Pictured: Inside the charred amphibious
warship HSS Bonhomme Richard after a
fire tore through the 844-foot vessel for
more than four days off San Diego
harbor, leaving 'extensive' damage
Daily Mail (UK) & Associated Press,
by
Lauren Fruen
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
7/19/2020 10:50:01 AM
These are the first pictures from inside the charred amphibious warship HSS Bonhomme Richard after a fire tore through the 844-foot vessel off San Diego harbor last Sunday. More than 160 people had been aboard when the blaze erupted at 8:30am local time. It had been undergoing maintenance when the fire was first reported in a lower cargo area where seafaring tanks are parked. Now new pictures taken inside the Navy ship by @Osinttechnical and confirmed as verified to The Navy Times show the 'extensive damage' caused by the blaze which burned for more than four days. It is not yet known
Reply 1 - Posted by:
comstock 7/19/2020 11:13:23 AM (No. 483686)
What a mess. My Navy buddies and I are running an Anchor Pool on whether she will be stricken or repaired. So far the consensus is to be stricken, and that's before we've seen these pictures.
11 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
HPmatt 7/19/2020 11:14:23 AM (No. 483687)
Obama naval officers in charge here? Never recall this happening in my life.
19 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
czechlist 7/19/2020 11:21:31 AM (No. 483693)
"H"SS?
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
curious1 7/19/2020 11:27:49 AM (No. 483703)
#2, Clintoon and then especially Obola gutted the flag ranks. And that in turn flows downhill in terms of who is promoted and what policies are in place, and who isn't encouraged to re-enlist, in the lower ranks. Not to mention the reviews in your file.
18 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Urgent Fury 7/19/2020 11:36:49 AM (No. 483711)
Had this happened on deployment, it may have sunk, and I bet dozens of deaths. Fire at sea is no joke, been through one.
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Mushroom 7/19/2020 11:50:48 AM (No. 483733)
That'll buff out.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
ROLFNader 7/19/2020 11:54:48 AM (No. 483741)
IF it is salvageable? It will never have the structural integrity is had from the time it was built to moment the fire took it. I'm not a metallurgist but I would bet Soros' money that I'm right.
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Strike3 7/19/2020 12:01:09 PM (No. 483751)
Fire Safety is at the top of the list of concerns for Navy ships. I would say that a couple of bad decisions led to this destruction. It will cost us.
7 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
mc squared 7/19/2020 12:08:24 PM (No. 483759)
I'm not knowledgeable about Navy ships but are there no fire control mechanisms on board? CO2, Halon, water??
1 person likes this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
hershey 7/19/2020 12:17:11 PM (No. 483768)
Any musims around the dockyard?
9 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 7/19/2020 12:31:47 PM (No. 483786)
It would not surprise me to learn if this was sabotage on the part of one of the workers who attached himself to one of the work crews. The Pentagon better do a thorough investigation on this, for this is a bad one to just write off to some kind of mistake or error.
8 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
devnull 7/19/2020 12:54:07 PM (No. 483803)
Thank God they were not at sea. This sounds like it was worse than the USS Forrestal and those of us in the Navy remember that from our damage control training in bootcamp. That ship could have been mine. We had work being done on a fuel void and the worker who came onboard to cut one of the pipes cut the one to the void that still had fuel in it rather than the one that was emptied for repair. That could have gotten very bad very quickly. Easy to get turned around on a ship and not understand whether you are facing forward or aft if there are no bulkhead markings which, if you are in a fuel void, I would not expect there to be markings.
5 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 7/19/2020 12:57:10 PM (No. 483806)
#12, it never could have happened even remotely like this if fully manned and sea ready. Fire suppression systems were disabled for maintenance, hatches were locked open that would be shut to starve the fire, and there would have been hundreds fighting it within a few minutes.
Absolutely could not happen at sea.
6 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
chance_232 7/19/2020 1:20:40 PM (No. 483827)
The ship can be repaired. Remember that most of the ships sunk in Pear Harbor were re-floated, repaired and returned to service. The question will be one of cost benefit. Is it cheaper to repair or scrap and replace.
Had the ship been at sea, the ship would have been fully staffed, with water tight integrity implemented and all fire suppression systems functional.
The Forestal fires were a result of munitions going off.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
DVC 7/19/2020 1:32:30 PM (No. 483841)
The hull and engineering spaces (engines, etc, - the major machinery of the ship) did not suffer damage. THAT is a very big deal in deciding whether to scrap her or rebuild her.
If the hull was compromised or the engines destroyed, she would almost certainly be a strike. Now, it's a more complex decision.
5 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
bighambone 7/19/2020 1:44:09 PM (No. 483850)
Knowing that a foreign newspaper would be first out with photos of the damage to a US warship in an American shipyard!
6 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 7/19/2020 1:51:59 PM (No. 483854)
It appears the warship is heading to a salvage yard. Aside from its on board engine fuel, it appears that the interior was constructed of numerous flammable materials.
1 person likes this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
red1066 7/19/2020 2:11:35 PM (No. 483873)
First reports states that the ship is a total loss, and cannot be repaired. Also, why are these photos appearing in a British newspaper? No U.S. newspaper interested? Seems to me, the communist rags in this country would be falling over each other to be the first to publish these pictures of an oppressive regimes ship that's been destroyed by fire.
8 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
DVC 7/19/2020 3:19:57 PM (No. 483919)
The DM writers cannot reliably tell the difference between a rifle and a shotgun, or any piece of military hardware and something different, why would ANYONE imagine that their opinion on repairability of this ship has any validity?
IMO, the most important issue for the USN folks deciding this is to balance the expected remaining useful life of the ship, if it had not been damaged, versus the probability that they will be able to obtain a new, updated, more modern, more advanced, perhaps differently laid out replacement in perhaps the same time frame as repairing this one.
Huge numbers of automobiles are "totaled" and then 'sold for scrap' and then repaired and sold by someone with a willingness to do the work. If the information that the hull is undamaged and the engine spaces were not significantly damaged is correct, then the ship CAN be repaired. Whether that is the most cost effective and time-effective thing, or advances the military mission of the USMC/USN in the best way over that time will have to be decided.
Potentially spend 1/3 of the cost of a new ship and have a repaired 22 year old ship, which will be certainly upgraded significantly during the repairs...so will have many improvements. But - what changes in USMC/USN doctrine have occurred since 1998 which may make them want something with a different internal layout, fundamentally different design in some way? I don't know the answer to that question, but it may become pivotal.
Not - whether it CAN be rebuilt, but whether it SHOULD be rebuilt.
3 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 7/19/2020 4:21:27 PM (No. 483950)
Some Naval heads are going to role over this.
2 people like this.
I was in the Navy back in the mid 60s. Is this ship the same as the USS Bonhomme Richard, ship number 6 (which shows she is/was an old lady.) Same ship revamped? She was affectionately called the USS Bonnie Dick. From the pictures it appears to me she is unfixable. Looks like a bomb went off. I will pray for those injured and hope for a speedy recovery. Seems like those "old carriers that are placed as museums remain so we can enjoy their stories.
0 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Historybuff 7/19/2020 5:01:13 PM (No. 483983)
Every time I hear some one say we should turn an old cruise ship into a hotel I slap my head. A ship at dock is a fire trap. A ship undergoing a refit is even worse with gear lying adrift systems turned off and torches used in all kinds of tight spaces.
1 person likes this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
DVC 7/19/2020 6:21:18 PM (No. 484049)
#9, yes there are, and every single person on every single USN ship, pilots included are highly trained in fire fighting in enclosed spaces with breathing gear.
The fire suppression systems were disabled during maintenance.
1 person likes this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
DVC 7/19/2020 6:28:34 PM (No. 484057)
#21, No, you are probably thinking of the Bonnie Dick which was an Essex class, WW2-built aircraft carrier. But it was CV-31. CV-6 was USS Enterprise, a Yorktown class aircraft carrier of WW2, one of the few original carriers that survived the war. It was decommissioned in the late 40s.
This Bonnie Dick is an amphibious assault ship. It has an internal 'well deck' which can open the stern and be flooded with an internal ramp to launch landing craft, and a hangar deck and small flight deck for helos and a few vertical takeoff fixed wing aircraft like Ospreys and Harriers, now F-35Bs. Self contained ability to land and support US Marines on a foreign shore.
2 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
TCloud 7/19/2020 9:37:55 PM (No. 484213)
Scrap the ship!
0 people like this.
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Expensive mistake. Sabotage? Repair crews selected by Diversity instead of competence? Fire control systems were disabled because of the maintenance work. Replacement cost estimated at $4 billion (plus however many years it takes to build such a vessel) if the ship is not salvageable.