Sinking USS Towers Oct 2002

This is all very interesting but 1/ what effects to the enviroment will these sinkings have? Presumably all oil and fuel etc would have been removed.
2/ in a war situation these ships would have been manouvering and fighting back, would this have helped or just postponed the inevitable?

Hmmmm interesting, We sunk all our DDG’s in a controlled explosive sinking blowing out hold above the waterline whilest blowing in hols below the waterline.

Notice with Towers you can’t see any damage? I can see scorch marks just below the bridge in the first pic there are clearly two different scortch patterns here, one forward of the bridge close to the forward turret on the waterline and one aft of that (more like a little hole). Assessing these I’d say the Hell fire hit the forward most part (hardly any hitting power with this type of missile against a ship), the hole will definatly be the Harpoon, I have seen these hit, bury themselves and explode internally. Judging by this hit, it would have been a kill, it’s right on the fuel oil stores and also would have taken out most of the crew which would have worked in this area, only those in engineering and emergency stearing would have survived (about 20 people if that).

Buchanan is more interesting, if you look at the aft pic carefully you can see that they removed the rudder and all it’s controls as well as the nixie

Secondary explosions and fire often do far more damage than the original hit!

Well, maybe the Harpoon or Excocet don’t make the ship sink, but maybe that isn’t even the point.

If you sink a ship the enemy just picks up the survivors & get them home. If you damage a ship the ship is out of the fight as wel, but the enemy will have to send ships to save it & there crew & if they do they have to spend resources, people & time to repair it.

That Harpoon hit in the bow of Buchanon may well have ignited the forward 5 inch magazine in an operational warship.

That said there is a world of difference between a hit-to-sink and a hit-to-mission kill.

Unicorn

Yes, that is an excellent point

Good point, I was about to comment on that aswell.

Before we start to jump hasty conclusions about the effects of various weapons I would like to remind you that the ships used of sinking are just empty steel hulls.

Ironically it is more difficult to sink an empty, old warship void of any kind of burning, exploding or fume and heat creating materials, than rendering a in service warship to mission unworthy.

Makes you wonder just how efective something like the Harpoon is when you see so little obvious damage (no doubt its much worse under the skin). In terms of destructive effectiveness it must be bombs or torpedoes every time given a choice.

Rimpac 2000 Sinking USS Buchanan

USS Buchanan DDG-14, and the USS Towers DDG-9, were two of the 4 Adams Class DDGs to have been built at Todd Shipbuilding in Seattle. As these pictures demonstrate, Todd Shipbuilding delivered ships that were tough and who fought to stay afloat to the very end. The Buchanan was a proud ship, may she rest in peace beneath the surface that she guarded for so long. The crew of the Towers salute you, “Fair Winds and Following Seas”.
June 13-14, 2000 — Missile firing and torpedo firing exercises to sink ex-USS Buchanan started June 13. Three Hellfire hits, three harpoon hits and a 2,400 pound laser-guided bomb hit were not enough to sink the ship during a RIMPAC 2000 training exercise. Explosives Ordinance Division experts set an additional 200 pounds of explosive charges the morning of June 14 before sinking during a RIMPAC 2000 exe

The SINKEX started on 08OCT02 when she was struck by one SM-1 missile, one HELLFIRE missile, and one HARPOON missile. Ex-TOWERS remained floating high throughout the night. On 09OCT02 the ship experienced a near miss with a SLAM-ER missile and was struck at least twenty times with 76mm gun ammunition. The last shot was fired at 091512TOCT02 and ex-TOWERS sank by the bow at 091547TOCT02. Location of sinking was 31-16.192N 119-31.396W, 115 nm southwest of San Clemente Island, in 1,963 fathoms

That’s pretty good considering they sank a couple Spruances with just 5″ gunfire (which is pretty pathetic when you think about it.)

Blub blub blub….don’t look like they removed much of the military equipment from it, does it? All mast and radar antennae and guns and such still in place….’course, at THAT deep a depth, who’s gonna be able to get to it to pick it over?

M