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Saturday, April 04, 2009

The Makin Island (LHD-8)

I was interested in seeing some photographs of the new amphib, Makin Island (LHD-8). From some angles, the ship seems pretty warlike and impressive. Wikipedia is saying that the ship can only make 20 knots, but gives the dimensions and the power. The ship is about 780ft LWL x 106ft x 27ft. A reasonable normal displacement is 41,000 tons. With power of 70,000 SHP, I thought that a higher speed should be possible. I ran an experiment with Springsharp and it seems that the ship, at about 41,500 tons should be able to make 25 knots.

I was interested in the story behind the ship name, and Carlson's Raiders attack on Makin Island in 1942. The Nautilus and Argonaut seem to have been originally intended as cruiser submarines when they were designed. The German success with cruiser submarines in the Great War seemed to argue for the type having usefulness, but the Japanese were the only great power to have any success at all with the type after 1918.

1 comment:

Bob said...

Good guess. It made a bit better than that over ground on its sea trials!!!

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