pinehilljoe
Senior Airman
- 702
- May 1, 2016
I would have preferred the USN keep the old naming convention for carriers, historic fighting ships, or battles. FDR, JFK, then Eisenhower set the trend for Presidents.
Aircraft Carrier and Aircraft Limits
- Thread starter Zipper730
- Start date
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I would have preferred the USN keep the old naming convention for carriers, historic fighting ships, or battles. FDR, JFK, then Eisenhower set the trend for Presidents.
Admiral Beez
Captain
I wonder what type of ship a USS Trump would be? There's Probably Never Going To Be A USS 'Donald J. Trump'
Thumpalumpacus
Major
<edited, probably too political. Sorry, mods.>
cherry blossom
Senior Airman
- 510
- Apr 23, 2007
Could we imagine a class of fully automated decoys that accompanied major warships at a safe distance and misleadingly screamed out here I am on all wavelengths?
I never understood why ships still have to bear a name; it seems like a silly outdated superstition. On top of that, some names are reused again and again, denoting a certain lack of creativity; it's not like we risk running out of people to honor or places to remember! Just give them a registration code that makes easy to recognize them (which I believe all ships have anyway, making names redundant).
Back somehow on the original topic, how IJN carriers would have fared if they survived the war into the jet age? Most of the IJN carriers were comparable, in size, to the British Majestic/colossus classes, so I assume a small jet like the A-4 'scooter' could be used but anything bigger would be out of question, right?
Back somehow on the original topic, how IJN carriers would have fared if they survived the war into the jet age? Most of the IJN carriers were comparable, in size, to the British Majestic/colossus classes, so I assume a small jet like the A-4 'scooter' could be used but anything bigger would be out of question, right?
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,271
- Jan 31, 2021
Very simple really, humans remember names better than numbers. Sometimes it was naval tradition, there have been 5 "Ark Royals" going back to 1587. Humans would rather be associated with "HMS ARK ROYAL" on their cap than "R07". There are 26 letters in the alphabet, my father served on HMS Highlander (H44) mainly, but on other H class destroyers destroyers too. In aviation "Spitfire" just denoted a type the actual aircraft always had a number to identify which type, starting at a MK I or if a special type it was a Seafire or Spitfire PR Mk ?. Even in services that identified planes by numbers, actual names were adopted like Thunderbolt Wildcat and in Germany Emil and Gustav. Going further, many pilots and crews where they had their own assigned aircraft gave it a name, that of a loved one or something back home.
cherry blossom
Senior Airman
- 510
- Apr 23, 2007
There is a science fiction story in which five of the most powerful space warships in the galaxy are operated by an AI race and have only numerical identifiers. They find themselves temporarily working together with humans and their controlling AI, who the humans suspect does not understand irony, decides to name these planet destroying horrors Amity, Friendship, Alliance, Sunrise and Melody.
There would have been horrible problems in modifying most IJN carriers to operate jets, because many had low clearances in the hangars and a strength deck between the upper and lower hangars as discussed at Rebuilding the Unryo Class to operate jets. An exception could be Taiho, which might perhaps have been refitted to be useful up to about 1970.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
We humans have a habit of giving things names. People name their dogs, their cars, their creaky joints. We name a ship or individual airplane because for some reason we feel a connection to it -- or want to engender a connection to it.
I don't think it's superstitious as much as it is psychological, which is a subtle but present distinction.
I've named a couple of cars I've owned. Others, I haven't.
Navies probably name ships in order to establish esprit des corps in advance of the general human attachment to things which have served them through rough times, is my guess.
If I flew a fighter, you're damned sure I'd name it, after a while. Not out of superstition, but mere human clodginess. (I think I just made up a word!)
I think reusing names is not a matter of being uncreative, but rather a matter of instilling tradition and a sense of history into our fighting folks. Registration codes don't really tug at heartstrings like "we can't let down the history of USS Enterprise" or what-have-you.
Of course registration codes and serial numbers have their place, but that place isn't inspiring.
Admiral Beez
Captain
How do you want to refer to ships? The Germans for the most part didn't name their destroyers or submarines, instead just giving them a Z or U number. Similarly the USN doesn't name littoral craft like PT-Boats and LSTs. Is this what you have in mind? The latest Ford class carrier doesn't have a name yet, it's just CVN-82, for now. Considering that these ships are people's home, often for years it seems a little impersonal for the vessels to not bear a name whatsoever. Even the cold and calculating Russians and Chinese, where men are more disposable have evocative names for their warships.
A numerical system works just great, try to remember any of this, in fact the numbers are just the same as any alphabetical system, just harder to remember. List of German U-boats - Wikipedia
Admiral Beez
Captain
True, a number is still a name. But I think the point was to remove any moniker from the point of reference.
In some cases the number is a name, a prefix, like my fathers H class destroyer, just try to remember any of it.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I think this is missing the point. Ship-names aren't created to remind sailors where they're bunked, ship names are created to help effect crewmanship and camaraderie, and a connection with tradition.
Of course smaller craft bore alphanumerics and not names. That's because the navy operating them considered them disposable. I bet those four- or five-man crews still named their boats, if only in small talk and not in paint. That's what humans do.
Admiral Beez
Captain
Nameless destroyers in the KM tradition are unusual. The 3,500 ton Type 1936B destroyers were big enough to warrant a name, but only got a number. Meanwhile the British named each of their 925 ton Flower class corvettes, plus all submarines above x-craft. British MTBs got numbers.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
That's because each nation has its own set of values, and its own way of approaching tradition.
Admiral Beez
Captain
Also Britain wanted the world to know that attacking even a small RN ship was a significant act. All of the 625 ton Insect class gunboats had names. That's gunboat diplomacy.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I hadn't looked at it like that, but yeah, attacking a name rather than a number might be thought to carry more gravitas.
Admiral Beez
Captain
Of course that didn't work out for HMS Amethyst. The ChiComs didn't GAF who they were shooting at.
One wounded sailor, Simon was posthumously awarded the Dickin Medal for his support of his fellow combatants.
Nicknames like Gustav or Emil were given to facilitate communication over radio, when messages could be barely intelligible; same purpose as the phonetic alphabet. Of course many pilots painted figurines or gave their planes odd names, out of tradition and superstition (knights were naming their swords, so giving pretty names to instruments of destruction is nothing new...). I don't think the practice was neither approved (I don't believe there is a rule anywhere that allows people to tweak or modify government property to their liking) but neither discouraged or forbidden, as a gesture of piety towards people the governments were sending to their death in combat.
Well numbers can be remembered too. There are movies about famous subs like K-19 or U-571. When you say 'Das Boot', you think about U-96, so it's not like not having a name prevents you from making a connection with a famous ship.
On the subjects of ships with recurring names, it's also interesting that there were a few cases in which ship X had a glorious and remembered career while ship Y, same name, had a short or particularly unfortunate career, and that usually "taints" the name making it a no-go for further ships. Yep, sailors are really a superstitious lot.
