The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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Dirty Little Secrets
The Largest Warship Sinking Ever
by James Dunnigan
May 29, 2005
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The U.S. carrier America was sunk, off North Carolina, on May 14th, after 25
days of tests to see what effect various anti-ship weapons had on the 84,000 ton
ship. The details of the tests, and the results, were kept secret. This is
because the information gained reveal which weapons (torpedoes, anti-ship
missiles and bombs) have what kind of impact on the ship. According to the navy,
none of the weapons used sank the ship, as the actual sinking was done as a
“controlled sinking” in 6,000 feet of water. The $22 million series of weapons
tests, and controlled sinking, was cheaper than scrapping the ship.
Environmental rules make scrapping prohibitively expensive.
The America served from 1965-96, after which it was put in reserve. No one
has made an attack on a modern carrier (the latest ones weigh 90-100,000 tons),
and several generations of new anti-ship weapons have appeared since the last
time (1945) an American carrier came under enemy fire. Protection for these
ships, and damage control methods, are all derived from theoretical damage from
different weapons. Computer simulations have been used as well. But the navy
knows that simulations and calculations don’t catch everything, so the tests on
the America were meant to obtain information needed to improve protection and
damage control methods a bit more. This was the largest warship to ever be sunk,
in war or peace. The previous record holder was also an aircraft carrier, the
Japanese Shinano (a converted Yamato class battleship), that displaced 72,000
tons. Shinano was sunk by four torpedoes from an American sub, and went down
largely because the interior of the ship was not complete, and all the
compartments were not yet water tight.
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