Old Ships, Navy Museum Part One and a Half

USS Olympia

Just a quick Sunday post. I'm still recovering from the excitement of the past couple of weeks and had to get up early on Saturday to get a safety recall done on my Honda Element, Big Girl. She's still providing valuable service 12 years after The Nuke bought her as a soon-to-be Ensign in the naval service.

Speaking of The Nuke, she got to wear the golden oak leaves of a lieutenant commander this weekend while on reserve duty. Yes, she managed to tweak her big brother, The Naviguesser, who got out of the Navy some years back as a lieutenant. As she put it, "I just want to stay in long enough to outrank my brother!"

Mission accomplished.

While I'd rather spend my Saturday morning some place other than the Honda dealership, they've done a good job of keeping Big Girl up and running over the years. I have no complaints with Honda. The Naviguesser, as an almost-Ensign, bought his first car, a Honda Insight, way back in 2001. She's still running though he no longer owns her, she went to his next door neighbor.

An Insight just like the one The Naviguessor used to drive, same color too. (Source)

Now the Insight is one of those hybrid vehicles, an early example of one of those. I drove her from Little Rhody down to Norfolk back in the day and while low to the ground, she was comfortable and sporty to drive. Well, sporty in a good way. She had all the oomph needed for the interstate and got around 50 miles to the gallon. Not bad.

When she was just past her warranty expiration her main battery gave up the ghost. Kind of an important, and expensive, piece of a hybrid. His local dealership out in California wanted big bucks to replace it, Honda USA said, "Belay that, we'll pay for it."

So yeah, I kinda like Honda.

Anyhoo...

I was up far too early for a Saturday and was out gallivanting in the D.C. area last weekend. The weekend before that was the end of The WSO's visit and I was a bit wore out (in a good way) from playing with the grandkids. (Where, oh where do they get that energy?)

So yeah, I'm a bit tattered and torn up from all the excitement. Which means you'd get a rather semi-coherent post if I didn't have pictures of all those ship models from the Navy Museum. Enjoy. I'll be back on Tuesday but never fear, Juvat will, as he always does, entertain and educate you on Monday.

USS Miantonomoh (BM-5), a fine example of a monitor-type ship.

USS Baltimore (C-3), fourth of six ships to bear the name. A protected cruiser.

USS New York (CA-2), the second armored cruiser in the Navy. The first was the USS Maine.
Oddly enough, New York entered service before Maine.

A view of USS Olympia from her port quarter.

USS Salem (CS-3) a scout cruiser and the first Navy ship to bear the name of Salem, Massachusetts.
Home of the witch trials and, did you know, the name Salem is a shortened form of Jerusalem.

USS Brooklyn (CA-3) the U.S. Navy's third armored cruiser. (Second ship to bear the name Brooklyn.)

USS South Carolina (BB-26). While not as old as some of these other ships, gotta love the old basket masts.

Samson-class destroyer (I think), I didn't catch her name. An old WWI "four-stacker."

USS Panhay (PR-5)
Sunk by Japanese aircraft on the Yangtze River, 12 December 1937. Yes, 4 years before Pearl Harbor!

Dynamite Gun Cruiser USS Vesuvius

In theory, the Vesuvius could fire thirty projectiles consisting of five hundred pounds of gun cotton, dynamite of other high explosive in thirty minutes. The projectiles were fired from three 15 inch guns using compressed air, hence the name "pneumatic guns". The compressed air would create less of a shock on the projectile than would a normal explosive charge and would therefore have less of a tendency to prematurely explode the projectile, which generally carried nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. (Source)

In case you were wondering what a "Dynamite Gun Cruiser" was. I know I was!

Yacht Corsair owned by J.P. Morgan, served as USS Gloucester during the Spanish-American War.

And because Murphy wanted pictures of the Museum's other Corsair...

And for Shaun, because nothing says "Get off my lawn" like a submarine's deck gun...

See you Tuesday!

I keep forgetting to mention that Olympia still exists and is in Philadelphia. The caption to the opening picture is a link to their website. Thanks to a couple of readers who pointed that out!