HMS EAGLE in the Falklands
- Thread starter flasheart
- Start date
Right.
The other ships saved for museums in this period - Texas in 1948, and Massachusetts, Alabama, and North Carolina in the early 60's - seem to have had the advantage of being, well named after states, and more particularly states with coastal ports in which to stick them. I think only Massachusetts was a strictly private initiative. The other efforts seem to have been led by state legislatures.
Perhaps Enterprise's fatal disability is that she wasn't named after a coastal state.
Buccaneers Raison d'etre was to take on the new class of Russian heavy cruiser - the Sverdlov of which 30 were planned and whose expected armour range and armament would create a capability gap in the the then future US, British and French Navies given a lack of planned cruisers and the then no 24 hour and all weather capable carrier based strike aircraft.
So I would imagine that its ability to attack a then modern Cruiser would make allow it to attack a 1930s design of warship.
Oh, I have no question that if Eagle hurls its full complement of Buccs at the Kido Butai, it's going to end with a whole lot of IJN tonnage moving into new quarters in Dave Jones Locker.
I'm just unsure of what Buccs on Eagle in 1967 would have shipped for ordnance in the strike package.
SsgtC
Banned
Did the UK buy any Walleyes from the US? If they did, they could have some 2,000 lb TV guided glide bombs
Red Beard was the standard weapon (Green Cheese having been abandoned). It's too early for Martel so they would otherwise have been dropping free-fall iron bombs.
From what I've read there wasn't a major problem with the engine for any of the other users - the problem was British cost cutting meant tanks were barely being used to they were sitting in hangars with seals drying out allowing leaks and leading to further problems. Apparently other nations that occasionally drove their tanks more than five or six miles a month didn't have the same problems.
S
Seriously? Eagle's plans carried out legitmate miltary operations to defend territory after an illegal invasion in no way was anything it (or the OTL task force) did a war crime.
Hard to say, the usual excuse was she was a real mess at the end of the war, but other ships had been worked half to death and they were preserved...
Hmmm I don't know about that she had just finished a three month long refit to repair her damage at the Pudget Sound Naval Yard when the war ended, in fairness she before said refit she hadn't been farther east than Pearl Harbor for well over a year and a half. And then she spent over a decade in the inactive reserve fleet which did nothing to maintain her looks or material condition
The usual explaination is that (much like the UK's Nelson's) she ended up carrying most of the burden alone for a very long time, pretty much until the Essex class entered service and was badly worn out by the end of the war, not sure how accurate that is but its an excuse. Added into that she'd been sitting tied up for over a decade and might have been a bit over shadowed by ships that had actually been in service. Then once CV-65 came into service people finally realised that "Opps we scraped the CV-6."
And even worse they didn't save the mast(and maybe the Island I can't recall) like the navy was promised by the scrap yard. If I recall the plan was to put them at the navy academy.The biggest piece of her left is the stern Nameplate. As for the excuse given it makes little sense she was given a major refit during the war and she also spent her fair share of yardtime getting her damage permanently repaired, plus she was over a decade younger than the Nelsons and spent 2 years less than them at war. Plus I hardly call four months a long time holding the line alone
SsgtC
Banned
She may have spent less time at war than they did, but she also had a generally much harder war than they did. Including taking significantly more damage and spending more time engaged in actual combat operations
Very true, the Nelson's problem was overwork before the war and deferred work during it (Rodney had a concreted bow for over a year, only got one refit and did the distance to the Moon without a major overhaul during the rest of her service). The only really major action though was Bismarck and there Rodney was dealing with a ship already damaged by aircraft. In contrast Enterprise took part in pretty much every major action of the first two years of the war and didn't escape completly unscathed.
That said they could probably have kept her afloat as a museum for a while longer but then I guess the issue of finding a big enough drydock you don't need becomes the problem?
an attack on ships of a nation you are at peace with
while they are in international waters (miles from your territory)
with no warning and without a declaration of war
murdering thousands because of something you think they might be doing
Nuremberg hung men for less ...
and that's without taking into account the first use of weapons of mass destruction
on a nation without them!
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SsgtC
Banned
Act of war, not murder. Also, there is no might be doing. They were very well aware of exactly what those ships were doing. Even without hindsight, there is no other logical explanation for what those ships were doing at that time in that place. Not to mention the attacks spanning half the globe that began less than 48 hours later giving ample proof of their intentions.
No such thing at the time. In the 40s and up through the 50s, nuclear weapons didn't have the taboo surrounding their use that they do today. At that point, they were just a really big bomb.