Ships!

[trailrunner]

So the whole railgun upgrade project...that's dead and going nowhere, right? Last I recall, the Navy tanked it because it wasn't working right and was way too expensive.

Railgun was one of those sexy new technologies that we were chasing when we didn't have anything better to do.  But then one day we realized that we had been neglecting our anti-ship missiles, and now that's where most of the Navy's focus is going (rightfully so).  There's probably some S&T funding for railgun to keep it alive (I know the Army has some).

I have this idea that we should turn the DDG-1000 class into S&T labs.  Put a railgun on one ship, and put a laser on another.  Not sure what I'd do with the third.

[mirth]

View from the bridge on two forward triple turrets of Tegethoff class dreadnought battleship, exact date unknown

[mirth]

https://twitter.com/WarshipPorn/status/1125865972282343424

[besilarius]

In regards to the Tegetthof BBs, they were done really cheap.
We've all seen that video of one turning turlte with loads of sailors running over the bottom of the ship.
Reason was the lack of internal water tight divisions.  Small ships, like Forrest Sherman DDs, had five watertight spaces.  If three remained unbreached, the ship had positive buoyancy.
The Tegetthofs had not even that.  One torpedo was all it took.
Also, they skimped on the turret ventilation.  They couldn't fire consistently for over ten minutes, or the crew began to pass out from lack of oxygen.

[mirth]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27913/royal-navy-sub-appears-in-gibraltar-equipped-with-a-wake-detection-system

[mirth]

A water spout forms as the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) transits the Atlantic Ocean, 12 December 2017

[mirth]

USS Mississippi followed by USS New Mexico maneuvering for a fleet review at Los Angeles area in 1938

[Sir Slash]

God, those are both gorgeous pics.

[mirth]

"Lady Lex & Sister Sara" USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Lexington (CV-2) off Diamond Head on 2 February 1933. Colorized by Irootoko jr.

[Staggerwing]

Nice!

[mirth]

USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) in dry dock

[mirth]

USS Shangri-La (CVA-38) conducts the first successful at-sea cat shot of the enormous A3D Skywarrior on 1 September 1956, off Baja California

[besilarius]

The pic of the Sky Warrior reminded me of this

[mirth]

The B-52 shot is cool, but it's actually very impressive that the Navy was able to operate large aircraft like the Skywarrior and Vigilante off carriers.

The Skywarrior is a beast to be flying off an Essex like that.

[besilarius]

Yes, that was an outstanding design feature that supposedly was argued against by Ernie King.
The design team, that I think was headed by Apollo Soucek, had an idea of what they wanted in the follow ons to the Yorktowns.  Some short cuts were made.  When Lexington had her forward flight deck damaged in Halsey's Typhoon, this had been an accepted weakness in the Essex design.
but the designers knew that the planes would get bigger, and the internal space had to be engineered to accept these future designs.  They particularly noted that the RNs ships would be limited by the hangar space.
King thought they needed a simpler design to get as many carriers as possible built quickly.  Somehow the design team pleased almost everyone.