Get Shot in Head, Get Ship Named After You!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Even when you subtract his treason from his contributions, Benedict Arnold did more for the US than Giffords did.

[Jedi Commisar]

Personaly I don't see the problem sooner or later we are going to run out of ship names

[Lonestar]

Personaly I don't see the problem sooner or later we are going to run out of ship names

What? Seriously? Are you fucking stupid?

One of the big complaints people have over this kind of thing is that there are literally dozens of names out there one could have used before going overtly political. It isn't like there's a shortage of cities, counties, rivers, or mountains in the US.

[Captain Seafort]

One of the big complaints people have over this kind of thing is that there are literally dozens of names out there one could have used before going overtly political. It isn't like there's a shortage of cities, counties, rivers, or mountains in the US.

Plus, if you wanted to stick to names of individuals for smaller vessels then I very much doubt the US Navy is going to exceed three and a half thousand ships any time soon - use those names up first.

[Mr Bean]

Not to mention Naval tradition, ships that go down fighting get a new ship. Tradition says if you get a ship that does something awesome and goes down swinging you don't toss the name away forever, instead the next biggest baddest ship gets marked down as that ship. It's a pride and navy superstition thing to carry over names even if the class is different. We've had multiple Tenseness for example, multiple Ohios, several Truxtun's. You'll find tiny little musems on those ships about the ships that came before bearing that name.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, the biggest travesty to me is that we've never named a ship after Gambier Bay, who took on the entire Combined Fleet and went down fighting when she was basically a merchant tanker with a wooden deck slapped on top and a load of avgas and bombs with a single 5in/51.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

Have we ever yet had a single US Navy warship named after a politician actually go down fighting heroically that way? I can't think of any.

The corner of my brain prone to superstition wonders if that isn't a coincidence...

More seriously, I might just be wrong.

[Mr Bean]

Hm.

Have we ever yet had a single US Navy warship named after a politician actually go down fighting heroically that way? I can't think of any.

Politicians did not start getting larges numbers of ships named after them until after WWII, there were some but before WWII ship naming was less about Congress and more about the War department and what the Admirals wanted.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, you're right.

I get the feeling, though, that it is... bad for the martial virtues if your military stops memorializing brave soldiers and battles and heroic fights against the odds, and starts memorializing unremarkable presidents.

[Sea Skimmer]

Worth considering that the US destroyer escort force in WW2 alone was larger by about 30% then the entire modern US Navy, and every single one as far as I can tell was named for navy men killed in action or awarded medals for valor, often both.

Everything sunk in action in the US Navy since WW2 has been a minesweeper or a tug, including USS Pirate!!! and all of them struck mines in Korea. The closest a major warship has come to sinking was USS Samuel B. Roberts after she was mined by Iran, disabled and set ablaze. She was named for a navy coxswain awarded the navy cross for his action on Guadalcanal when he was morally wounded while using his landing craft to deliberately decoy Japanese fire so a group of marines could be saved. Excellent damage control saved the ship.

[Elfdart]

I don't understand. Why is honoring a politician who survived a bullet to the head so objectionable a candidate to name a ship after? Surely the Navy should be happy to honor someone who was shot and despite that still goes on to continue doing what she did without fear? Is there some kind of unwritten rule that ship names can only be allowed to be used to exalt the military?

I think USS Mary Jo Buttafuoco has a nice ring to it.

[Captain Seafort]

Not to mention Naval tradition, ships that go down fighting get a new ship. Tradition says if you get a ship that does something awesome and goes down swinging you don't toss the name away forever, instead the next biggest baddest ship gets marked down as that ship. It's a pride and navy superstition thing to carry over names even if the class is different.

The downside to that approach is that it can be seen as tempting fate if you do it too often in too short a space of time. Take HMS Ardent for example - there were three of them during the 20th century and they were all lost in action.

[PeZook]

The downside to that approach is that it can be seen as tempting fate if you do it too often in too short a space of time. Take HMS Ardent for example - there were three of them during the 20th century and they were all lost in action.

That's only likely to happen if the stories of each loss aren't badass

[Flagg]

They are naming a new class of nuclear aircraft carrier after Gerald fucking Ford. I don't see the problem with naming a much smaller ship after Giffords.

[Patroklos]

You can actually step a bit further back, as the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt was named and commissioned shortly after he died (and why we don't have a new USS FDR, or any talk on a new one, I will purely blame on neo-cons).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Roosevelt_%28DDG-80%29

Active and kicking.

Something to note on the cruiser naming convention change. There was a time when the Navy stopped building large gun cruisers and did not immediately replace them with a modern equivalent. What we know as "CGs" today were actually many times called destroyers/frigates in the sixties and seventies based on the drastic decrease in tonnage between an old armored gun cruiser and the much lighter modern missile ships. There were exceptions like the Truxton-class (also a naming convention break), but there were far less new ships designated as cruisers.

In the late seventies we began to reclassify vessels such as the California-class as cruisers. So, at the time of the design and budgeting of the 688s there really was no successor to the cruiser naming convention. I am sure it was for influence purposes as well, but the lack of cruisers made it a target of opportunity for Rickover.

[HMS Conqueror]

This is a symptom of a wider trend. The US is the pre-eminent and arguably the only naval power in the world, and its ship names are almost uniformly terrible. Only the absence of a major war has prevented them from becoming a serious blight on history. Yes naming a ship after a no-name congresswoman for being shot by a crazy person is silly, but look at the aircraft carriers: "USS Gerald Ford" will soon be the most powerful ship in the world, and what of "USS John C Stennis"(!), another 100,000 aircraft carrier? I also find that the ships named after individual enlisted men who have won medals, while far less morally offensive, often sound equally silly ("USS The Sullivans"). There's also something a little mawkish about it that I can't quite describe, in the same way as the many of the 9/11 memorials come across as sentimental theatre.

These would be my general principles for naming ships if I were in a position to do so:

1. The purpose of a ship name is to inspire confidence in its crew, awe in foreign powers, and fear in the enemy. 'HMS Dreadnought' achieves this; 'USS The Sullivans' does not.

2. A ship name should also aim to tie the ship to the broad historical continuity of the country it is from and to that country's naval tradition. Older names are to be preferred, as are names of victorious battles and military leaders of great merit. Place names are often just as good, however.

3. Ships should not as a general rule be named after people. People are fallible and contentious, and rarely noteworthy on a world-historical scale. They also often have silly names. To decide if there is an exception to this, ask yourself these two questions: would a lot of people attend this person's funeral? Would a lot of people picket this person's funeral?

4. Ships should certainly not be named after politicians. This can very rarely be broken, but by that I mean once in a century. Winston Churchill is exceptional; even FDR is borderline, and he has more claim to it than any other US President since Washington.

5. If a ship has to be named after a person, use the surname only. If it is not obvious who the person is or why a ship is being named after them from just the surname, choose a different name.

6. Considering smaller ships, that would otherwise have only letters and numbers, the above rules can be somewhat relaxed. In fact I would be quite happy if the USN named all of its minesweepers after a succession of Presidents!

[Captain Seafort]

The downside to that approach is that it can be seen as tempting fate if you do it too often in too short a space of time. Take HMS Ardent for example - there were three of them during the 20th century and they were all lost in action.

That's only likely to happen if the stories of each loss aren't badass

Badass or not (which they emphatically are), the Ardent doesn't exactly have a good recent record of bringing her crew home safe and sound. I suspect that's why there isn't an Ardent among the Astutes.

[Captain Seafort]

4. Ships should certainly not be named after politicians. This can very rarely be broken, but by that I mean once in a century. Winston Churchill is exceptional; even FDR is borderline, and he has more claim to it than any other US President since Washington.

Lincoln? Grant (albeit not for his presidency)? Teddy Roosevelt?

[HMS Conqueror]

4. Ships should certainly not be named after politicians. This can very rarely be broken, but by that I mean once in a century. Winston Churchill is exceptional; even FDR is borderline, and he has more claim to it than any other US President since Washington.

Lincoln? Grant (albeit not for his presidency)? Teddy Roosevelt?

Lincoln was a comparable war leader to Churchill, but the war he fought was against other Americans. Not really something you want to draw attention to. It's debatable I suppose, but I'd err against, just like the 'HMS Cromwell' discussed on previous pages.

Grant could, but on account of being a military commander, not a President, like you say.

Aside from being pretty cool, what exactly did Teddy Roosevelt do?

[Captain Seafort]

Lincoln was a comparable war leader to Churchill, but the war he fought was against other Americans. Not really something you want to draw attention to. It's debatable I suppose, but I'd err against, just like the 'HMS Cromwell' discussed on previous pages.

Why? He was an effective political leader during the worst war the US had fought up to that time. The US equivalent of HMS Oliver Cromwell would be the USS Benedict Arnold, the USS Jefferson Davis or the USS Lee Harvey Oswald. Preferably all three.

Aside from being pretty cool, what exactly did Teddy Roosevelt do?

Do you need any more reasons? If the answer to that is yes, then does creating the modern US Navy count?

[That NOS Guy]

Aside from being pretty cool, what exactly did Teddy Roosevelt do?

Great White Fleet, one of the watershed moments of USN history. Also assistant secretary of the Navy.

[HMS Conqueror]

Lincoln was a comparable war leader to Churchill, but the war he fought was against other Americans. Not really something you want to draw attention to. It's debatable I suppose, but I'd err against, just like the 'HMS Cromwell' discussed on previous pages.

Why? He was an effective political leader during the worst war the US had fought up to that time. The US equivalent of HMS Oliver Cromwell would be the USS Benedict Arnold, the USS Jefferson Davis or the USS Lee Harvey Oswald. Preferably all three.

idk if people today really view Charles I as the "good guy". I certainly wouldn't view Cromwell as a secessionist or a traitor. He is comparable to George Washington more than any of those. The reason Cromwell isn't a good idea to name a ship after is because he killed a lot of British people, regardless whether he was right or wrong. The same is true for Lincoln. That's just my opinion, anyway. I don't expect to persuade you.

Aside from being pretty cool, what exactly did Teddy Roosevelt do?

Do you need any more reasons? If the answer to that is yes, then does creating the modern US Navy count?

Great White Fleet, one of the watershed moments of USN history. Also assistant secretary of the Navy.

The idea is to move away from naming after "Congresscritters" who just happened to be warming the right seat when the cheques needed to be signed.

Roosevelt was really cool, though, so I wouldn't find it as offensive as most of these names. If it were the worst of them, it wouldn't be worth complaining about.

[Simon_Jester]

Lincoln was a comparable war leader to Churchill, but the war he fought was against other Americans. Not really something you want to draw attention to. It's debatable I suppose, but I'd err against, just like the 'HMS Cromwell' discussed on previous pages.

Many if not most Americans would disagree, noting his role as a liberator of slaves.

Aside from being pretty cool, what exactly did Teddy Roosevelt do?

TR really did a lot to supervise the transitional period of America from a 19th century state with a small military and an inward-looking focus on its own frontier colonization... into something that could actually hold its head up as a power among powers on the international stage. In addition, his life and character personify a number of what might be called "martial virtues," to a degree that cannot be said of many American historical figures.

I forget, what's your angle on American history? Are you viewing it from the inside or the outside?

[evilsoup]

Well 'HMS' stand for 'Her Majesty's Ship', so I don't think you could really put Oliver Cromwell in there, considering the thing he's most known for in England is cutting off a king's head. Also it would piss off the Irish so much.

[HMS Conqueror]

Lincoln was a comparable war leader to Churchill, but the war he fought was against other Americans. Not really something you want to draw attention to. It's debatable I suppose, but I'd err against, just like the 'HMS Cromwell' discussed on previous pages.

Many if not most Americans would disagree, noting his role as a liberator of slaves.

That isn't contradictory to any of the things I said. Cromwell ended monarchical absolutism, which pretty much everyone now disapproves of, but civil wars are not easy to be triumphalist about, at least not when you're dealing with foreigners.

Aside from being pretty cool, what exactly did Teddy Roosevelt do?

TR really did a lot to supervise the transitional period of America from a 19th century state with a small military and an inward-looking focus on its own frontier colonization... into something that could actually hold its head up as a power among powers on the international stage. In addition, his life and character personify a number of what might be called "martial virtues," to a degree that cannot be said of many American historical figures.

I forget, what's your angle on American history? Are you viewing it from the inside or the outside?

idk, I feel like that job was done by all the immigrants who gave US twice the population of a typical European great power. Roosevelt was the man who happened to be sitting there when the cheques were put in front of him. I do agree about his life and character, which makes him fairly suitable.

I am British, but I do like the Americans (within reason).