Long term viability of the USA's warship museum ships?

[Admiral Beez]

As the Boomers now increasingly expire I expect much of the large USN WW2 museum fleet will be at risk of scrapping. Can the museum business of the 2040s and 50s sustain ALL four Iowa class battleships, plus the battleships North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama and Texas? Or four Essex class aircraft carriers plus the carrier Midway? And eighteen Balao and Gato class submarine museums? That just seems like a lot of repetition. By the time the White House, Congress and the Governor's mansions across the land are populated by Gen Z (those born 1997 to 2012) these WW2 museum ships may seem as important as many see USS Olympia (flagship from 1898 Spanish-American War) today - left to rot as a relic of a now forgotten war.

Here in Canada we have two WW2 warship museums in the water, HMCS Haida and Sackville (plus some beached Oberon SSKs). That's probably all we have the financial stomach for - though I feel for the West Coast's absence of any RCN museum ships.

 

[SaparotRob]

Beautiful shot of the corvette.

 

[MarkS]

The USS Constitution, like HMS Victory,is still serving after 210 years… I suspect that at least one of each class of museum ship will survive.
It will take large fortunes to maintain any of them, but such fortunes are difficult to predict.

 

[GreenKnight121]

The USS Constitution, like HMS Victory,is still serving after 210 years… I suspect that at least one of each class of museum ship will survive.
It will take large fortunes to maintain any of them, but such fortunes are difficult to predict.

Texas has the advantage of being a state-funded museum ship and of having those contrary Texicans enjoying having their own battleship (there is still fiction being written that has ex-BB-35 being brought back into service for various reasons).

As for the carrier museums - I can see Intrepid surviving due to being in NYC with its major USN history and massive population, and likewise Midway being in a Navy town (San Diego and having the Southern California population to support it.

Lexington in deep south Texas is in a smaller-population area, but still seems well-supported (at least when I visited in 2011).

The carriers I see being "iffy' are Hornet in Concord, CA with the anti-military San Francisco population and its run-down location (last I heard they were just hanging on) and Yorktown in Charleston SC. She seems to be doing fairly well for now, but her sister museum ships in the same museum group have had significant maintenance issues due to neglect.

I'm not that up-to-date on the 6 modern battleship museums.

 

[special ed]

The USS Alabama, Battleship Park, stays busy due to warmer winters, lots of airplanes, and a submarine exhibit.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] and Yorktown in Charleston SC. [...]

I forgot about Yorktown. She will be added to my trip list for his upcoming spring.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The USS Constitution, like HMS Victory, is still serving after 210 years… I suspect that at least one of each class of museum ship will survive. It will take large fortunes to maintain any of them, but such fortunes are difficult to predict.

True, and a lack of fortune, especially in the austere 1950s is mostly why the Brits haven't kept anything larger than a cruiser from WW1 or WW2. Mind you, we must remember that the Royal Navy is almost five centuries old, so keeping an abundance from the last major campaign goes against British sensibilities. Though I wish HMS Implacable, captured at Trafalgar had found a sponsor and survived to today.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sCzMkdfAw_g&pp=ygUWaG1zIGltcGxhY2FibGUgc2lua2luZw%3D%3D

Her stern gallery still exists at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, UK. I took these photos during a visit in 2022.

 

[Admiral Beez]

One of the best ways to preserve steel, iron and wooden museum ships is to get them out of the water, like HMS Victory, SS Great Britain, Cutty Sark and Stockholm's Vasa. I visited all four in 2022, amazing stuff.

That's what will save the likes of USS Olympia and the like from rusting away. Though it's not as simple as putting a battleship into drydock permanently, as the keel and hull will begin to hog without support.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's up to us to instill that interest in our kids. Museum ships make that much easier -- or museum pieces like the Gemini capsule my son and I got to play pretend in when he was six or seven years old -- but still, it's us parents who have to take them there and explain why it matters.

 

[GreenKnight121]

The USS Alabama, Battleship Park, stays busy due to warmer winters, lots of airplanes, and a submarine exhibit.

And, like USS Massachusetts, USS North Carolina, and USS New Jersey, Alabama is resident in the state she was named for - which adds a sense of communal "ownership" even though those ships remain the property of the US government (unlike Battleship Texas, as I noted above).

While USS Wisconsin is in Virginia, she is located in the major east-coast US Naval District surrounding Norfolk, Virginia - the largest USN base on the ease coast.

USS Iowa is under a double-whammy... in Los Angeles (with a large but fairly indifferent population) far from its namesake state (although the State of Iowa has contributed significantly to her initial museum start-up costs and to her ongoing maintenance costs) and in an area formerly hosting a major USN base that is now a shell of its former self.
Iowa does gain the benefit of proximity to Hollywierd... errrr, Hollywood - and thus is regularly used for filming of movies and TV shows where the exterior or interior of a Naval Vessel is required.

USS Missouri has the double-cachet of being located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (still a major USN base) and of having been where the Japanese Surrender documents were signed, ending WW2. Being parked just yards from the wreck of USS Arizona lends the poignant "first USN casualty of WW2 guarded by the USN ship where WW2 ended" setting for both ships.

The main long-term support for some of these comes (and will come) from the USN active and veteran personnel and their extended families, and their status as "the real thing, not a computer simulation" - as well as for a smaller number, their actual historical value derived from being where major events occurred.

 

[z42]

The USS Constitution, like HMS Victory,is still serving after 210 years… I suspect that at least one of each class of museum ship will survive.
It will take large fortunes to maintain any of them, but such fortunes are difficult to predict.

A big thing in favor of the Constitution, Victory, and similar ships is that compared to 20th century capital ships they're absolutely tiny. Sure, keeping wood from rotting away takes a bit more ongoing work, but there's a lot more surface to paint on an Iowa class!

Another thing is that newer ships are a lot more reliant on the period industrial infrastructure backing them. Sure, basic steel working and maintenance is sufficient to keep the hull together and watertight, but if you want to keep all the equipment functional that's a different kettle of fish.

 

[z42]

It's up to us to instill that interest in our kids. Museum ships make that much easier -- or museum pieces like the Gemini capsule my son and I got to play pretend in when he was six or seven years old -- but still, it's us parents who have to take them there and explain why it matters.

Yes, to an extent. But kids, and many adults as well, are quickly bored by static displays. Where possible, museum ships that can do trips with passengers can be awesome.

Just a few weeks ago, I went with one of my kids on a short trip on a steam ship, with access to engineering spaces. Kid got to throw coal into the boiler, and be in the engine room seeing that huge triple expansion engine hiss, puff, and churn around. Totally different experience compared to just walking through a museum ship moored to the pier.

There are of course limits to this as well. It's not like you can go on a day trip on a BB and blow some cruise ship out of the water (though we can argue whether that would do the world a favor; man those things are ugly..).

 

[Alan Stevens]

As the Boomers now increasingly expire I expect much of the large USN WW2 museum fleet will be at risk of scrapping. Can the museum business of the 2040s and 50s sustain ALL four Iowa class battleships, plus the battleships North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama and Texas? Or four Essex class aircraft carriers plus the carrier Midway? And eighteen Balao and Gato class submarine museums? That just seems like a lot of repetition. By the time the White House, Congress and the Governor's mansions across the land are populated by Gen Z (those born 1997 to 2012) these WW2 museum ships may seem as important as many see USS Olympia (flagship from 1898 Spanish-American War) today - left to rot as a relic of a now forgotten war.

Here in Canada we have two WW2 warship museums in the water, HMCS Haida and Sackville (plus some beached Oberon SSKs). That's probably all we have the financial stomach for - though I feel for the West Coast's absence of any RCN museum ships.

The U.S. is a big country. I can see the interest and funding remaining to keep all 13 of those capital ships.

North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama and Texas are in their respective namesake states. All more than 600 miles apart except Texas which is the only WW I battleship kept.

New Jersey is in its respective namesake state. The others are very widely dispersed.

The Essexes are widely dispersed.

 

[GreenKnight121]

A big thing in favor of the Constitution, Victory, and similar ships is that compared to 20th century capital ships they're absolutely tiny. Sure, keeping wood from rotting away takes a bit more ongoing work, but there's a lot more surface to paint on an Iowa class!

Another thing is that newer ships are a lot more reliant on the period industrial infrastructure backing them. Sure, basic steel working and maintenance is sufficient to keep the hull together and watertight, but if you want to keep all the equipment functional that's a different kettle of fish.

None of the battleship & carriers have operational equipment.

There is an LST that is privately-owned that takes trips, but few museum ships try to keep anything actually functional.