Quote:
Originally Posted by pornmasta
why didn't they keep this ship ? it's hard to sink...
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I was never in the Navy (I was in the Army) but, knowing how the DoD operates, I'm guessing the following:
* It was out of date and no longer battle effective - this it was slated for decommissioning.
* Top brass decided that it'll be better to use the ship as a training exercise.
* The ship was configured so that it'll last as long as possible for the exercise so that all ships, submarines, planes, etc participating in the exercise could fulfill their mission. This meant that all compartment doors were locked, which would make it harder to sink.
* The fire would be controlled. Like, one ship fires, they watch the projectile, measure the effect, and adjust fire. It'll be awhile between shots and the other ships would have to wait. It's not like they're bombarding the target ship endlessly for 12 hours before it sunk. It would be more like a ship fires a shot, an hour goes by, another ship fires another shot, and another hour goes by, etc. The DoD is getting as much information out of the exercise as possible.
Someone said this was a waste of tax payer money. It isn't. There was a staff who sat there and did the math to figure out how much it'll cost, how much money is in the budget for the year, and whether it'll be worth it. If it was a waste, they wouldn't have done it.