections-of-sloan-longway/automotive-collection/1954-buick-wildcat-ii
I coulda sworn she said Wildcat. I guess I stand corrected! And I am familiar with the F3F Wildcat made by Grumman. I think the Hellcat is a nicer looking airplane, though. The later Tigercat and Bearcat were the last flowering of piston-powered Gummans I think unless you include that floatplane with the pusher propellor whose name escapes me.
54light15 ... unless you include that floatplane with the pusher propellor whose name escapes me.
I don't remember a Grumman pusher amphibian. Republic had the Seabee that turned into the Spencer Air Car, and there is the glorious family of Lake amphibians... is it one of those?
Not to say that Grumman didn't have some of the finest small amphibians anywhere. One of them is the basis for the somewhat amazing Turbine Mallard.
Right, the Republic Seabee! Jeez, what was I thinking? My airplane nollij is fading away. Funny, considering I grew up not far from thier plant in Farmingdale, New York and the old man kept his Stinson there.
Here in Canada there are a lot of Lake Amphibians and other floatplanes. Many of the cottages up North have seaplanes tied up outside. More like mansions than cottages, naturally but that's another subject.
Not a pleasure trip for everyone. Truckers save a lot of miles and traffic congestion of the northern Indiana and Chicago by taking the old girl.
For the rest of us, its a pleasure Trip.
Leo_Ames The Badger will depart at 9:30 tomorrow morning for her tow to Sturgeon Bay. tdmidget There is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact. Then how did they extract it from the Nautilus without partially scrapping her?
tdmidget There is NO museum ship with an intact reactor. The Savannah has none but the auxillary boiler is intact.
It was dumped into the ocean as were the other early reactors. The naval shipyard at Mare island spent almost 2 years on the decommissioning and reconstruction as a museum. Decomissioning a nuclear submarine consists foremost of removal of the reactor segment of the hull. Most are stored at the Hanford reservation but the early ones were dumped at sea.
CMStPnP wrote;
Using the S.S. Badger or other ferry across the lake to bypass Chicago would be a bit of a trip with the old C&O line across Michigan gone. Having to go south from Ludington to Grand Rapids to the CSX would likely add enough time to make Chicago as quicker.
Bad fire in Bayship's drydock in the stern of the Alpena, which is docked with the Badger for her 5 year survey also. She's the oldest operating steamer in the American fleet and has been extensively damaged it sounds in her crew accomodations and galley, although her engine room spaces seem to have escaped harm. I think the Badger is fine though.
I hope that she's not a write off or that this leads to her being notched and turned into an ATB. :(
Thought that I'd bump this thread and say that the Badger passed her 5 year with flying colors and is back at her home port. And her drydock companion, the SS Apena, is being rebuilt for continued service as a steam powered freighter after her recent incident in drydock that heavily damaged her aft section.
And happily the Badger has finally received her long sought National Historic Landmark designation.
Ol' Dick in Illinois probably isn't a happy camper today.
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