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Military Pics / Photos

What is something that almost nobody knows about submarines?
The smell.
When nuclear submarines are at sea they mostly remain submerged with a sealed atmosphere. Part of the atmosphere control system functions are to remove carbon dioxide (CO2), since a build-up of carbon dioxide can become fatal. To remove the carbon dioxide submarines use a chemical called amine. When amine is cool it absorbs carbon dioxide and when hot will release it. So the amine is cycled through a machine referred to as a CO2 Scrubber, which will alternately heat and cool the carbon dioxide and pushes the gas into the ocean, keeping the atmosphere breathable.

This is a very effective system, with the downside being the amine imparts a rather “unique” smell into the atmosphere. Which ultimately permeates every part of the submarine interior including crew members clothing and even their skin.

In addition to the amine smell, submarine crews are exposed to cooking odors, hydraulic oil vapors, diesel exhaust that isn’t quite captured by the diesel exhaust system, inboard venting of the sanitary tanks, and the smell of a large number of closely confined people. The interiors become quite fragrant. Crew members become accustomed to it and after a while never notice it. But other people do.

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Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov Underway, Displaying Its Iconic Black Smoke Plume
The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov has been spotted underway, trailing its characteristic plume of thick black smoke—a signature of the vessel’s aging boilers fueled by 'mazut,' a heavy oil that has long been associated with Soviet-era naval ships. The sight of the Kuznetsov belching smoke, captured by photographer Andrei Luzik and distributed via Tass, is both a reminder of the carrier's operational status and a symbol of its persistent technical challenges.
While the Kuznetsov continues to be a key asset in Russia’s naval fleet, the black smoke is a visible testament to the aging infrastructure of the carrier. Despite numerous overhauls, the vessel’s heavy oil-powered boilers remain a point of criticism and concern for military analysts.
Nonetheless, the Admiral Kuznetsov continues to project Russian maritime power, even as it navigates through its legacy of maintenance issues and mechanical setbacks.
Credit: Andrei Luzik/Tass via Getty

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Will our older NIMITZ class carriers get Service Life Extension overhauls like we gave our older carriers during the Cold War?
This is simply not possible. There is no chance that any of the Nimitz-class could be used for 75 years.
+ At 25 years or so all Nimitz-class ships had to have their reactors refueled. This occurs at the mid-life Refueling and Complex Overhaul aka RCOH. RCOH comprehensively refurbishes almost the entire ship. RCOH essentially gives the ship 25 more years of service.
USS Carl Vinson CVN-70 RCOH 2006. Vinson was commissioned in 1982. She started her RCOH at the end of 2005 at just under 24 years old. RCOH takes about 3 years. Vinson’s service life is expected to be finished in 2033.
At 50 years the reactors are once again needing to be refueled. But this won’t happen because it's simply not worth the cost. To push a heavily used carrier past 50 years is not going to happen. At 50 years, a ship is worn out and all the overhauls in the world will not help.

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What is an HSV Navy?
The HSV stands for "High Speed Vessel", and her home port while chartered as a MSC vessel was Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Virginia. The vessel had two CONMAR crews that typically rotated every three months to keep the ship deployed eleven months per year.

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What is considered the most powerful battleship in history in terms of firepower, size, and protection?
That would be the famous Japanese battleship Yamato. She was the largest battleship ever built at 863 feet (263 meters) long, 128 feet (39 meters) wide, and displacing 72,808 tons. This massive size was done to support her capabilities, as Yamato was also the most powerfully armed and armored battleship ever built, nicknamed a super battleship for a reason.

Nine 18.1-inch (46 cm) guns served as Yamato’s main battery, housed in three 3-gun turrets, two forward and one aft. These were the largest and most powerful guns ever built in history, each capable of firing a 3,220 pound shell up to 26.1 miles to penetrate up to 20-inches (51 cm) of reinforced armor. Accuracy was very good, Yamato’s weight and beam were an amazing gun platform, she used ripple firing, and combined with the innate accuracy of a larger weapon gave Yamato a shell dispersion of just 440–550 yards at max range. These main guns were supported by six 6.1-inch (155 mm) guns in two 3-gun turrets, one forward and aft, twenty four 5-inch (127 mm) dual guns in twelve twin turrets, six on each side, and up to 162 1-inch (25 mm) automatic cannons (which were called moral boosters for a reason).

Armor was equally good, a 16.1-inch (41 cm) main belt sloped at a 19 degree angle and a 7.9–9.1–13.4-inch (20–23–34 cm) deck protected their citadel, which was the thickest armor ever produced for such armor. Yamato’s 25.6-inch (65 cm) turret armor was proven to be immune to all naval guns at all realistic battle ranges, and it’s safe to assume to 22-inch (56 cm) barbette armor carried a similar effect. This undoubtedly gave Yamato the best armor of any battleship ever built. Even the most powerful 1,000 pound AP bombs deflected off their deck, while Yamato was capable of just eating up torpedoes. During her final battle, even by at least 7, but probably 9 torpedoes, she was still making 18 knots, and only listing at 10 degrees (albeit all void spaces had been flooded, making further counter flooding impossible without drastic measures).

Yamato was designed to make 27 knots, but proved capable of 28.2 knots (33mph) on sea trials, and fire control was pretty good. Four sets of massive 49 foot (15 meter) optical systems decked the ship, three in each main battery gun turret and one on top the pagoda mast. Advanced electromagnetic calculators served as the main fire control system, and this was supported by a basic set of fire control radar.

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(Feb. 20, 2024) The Virginia-class attack submarine USS Texas (SSN 775) prepares to undock from Drydock #3 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard during a scheduled maintenance period, Feb. 20, 2024. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Charlotte C. Oliver)

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Hawaii February 1991 - Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Alabama (SSBN-731) (left) and USS San Francisco (SSN-711) at Pearl Harbor.

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The Des Moines class heavy cruiser USS Newport News (CA-148)(Right) tied up alongside the Boston class guided-missile cruiser USS Boston (CAG-1)(Left) in 1966.

The most interesting thing about the image is the size difference between the warships. Boston was a Baltimore class heavy cruiser, the predecessor to the Des Moines class. Both cruisers were similar in appearance and had a similar armament. The original armament was a battery of nine 8" (203mm) and twelve 5" (127mm) dual-purpose guns.

However, the Des Moines class were about 30' longer (700' vs. 664' waterline length) and 6' wider (76' 6" vs. 70' Beam). This resulted in a significantly heavier ship with the Des Moines class displacing almost 21,000 tons compared to just over 17,000 tons for the Baltimore class.

This increase in size and weight was largely due to the auto-loading Mark 16 8" guns of the Des Moines class. The bulkier auto-loaders resulted in a larger turret that was about 50% larger than those on the Baltimore class (450 tons vs. 300 tons). The auto-loaders needed additional space, increasing the distance between the gun barrels by about 20" over the previous guns. The larger gun mounts and larger turrets required a larger hull to carry them.
Was this great size worth it? For the most part yes! The auto-loading Mark 16 was very successful. It allowed for a sustained rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute, a 150% increase over the previous guns. For comparison, the Mark 15 guns aboard the Baltimore class could reach about four rounds per minute, diminishing as the crew tired.
In addition to the greater firepower, the Des Moines class also had greater protection. Greater horizontal protection was carried (3.5" vs. 2.5" on the Baltimore class), giving the ships greater protection against bombs and long-range gunfire. Like the firepower, the greater armor also required more hull volume to support it.

An interesting photo due to the contrast between ships!

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Did you know the solid quartz glass of the canopy of the SR-71 Blackbird cockpit was 1.25 inches thick and was hot to the touch from the inside?

SR-71 Blackbird Pilots and RSOs, even with gloves on, couldn’t keep their hands by the glass for more than a few seconds without doing damage. During its career, the SR-71 Blackbird gathered intelligence in some of the world’s most hostile environments. The SR-71 was conceived to operate at extreme velocities, altitudes and temperatures: actually, it was the first aircraft constructed with titanium, as the friction caused by air molecules passing over its surface at Mach 2.6 would melt a conventional aluminum frame.

Its engineering was so cutting edge that even the tools to build the SR-71 needed to be designed from scratch. Let’s talk about the windows in the SR-71 and about the severe heat the windshield of the SR-71 would experience at top speeds. Skunk Works Designers ultimately decided that using solid quartz for the windshield was the best way to prevent any blur or window distortion under these conditions, so they ultrasonically fused the solid quartz to the aircraft’s titanium hull to make the quietest cockpit possible; the estimated temperature of the outside of the cockpit of 600 degrees F.

As reported by The SR-71 Blackbird website, the integrity of the double solid quartz camera window demanded special attention because of the optical distortion caused by the effect of great heat (600 degrees F.) on the outside of the window and a much lower temperature (150 degrees F.) on the inside could keep the cameras from taking usable photographs.

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Three years and $2 million later, the Corning Glass Works came up with a solution: the window was fused to its metal frame by a novel process using high frequency sound waves.
Linda Sheffield

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Am interesting tidbit- when it was being built, the cold war, the US was shy on titanium. The CIA set up a shell company and purchased the titanium from USSR.
So they helped build the aircraft that had something to do with their downfall.
 
Another interesting factoid: the body panels were loosely fit so that when the aircraft gets up to speed and the panels expand from the heat, they would fit snugly. On the tarmac, the thing leaked fuel profusely because of this.
 
We actually saw the fuel leaks. I think I've reported this before, but we went to the 50th air force anniversary air show at Edwards/Dryden. I got there before sun up. I wanted to see all the birds take off. And damn did we get a show. When we got there, it was parked just off the area where spectators could be and you could see it dripping a good flow and the wet ground below. And they started it up. Coolest thing ever.
Saw it, bone, B2, all the fs, and some of war birds. B52 showed up from somewhere and stayed in the air. And then they flew the entire fleet by in formation. Including Yeager in a f16.
 
waybomb said:
We actually saw the fuel leaks. I think I've reported this before, but we went to the 50th air force anniversary air show at Edwards/Dryden. I got there before sun up. I wanted to see all the birds take off. And damn did we get a show. When we got there, it was parked just off the area where spectators could be and you could see it dripping a good flow and the wet ground below. And they started it up. Coolest thing ever.
Saw it, bone, B2, all the fs, and some of war birds. B52 showed up from somewhere and stayed in the air. And then they flew the entire fleet by in formation. Including Yeager in a f16.
Click to expand...
That sounds awesome. If you're ever in Dayton, Ohio, make sure to visit the USAF Museum at Wright Patt AFB. You can spend hours and hours in there and still not see everything. You don't realize how big the B52 and B36 are until you see them up close and dwarfing all of the other aircraft.
 
Task Force 1: the world's first all-nuclear task-force as it steams around the world without replenishment. From top to bottom: USS Bainbridge (CGN-25), USS Long Beach (CGN-9) and USS Enterprise (CVN-65)

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How did pilots of the SR-71 Blackbird prevent the aircraft from leaving contrails over 65,000 feet?
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The SR-71 Blackbird was designed to fly at Mach 3.2, or more than three times the speed of sound, and at altitudes up to 85,000 feet. At such extreme conditions, the air temperature was very low, around -60°C, and the air pressure was very low, around 0.9 psi. This meant that the air was very dry and could not hold much water vapor.
The SR-71 had two powerful Pratt & Whitney J58 engines that used a special fuel called JP-7, which had a very high flash point and low vapor pressure. The fuel was also used as a coolant for the engines and the airframe, which heated up due to aerodynamic friction. The fuel was circulated through heat exchangers and then sprayed into the engines’ afterburners, where it ignited and produced thrust.
The SR-71’s engines had a unique feature called “ejector nozzles”, which allowed them to operate efficiently at both subsonic and supersonic speeds. The nozzles consisted of two concentric rings: an inner ring that could move forward and backward to adjust the exhaust area, and an outer ring that had slots to allow air to enter the exhaust stream. The air entering the slots created a shock wave that increased the pressure and temperature of the exhaust gases, making them expand faster and produce more thrust. The air also diluted the exhaust gases, reducing their water content and making them less likely to form contrails.
The SR-71 pilots had to carefully monitor the engine performance and adjust the nozzle position to avoid contrail formation. They also had to avoid flying through clouds or areas of high humidity, which could trigger contrail formation. They used a device called a “contrail light”, which was mounted on the tail of the aircraft and projected a beam of light downward. If the light reflected off a contrail, the pilots would know they had to change their altitude or speed.
One example of a close encounter with a Soviet fighter occurred on Oct. 6, 1986, when an SR-71 was flying along the coast of Murmansk. The pilot, Ed Yeilding, spotted a long white contrail coming towards him at lower altitude. He realized it was a MiG-31 interceptor, one of the few aircraft that could reach the SR-71’s altitude. He raised his periscope and saw that he was also leaving a contrail behind him. He knew that the MiG-31 pilot could see his contrail as well and might try to fire his missiles at him if he crossed into Soviet airspace. He decided to stick to his planned track and get his pictures while depending on his speed and altitude for survival. The MiG-31 came as close as eight miles before running out of airspeed at 65,000 feet.
 
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