San Diego: U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard on Fire

[tmccarthy]

[tmccarthy]

Ops, posted this in wrong section, sorry.

[Mr Quatro]

It's okay Tim ... It's current news such a bad accident though

Hope everyone is safe

[Jimbuna]

Twenty one people (seventeen sailors and four civilians) thankfully no fatalities. This could have been far worse.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ard-san-diego/

[Skybird]

From what I read, the ship is a total loss and most likely (>99%) will not be repaired, due to the temperature being so high and having lasted for so long now that the basic cell frame made of steel is distorted. They can feel themselves lucky if it does not sink in harbour with its fuel still on board!? I read it was undergoing 2-years modernization in preparation for the F35 - why did it even have fuel aboard if it was not to move for this long? The fire extinguishing system was off for work, too, thats why the fire had easy play.


Its a lousy year for the US so far. And it can get only lousier.

[Aktungbby]

^INDEED

“There is fire and water damage, to varying degrees, on 11 of 14 decks,” Gilday wrote. “With the flight deck as a reference, I walked sections of the ship 5 levels below and had the opportunity to examine the superstructure.
“The island is nearly gutted, as are sections of some of the decks below; some perhaps, nearly encompassing the 844 ft length and 106 ft beam of the ship ([Naval Sea System Command’s] detailed assessment is ongoing). Sections of the flight deck are warped/bulging.” ...But it’s unclear if the Navy will want to invest what will likely be hundreds of millions of dollars into a 22-year-old ship. After a 2012 fire onboard the attack submarine Miami, the Navy determined the roughly $700 million price tag was too steep to justify.

https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/more-than-just-a-fire-the-implications-of-the-bonhomme-richard-catastrophe/

The Bonhomme Richard fire raises another question: How tough and survivable can a ship be in combat if it is burning out of control in port during peacetime? While it takes three to five years to build a modern warship, there are very few places to do so. And, as was recently shown by the two-and-a-half years of repairs to the USS Fitzgerald after its 2017 collision, it takes time to repair major damage to a modern warship. Some will look at this fire and conclude that continuing to build and operate large, vulnerable ships makes little sense in an age of proliferating anti-ship missilesand greater visibility of ship movements through a variety of sensors.