the last Light Aircraft Carrier

[Blakrider]

well it could have been bought and moved to Mobile to be added to the USS Alabama Museum. missing the nuke and being some what restored.

and if you looking for a possible ship to use as a sea base how about the USS Gage a Haskell class Assault transport.


i also have some of her deck plans

as well as plans for WW2 Era LSTs' LCIs' as well as ther specs. any one interested?

[Legbreaker]

and was inactive until her name was struck from the Navy List 1 in 1958 She was transferred the same day to the Maritime Commission Reserve Fleet and was berthed in James River, Va. Till the middle of WWIII

Can anyone else say "rustbucket"?
It'd be lucky to still hold water after 40 odd years sitting idle.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Actually if it's in the reserve fleet it would probably be kept in a decent state, they have a significant maintenance program to ensure the ships can be put back into service. That's not to say that every ship in the reserve fleet would be seaworthy, some of the oldest ones are getting a bit "thin in the hull"
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...y/dot/ndrf.htm
What the global security writeup does infer though is that the longer a ship has be sitting in the reserve fleet, the greater the likelihood it will be scrapped or sunk (as artificial reefs)

[Canadian Army]

Another thing to point is the cost of reactivation. Following 25 years of service, USS Oriskany was decommissioned on 30 September 1976 and laid up for long-term storage in Bremerton, Washington, where the carrier was maintained as a mobilization asset. Reagan Administration proposals to reactivate Oriskany were rejected by the United States Congress on the basis of the ship's poor material condition and limited air wing. The cost of reactivation was estimated at approximately $520 million for FY 1982 ($1 billion in 2010). This figure would probably more for the USS Cabot, given its age. I think the better solution would be Langley-class Escort Carriers found at Chico's site http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeedox4/ship_designs.html.

[Matt W]

Your carrier may not have been available as a Naval Asset - but it could have been very useful as a prison hulk. Lots of room and nobody digs escape tunnels

Where else are you going to "warehouse" the POW population?

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Matt W

Your carrier may not have been available as a Naval Asset - but it could have been very useful as a prison hulk. Lots of room and nobody digs escape tunnels

Where else are you going to "warehouse" the POW population?

Again, it probably got nuked....
I don't know much about the layout of New Orleans, but my guess is the docks would have been fairly high up on the list of priority targets for the warheads launched against the city.

[Blakrider]

you made some good points legbreaker about the USS Cabot, but I could simply say that an other organisation bought her in 92 and moved her to Mobile, AL and began making repairs and preping her to be a Museum ship next to the USS Alabama. when things started side into that bucket, the navy may just think to here her like Chico did the remaining Essex class Carriers and bring it back into service.

and as to possible cost of reactivating the Attack Transport USS Gage, the haskell class is really nothing more then a WW2 era Victory Frieghter that has been converted to a attack ship. and a large number of them were still part of the reserve fleet in the mid to late 90s.

In the 1997 a survey was done to evaluate the cost of refit and reactivation of the ships to active duty. total cost estimated $2. Million, almost the same cost of building them in the first place, ($2,500,000, but adjusting for inflation her construction coasts would have been a estimated $40 Million. if they had gone ahead it would made the US Military less reliant on forgien shipping. ( of course the politicians stopped it, made to much sence)

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Actually if it's in the reserve fleet it would probably be kept in a decent state, they have a significant maintenance program to ensure the ships can be put back into service. That's not to say that every ship in the reserve fleet would be seaworthy, some of the oldest ones are getting a bit "thin in the hull"
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...y/dot/ndrf.htm
What the global security writeup does infer though is that the longer a ship has be sitting in the reserve fleet, the greater the likelihood it will be scrapped or sunk (as artificial reefs)

It depends - the JRRF (and the NRDF in general) has both "retain" and "non-retain" ships, and the latter get just enough work done to keep them from sinking before they can be scrapped. The Sturgis (a former nuclear power barge built from a Liberty ship) was overhauled twice in fifty years - once when she first went into the JRRF in 1967 and again in the 1990s when they wanted to evaluate the decay rate of residual radioactive contamination. She just went to the breakers this year. A light carrier would likely get similar treatment, since it would be considered of low value compared to the nuclear fleet carriers, and pretty much anything it can do could be done as well or better by a Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Wasp.

[Olefin]

except for two factors on this particular light carrier

she had been in active service until 1989 and was delivered in working condition with fully serviced engines, navigation gear, etc.. - she wasnt towed into port in late 1989 she was sailed in by a full crew of Spanish sailors

and she went into drydock and came out in 1993 with a fully blasted and painted hull, asbestos removed on several decks and otherwise worked on

this isnt a ship thats been sitting around in the Reserve Fleet since the 1950's or Vietnam - she was flying sorties as late as August 1989

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by Olefin

except for two factors on this particular light carrier

she had been in active service until 1989 and was delivered in working condition with fully serviced engines, navigation gear, etc.. - she wasnt towed into port in late 1989 she was sailed in by a full crew of Spanish sailors

and she went into drydock and came out in 1993 with a fully blasted and painted hull, asbestos removed on several decks and otherwise worked on

this isnt a ship thats been sitting around in the Reserve Fleet since the 1950's or Vietnam - she was flying sorties as late as August 1989

Yeah, I conflated two topics into one - the Gage, which was sitting around in the Reserve Fleet since the 1950s, and the original topic of the Cabot (which was only ever in reserve from 2-11-47 to 10-27-48). Mea culpa.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

To be fair to The Dark though, I had made a general statement regarding the reserve fleet and his answer was in response to that.

[Matt W]

Originally Posted by Blakrider

i also have some of her deck plans

as well as plans for WW2 Era LSTs' LCIs' as well as ther specs. any one interested?

Definitely interested in the LST stuff