PFWiz

Keep it coming, the pics are great!

The South Carolina class CGNs (CGN38,39,40&41) were designed to protect the carrier for 21 minutes in a maximum conventional WW III scenario. At that point our magazines would be empty. The purpose of that 21 minutes was to give the carrier time to launch an ALPHA strike (everything that is flyable and can carry munitions loaded up and in the air). Under no circumstances ever would we abandon our carrier to her fate. She was ours, if we could not protect our carrier then we had no reason to exist! Average age of the crew was very early 20s, we were invincible, nothing could stop us and we were ready to make a grand gesture if required. As far as breakdowns went there would be none. Seriously, we all knew that something breaking down could cost our lives if war broke out (this was the height of the cold war). It was still Rickover's Nuclear Navy. We did planned maintenance 24/7. We were Navy Nukes, products of the toughest schooling the US military has ever had. The extra credit question on my Nuclear Power School Physics final was "Prove E=MC2, show your work"! 45 of us entered that school as part of Section 1 (the rocks) and 17 of us graduated. Since we had tested out prior to joining and had been given the direct order "Go to this school, pass this school" there was no acceptable reason to flunk out. Failures received UCMJ and were punished. We could make over 26 knots at 107% Rx power on only 1 of our 2 Rxs (ask me how I know!) We could be at 100% power, scram a RX, cross connect steam plants, maintain 26 knots, perform a Rx start up (BANK ROD WITHDRAWALS, BABY!) and be back to both plants at 100% in under 18 minutes! We we trained within an inch of our lives, we were Gods! Like Iron Man said in the Avengers "if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it." If the birds left on a Alpha strike they would know before they got there if they had a carrier to come back to. If they did not, then what did they have to lose? By the way, thanks, I haven't thought about this stuff in along time...

On my ship (USS Texas CGN-39) we never (to my knowledge) automatically changed throttle setting when making a turn. We did not care what speed we were making, the only thing that mattered was our position relative to the carrier (usually the Nimitz, but sometimes the Ike). 90,000+ ton carriers slow down far more in any given turn than a 11,000 ton CGN. Also they turn at a far slower rate. We never for example made a right standard turn to X degrees, we simply kept station (within reason). Kind of like a dog on a leash. We went were they went as fast as they went. Actual speed was based on a RPM meter. It was about 8" in diameter with 0 to 300 RPM covering the dial. Accuracy was not its main forte! We never made small changes to try to match every tiny change station, but rather larger changes to keep our spot. Trying to make micro speed adjustments to huge steam plants is a losing game. If we were not part of a fleet then we made no throttle changes at all for turns. At sea it really doesn't matter if you are doing 18 knots for a few minutes as opposed to a continuous 20.

Except for the California I mostly agree with you. The California was lost due to incompetence. I am not sure if her Captain was relieved, but he certainly should have been. The ship never achieved anything close to condition Zebra (all water tight openings closed) and was lost due to progressive flooding thru open hatches and scuttles. You also need to consider that warships at sea with full power available and with the crews at battlestations (condition Zebra set) are much more difficult to sink than ships in port at 0700 Sunday morning.

They could not fit 4 propellers on a DD with a shoe horn. The entire reason for multiple props was that during the WW2 time frame you could only run about 60,000 max shp thru any one prop. This was due to size and efficiency constraints necessitated by old tech. Earlier those numbers would have been even lower with older ships. Fletcher class DDs used nearly 60,000 shp thru 2 props to achieve 35 + knots.