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Three carriers (USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Kitty Hawk, USS Ronald Reagan), what looks like eleven other assorted surface ships, sixteen fighter jets in flight, a lone helicopter, and to top it all off a B-2 bomber.

Picture taken as part of "Operation Valient Shield".

The photo was posted at Something Awful by a crewman on a tanker in that lineup, and says the whole naval lineup took several hours to put together....

It took several hours to get everyone lined up. We started with the center ships steaming in a line, then the two outside columns pulled up on either side and then closed to about 500 yds. To be honest it was a pain in the ass staying in position, as some navy ships seem to be unaware that a tanker cant stop as fast as a Frigate.

Other photos:

Wow, stunning.

Now to see them all fire.

It's entirely Navy except for the B-2. Weird.

Beowulf wrote:It's entirely Navy except for the B-2. Weird.

And the Eagles and Vipers.


That formation had to have been a bitch to put together.

Wicked Pilot wrote:

Beowulf wrote:It's entirely Navy except for the B-2. Weird.

And the Eagles and Vipers.


That formation had to have been a bitch to put together.

*wipes egg off face*

In my defense, you can't see the Eagles and Vipers in the small pics.

there's achopper out of formation

In navy showoff stuff, they've always got the carriers/battleships at the front. But they're big enough to be easily visible at the back, and then they wouldn't obscure the escorts. How come?

PS, very cool. The world needs at least one super navy, and you guys are definately it.

Some day, aliens - probably in the form of marauding Communist Space Bears - will come to Earth and challenge humanity to a grand naval battle of epic, supreme proportions.

When that day comes we will be prepared.

Ya looks great but the B-2 seems so out of place.

As for the aliens. Hell they could just sit up around our satallites, 70,000+ and we wont even see the destruction coming.

That makes five new wallpapers. Honestly, this is one of the most beautiful set of photos I've seen in a while.

Arrow wrote:That makes five new wallpapers.

Indeed. I've made a more centralized version of the first one, with the Lincoln right on the edge of the picture, like the Reagan is, and add a little bit more of sky over the B-2, to make it more Mac friendly, so the Finder menu bar doesn't cover the bomber. If anyone wants it, here ya go, close of the original size (4133x2687, 1.2 MB .JPEG file).

munky99999 wrote:Ya looks great but the B-2 seems so out of place.

As for the aliens. Hell they could just sit up around our satallites, 70,000+ and we wont even see the destruction coming.

That is not the Ursine way, friend. The Space Bear is a cruel and vicious beast, but he will never turn his back on honorable battle for the coward's way of orbital bombardment.

Edit: also, awesome pics. What's the total cost of all that gear? $30gigabucksish?

munky99999 wrote:As for the aliens. Hell they could just sit up around our satallites, 70,000+ and we wont even see the destruction coming.

That's Anubis, not the space bear.

Excellent. Big targets for our stealth subs.

Sriad wrote: Edit: also, awesome pics. What's the total cost of all that gear? $30gigabucksish?

Including all the planes that you can see on deck, probably upwards of $25 billion! My pounds/dollar conversion might be a bit off though.

That chopper out of formation is probably a SAR chopper in case one of the planes went down.

At least one of the F/A-18s is painted up in the colors of the Jolly Rogers.

Also, I didn't know that the Reagan had an extended island. I kept looking for the SPS-49 mast and then noticed that the radar is there but on top of a portion of the island but still in the same location as other Nimitz class carriers. I'm currious if there's actually more usable inclosed space or if it is a narrow strip that mostly just stretches to surround the mast. The main mast is also squared off instead of round (not the Abe in the background).

Nice to see that apparently all three ships have shit canned the WLR-1H or they went for the all in one piece of crap but less maintenance intensive antenna.

It needs a few battleships.

Beautiful formation, but incredibly unwieldy and impractical from both an offensive and defensive standpoint. The carriers' air traffic will be Hell to coordinate to avoid crashes, and all it takes is one dipshit with a nuclear Sunburn missile to trash half the fleet!

Oh well, at least they'll be able to scratch each others' backs with their Bushmasters if some hajji tries to do a USS Cole on somebody

As stunning as those picture are, my tax dollars ask that the ships be painted white with buff topsides as the crowning touch. Spirit of '07, and all that.

The only problem with any of those pictures are the stunningly tacky huge American flags on the DDG-51s. Blech.

Vympel wrote:The only problem with any of those pictures are the stunningly tacky huge American flags on the DDG-51s. Blech.

They don't call it "showing the flag" for no reason ya know...

Don't ships traditionally have super-sized versions of their nations flags? Like, battle ensigns and things?

Stark wrote:Don't ships traditionally have super-sized versions of their nations flags? Like, battle ensigns and things?

"Holiday Ensigns".

One of the carriers appears to be flying two US flags: does that mean it's in charge?

Stark wrote:One of the carriers appears to be flying two US flags: does that mean it's in charge?

That's the Kitty Hawk, which gets to fly a full size Navy Jack ("Don't Tread on Me") Becuase it's the oldest active commissioned USN warship.