Re: Damage Control and CVs

On  6-Dec-99 at 22:26, Alan E and Carmel J Brain
(aebrain@dynamite.com.au)
wrote: > Ryan M Gill wrote:
>  
> > Hasn't Forrest Fire^h^h^h^h^h Forestal been ablize twice?
> 
> The only thing that I find amazing is the relative scarcity of
disasters
> aboard CVs.
> 
> Consider this: you're packing several thousand tonnes of high
> explosives,  and more thousand tonnes of highly inflammable jetfuel in
a
> big steel box. Add in either more thousand tonnes of fuel oil, or a
> number of really small nuclear reactors in the same box. Then, instead
> of having "no flames within 100m", have really hot aircraft components
> and large jets of afterburner flame on top. Oh yes, and controlled
> crashes of multi-tonne aircraft coming it at 200 kph or more. For
spice,
> add the near-certainty of at least one aircraft crashing into it every
> year, sometimes many more.

No near certainty, in the 4 years I was on the America the only thing
that crashed on deck was a helo on a milk run (yes, hauling milk) while
we were at anchor in Naples.  The pilot hooked a skid on the railing
because he was hotdogging a bit.  helo flipped forward, blades smacked
the deck and exploded, everyone bailed out and it fell back into the
bay.  Nobody hurt.

I have to agree with everything else you said though.  The image of
the panicced sailor hosing gallons of water into a gaping hole in
the flight deck of the Forest Fire is scary, where I worked on CV66
was where he was dumping the water.  I understand when they recovered
the boddies the data system techs that survived the blast were killed
by the water.

> In any event, I'd say that USN CVs are some of the toughest ships to
> take out by any means. Simply because if they weren't, there'd be far
> fewer of them still afloat after all these years of "peacetime"
hazards.
> It says a lot for the USN's standards of professionalism too.

The reason you hear about these things much less often now is because of
the USN's damage control training.  We stay afloat and steaming when
most of the rest of the world would be treading water.

You know, some of the incoming craft on my FSE carriers probably have
battle damage and everyone complains fighters are too powerful.  Maybe
have any squadron that drew fire roll two dice, on 1-1 one is injured
and makes a crew quality check to avoid crashing and doing 1d6 damage?

Roger (mixing games, I know)