The Military Thread

Per Pool: "the president responded to shouted questions about today's collision of the USS John S. McCain: 'That's too bad,' he said."

Our CINC, ya'll!

Honestly, with the previous collision being such a big deal recently, you'd expect other crews to be on their fucking A game avoiding this kind of stuff, if only due to it being a wake-up call for folks to get their shit together.

CNN is reporting 10 personnel missing on the Destroyer, no word about the other ship's condition.

Which of course makes Trump's response all the more callous.

Part of me wonders if it's because the ship involved was named after Mc Cain and the other ship was from an African country.

edited 20th Aug '17 7:30:04 PM by M84

Apparently the Destroyer lost control before the collision.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/uss-john-s-mccain-collision/index.html

The ten sailors are still missing, and its been long enough that I doubt that this will have a good ending.

NPR is reporting that they've found bodies in the sealed off compartments.

If I wasnt on my phone I'd post the article.

Is there a USS Conan? Because this sentence is hilarious out of context.

Heh, "Destroyer" is a type of warship. Once upon a time, they were mostly skirmishers and escorts, nowadays they are cruisers in all but name. That said, US destroyers are typically named for deceased servicemen (the USS John S. McCain was named for a father and son both named John McCain, both of whom served as naval officers, but neither of which is currently a Senator from Arizona (the first was a Admiral in WWII, the second, his son, an Admiral in Vietnam, and the Senator is the grandson).

Other naming conventions include Cruisers (now rather rare) being named for cities, Attack Subs named for cities and Missile Subs for states, Aircraft Carriers seemingly being named after whatever or whoever, and in the old days battleships and in much older days armored cruisers would take their names from states. A few individual ships would get weird one-off names for various reasons (like USS Vesuvius, which used a trio of pneumatic guns to launch nitroglycerin projectiles).

But no, as far as I know, no USS Conan.

edited 22nd Aug '17 7:21:21 PM by AFP

I've always been partial to the British naming conventions, i.e.: pure hubris. If you are going to create a warmachine, why not name her Dauntless or Invincible.

Because they always sink.

HMS Invincible? Well after a few torpedoes, not so much.

Yeah, giving a ship names like that is just asking for someone to sink it.

Still beats naming two of the most powerful warships in the world after dedicated segregationists. Seriously, I don't care what decade it was or what they did for the navy, naming anything after John C. Stennis or Carl Vinson was not a cool move.

edited 22nd Aug '17 11:40:40 PM by Balmung

Wasn't Invincible sunk three times during the Falklands just because the Argentinean media kept playing the Blatant Lies card?

Just once Iwant to see a warship named after one of the Culture ships.

Who wouldn't want to serve on the USS Meatfucker.

Pious Good Old Boy types?

I've always been a fan of thematic naming, the nuclear fleet submarine named HMS Ambush just seems so appropriate.

Also I don't think that the Invincible's have that bad a track record, despite the naming.

One day, I hope for an HMS Hybrid: wear you jury-rigged status on your sleeve!

I always thought the best thematic ship names were USS Wasp and USS Hornet. Aircraft carriers, which primarily attack by launching swarms of small fliers, named for small and deadly flying swarmers. We should have named more ships that way, USS Yellow Jacket, USS Oh God Its In The Car, and USS Africanized Honey Bee.

Somewhere someone made the wry observation that the US Navy saw the wisdom to name a destroyer after Admiral Isaac Kidd, who was killed when USS Arizona got blown up by Japanese bombers. Somewhat fittingly, USS Kidd featured a substantially improved Anti-Air suite than her predecessors.

Also: Fun game: Take names of British warships, and see if you could name Imperial Star Destroyers for them.

edited 23rd Aug '17 6:56:04 AM by AFP

If you go through the Legends section of Wookieepedia, I'm sure you'll find some overlap already.

USS Forrestal fire is the best one.

But the USN really dropped the ball with Destroyers named Ponce and Gabby.

Ok yeah you are right I mean some of these names just scream British Battleships. Empire for empire I guess

Some examples from Star Wars, just imperial class Star Destroyers...

Adjudicator Agonizer Annihilator Behemoth Belligerent Conqueror Courageous Decisive Defiant Desolator Dominator Eliminator Engager Eradicator Firestorm Foremost Fury Gauntlet Impenetrable Imperator Implacable Indomitable Inflexible Inflictor Interrogator Invincible Judicator Malignant Mauler Maximum Motivator Nemesis Obliterator Peerless Perilous Predator Punisher Resolute Retribution Ruthless Stalwart Steadfast Subjugator Superior Tormentor Tyrant Ultimatum Undauntable Unrepentant Valorous Vanguard Vanquish Vendetta Vengeance Vigilance Warrior Wasp Whirlwind

edited 23rd Aug '17 9:26:32 AM by Memers

...Or.

My favorite carrier naming theme was really patriotic names like America, Constellation (named for the field of stars on the flag), United States (okay, so we never actually built a carrier with that name because the first was scrapped instead of being converted like Lexington and Saratoga, the second was cancelled before even serious design work began, and the third was renamed Harry S. Truman before completion), Freedom, Independence, Liberty'' and so on.

Or I still think naming them after states after we stopped building battleships would have been nice. After all, names of states seem appropriate for ~5 acres of floating sovereign US soil. Certainly moreso than for submarines.

Since we already have a USS America on active duty (an LHA, roughly analogous to an old escort carrier), a USS United States would just be confusing anyways.

The Texas Navy, during it's brief time in service, included appropriately patriotic names like Independence (which, ironically, was captured by the Mexicans on the Brazos River and pressed into Mexican service. They didn't even change the name.)

Changing the naming scheme for subs to reflect those of cruisers and battleships is kind of fitting given that both types of ships have fallen out of vogue, leaving the names available, and also reflecting the strategic importance of both types of ships. What with being able to launch Harpoon missiles now, it's not like an attack submarine is anything less than a submersible cruiser in terms of capability.

I mean, they lack Anti-Air, but by design they don't need Anti-Air.

edited 23rd Aug '17 10:29:14 AM by AFP

The United States as a ship name was way WAY too much lol, America was bad enough.

I always liked the unique sounding famous land battle names or historical ship names, Yorktown, Saratoga, Ticonderoga. The Enterprise wins as my personal fav though... for many reasons.

Ships named after ocean battles which take their location as a names like 'Coral Sea' and 'Philippine Sea' though still confuses the hell out of me as to why.

edited 23rd Aug '17 10:30:02 AM by Memers