Cold-War Era Naval Vessels Up For Grabs

mcleland lets us in on a Wall Street Journal story about two cold-war era, formerly top-secret vessels the US Navy is trying to give away. At issue are the Sea Shadow (the ancestor of all modern naval radar-evading technology) and the Hughes Mining Barge (a floating dry-dock and more-or-less base for the Sea Shadow). While the ships are being 'given away,' there are multiple regulations involved, making the gift a very costly one. "A Naval Museum is 'a bloodthirsty, paper-work ridden, permit-infested, money-sucking hole,' warns the Historic Naval Ships Association. Because the Navy won't pay for anything — not rust-scraping or curating — to keep museums afloat, survival depends on big crowds."

Comments

Sea Shadow would be ultimate party boat

[HangingChad]

Rough water stabilized, diesel electric propulsion and radar stealthy. Me likely. I want to live on it. Too bad it would probably cost a fortune to move and retrofit. The ultimate party boat, though it would be a little tough to fish off the back.

And you could always fit it with missiles and have endless fun making the great navies of the world think they were shooting at one another.

Re:Floating base!

[AKAImBatman]

If all you need is a hull that floats, there are a lot cheaper ways of getting one than acquiring Navy hardware. Check out the standard crew complement of just about any naval vessel sometime and you'll come to understand that these are overly complicated beasts that are not designed for civilian use.

(As an aside, a few non-superpowers tried to float aircraft carriers after WWII. They proved to be so expensive to operate, that most were decommissioned.)

Re:Batleships for sale too

[tekrat]

In all seriousness, where are those $15 jeeps?

I'd buy a dozen right now at that price. I've never been able to locate any of that stuff at a reasonable price, only via "army/navy" resellers who jack up the price 1000% so they can make a healthy profit.

Even "Cheaperthandirt" isn't all that cheap.

Re:That bad, eh?

[LWATCDR]

I have never heard of most of these stories. The Navy did allow the recovery of at least one F4F in the Great Lakes. They do protect war graves but that should be understandable.
As far as dealing with museums and ships well think about it. Ships tend to be large complex steel machines that sit in saltwater. Just not a good mix. They often full of nasty chemicals and fuel. And some of them are very very large.
The Navy give these multimillion dollar machines away making them safe and clean is up to the people that get them.
Setting up a floating museum is very expensive.

Re:That bad, eh?

[PopeRatzo]

They do protect war graves but that should be understandable.

Not when you're "protecting" those graves from the families of those KIA.

Look it up if you don't believe me.

Re:An Introduction to Anal Masturbation

[Kagura]

Metamod yesterday (the first time I've metamodded in a long time) asked me to give a thumbs up/thumbs down to COMMENTS themselves. Not moderations of comments, it was actually asking me to decide whether the comment was good or not. I know this because 1) It told me flat out to vote whether the comment is good or not, and 2) only ONE of the comments I thumbed up or down had any type of moderation on it! The rest were just Score: 1 comments.

What in the hell happened to the old metamod system?

Re:That bad, eh?

[LWATCDR]

Well that really depends on the ship. Even some pretty old ships have secrets even to this day. Others like the New Jersey class still might have military value. I would love to see more ships make it to museums. Way to many are just sunk. The original Enterprise and the Saratoga CV3 both should have been preserved. I would have loved to walk on their decks. Even now the US has sunk most of the Spruance class and gave the rest to allies. Ships are big and expensive to keep around the Navy doesn't want to pay to keep them around and it is hard to find enough public interest to fund them. Airplanes and even tanks are much cheaper to stick in a building and put velvet ropes around than a ship.