StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Hornet on the Cat

Doing the Ditch
I think that is the Belknap following in the distance. As you can see the Suez Canal is not very wide.



Looking at the Sinai side of the Suez Canal.

Mosque at the Gulf of Suez

Arresting Wires of the Saratoga
A pretty good shot the length of the angle deck.

VERY cool. I wounder what the guys in the little barge were thinking.

I like the Hornet on the cat, but thats probably not the best position to be taking a picture of it.

This was Desert Storm, I presume?

(given that the pictures are dated October 1990...)

I'm looking at the images of the canal then i thought Tim Taylor giving more power to the carrier engines......imagine the waves you'll see hitting the beach after that.

Knife wrote:I like the Hornet on the cat, but thats probably not the best position to be taking a picture of it.

Good thing it was only sitting there for show.

The wings are still folded up, and though you can't tell from the photo those are dummy sidewinders on the wingtips.

Also, it should be a give away that the guys next to it are wearing regular covers instead of helmets with hearing protection.

I don't know why they thought this was a good idea. It wasn't like the ship could get enough wind across the deck to launch aircraft while in the Suez but they did it anyway.

Crayz9000 wrote:This was Desert Storm, I presume?

(given that the pictures are dated October 1990...)

I'm not sure I took all of them in October. We went through the canal 4 times while I was on that ship. At least a few of those photos should have been from an earlier tansit (August 1990) but I was either using a different camera or had the date stamp turned off.

Anyway, it was Desert Sheild. Desert Storm didn't start until January when the air attacks on Iraq started.

In case people missed this from Lonestar's thread.

Refueling Crew on the Philipine Sea

It's all fun and games until you have to do some underway refueling.


In the spirint of Lonestar's mystery antenna (that no one is trying to guess) here's a ship that should be identifiable by it's distinct silouhette.

Mystery Ship Silouhette

Hint 1: This picture was taken in Hong Kong 1991 and this ship was decomissioned after this deployment.

you should see the poor Saratoga now.... just sitting and rotting next to the Forrestal at the NUWC in Newport. although, there is a big effort to turn her into a museum ship and move her to the air museum at Quonset NAS.

Tsyroc wrote:In the spirint of Lonestar's mystery antenna (that no one is trying to guess) here's a ship that should be identifiable by it's distinct silouhette.

Mystery Ship Silouhette

Hint 1: This picture was taken in Hong Kong 1991 and this ship was decomissioned after this deployment.

That's one of those funky CGNs isn't it? Or some other Nuke small boy (were there DDGN or anything like that?)

Anyway, a sheer shot in the dark... Long Beach? Or at least in that class? (Doesn't know jack about the ol' Nuke small boys).

Col. Crackpot wrote:you should see the poor Saratoga now.... just sitting and rotting next to the Forrestal at the NUWC in Newport. although, there is a big effort to turn her into a museum ship and move her to the air museum at Quonset NAS.

The Saratoga was pretty much a piece of shit when I was on it as well. It had the latest and greatest electronics but the rest of it was in pretty piss poor shape considering it had just come out of an extended yard period.

My first day on the ship we had sewage backed up all over the floor in the head attached to our berthing area.

RogueIce wrote: That's one of those funky CGNs isn't it? Or some other Nuke small boy (were there DDGN or anything like that?)

Anyway, a sheer shot in the dark... Long Beach? Or at least in that class? (Doesn't know jack about the ol' Nuke small boys).

Good call. It is the Long Beach. The big cube shaped "island" should have been the give away since it was essentially the sister ship to the Enterprise.

From what I've heard it was a good ship to be on but it was decided that it would cost too much to be worth refueling her so she was decommed instead.

Tsyroc wrote:

RogueIce wrote: That's one of those funky CGNs isn't it? Or some other Nuke small boy (were there DDGN or anything like that?)

Anyway, a sheer shot in the dark... Long Beach? Or at least in that class? (Doesn't know jack about the ol' Nuke small boys).

Good call. It is the Long Beach. The big cube shaped "island" should have been the give away since it was essentially the sister ship to the Enterprise.

From what I've heard it was a good ship to be on but it was decided that it would cost too much to be worth refueling her so she was decommed instead.

Like I said, lucky guess. Of course, the only other ones I've heard of are the Bainbridge and the Virginia so I had a one in three shot.

EDIT: *smacks head* And the California too. Man, I knew that one. Ok, so a 25% chance. Whatever.

How many of the things did the Navy have, anyway?

Tsyroc wrote:

Col. Crackpot wrote:you should see the poor Saratoga now.... just sitting and rotting next to the Forrestal at the NUWC in Newport. although, there is a big effort to turn her into a museum ship and move her to the air museum at Quonset NAS.

The Saratoga was pretty much a piece of shit when I was on it as well. It had the latest and greatest electronics but the rest of it was in pretty piss poor shape considering it had just come out of an extended yard period.

My first day on the ship we had sewage backed up all over the floor in the head attached to our berthing area.

she was launched in.... 1954? Thats one old hunk-o-steel built by the lowest bidder. Still, it's pretty neat having them so close by. Orignally the Navy had the Iowa lined up next to them, but she sailed to god knows where a year or two ago.

RogueIce wrote: Like I said, lucky guess. Of course, the only other ones I've heard of are the Bainbridge and the Virginia so I had a one in three shot.

EDIT: *smacks head* And the California too. Man, I knew that one. Ok, so a 25% chance. Whatever.

How many of the things did the Navy have, anyway?

I don't recall how many nuke smallboys we had but the history of them is somewhat interesting. Several of them were reclassified just for the sake of politics. Congress didn't want to pay for a nuke frigate but would pay for a nuke cruiser.

Anyway, I've seen a lot of those nuke cruisers and unlike the Long Beach they were nice looking ships. The Long Beach was just big, as far as ships of that class go.

Tsyroc wrote:

RogueIce wrote: Like I said, lucky guess. Of course, the only other ones I've heard of are the Bainbridge and the Virginia so I had a one in three shot.

EDIT: *smacks head* And the California too. Man, I knew that one. Ok, so a 25% chance. Whatever.

How many of the things did the Navy have, anyway?

I don't recall how many nuke smallboys we had but the history of them is somewhat interesting. Several of them were reclassified just for the sake of politics. Congress didn't want to pay for a nuke frigate but would pay for a nuke cruiser.

Anyway, I've seen a lot of those nuke cruisers and unlike the Long Beach they were nice looking ships. The Long Beach was just big, as far as ships of that class go.

Yeah, I Googled a few up. They looked normal. And then there's the Long Beach herself. She looked like she would tip over in heavy seas and not come back. Probably not true, but that big box just looked...not right.

RogueIce wrote: Yeah, I Googled a few up. They looked normal. And then there's the Long Beach herself. She looked like she would tip over in heavy seas and not come back. Probably not true, but that big box just looked...not right.

The LB had that box for the same reason the Enterprise did. Some early phased array style radar that ended up not working out.

I always thought the LB looked like it would roll easy too.

Tsyroc wrote:

RogueIce wrote:

Tsyroc wrote: Anyway, I've seen a lot of those nuke cruisers and unlike the Long Beach they were nice looking ships. The Long Beach was just big, as far as ships of that class go.

Yeah, I Googled a few up. They looked normal. And then there's the Long Beach herself. She looked like she would tip over in heavy seas and not come back. Probably not true, but that big box just looked...not right.

The LB had that box for the same reason the Enterprise did. Some early phased array style radar that ended up not working out.

Ah. Well, good thing they got better with the Ticos and the ABs then, huh?

Tsyroc wrote:I always thought the LB looked like it would roll easy too.

No shit. It probably was stable enough, I'm sure, but I bet being up in the box during heavy seas was fun.

RogueIce wrote:Ah. Well, good thing they got better with the Ticos and the ABs then, huh?

While the ABs (Destroyers ) look good I thought the cruisers before the Ticos actually looked better. I know VLS is the way to go but I always thought the tracking missile rails were cool looking and cool to watch.

Plus, the Ticos always looked like over inflated Spru-cans to me.

Tsyroc wrote:While the ABs (Destroyers )

I knew that! Though since at least one of 'em went from DLGN to CGN, it still fits. Sort of.

THough really, what difference did it make? Or are you just trying extra hard today?

Tsyroc wrote:...look good I thought the cruisers before the Ticos actually looked better. I know VLS is the way to go but I always thought the tracking missile rails were cool looking and cool to watch.

Plus, the Ticos always looked like over inflated Spru-cans to me.

I like 'em. They just seem to be the very embodiment of kick ass in a small boy. They're just...big. And mean looking.

Of course an Iowa BB or any CVN is also damned impressive, but you work with what you got.

Flashback to the original Navy Propaganda thread.


Golden Gate

Balls to the Walls

Pretty

EW equipment logos.











A what ship would be complete without this maintenance nightmare.

Chaff Launchers Baby (these are loaded)

You may notice the blast shield with the little door in it. The door is so we could sort of get access to the launcher to do maintenance. The blast shield is there to protect the loaders from getting smoked by the Sea Sparrow launcher that is on the other side of that barrier. I think you can just barely see part of the red circle painted on the deck, which denotes the danger area just for the launcher movements.

This is from the port forward sponson on the Saratoga. I think at some point it must have had guns on it because there was a rather large and cool space under the Sea Sparrow where we had to go to cut power to the SRBOC launchers. We had to squeeze down a small circular scuttle (hatch) to get in there.