Attention Brigade: Volunteers for Service

[Drydock]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Brigade.

As Chief of Staff GAF I have been amazed, astounded, and honored by a deluge of requests to form a Volunteer unit of Heavy Cavalry for service in the Crimean theater.  I honor all of you who wish once more to respond to the sound of the guns. It is truly a pleasure to be surrounded by such who hear the call of Duty.

HOWSUMEVER!  Exploratory discussions with the current War Department Bureau of Personnel has revealed that the definition of "Heavy Cavalry" does not include Fat Old Men on Horses.  Therefore such requests are reluctantly denied.

HOWSUMEVER! Discussions with the Navy Department Bureau of Personel (Bupers) and Bureau of Ships (BuShips) on the possibility of reactivating the USS Missouri (BB-63) for a bombardment mission against Sevastapol are ongoing.  Should this be approved you will all be contacted.

Carry on!

[Delmonico]

Can I be Head Chief Cook?

[LT Col Long]

What the heck, I'll volunteer for engine room and electrical systems.  Wife and I got to walk her decks in 2006.  Those guns, wow those GUNS!!!!!!! 

[Drydock]

Just big single shot rifles.


Really, really, really ginormous single shot rifles.

[LT Col Long]

What can shoot a 2200 pound projectile 20 miles with accuracy (according to an article in Popular Mechanics I read a while back).  LIKE those GUNS!!!!!  Very IMPRESSIVE...

[Drydock]

2700 lbs.     (My first ship, way back in 1986.)

[Galen]

So we use draft horses. If you're dead set on a ship BB62 Is closer. We could crew the USS Olympia just across the bay from the NJ and land a shore party with Gatlings.

[S. Quentin Quale, Esq.]

You're gonna need somebody to call the fall of the shot.  It's been a while and my last deployment was on a Bird Farm, and that was as a Stiff Winger.  Still, MO there's a flight deck and I could learn to be a Rotorhead.  Or rework AV-8s as the environment might be "hot" and rotary wing machines might not be the best platform.  During the Normandy Invasion some of the scout pilots from the BBs were sent back to England and trained to fly Spits which then called the shots for bombardment group.  Sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same!!! 

SQQ

[Drydock]

Old coots on Clydesdales does have a terrifying visual element to it. . .

[Robert Swartz]

......this whole thread reminds me of an episode of the old Roseanne show. The episode revolved around the prospect of a new prison being built in their town. One of the guys remarked he could see himself working at the prison. Someone else quipped "I can see you as a hostage"!

[Pitspitr]

Old coots on Clydesdales does have a terrifying visual element to it. . .

Maybe not so much. One word explains why. "Cossacks!" While technically they WERE Ukrainians, the Russians claim them too.

Besides "Humorous" might be a better description when watching this old coot falling off of a Clydesdale! I was never very good at staying on top of them and thinking of the, uh, size of our Brigade it would require, at a minimum, a Clydesdale to support most of us.

[Galen]

Ok then it's buckboards then.

[Drydock]

A taste of "Shermans War" perhaps . . .








(Reference John Wayne move "The Undefeated"}

[Galen]

Now for a bit of seriousness. Anyone visited the USS Olympia recently? I last saw her in August 2019, she was in a sad state. Needs to be Restored.

[Tascosa Joe]

While I have never seen the USS Olympia, I have been on the USS Texas and the USS Alabama and both ships are in a sad state.   Both have the same issues lack of funds and lack of volunteers to assist in keeping them secured from the elements let alone make them seaworthy.   The sailors who served aboard these mighty implements of war are almost gone now and those of us who are the children of those warriors are getting pretty "long in the tooth" as well.  Just my view from the foxhole.
T-Joe

[Tascosa Joe]

Back to the subject

Does the Mighty MO have a shallow enough draft to get thru the Straights of Bosporus?

[Drydock]

Yes, no problems, the Bosphorus has an average depth of 213 feet. 

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-records/2015-166

The Turkish Navy Yavuz was the ex german battlecruiser "Goeben" acquired in 1914.  She was scrapped in the early 1950s after the West German Government declined to buy her back.  Too bad really.

Both Texas and Olympia have seen a lot of work the last few years, though mostly below the waterline.  Olympia has a mobile cofferdam going around the hull doing work, and the Texas should be drydocked this year.