USS New York, "Never Forget"

[sgharford]

Calling - Heavy Metal!

 

[sgharford]

This flag was flown at a construction site across the street from World Trade Center when we were attacked. They found the flag during clean up and repaired her with new flags if I heard the story right.

 

[krush]

It's powered by diesels...I'm surprised. I thought anything that size would be some sort of steam turbine. Guess I REALLY have no clue about current USN ships. I also saw it was totally designed using CAD. I'm not sure that's a good thing...

Why are you surprised? Almost all navy ships made in the last 20 years have been either gas turbine (turboshaft aka "jet engine") or diesel. Gas turbines are great because they can make a ton of power in a small package, but they suck for loitering and are fuel hogs.

Diesels (especially slow speed) are much more efficient, but to get high HP requires a big engine. This is why in many cases you will see a hybrid ship with some gas turbines for going fast and diesels for loitering and going slow.

Steam turbines ain't worth the headache anymore and I don't know of any modern ship that uses them except nukes. The massive amount of systems required (boiler, feedwater, etc etc) is just too much to deal with. Steam was the way back in the day before diesel and gas turbine technology was mature.

Big tankers and cargo ships mostly use big slow speed diesels (100rpm) directly connected to the shaft. Most are two strokes and reverse the engine for reverse.

 

[spartonboat1]

It’s a troop carrier so armament would be light. It does however carry two 30 mm Close-in-Guns, for surface threat defense; two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers for air defense. I believe the missile launchers are located just forward of the superstructure, port side and also aft of the superstructure, stbd side.

Why do I think it might be surrounded by drones, looking like a swatted behive, if you aggravated the ships defenses? Who knows.

US is now training more drone pilots than std. manned aircraft.

 

[spartonboat1]

The LST (a measly 523 feet) I was on for a summer in 1977 had six 16 cylinder ALCO 16-251E main propulsion diesel engines. Two shafts, three engines per shaft, 15,000 horsepower per shaft. Also with variable pitch propellors. To go in reverse, you just change the pitch of the propellors, shafts still rotate the same direction. It also had about a 16 foot diameter bow thruster and an enormous stern winch and anchor. Amphibious craft need a whole different maneuvering mechanism.

The idea was to ballast the bow, drive it up on a beach, extend the bow ramp, unload the marines and amtraks (LVTs), drain the bow tanks, and pull yourself out with the stern anchor winch. Pretty crazy idea that never really worked. Winches jammed, anchors snagged, bow ramps got stuck in the extended position, etc. etc. The Navy decommissioned all of this class of LST.

It had 4 WWII era 3 inch 50 guns....not really armament. One person told me if you made it to the beach and no further, mission accomplished. Not very comforting to the Navy types on board. I hope this vessel is better protected.

Given the short half-life of an LST (low, slow target) there is amazingly one of very few remaining WWII vintage LST's (500+') at permanent berth up in Muskegon, MI; a fabulous floating museum ship. This ship survived (!) the landing on D-Day at Normandy Beach, no less. They will let you tour anywhere...ER, etc. She has twin 16cyl EMD Diesels (if memory serves) into two gear reducers of different brand. Why diff? Tour guide says, in WWII you took what you could get.

The original orders from the Allied Command sending her to Normandy is framed and mounted on a bulkhead.

After surviving WWII, she came to the Great Lakes and worked as a Ferry boat for 20 years! The topmost bridge still has no glass, but is enclosed in steel plates with slits for vision. She is slowly being restored, although already in pretty good shape.