Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Ahoy!


Time for some useless trivia.



So. I was watching Master and Commander: Far Side of The World tonight, which if you have not seen, by all means, go do so.... it really is that good, even if it takes liberties with the books. And I decided to start poking around the internet about sailing ships of that era.... blah blah... oldest commissioned ship in the world; HMS Victory... didn't know that. Oldest commissioned ship STILL sailing, USS Constitution... DID know that... Then I came across the useless trivia bit. How many US ships, currently afloat in our navy, have been attributed to sinking an enemy vessel in combat? Go ahead. Guess. Your wrong. Waaaaay wrong. Its such a small number, I had problems trying to fathom it. FOUR. A total of FOUR US ships have such a kill number chalked up to them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to be "Likes To Hate On The Navy" Guy; but I am going to state, "thats a pretty god damn small number." So whats worse than a random fact? The useless part! So I sat down and did some research... The four US warships to do that are: the USS Porter, USS Carter Hall, USS Simpson, and.... the USS Constitution. Hold up. Thats not good enough to be Scott useless yet! Lets look at who they sunk. Does that matter? Be-grumblingly, yes it does. The incidents involving the USS Porter [a destroyer class], and the USS Carter Hall [a landing ship!!!], involved pirates. Yes. The modern, non-patch wearing, type. But pirates afloat in international waters, attacking law abiding ships, so we smoked them. No laughing matter. Unless, you are the pirate ship. In which case, why the hell would you tape an UZI to the radio antenna, and think you could take down an oil tanker for cash/hostages, with a United States destroyer hovering on the horizon? But pirates don't count. Why not? Haven't you killed a roach before? A mouse? Its a pest. You are 90 times its body weight, and 1820894 rungs above it on the food chain; its not a challenge, and really nothing to boast about. Like shooting down pirates on rubber rafts, or whatever it is they called a ship. The useless portion of the trivia takes us to our final two contestants...... the ones that actually engaged and sunk state-sponsored aggressors in the open seas! the USS Simpson and the USS Constitution. The Simpson, which is a guided missile ship, engaged and eliminated a Iranian patrol ship in 1988. This was in response to Iran deploying mines in shipping lanes, and us really thinking it necessary to smack the stink off their shit for doing such. So as Iran sailed out to the Simpson to engage it, we took that as an act of aggression [rightfully so], and now they sleep with the fishes... yarrrr. Right? Yes. So thats it. One kill. Thats all she has. So drum rollllllllll; that means the biggest killer in our navy, right at this moment..... is made of wood, and rolls with cloth sails and 24 pound cannons. Yeah. Truthfully, the most recent action she has seen, was in the War of 1812, where she took 9 casulties of war; of which two didn't really sink, but were set ablaze and scuttled [the HMS Java, and the HMS Guerriere]. So.... thats it. How useless is that? Enough to take up the space and kill an hour on my part!


So I leave you with some picture of her glory. The deadliest ship, still afloat in the US Navy.