bentwaters81tfw Posted July 12, 2020 Share Posted July 12, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogsbody Posted July 12, 2020 Share Posted July 12, 2020 Wow! Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanHx Posted July 12, 2020 Share Posted July 12, 2020 US Navy using smoke signals now for communications ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NigelD Posted July 12, 2020 Share Posted July 12, 2020 All crew accounted for.. 18 crew taken to hospital with minor injuries. Reports of 4 civilians also injured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted July 13, 2020 Share Posted July 13, 2020 Amazing how much water the little fire fighting ships have on board.... Alex 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted July 13, 2020 Share Posted July 13, 2020 1 hour ago, alex said: Amazing how much water the little fire fighting ships have on board.... Alex I think they pump it directly from the ocean. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Bradley Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 Still burning tonight: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyingSpanner Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 That looks incredibly expensive. I wonder whether they will repair her Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EwenS Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 The fire is reported to have started on the lower vehicle deck, which is down just above the waterline roughly under the forward end of the island and under the bridge. Given that the fire has clearly gone up several decks and spread fore and aft, the bridge has partially collapsed and they are dropping water from helicopters seemingly in an effort to cool it (temps up to 1000 degrees C are being reported - well above the point that steel starts to lose its strength) the internal damage must be huge. The general feeling seems to be that it is a write off. There is a rough schematic of the ship at the bottom of this page https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/lhd-1.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeronut Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 Was there an RN ship in port at the time? It wasn’t an attack in revenge for the Battle of Flanbourgh Head was it? ( look it up ) What amazes me is that with all the butchering of the English language the Americans get away with they’ve kept the French pronunciation of Bonhomme Richard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehnz Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 I saw this on the telly news last night, it did look rather nasty. A thought occurred to me, how much water can they pump into her before she capsizes at her berth, shades of SS Normandie at New York in 1942. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EwenS Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 55 minutes ago, Aeronut said: What amazes me is that with all the butchering of the English language the Americans get away with they’ve kept the French pronunciation of Bonhomme Richard. Or rather, returned to it. CV-31 / CVA-31 was the second ship to carry the name but was USS Bon Homme Richard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exkiwiforces Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 I’ve seen some pictures of the flight deck, after I was wondering why on earth would you need helicopters with monsoon buckets to fight a fire on a ship and now I know why as parts of the flight deck has collapsed inside the ship Ouch. I remember this ship and her sister ship when I was in Timor-Leste during INTERFET some 20 odd yrs ago. It’s such a sad way to see her in this state and knowing that she is more than likely off the knackers yard now. After seeing those huge holes in her flight deck as it’s going to take more than few a metal bashes armed with welders to patch up her flight deck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junglierating Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 3 hours ago, stevehnz said: I saw this on the telly news last night, it did look rather nasty. A thought occurred to me, how much water can they pump into her before she capsizes at her berth, shades of SS Normandie at New York in 1942. Steve. Free surface flooding ....which is minimised by breaking up the flow of water and the use of pumps to discharge water overboard. Ships damage control.....used to good effect on the NOTTINGHAM and in the past BRIZZLE ...that gash barge is still about ....sort of. We wont mention ENDURANCE....way too much politics in that event. Anyway good luck to the crew and fire fighters . On 7/12/2020 at 10:20 PM, IanHx said: US Navy using smoke signals now for communications ? Hirlarious 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick4350 Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 I've seen some pictures on Facebook where there are large holes in the flight deck and the forward tower has collapsed and the ship has reported to have taken a list due to the massive amount of water being pumped into the vessel to try and put out the fire. They even used water bombing from helicopters to dump water on the flight deck to try and cool the decks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted July 14, 2020 Share Posted July 14, 2020 Definitely a CTL I would think. Depends on whether she'll be disposed of by scrapping or SINKEX. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoSG0 Posted July 15, 2020 Share Posted July 15, 2020 (edited) Bit of a thread over on pprune. Pic of flight deck damage taken from a helicopter I think? https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/633983-fire-uss-bonhomme-richard-lhd-6-12-jul-20-a-5.html https://www.pprune.org/showthread.php?p=10836724 Edited July 15, 2020 by NoSG0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EwenS Posted July 15, 2020 Share Posted July 15, 2020 The holes seen in the photo in the second link are not in the flight deck. They are in the top of the island structure. The forward funnel is bottom right and the ladder like structure above is the forward mast. Smaller holes aft of the big one are just ahead of the after funnel. Note the aerials just above them which can’t be on the flight deck. Some of the nighttime photos showed flames in that area. The light grey square under the helicopter tailwheel is the heat coating on one of the landing spots on the flight deck which appears undamaged. Having said that some reports suggest that the heat from below has weakened some areas of the flight deck causing the steel to sag between the supporting beams. The fire has gone from a compartment about the level of the waterline to burn its way through to the top of the island. Reports indicate fire in the dock aft of that and in the hangar above the dock. Judging by where the tugs were spraying water the fire has also gone forward nearly to the bow in compartments forward of the hangar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted July 15, 2020 Share Posted July 15, 2020 There will be little left unfortunately. You can't heat steel like this and not seriously degrade its mechanical properties. Even forgetting the miles of wiring and pipework destroyed reducing the ship to a systemless hulk, the hull itself will be seriously damaged above the waterline. Damage assessment may include hardness testing of hundreds or perhaps thousands of areas of the structure. Or they might not bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoSG0 Posted July 15, 2020 Share Posted July 15, 2020 EwenS, thank you for the correction/information. I apologize for my error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EwenS Posted July 15, 2020 Share Posted July 15, 2020 (edited) 22 minutes ago, NoSG0 said: EwenS, thank you for the correction/information. I apologize for my error. No apology required. It's been widely reported on social media that she has holes in the flight deck and that photo has been cited as evidence. It had me fooled for a while but certain elements didn't make sense until i looked closer. Only time will tell about the extent of the flight deck damage. Edited July 15, 2020 by EwenS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junglierating Posted July 15, 2020 Share Posted July 15, 2020 12 hours ago, EwenS said: Judging by where the tugs were spraying water the fire has also gone forward nearly to the bow in compartments forward of the hangar. That could be for boundary cooling shipmate....sound ships firefighting principles👍 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EwenS Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 Latest report https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/fire-gutted-much-of-uss-bonhomme-richard-cno-gilday/ The damage can be buffed out!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davecov Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 It is always sad to see ships suffer so much damage through fire. I really can't see the sense in restoring her. It would be too expensive to repair and they should replace it with an updated design and transfer her name to the new ship. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard E Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 Asking the question as a layman: would there have been a similar level of damage had a similar fire started whilst the ship was underway and had a full complement aboard ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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