6 ms·

The BHR is old as it is. I don't see it ever leaving port again after this.

sterwill 6y ago
Multiple news sources have called the ship "old" at 23 years, and more succeptable to fires because of its age. I mean, we knew about fire back in 1995 when the thing was designed (I was alive back then, and I knew about fire). I don't know anything about shipbuilding, but isn't the US Navy full of much older ships that aren't considered fire hazards? Is there something special about this one? It had a halon system (that didn't work).
- modwest 6y ago
  The halon system was switched off because it was in maintenance.
  - sterwill 6y ago
    I understand that, but why is a 23-year old ship considered old? USS Nimitz is nearing 50 years old. Wikipedia [1] lists a bunch of ships built in the 70s and 80s. USS Bonhomme Richard appears to be newer than half the ships there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_United_States_Navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_U...
    - modwest 6y ago
      It’s not. Commenters on HN know jack shit about this topic but love commenting like they have any idea. It’s the thing HN is most known-for: non-experts speaking out of their ass with top-tier confidence. Edit: it’s not even halfway through its projected lifecycle.
      - avs733 6y ago
        hey now...most of us speak out our ass with top-tier confidence about things we ARE experts in. Don't limit us.
      - galacticaactual 6y ago
        Well. Given that I've planned and rehearsed operations with this exact ship, I'll stand by my comment - this ship and its guts are hardly new. In colloquial terms - "old."
        mattdeboard 6y ago
        It’s not old. It’s not new. Wasp classes have a half-century lifespan. It’s one of the newest Wasp classes to be commissioned. You still have plankholders on active duty. By ship standards this is not an old ship.
  - jeffcore 6y ago
    Halon being tagged out wouldn't have influenced the outcome here. Lower V is not Halon protected. MMR1 below it is, but not V. The next closest Halon compartment would have been FWD EDG, which would have been beyond too late once the fire reached it. The AFFF system would have made short work of the fire, had it not been tagged out / in IEM -- definitely affected the fire attack. I did two years on Iwo, and BZ to the Bonny crew. They did all they could have with those fire trees with plastic nozzles until help arrived.
    - mattdeboard 6y ago
      Yeah it’s a harrowing situation. I look forward to seeing an accounting of what happened. This is a catastrophe for the Navy.
    - mattdeboard 6y ago
      BTW were you aboard the Iwo in 2005? I was a Marine deployed w/ SPMAGTF Katrina down there and we got “evacuated” on the Iwo Jima when another hurricane was bearing down on the area. It was a Marine battalion along with a lot of civilians. Don’t remember how long I was aboard but a few days certainly, before disembarking in norfolk or somewhere thereabouts.
newacct583 6y ago
It was laid down in 1995, that's not particularly old for a naval vessel in general. The Wasp class are still active, their replacements are just now entering service, and there was no plan to decommission it that I'm aware of. Whether it gets repaired or not is more of a financial decision than anything else. Surely the hull has many decades left.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  The fire has been raging for 2 days now and the forward mast has collapsed. I'd be absolutely shocked if that ship sailed again. Steel really warps when you heat it up. Each compartment needs to be water tight. Just fixing the doorways alone would be a monumental task. Not to mention all the cabling and equipment that needs to be replaced. The amount of labor it will take to fix the steel will probably more than just laying down an entire new ship.
  - rwmurrayVT 6y ago
    You have to evaluate the cost of the work, the cost of a new build, dry dock availability, and the ability to parallel path a repair + a new LHA. It'll be an interesting decision.
    - linuxftw 6y ago
      Yeah, not just costs, but also scheduling concerns. The amount of spaces in shipyards is not elastic. The amount of labor needed for the repairs is not elastic. How will deferring the maintenance of other ships that are operation impact ship availability and how much will deferring maintenance end up costing those other ships in additional repairs? Unfortunately, the military is run by MBAs now. There's no excess funding available for emergencies. Every penny is allocated, and it's still not enough. I was on a smaller amphib class ship, we routinely ran out of budget for replacement parts. Every quarter was an exercise in prioritizing what was going to be fixed and what was going to not get fixed because we simply didn't have the budget for maintenance. Another concern is the crew. You've now got 200 or so sailors with nothing to do. Are they supposed to just mill about and wait for the ship to be repaired for a couple years? The crew will need to be rotated to other assignments. Now, you have a ship with no crew, it's going to have to go basically through the entire commissioning process again, sea trials, etc. It's all a logistical nightmare.
modwest 6y ago
Extremely ironic given your username.
avs733 6y ago
age isn't the issue...metal structure and repair cost is pretty much the entire structure seems to be destroyed. Undoing that damage and then rebuilding what was destroyed will be effectively (if not greater than) the cost of just buying a new one. Even if you could repair it, you don't want to. A large amount of the metal has been heated to very high and unknown temperatures. Typically, the concern is three things [0]: dimensional changes (i.e., you warped your entire ship), increased corrosion (hot metal rust faster), and permanent reduction in strength (like, >50% permanent reduction in strength). Now add in that the fire has almost certainly burned or boiled the paint off the external surfaces that are contacting sea water. That paint is the the skin of the ship, any of that underlying steel would need to be expected, cleaned, and likely repaired. Age isn't the issue, the damage is. It would be like trying to renovate a burned out house. At some point it's not a renovation its a teardown. EDIT: adding the obvious 'this is my opinion based on observations and I have no first hand data on this ship' qualifciation [0] https://www.edtengineers.com/blog-post/fire-effects-steel https://www.edtengineers.com/blog-post/fire-effects-steel
dingaling 6y ago
> The BHR I assume that's some sort of contrived neutral nickname for the ship. It's the Bonny Dick to sailors and always will be.

Multiple news sources have called the ship "old" at 23 years, and more succeptable to fires because of its age. I mean, we knew about fire back in 1995 when the thing was designed (I was alive back then, and I knew about fire). I don't know anything about shipbuilding, but isn't the US Navy full of much older ships that aren't considered fire hazards? Is there something special about this one? It had a halon system (that didn't work).

modwest 6y ago
The halon system was switched off because it was in maintenance.
- sterwill 6y ago
  I understand that, but why is a 23-year old ship considered old? USS Nimitz is nearing 50 years old. Wikipedia [1] lists a bunch of ships built in the 70s and 80s. USS Bonhomme Richard appears to be newer than half the ships there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_United_States_Navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_U...
  - modwest 6y ago
    It’s not. Commenters on HN know jack shit about this topic but love commenting like they have any idea. It’s the thing HN is most known-for: non-experts speaking out of their ass with top-tier confidence. Edit: it’s not even halfway through its projected lifecycle.
    - avs733 6y ago
      hey now...most of us speak out our ass with top-tier confidence about things we ARE experts in. Don't limit us.
    - galacticaactual 6y ago
      Well. Given that I've planned and rehearsed operations with this exact ship, I'll stand by my comment - this ship and its guts are hardly new. In colloquial terms - "old."
      - mattdeboard 6y ago
        It’s not old. It’s not new. Wasp classes have a half-century lifespan. It’s one of the newest Wasp classes to be commissioned. You still have plankholders on active duty. By ship standards this is not an old ship.
- jeffcore 6y ago
  Halon being tagged out wouldn't have influenced the outcome here. Lower V is not Halon protected. MMR1 below it is, but not V. The next closest Halon compartment would have been FWD EDG, which would have been beyond too late once the fire reached it. The AFFF system would have made short work of the fire, had it not been tagged out / in IEM -- definitely affected the fire attack. I did two years on Iwo, and BZ to the Bonny crew. They did all they could have with those fire trees with plastic nozzles until help arrived.
  - mattdeboard 6y ago
    Yeah it’s a harrowing situation. I look forward to seeing an accounting of what happened. This is a catastrophe for the Navy.
  - mattdeboard 6y ago
    BTW were you aboard the Iwo in 2005? I was a Marine deployed w/ SPMAGTF Katrina down there and we got “evacuated” on the Iwo Jima when another hurricane was bearing down on the area. It was a Marine battalion along with a lot of civilians. Don’t remember how long I was aboard but a few days certainly, before disembarking in norfolk or somewhere thereabouts.

newacct583 6y ago

It was laid down in 1995, that's not particularly old for a naval vessel in general. The Wasp class are still active, their replacements are just now entering service, and there was no plan to decommission it that I'm aware of. Whether it gets repaired or not is more of a financial decision than anything else. Surely the hull has many decades left.

linuxftw 6y ago
The fire has been raging for 2 days now and the forward mast has collapsed. I'd be absolutely shocked if that ship sailed again. Steel really warps when you heat it up. Each compartment needs to be water tight. Just fixing the doorways alone would be a monumental task. Not to mention all the cabling and equipment that needs to be replaced. The amount of labor it will take to fix the steel will probably more than just laying down an entire new ship.
- rwmurrayVT 6y ago
  You have to evaluate the cost of the work, the cost of a new build, dry dock availability, and the ability to parallel path a repair + a new LHA. It'll be an interesting decision.
  - linuxftw 6y ago
    Yeah, not just costs, but also scheduling concerns. The amount of spaces in shipyards is not elastic. The amount of labor needed for the repairs is not elastic. How will deferring the maintenance of other ships that are operation impact ship availability and how much will deferring maintenance end up costing those other ships in additional repairs? Unfortunately, the military is run by MBAs now. There's no excess funding available for emergencies. Every penny is allocated, and it's still not enough. I was on a smaller amphib class ship, we routinely ran out of budget for replacement parts. Every quarter was an exercise in prioritizing what was going to be fixed and what was going to not get fixed because we simply didn't have the budget for maintenance. Another concern is the crew. You've now got 200 or so sailors with nothing to do. Are they supposed to just mill about and wait for the ship to be repaired for a couple years? The crew will need to be rotated to other assignments. Now, you have a ship with no crew, it's going to have to go basically through the entire commissioning process again, sea trials, etc. It's all a logistical nightmare.

modwest 6y ago

Extremely ironic given your username.

avs733 6y ago

age isn't the issue...metal structure and repair cost is pretty much the entire structure seems to be destroyed. Undoing that damage and then rebuilding what was destroyed will be effectively (if not greater than) the cost of just buying a new one. Even if you could repair it, you don't want to. A large amount of the metal has been heated to very high and unknown temperatures. Typically, the concern is three things [0]: dimensional changes (i.e., you warped your entire ship), increased corrosion (hot metal rust faster), and permanent reduction in strength (like, >50% permanent reduction in strength). Now add in that the fire has almost certainly burned or boiled the paint off the external surfaces that are contacting sea water. That paint is the the skin of the ship, any of that underlying steel would need to be expected, cleaned, and likely repaired. Age isn't the issue, the damage is. It would be like trying to renovate a burned out house. At some point it's not a renovation its a teardown. EDIT: adding the obvious 'this is my opinion based on observations and I have no first hand data on this ship' qualifciation [0] https://www.edtengineers.com/blog-post/fire-effects-steel https://www.edtengineers.com/blog-post/fire-effects-steel

dingaling 6y ago

> The BHR I assume that's some sort of contrived neutral nickname for the ship. It's the Bonny Dick to sailors and always will be.