USS Port Royal (CG-73)
A not discimilar view but taken under entirely different circumstances.
Date 19 February 2009
090219-N-4003L-003 PEARL HARBOR (Feb. 19, 2009) The guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal (CG 73) sits in drydock at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard as it is readied for repairs following the Feb. 5 grounding about a half-mile south of Honolulu Airport. An assessment of the ship and the repair efforts needed are ongoing. The ship entered drydock Feb. 18. (U.S. Navy photo by Michael F. Laley/Released)
,1 USS Port Royal (CG_73) aft elevated drydock view.jpg
About USS Port Royal (CG-73):
USS Port Royal (CG 73) is a United States Navy guided missile cruiser, the 27th and final ships in the Ticonderoga-class. The vessel was ordered on February 25, 1988, laid down on October 18, 1991, launched on November 20, 1992 and formally commissioned on July 9, 1994.
Following the grounding in 2009 - selected excerpts of some interesting developments are recounted hereafter.....
After seven months in dry dock and $40 million in repairs, the cruiser USS Port Royal is back in the water in Pearl Harbor following the embarrassing February 5th grounding near Honolulu International Airport’s reef runway. Here is look back at gCaptain’s full coverage of this incident
ORIGINAL POST
RADM Joseph Walsh, deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet, says there is no structural damage from the grounding but damage to the high-tech sonar equipment at the bow is a major concern.
UPDATE Feb 10:
Monday, the USS Royal was freed after its 4 attempt to refloat and nearly 5 days stuck on the seabed near the Honolulu Airport. The $1-billion warship suffered minor damages including sheared off blades to its two propellers and damage its sonar bulb. No structural damage has been reported. The warship has been hauled to Pearl Harbor where it will undergo repairs in dry dock.
UPDATE March 3
Via the Associated Press:
The Navy Times, citing a Navy preliminary damage assessment it had obtained, said in a story Monday that
the shock of rolling on a coral reef for three days damaged the vessel’s antennae and missile launch cells, and knocked the ship’s Aegis radar arrays out of alignment.
The assessment goes beyond the damage the Navy noted after an initial inspection of the ship, which included a cracked sonar dome and sheared-off propeller blades.
Source gcaptain.com
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Oops!!!
Cease firing - Cease firing - Cease firing!!! ---- comes to mind
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and some more from the Navy Matters blog
Damage was listed as the bow sonar dome, propellers, shafts, various tanks, and superstructure cracks. Repair costs were estimated at $40M. Repair work was largely completed by late 2009.
Port Royal - A Tough Warship?
Further, Navy Times reported that the “shock” of rocking gently on the reef while grounded caused damage to the vessel’s antennae and vertical launch cells and put the Aegis radar arrays out of alignment.
......... I want to discuss the battleworthiness, or combat toughness, of the ships the Navy is building today. Consider this astounding fact – the Navy is going to prematurely retire the newest, most capable Aegis cruiser in the fleet because the damage sustained from this incident, despite repairs, is too severe to allow the ship to meet mission requirements. This is a warship. It’s built for combat. It’s meant to fight, take damage, and keep on fighting – at least, that’s the tradition of the Navy. And yet we see a ship that ran soft aground, barely moving, and the result is a mission kill. What does that say about the combat toughness of the ships the Navy is building today? We’re in trouble! This wasn’t a mission kill due to multiple anti-ship cruise missiles and massive explosions with resulting fires – this was a mission kill due to gently nudging the ship aground.
Can you imagine a WWII destroyer or cruiser being scrapped due to gently nosing aground?
The problem is the electronics. Modern electronics are so sensitive, so critically aligned, so delicate, that it takes next to nothing to render them inoperable. Further, it appears that the ability to repair this type of problem is non-existent since the Navy is willing to write off the newest, BMD capable Aegis cruiser in the fleet rather than fix the issues. That tells me that the damage can’t be repaired cost effectively – and that says a lot given the cost of new ships. Hundreds of millions of dollars could be easily justified to keep the newest, most capable ship in service and yet the Navy doesn’t believe it can be done.
Note, also, that the VLS cells were damaged by the gentle rocking. Again, that’s an alignment issue and doesn’t bode well for the combat toughness of the VLS system. It’s frightening to think that a single hit anywhere on the ship could render all the VLS modules inoperable due to shock and vibration.
What is going to happen to a warship when it takes an actual hit with shock waves whiplashing the length of the ship? We’re looking at one hit mission kills.
Source of the above selected excerpts is
Navy-Matters blogspot - where you can read the full article and 14 comments thereafter.
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It all makes for interesting reading IMHO