While I am of the opinion of cutting down on carriers I am not of the opinion of cutting BBs. The reason being we constantly produce CV/CVNs but there are only a handful of BBs and they will never be made again. Honestly I enjoy walking on North Carolina 10 tens more than stepping foot on Yorktown. If you don't want an Iowa class Patriots Point will be more than willing to trade you an Essex. If we could get the CSS Hunley moved over there we would have the best maritime muesem in the country.
I agree with you re this. It's great that Japan has preserved Mikasa so we have an example of a Pre- Dreadnought and I agree with Manfred that Texas needs to be preserved as a reminder of what a WW1 Dreadnought looked like. I think it was a great pity that the last RN battleship, Vanguard, was sent to the scrapyard. I'm glad Belfast was saved but Vanguard would have been more impressive.
Texas doesn't really resemble a WWI Dreadnought after her conversion. Olympia is a great pre-drednought era ship if you ever make it to Philli as it should be a first stop. They really need some funds for this ship, the interior is a mess.
I guess the same would have been true for all the US, British, Italian and Japanese WW1 battleships that survived to fight again in WW2. All were extensively reconstructed between the wars and some of the US ships sunk at Pearl Harbour were totally transformed when rebuilt afterwards. In the case of Texas I imagine that the most striking visual change would have been the replacement of the cage masts that were such a feature of WW1 US battleships, the addition of radar and the increase in light AA weapons.
You know what would have made a great Aussie museum would have been HMAS Melbourne (CV). She was truly a DD killer.This is off topic, but I thought it was interesting to hear about the discovery of the HMAS Australia reported today. Now theres a ship that would have made a great museum, had they thought of such a thing 80 odd years ago!
There were some interesting shots on the news tonight, apparently they may use the same technology to locate the Sydney.
nfloorl:
While however tragic the accident one can still find humor in the coincidence of a truly jinxed ship. Australia's wasn't the only DD she ran over so you have no standing to disparage me. I suggest you quit wasting your time feeling wounded and get over something that happened 40 years ago... your morning period is WAY over.
The comment may have been a bit 'unkind' but it was true. I wonder if any other ship has sunk two destroyers without ever firing a shot or launching an air strike in anger? It was a very low point in the history of the RAN.