Another old girl leaves home
The USS New Jersey left her home in Camden, New Jersey headed to Paulsboro for repairs. Thence, the most decorated battleship in Naval history will be ‘balanced for dry dock’ at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
The vessel, guided by tugboats, docked at the Paulsboro Marine Terminal on Thursday afternoon, where it will be balanced to prepare for dry docking and will then go to the Navy Yard in six days.
The maintenance work is expected to take about two months to complete, officials said. Three major repair projects are planned, including repainting the ship’s hull, fixing the anti-corrosion system underneath the ship and inspecting through-hull openings. 6abc.com
“The ship gets ballasted in Paulsboro, which means we are adding about 2,000 tons of water to the ship’s tanks to essentially even the ship out from bow to stern so that when we enter the dry dock in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on March 27th, we’re essentially making sure that the ship and the hull, when it sits down on the blocks at the shipyard, it doesn’t crack the hull in half.” WHYY
They she is the most decorated battleship in naval history. She certainly had one of the longest active careers.
The USS New Jersey was built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and launched Dec. 7, 1942 — exactly one year to the day after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into World War II.
“She supported every amphibious campaign of the Pacific War from 1943 onward,” said Spevak.
She went on to an unprecedented career of service, active for 21 years across six decades.
The USS New Jersey fought in the Korean War, was placed in reserve, then recommissioned for duty in Vietnam.
An article written Wednesday March 20th described a unique thrill for a vet:
Ken Kersch speaks about the USS New Jersey as if it were a warm old friend instead of cold steel military hardware. “I love this ship,” said Kersch, who spent four years in the U.S. Navy (1966-70).
“It’s the best ship I served on. She was a part of my life for two years. She’s a part of me now.”
Kersch was a machinist on the USS New Jersey from 1967 to 1969, as the battleship supported land operations during the Vietnam War.
Kersch, a machinist during his active service, will fire the guns of the USS New Jersey as it departs its home port and again in response to a salute from Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia.
Me, I love the Missouri, and had a good friend who worked on her when she left service. But the New Jersey (of the same Iowa class) did stay in service longer and is more decorated. Note that after the Reagan-era refits, EACH Iowa-class carried as much firepower as the entire US WWII Pacific Fleet. That, my friends, is force projection.
I know getting these old gals out of retirement would cost too much, if it was even doable. I wonder, however, if a smaller ship that packed as much armor (with a crap-ton of offensive firepower) would help to mitigate the A2AD (Anti-Access/Area Denial) missiles and mines that our adversaries have. Seems all of our Navy ships right now are pretty soft skinned.
Because missiles are expensive/few, it’s being discussed again as 5″ guns could be better for shore bombardment.
A large nuclear refit to power multiple ADA lasers that can target drones, equip it with a drone fleet of its own and it could dominate
It would be a hell of a thing to see them kicking ass again. And apparently the pre-nuclear testing iron would be an added bonus. I confess to not quite getting the whole pre-nuke metal thing and why that is better.
Pre Nuke (low background) steel doesn’t make a spec of difference when it’s part of the ship. It’s usefulness is when it’s recycled into precise instrumentation (I.e. Geiger counter )
where residual fallout radiation would affect the accuracy of said instrument.
As scrap metal, it’s about 75-100x more valuable than otherwise identical steel.
The high profit margin makes WW1 & WW2 wrecks attractive targets for graverobbing POS.
Collecting LB scrap was a side hustle of mine when I lived on Vancouver Island.
It was fairly abundant there due to over a century of commercial logging and mining operations. Old, long abandoned boilers, steam donkeys and shovels were my prime targets.
Welp, how much did we spend on a buncha Little Crappy Ships that don’t work? Or aircraft carriers beset with issues? I likes me some floating Artillery Platforms and yes, sometimes bigger IS better.
What I find most telling is that it only took two (2) years from the laying of Her keel to Her launch to build the Old Girl. Couldn’t do that now.
Fair
As a former artillerist, myself, I tend to agree.
Definitely.
For damn sure. One thing that I always tend to harp on is that one of the main acquisitions problems is that planners want everything to be the most high tech possible. High tech in 2024 takes a lot longer to develop and build than High Tech in 1942. Does everything need to be as high tech as possible? Maybe. Planes probably do. Ships may just need to be harder to kill – which probably means more armor and that means bigger – OR – you have a lot of smaller “disposable” ships. Making ships as high tech as possible seems to make them prohibitively expensive and too long in the coming.
My New Jersey photos:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVd1yh7
Album collection of other Battleships (Missouri and North Carolina) and other various places of interest.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/taobrien/collections/72157720097377824/
It is obvious that you have been paying attention to, and taking lessons from, our Beloved AW1Ed on “ways to keep the Gun Bunny occupied, happy, and out of your hair”.
Great pics, FuzeVT…well played. There may and/or may not be a wet spot in and/or around my zipper regions. I admit nothing…call my lawer. Thanks! Got a cigarette?
Yep.
Gonna say Houti drones would not even scratch the paint.
And the Amazon return of 16 inch shells would be enjoyable.
We deployed to the North Atlantic in ’86 with the Nimitz & Iowa. That BB looked like a castle in the middle of the ocean belching smoke and fire. A guy on my ship from NJ wanted nothing more than a transfer to the New Jersey, but it never happened. I toured the North Carolina (BB-55) as teenager.
DAY-UM!
Just looking a the above pic, I can FEELZ the cannons firing!
OOPH!
The blast wave had to be tremendous even inside the ship !
I wonder how many decibels that nine gun broadside produces? Has to be beyond belief! I have never seen her but we were told she was firing over our heads way beyond our position along the DMZ. I believe that as it sounded like a freight train in the sky.
I toured the USS Massachusetts once many years ago. I had an uncle that served aboard her during the war. Jim worked in the powder magazine. He went on to eventually transfer to the Army after his enlistment serving a total of 32 years and retired as a WO4 or 5 not sure.
At Patriots point SC I toured the Yorktown. After wandering about I found myself at the bridge and it was open so I went in and sat in the Captains seat. I was both surprised and in awe at looking out over the deck of that ship and thinking about what had taken place there back in the big war.
Too bad our history is being neglected by our education department now.
Lucky you!
Had the same experience on a LRRP with a few shells going over our heads, and it did sound like a freight train. I don’t know how far we were from the blasts, but we could feel tremors in the ground. One of my teammates commented, “I hope they know we are here.” Uh, yeah.
I had an artillery FO assigned to my company who experienced fire passing overhead from the New Jersey. He said the same thing.
I’ve read the reports that say maintaining these behemoths isn’t good “fiscally”. Horseshit. Seeing that monster lay a broadside volley on some shithead target ONE TIME is a force multiplier and would def earn the Navy a LOT of grace attempts from “pirates” and the like. Fuck firehouses/water cannons: send a round the side of a Volkswagen through the command deck of a foreign ship. That’ll kill any cute ideas enemies might have.
Just the splash of a 16″ VW sized round splashing near one of those putt-putt pirate boats would be enough to swamp & sink it.