Not much glamour or glory in driving one of those low cost things. No self respecting wannabe admiral would ever want to have a photo op on one.
Yes. They want to put on the resume “Commanded a state of the art billion dollar ship” so they can retire young and get a high paying job managing ships or doing government contracting for TOTE or Chouest.
One might wonder why they still send these ships manned with young people Kamikaze style into a war situation with which they cannot cope. Already in 1982 a loser nation run by a dictator almost brought the British fleet near the Falkland Islands on their knees with a couple of Exocet, french for flying fish, missiles.
HMS Sheffield after being hit by an Exocet missile.
They are especially deadly for medium sized ships such as corvettes and frigates. They can be fired at 38 nm from there targets, skim the waves like a flying fish at 1 - 2 meters guided by a silent inertial navigation system and only using there homing radar when they are close to their target. Radars can detect them at about 3 nm, impact is seconds later. Visually they can be detected earlier, when over the horizon, by their smoke trail and the intense glow of the rocket motor. Who wants to join the Navy?
Never knew they had Helicopters in WWII, From the look of what is on the deck at the stern, that sure looks like a Helicopter Pad to me.
The photograph was changed and now correctly shows Sheffield.
Thanks, I was wondering.
But there were a few helos in WWII…Focke flew in '36 and Sikorsky in '39.
Heinrich Focke at Focke-Wulf was licensed to produce the Cierva C.30 autogyro in 1933. Focke designed the world’s first practical transverse twin-rotor helicopter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, which first flew on 26 June 1936. The Fw 61 broke all of the helicopter world records in 1937, demonstrating a flight envelope that had only previously been achieved by the autogyro.
During World War II, Nazi Germany used helicopters in small numbers for observation, transport, and medical evacuation. The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri synchropter—using the same basic configuration as Anton Flettner’s own pioneering Fl 265—was used in the Mediterranean, while the Focke Achgelis Fa 223 Drache twin-rotor helicopter was used in Europe.[ citation needed ] Extensive bombing by the Allied forces prevented Germany from producing any helicopters in large quantities during the war.
In the United States, Russian-born engineer Igor Sikorsky and W. Lawrence LePage competed to produce the U.S. military’s first helicopter. LePage received the patentrights to develop helicopters patterned after the Fw 61, and built the XR-1.[53]Meanwhile, Sikorsky settled on a simpler, single rotor design, the VS-300, which turned out to be the first practical single lifting-rotor helicopter design. After experimenting with configurations to counteract the torque produced by the single main rotor, Sikorsky settled on a single, smaller rotor mounted on the tail boom.
Developed from the VS-300, Sikorsky’s R-4 was the first large-scale mass-produced helicopter, with a production order for 100 aircraft. The R-4 was the only Allied helicopter to serve in World War II, when it was used primarily for search and rescue (by the USAAF 1st Air Commando Group) in Burma;[54] in Alaska; and in other areas with harsh terrain. Total production reached 131 helicopters before the R-4 was replaced by other Sikorsky helicopters such as the R-5 and the R-6. In all, Sikorsky produced over 400 helicopters before the end of World War II.[55]
The salvage operation for Helge Ingstad has been delayed due to weather and other factors. The operation will now commence sometime early Jan. 2019:
https://www.nrk.no/hordaland/utsetter-hevingen-av-knm-helge-ingstad-til-neste-ar-1.14350537
Problems with passing chains under the hull has become more difficult as the wreck sinks deeper into the water.
6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Excerpt fromThe Admirals Lobby regarding vulneablity of surface ships
A post was merged into an existing topic: Helge Ingstad - Salvage Operation
I posted the above back in Dec. 2018.
Looking at the picture of her Stbd, side it appears the damaged section was all above water when the ship was on even keel, thus no major initial flooding from there:
Looking at the midships section, where the stabiliser fins are located, there appears to be some thorn metal in this area:
There should soon be some better pictures of the hull external one would hope.
Looks like the stabilizer to me. Could have been ripped though.
So single compartment hole (at stabilizer fins) sinks ships ?
What is important on those photos that the propeller shaft looks undamaged. Before there was some uncertainty about that.
I wonder what could be so secret about the tear line above water line that it required covering with shets.
MS Sola collides with the freeboard at the height of the torpedo mounts and with the bulb underneath, opening the main waterway in the draft hull of the Helge.
The bulb raises the frigate (320º) and the Sola’s freeboard opens the side as a can opener to the starboard fin while the bulb lifts the frigate.
At the end the frigate slides and, presumably, the bulb deflects the starboard shaft, which is pushed down by the weight of the stern of the frigate.