HMS EAGLE in the Falklands
- Thread starter flasheart
- Start date
Reminds me of that bit in Red Storm Rising where the RN ask their USN counterparts ‘What the devil’s a ‘Reuben James’
The USN figured out real damn fast that it's very hard for politicians to cancel a ship named after a city in their state or after their state.
Even harder to cancel one named after a favorite member of their own party. It's gotten so ridiculous they are naming them after people who are still alive.
Even harder to cancel one named after a favorite member of their own party. It's gotten so ridiculous they are naming them after people who are still alive.
With the reply "at least we don't name ships after our Mothers in Law" - the RN ship was HMS Battleaxe.Reminds me of that bit in Red Storm Rising where the RN ask their USN counterparts ‘What the devil’s a ‘Reuben James’
SsgtC
Banned
Yeah, it's ridiculous. I really wish they would go back to the old naming system. Go back to naming carriers things like Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet, Essex, Saratoga, Ranger, Constellation and Bon Homme Richard
The excuse there is they name the assault ships that way but its just not the same...
SsgtC
Banned
It's not. The amphibs should be named after Marine battles like Tripoli, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Belleau Wood, Montezuma, etc.
Honestly, I miss the days when the Navy used to name aircraft carriers after battles and Vespidae.
No offense to Doris Miller, who should have had a ship named after him before the war was even over. My beef is with the imperial presidency's annexation of our capital ship traditions.
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Royal Navy bomb ships back in the day had a similar tradition.
Ironically, it seems like it was only when they got sent off to freezing cold places that they met with disaster...
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We don't talk about those ships here *scans nervously for a Californian omnivorous apex predator*
It was just a reference to the discovery of the wrecks of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus in the Canadian Arctic.
But there were a few other bomb ships with volcanic or underworld names that were also lost on Arctic exploration missions...
(The Royal Navy liked bomb ships for this service, because they were so heavily reinforced to host their heavy mortars, on the theory that they could better withstand pack ice. What they ended up with was ships with ominous names going to places where those names presaged the fate of a lot of the men who went on them. "Hey, let's go to a part of the world that's got fifteen different ways to kill you every day, and do it on a ship named the Terror!")
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Maybe it's time to get a bit pagan and sacrifice the named person at commission to Wodin and his mob.... may reduce the amount of ego naming
At least Miller has been dead for a long time, how about the USS Gabrielle Giffords?
I mean at least Carl Vinson was the Navy's best friend in Congress for well over a decade and the ships he helped get procured were critical in WWII
So long as we've got Medal of Honor winners who haven't had ships named after them, I think it would be a terribly good idea to stop naming ships after politicians. Especially living ones. No matter how admirable they might be to some people.