Naval Pictures VII: Underway, Shift Colors!

[Wrangler]

Saving for a rainy day.

World War II Submarines in mothballs.

[DoctorMonkey]

Sooo... the video stuff I've been doing has ended up as 9 hours of recorded content and then 3 1/2 hours of taking questions about a hypothetical war kicking off in late January 1939 between Britain and Japan...

[Colt Ward]

Saving for a rainy day.

World War II Submarines in mothballs.

Where was this?  UK or US?

Or heck, German subs after surrendering?

[kato]

US Gato class submarines.

Either San Francisco or Tacoma.

[glitterboy2098]

at a guess, that was probably taken in 1944 when most of the class that were built for ww2 were mothballed. a few got refit to other roles but most were mothballed due to the fact that despite being only a few years old, they were already obsolete.

[Sabelkatten]

US Gato class submarines.

Either San Francisco or Tacoma.

It's definitely two different types of subs. The leftmost five have a different superstructure and an anchor on the side of the bow that's missing on the rightmost four subs.

[dgorsman]

Are those props on the forward decks?  Is that just due to the decommissioning process, or would it be done during normal operations?

[Colt Ward]

Yeah, the reason I threw out German prizes was the five on the right front look larger and have a number on the prow while the others do not judging by the second row.

[kato]

Found the image on Navsource, it's Mare Island on January 3rd 1946. There were about 60 further submarines moored there at the time beyond the ones in the photo. At the time there were still Balaos in suspended construction in docks there as well, mostly later completed as GUPPYs.

The five on the left (from 381 to 384) and most of the row in the back are Balao class, the four on the right (254 to 241) are Gato class. Back row also has some Salmon/Sargo class.

Are those props on the forward decks?  Is that just due to the decommissioning process, or would it be done during normal operations?

It's noted with the image as unusual that the submarines also have their forward torpedo tube doors open, which isn't exactly a safe storage condition.

[Nightlord01]

Found the image on Navsource, it's Mare Island on January 3rd 1946. There were about 60 further submarines moored there at the time beyond the ones in the photo. At the time there were still Balaos in suspended construction in docks there as well, mostly later completed as GUPPYs.

The five on the left (from 381 to 384) and most of the row in the back are Balao class, the four on the right (254 to 241) are Gato class. Back row also has some Salmon/Sargo class.
It's noted with the image as unusual that the submarines also have their forward torpedo tube doors open, which isn't exactly a safe storage condition.

Yep definitely Balao, how can you tell their tube doors are open? I thought those doors weren't conformal.

[Fat Guy]

The San Diego mothball fleet circa 1946.

[Sharpnel]

Look at all those flattops, even if they are light/escort carriers.

[Colt Ward]

The San Diego mothball fleet circa 1946.

They provide a tally?

Heck, what was the Pac Fleet's roster at the time of the surrender on the Missouri's deck.

[marauder648]

The French battleship Brennus taking some water over her bow in fairly smooth weather.



A rather beautiful engraving of the Battleship Charles Martel showing the extreme form of her tumblehome hull.

[kato]

Heck, what was the Pac Fleet's roster at the time of the surrender on the Missouri's deck.

Can't find one for August, but here's one for May 1st 1945:
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-pacific-fleet-organization-1may1945.html

I gave up on trying to tally it up, but it lists somewhere around 1600 combat ships including 500 destroyers, 400 submarines, 300 gunboats, 100 carriers and 100 larger combat vessels (battleships, cruisers), as well as around 1500 amphibious ships, 500 auxiliaries and 800 base support vessels.

That includes at least 500 WW1 vessels either in activated reserves or rebuilt for different uses btw.

[Elmoth]

Wow. Some ships there! Never thought combat navies had grown so large even in WW2

[Colt Ward]

Wow. Some ships there! Never thought combat navies had grown so large even in WW2

Yeah, for all that ships were being destroyed . . . WW2 would be the numerical height of navies and for large ships.  Look how quickly all those escort and light carriers were retired as soon as the fighting was over.

marauder648, that is a awesome picture . . . the artist juxtaposing the 'modern' battlements of the warship with the crenelation & tower of some port fortification to the side.

[kato]

Looking through the 23 battleships in the list...

• 2 ships : decommissioned 1946 and scrapped 1947
• 4 ships : decommisisoned 1946 and nuked 1948
• 11 ships : decommissioned 1947 and in reserve fleet until scrapped 1959-1962
• 1 ship : decommisisoned 1948, directly turned into museum ship
• 3 ships : decommissioned 1948, reactivated for Korean War, decommissioned again 1957-1959
• 2 ships : retained active until 1955-1956

Those last five ships were basically the Iowa class - as the last USN battleships built - plus BB-41 Mississippi, which was relabeled a gunnery training ship (AG-128) in 1946 and turned into a guided-missile battleship in 1952 with installation of two Terrier. The '48 museum ship is BB-35 Texas.

[Colt Ward]

Some of those 11 must not have been scrapped- I thought we had more museum BBs than that . . . Iowa, Missouri, Alabama, New Jersey . . . hrm, well maybe it IS just 6 museum BBs.  It DOES make the Texas stand out more as it was built in a different period.

[kato]

BB-55 North Carolina
BB-59 Massachussetts
BB-60 Alabama

were the three among those 11 not scrapped, but instead sold for the same price (apparently a battleship was worth around a quarter million dollar in the early 60s in steel) and becoming museum ships.

[Wrangler]

Big boys are here again.

Both Nelson Class Battleships, and the members of the Revenge-Class. 

That be alot firepower. I do wonder if Britain hadn't been put into Washington Treaty, if they could made their bigger ship desires to work. Nelson if read it right, was compromise to what they wanted to do.

[Sabelkatten]

They would certainly have started on the next generation of 40-45,000 ton ships.

It's a rather big question if they would have been able to afford it, thought!

[Wrangler]

They would certainly have started on the next generation of 40-45,000 ton ships.

It's a rather big question if they would have been able to afford it, thought!

Were they in that bad position in the 1930s? They a Empire then with multiple colonies prior to WW2

[kato]

Were they in that bad position in the 1930s? They a Empire then with multiple colonies prior to WW2

Unlike the rest of Europe the UK economically fell into a giant hole between 1918 and 1921 for various Rule 4 reasons and stayed down there all the way until WW2 started. No "roaring twenties".

[Sabelkatten]

Wasn't GB's main problem post-WWI simply that they'd burnt way to much money during the war? Colonies no longer being such a profitable enterprise certainly didn't help either.

But anyway, the money just weren't there. Thought if you look at the bigger picture no nation other than USA could really afford much more than their treaty limits during the interwar years, they just wanted a bigger navy than they could really pay for... Wishful thinking is the basis of many a grandiose scheme... ::)

[Wrangler]

Well, Britain can budget enough to have small fleet 2 big carriers now.

[phoenixalpha]

Well, Britain can budget enough to have small fleet 2 big carriers now.

2 carriers and *maybe* enough jets for them but apparently not enough support ships to run them *sigh*

[kato]

Carriers are cheap, finding the personnel to man them isn't. I'll just leave that here as a hint at what the problem with those two is.

For the sake of pictures:


Probably one of the largest naval ships launched in recent decades "traditionally" on a slipway instead of drydock assembly and floating her out. Italian LHD Trieste. 33,000 tons full load.

[Colt Ward]

Lol, how slow did they release her?  Those yachts could really have been rolling if they had really let her go.

[kato]

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HELiub9aLi8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEATacuOjqk

P.S. We're almost at 50 pages btw.