ex-navy wrote:
1. I know she is based on Belknap design, but why did they decide to use a MK-10 launcher instead of BOX launcher for ASROC...
Note that the Mk 10 was modified in the Belknap design to have an additional ring in the magazine, so they eliminated an entire launching system and therefore the needed cost, weight, deckspace and personnel for it. Tommy T could not use the same weapons layout as the Belknaps due to needing the forward hull depth for reactor one - so they reversed the layout - Mk 42 fwd, Mk 10 aft.
ex-navy wrote:
2. Why did she not get the ABL upgrade in the late 80's...
She was put on the decom list as early as 1988.
ex-navy wrote:
3. did they ever consider removing the older MK-10 and forward gun Mount for upgrade to either VLS and unmanned 5-inch mount that the tyco and spruance class use.
Below decks was all wrong for this. The depth of the MK-10 magazine was below the helo deck, and any VLS there would have cost Helo capability (with the leaky and unworkable fantail hangars on the Virginia's, Tommy T was the only CGN with a workable Helo Hangar) Forward, there was no room to widen the location of the Mk 42, and aft of mount 51 was the 'front porch', below which was reactor #1 - so no hull depth there.
My exposure to the Mk45 was.....uh... non-positive. Tommy T had the last Mk42 in US Service, and that's one of the reasons they wanted to use her when they thought we may have to land in Haiti. Her Mk 42 worked, and worked well. I have one of the last shells she fired.
I swear there wasn't 40' worth of straight p-way in that ship. Her layout was essentially hull with two reactors dropped in and everything else stuffed around that.
I was aboard for her final cruise - but I didn't ride her up to Bremerton. I got helo ride off followed by a COD shot off Lincoln back to San Diego.
oldnavyguy, where were you? I was in OUTBOARD.
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