WI USS Forestall is lost in 1967?

bard32

Banned
Let's talk about Vietnam now. What if the USS Forestall, one of the first supercarriers, is lost in 1967? On August 29, 1967, there was a fire on the USS
Forestall. That fire was touched off by a loose Zuni rocket which touched off
leaking fuel and the leaking fuel, in turn, touched off World War II era napalm
bombs. The Forestall was John McCain's ship during the Vietnam War, when she was on Yankee Station, (off North Vietnam,) and it took a while for her damage control teams failed to get it under control. What effect would her sinking have had on the conduct of the war?
 
NHBL

NHBL

Sinking?

Bad luck can sink almost anything...
Suppose the fire spread to the hangar deck, and there were numerous armed aircraft ready for a strike.

Sinking is probably not going to happen, the USN is GOOD at damage control.
But if Forrestall came back to the USA, gutted, perhaps not even worth repairing, that's almost as bad. She's probably be repaired, even if it wasn't economicly feasible, simply because then, a carrier hasn't been destroyed.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
And then, in the confusion, the communist sympathizer Mr. Mcain (ASB? It's AH dammnit!) blows himself up near the rest of the ordinance and his co-conspirators do the same at key positions...

After that, the US military, reeling from the Communist subterfuge (others call it terrorism), goes on a rampage in Vietnam, asking, no, demanding the Japanese turn over their documents on jungle war, the Australians, the Koreans and any others friendly enough to have given their years of experience fighting in the jungle over to American Military Analysts.

Maybe they make it to stalemate?
 

Riain

Banned
I thought that fighting the fires so much water was pumped into Forrestal that she developed a bad list and was in danger of sinking.
 

bard32

Banned
NHBL said:
Bad luck can sink almost anything...
Suppose the fire spread to the hangar deck, and there were numerous armed aircraft ready for a strike.

Sinking is probably not going to happen, the USN is GOOD at damage control.
But if Forrestall came back to the USA, gutted, perhaps not even worth repairing, that's almost as bad. She's probably be repaired, even if it wasn't economicly feasible, simply because then, a carrier hasn't been destroyed.
Click to expand...

In 1967, the USN's damage control hadn't changed to since World War II.
The Navy actually had revise its damage control.
 

Mike Stearns

Riain said:
I thought that fighting the fires so much water was pumped into Forrestal that she developed a bad list and was in danger of sinking.
Click to expand...

I don't recall that, but I do remember that the explosion blew out several decks and that one of the bombs fell into the hole and blew a large hole in the hull, just above the waterline. Its concievable that if it had been lower, the ship would have taken on water a begun to sink.
 

bard32

Banned
Mike Stearns said:
I don't recall that, but I do remember that the explosion blew out several decks and that one of the bombs fell into the hole and blew a large hole in the hull, just above the waterline. Its concievable that if it had been lower, the ship would have taken on water a begun to sink.
Click to expand...

There was a special about it on the Discovery Channel a few years ago. The
bombs in question were left over World War II surplus and BTW, the Forestall
was John McCain's ship at the time.
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

Kinda the point, you need ASB intervention to sink the ship from the fire.
Click to expand...

not quit ASB but all most

see it was NOT the Fire how made most dammage but rocket and Bombs !
had the fire spread to below aircraft hangar from there
it had reach the ammo bunker or Jet fuel Bunker of the USS Forestall

the Discovery Channel claimes this almost happend

Nine bomb explosions on the flight deck occurred, eight caused by the "Comp. B" bombs and the ninth occurred as a sympathetic detonation between an old bomb and a newer H6 bomb. The explosions tore large holes in the armored flight deck, causing flaming jet fuel to drain into the interior of the ship, including the living quarters directly underneath the flight deck, and the below-decks aircraft hangar.
Click to expand...

from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

and wat happen if fire reach the nuclear weapon on bord of USS Forestall ?
they have a Fail saif in case of fire (like broken arrow on aircraft)
 

Mote

If memory serves, the magazines are below the waterline and quite heavily protected, not to mention that they would have been flooded long beforehand if that was a significant danger.
 

bard32

Banned
Mote said:
If memory serves, the magazines are below the waterline and quite heavily protected, not to mention that they would have been flooded long beforehand if that was a significant danger.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. If it was an AP bomb, that's the purpose of an AP bomb.
 

Mote

bard32 said:
Doesn't matter. If it was an AP bomb, that's the purpose of an AP bomb.
Click to expand...

There wouldn't be any AP bombs up on the deck to detonate and an AP bomb penetrates through kinetic energy, falling at high speed with a thick case (thinner cased bombs break up on armor). It's not going to magically reach into the bowels of the ship simply because it detonates on deck and even were it to do so, it wouldn't be as damaging as other bombs because it contains much less high explosive in proportion to its weight than a GP bomb.
 

bard32

Banned
Mote said:
There wouldn't be any AP bombs up on the deck to detonate and an AP bomb penetrates through kinetic energy, falling at high speed with a thick case (thinner cased bombs break up on armor). It's not going to magically reach into the bowels of the ship simply because it detonates on deck and even were it to do so, it wouldn't be as damaging as other bombs because it contains much less high explosive in proportion to its weight than a GP bomb.
Click to expand...

The USS Franklin was hit by a Japanese bomb which penetrated three decks.
Of course, Franklin, CV-13, (thirteen's considered unlucky,) and the flagship of
Task Force 13, had her radar knocked out along with her power and fire control. Very similar to what happened to Forestall twenty-two years later.
What saved Forestall was her armored deck, which Franklin, unfortunately,
didn't have. If the fire had burned long enough, then the bulkheads and other
systems, could have been compromised.
 

Roberto

bard32 said:
Franklin, like Forestall, would have sunk. Can't I even make an analogy here?
Click to expand...

You can, but when it's irrelevant and has nothing to do with what we're discussing, then it's to no avail. The Franklin was hit by a bomb, not sunk by a fire. :rolleyes:
 
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