Milsurp After Hours

oops double post

Eoin,

Yeah I will be a bit lost but looks like I'm gunna have heaps of photos to keep me company.

dhtaxi,

would love to follow up your suggestions. Unfortunately just landed a new job, Mon-Fri/9-5, so only have weekends available for important things. So Leeds is going to have to be a fly in Fri and out Sun affair. As such the Royal Armouries will probably be the entire itinerary.

Unfortunate also in that my date to return to Australia is rapidly approaching. Any itinerary from here on is going to be a compromise hammered out with the missus. And how do you argue with a woman who walked into a gunshop, looked at a 1919 Lithgow stocked in Queensland Maple and said "That's one of those guns you like isn't it ? That's beautiful wood on it isn't it ? Buy it!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/w ... don281.jpg[/pic]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/w ... don223.jpg[/pic]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/w ... don200.jpg[/pic]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/w ... don187.jpg[/pic]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/w ... don168.jpg[/pic]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/w ... don171.jpg[/pic]

Neat!

Probably the US analog, here's the USS Salem, currently berthed in Quincy, Massachussetts.

http://images6.fotki.com/v91/photos/2/2 ... IMG-vi.jpg[/pic]

http://images6.fotki.com/v90/photos/2/2 ... IMG-vi.jpg[/pic]

http://images6.fotki.com/v91/photos/2/2 ... IMG-vi.jpg[/pic]

Visited while in Boston last year.

Here's the Destroyer Cassin Young, berthed in Boston-

http://images6.fotki.com/v91/photos/2/2 ... IMG-vi.jpg[/pic]

http://images6.fotki.com/v90/photos/2/2 ... IMG-vi.jpg[/pic]

Berthed across from the Young is this ship, which is slightly more famous-

http://images6.fotki.com/v91/photos/2/2 ... IMG-vi.jpg[/pic]

Sadly, both were closed (Sunday afternoon).

Sowmewhere, I've got pix of the USS North Carolina, USS Yorktown, USS Alabama, USS Laffey, USS Torsk, USS Constellation, and a couple others. I've stayed oevernight on the Yorktown...

I used to stop at every ship I could. If you'r einterested, I'll look for and scan the pix.

Whats the sailing ship PB?

Joe

That's Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution.

http://www.ussconstitution.navy.mil/

Commissioned in 1797.

Defeated the HMS Java, HMS Guerrier, HMS Cyane, and HMS Levant in the War of 1812.

She spent the 1850's patrolling the coast of Africa looking for slavers and pirates, and in 1871 was refit as a training ship.

Restored in 1925, Recommissioned in 1931, and was towed to various port cities as part of a goodwill tour.

In 1941, she was given permanent commission, and placed as a museum in Boston Harbor.

In 1997, after several years of repairs and refits, she sailed for the first time in over a decade using just the wind to power her.

She remails a fully commissioned US Navy vessel, and her crew is all US Navy personnel. The ship sails every July 4, and for several special events a year.

Sunk the last Japanese ship of WW2. Currently berthed in Baltimore.

http://www.usstorsk.org/baclit07a.jpg[/pic]

Sister ship of the Constitution, last all-sail ship built for the US Navy and (not kidding) Flagship of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in WW2.

http://www.constellation.org/center.jpg[/pic]

Actually, she's *not* the Constitution's sistership...and that's a shock because growing up in Baltimore, that's what we were all taught in school!

Turns out that the Constellation berthed in Baltimore, is a much later ship, built in 1854, the same year that the ORIGINAL Constellation was torn down for scrap.

As the new Constellation was commissioned the same year that the old Constellation was scrapped, the name never came off the Naval Registry, so it was assumed that the new ship was a refit of the "old" one.

In 1994, it was confirmed that the Constellation in Baltimore was not a 1797 launched frigate, but a later "sloop of war" dating from the mid-1850's.

Shocking, huh? Baltimore used to promote the ship as a contemporary of the Constitution, but she's actually much later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Conste ... %281854%29