Ghosts

[shatto]

"The National Defense Reserve Fleet" USS Iowa (BB-61) at the far right.

(NDRF ships at Suisun Bay, California (USA).The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) consists of "mothballed" ships, mostly merchant vessels, that can be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide shipping for the United States of America during national emergencies, either military or non-military, such as commercial shipping crises.) The problem is there are no WW II sailors left to run them.

[GasSavers_GasUser]

Originally Posted by shatto

"The National Defense Reserve Fleet" USS Iowa (BB-61) at the far right.

(NDRF ships at Suisun Bay, California (USA).The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) consists of "mothballed" ships, mostly merchant vessels, that can be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide shipping for the United States of America during national emergencies, either military or non-military, such as commercial shipping crises.) The problem is there are no WW II sailors left to run them.

Yeah, no computer controls on those old WWII era suckers. I suppose they would take a lot of mods and $$$ to modernize them.

[shatto]

Originally Posted by GasUser

Yeah, no computer controls on those old WWII era suckers. I suppose they would take a lot of mods and $$$ to modernize them.

Read about the Iowa.

[GasSavers_GasUser]

Originally Posted by shatto

Read about the Iowa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_(BB-61)


interesting

[FrugalFloyd]

The sad story about the mothball fleet, is that AFAIK, NO ships from the fleet were re-activated during the first or second Gulf Wars, or for the Afghanistan invasion. The mothball fleet is nothing but a money pit and toxic waste dump, poisoning Suisun and San Francisco Bays with tons of lead-based paint peeling into the bay each year.

[Wyldesoul]

Originally Posted by SentraSE-R

The sad story about the mothball fleet, is that AFAIK, NO ships from the fleet were re-activated during the first or second Gulf Wars, or for the Afghanistan invasion.

Er.. Yes. Of course they didn't reactivate them.

What navy did Iraq have?

What navy does Afghanistan have?

They're both landlocked nations, there is no reason that we would need a navy to fight them, or at least a navy more than what we have active currently.

[bowtieguy]

^^^

[FrugalFloyd]

You can't be serious. You're seriously claiming Iraq is a landlocked nation? Doh, and the Persian Gulf isn't a body of water connected to the Indian Ocean, and the ports of Basra and Umm Qasr aren't part of Iraq?

During Desert Storm, our air attacks on Iraq were launched from 1) Saudi Arabia and 2) from the six coalition naval battle groups, including the US aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Independence and their escorts.

Decoy air attacks and naval bombardment the night before the liberation of Kuwait were an integral part of coalition strategy.

Ditto Gulf War II. When Dubya strutted his "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner 20 months into the second Iraq War, it was on the returning aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. If the US Navy hasn't needed supply ships, hospital ships, or other naval support from our mothball fleet after nine years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, why are we taxpayers paying to maintain that white elephant?

If the US Navy isn't needed to support the Afghan war, then why did the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group replace the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group Jan 25 of this year "to support any requirement for troops on the ground in Afghanistan and execute the U.S. Maritime Strategy in the region?"

[FrugalFloyd]

Originally Posted by Biffmeistro

What navy did Iraq have?

Well, for a "landlocked nation," they must have had them on wheels, but we claimed to have sunk 19 Iraqi naval vessels, damaged another 6, and destroyed a total of 100 Iraqi ships in the first Gulf War. Of course, a number of them were probably fishing boats. But Iraq never needed a navy to protect oil tankers or freighters entering Iraqi waters, if it's a landlocked nation that never had any conflicts with Persian Gulf neighbors, like Iran. Doh.

[Wyldesoul]

First off, both Basra and Umm Qasr are RIVER PORTS, not ocean ports. Yes, the Euphrates empties into the gulf, but they don't have a deep water port that can support capital ships. Not a navy worth mentioning in the way of world powers.


That really doesn't say much for Iraq's "navy". A weak and pathetic excuse for one, primarily consisting of glorified Patrol boats and cargo ships. So yes, they had a navy. so, in the sinking of 19 of their ships, did we suffer any damage? Other than the Cole, that is. (Not by Iraq, mind you)

We have the same thing, it's nicknamed the "Brown water navy" or "Riverine squadrens".

Are you honestly saying that the navy we have active was going to be strained by trying to handle Iraq's navy?


Do you want to know why the mothball navy is maintained?


China has a VERY large navy.

N Korea is building up a large navy.

Iran has a significant navy.

There are many nations that are "potential" threats to us in the next twenty years that have a real navy.

It's cheaper to maintain them than it would be to build them if needed. I mean, honestly. Numbers that I've found figure a mere 1-5 million a year for that. Not much in the grand scheme of things. Especially compared to having to rebuild merely one of them.

Mostly, my point is, we didn't need them because we haven't faced a foe with a navy since the cold war. We haven't actively faced a navy since WWII. That is not to say we won't face a foe with a navy in the future.