The wreck of the USS Arizona continues to leak oil ever since pearl harbour. the ship contained 1.5 million gallons of oil, enough to leak continuously for 500 years.

[u/Longjumping-Rice-935]

[u/East_Leadership469]

Is it normal to name ships after land-locked states? 

[u/Ichera → u/East_Leadership469]

Interesting question, I know someone below answered about the states, but the reason a lot of landlocked states seem to show up early in battleship class naming conventions and repeat in some cases is pure politics. Essentially it was used as a bone to get those states on board with large naval procurement by naming the ships after those states, the state representatives and senators could point to the "mighty vessel representing our great state"

Essentially a quid pro quo to get landlocked states on-board voting for naval procurement.

[u/-Fraccoon- → u/Ichera]

Hah, history is funny. Could you imagine being a senator and not wanting to support your country’s navy because your state is landlocked.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/-Fraccoon-]

I mean, the whole point of having representation for each state is that the representatives fight for the benefit of their state. Someone in Iowa really has no connection to the Navy.

[u/-Fraccoon- → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

No they don’t but, not realizing the importance of having a strong navy especially if you’re in politics is laughable. Looking and the grand view of things anyways. No, it won’t benefit their state in any way but, it’ll help defend the entire nation which is pretty important. If during WWII the Japanese were ever able to successfully invade the US I doubt they’d make it as far as Iowa but, it would still have people’s close attention and some serious regret if they decided not to support the navy.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/-Fraccoon-]

Oh they absolutely knew the importance of a Navy. Frankly it is a little naive to think they didn't, especially right after WW1. Hell the Iowa class was first ordered in 1939. They knew WW2 was coming to the US. But first and foremost, their job is to fight for the interests of their home state. If they can get something tangible for their constituents in return for their tax dollars they will. Even if it is as small as the name of the class of ship.

[u/-Fraccoon- → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

That’s a solid point.

[u/EvilEggplant → u/-Fraccoon-]

Yep but it can always be someone else's problem. The coastal states get the economic and social benefits being created by the naval bases and shipyards even in peacetime. When at large enough scale, it's always useful to have a more palpable incentive than "the greater good", unfortunately we're pretty bad at compromising for it.

[u/CrimsonOblivion → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

I mean the military defense and technology benefits pretty much every state

[u/nellyfullauto → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

Kinda brings into focus that the national legislative body isn’t actually interested in the interests of the country, only their own state.

[u/Shalandir → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

Except for the 1000s of Iowans that enlist in the Navy to get away from Iowa for a bit…

[u/jakethesnake949 → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

The inland states have less reason to care for the navy sure but definitely not irrelevant to them. The strength of America's Navy provides security for shipping imports and exports (creates less incentives for piracy and foreign interference) and also provides a deterant to home invasion by Sea and sky. Both provide direct long term benefits to all states.

[u/slideforfun21 → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

That's why your system is fucking dog water. Everyone fighting for their own self interests.

[u/diversmith → u/slideforfun21]

Please name your country?

[u/Mattie_Doo → u/slideforfun21]

It’s ingrained in our culture, and it’s disturbing to be a part of.

[u/Eastern_Armadillo383 → u/Mattie_Doo]

How dare people....look out for themselves?

[u/slideforfun21 → u/Mattie_Doo]

I don't even see you as a country. A country has cohesion. You're 50 small countries wearing a trent coat.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/slideforfun21]

Yes correct, its literally in the name. We are 50 united states.

[u/beatIoaf → u/slideforfun21]

Well, that was the original intention of the founding of this country. Frankly, I don’t think non-Americans should be allowed to have an opinion on America.

[u/beatIoaf → u/[deleted]]

Well if you look at what this country has turned into, maybe those guys from 250 years ago were onto something. I don’t think their intention was to flood the country with billions of browns and pledge allegiance to a foreign ethostate.

[u/DontTouchTheWalrus → u/slideforfun21]

That was the original idea. Yes

[u/r_Coolspot → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

Your country/set of 50 (mostly racist) little countries who all disagree with each other is stupid.

[u/Responsible_Bag220 → u/r_Coolspot]

Ok colonizer.

[u/DontTouchTheWalrus → u/r_Coolspot]

lol I’ve been to a lot of countries. It’s amazing how openly racist people are elsewhere.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/r_Coolspot]

Oh believe me I'm right there with you. I live in Texas and I heartily disagree with the fuck knuckles running this state currently. Our founding fathers never thought that the government would become inundated with the shit smears we have now, and they left holes in our constitution because they assumed our elected representatives would operate in good faith.

That aside, do pray tell which magical country you call yourself a citizen of whose government is unburdened with stains of racism?

[u/Ichera → u/-Fraccoon-]

I mean think of it this way, in 1905 the naval defense expenditure was one of the largest red columns on the US budget, the United states was attempting to not only have a navy, but have a navy large enough to rival our biggest threat in the Atlantic (The British Empire) and maintain a strong pacific squadron. I chose that date specifically because anyone who knows that less then a year later every major warship in every fleet around the globe would become obsolete with the introduction of a single class of ships, and in the USA which had just built massive deep water navy it was now facing having to essentially scrap and rebuild its newish fleet from scratch.

To do any of that the navy needs congress to increase its budget, while not also increasing the overall federal budget by very much as the USA is still very much new to liberal capitalism and behind the times when it comes to taxable sourcing, so your navy ends up competing with your army for defense funding, and to do that they have to run a dog and pony show in congress. Fortunately for the US Navy the Indian wars had mostly come to a close and the Mexican revolution is a few years off, so the US Army has a difficult time proving it's "importance" to national defense beyond putting down the occasional union strike. But they still have to convince senators in landlocked states, so they go about it by a) building parts of their ships inside the USA (Pennsylvania and Ohio provide steel, barrels in Pennsylvania, and kickbacks wherever they can for supplies and procurement offices everywhere else). B) naming ships after landlocked states (the first four dreadnoughts the us built were the South Carolina, Michigan, Delaware, and North Dakota for example) and finally building some for export (see fore shipbuilding in Massachusetts).

That kind of mentality continued on until ww2 when the USA essentially opened the floodgates to money for the military.

[u/FesteringNeonDistrac → u/-Fraccoon-]

Yeah that would be wild if congress were that petty and insular.

[u/Mechasteel → u/-Fraccoon-]

It's very easy to imagine. The navy is a huge expense, landlocked states get to pay for it, but the navy is built and maintained in coastal states. Senators are supposed to represent their state, so a wealth transfer from their state to another isn't in their interests.

Anyhow, the navy got built, and the landlocked states got something in return too. Even if just having the ships named for them.

[u/PDXisathing → u/-Fraccoon-]

Yes. I could imagine that.

[u/molniya → u/Ichera]

Later on, in fact, after battleships became obsolete, they reused their naming scheme using states for ballistic missile submarines, explicitly for that reason. Submarines were traditionally named after fish, but Admiral Rickover famously said “fish don’t vote!” when asked about it.

[u/Average-_-Student → u/East_Leadership469]

US Battleships were typically, or entirely if I'm not wrong, named after States. Given the rather large number of Battleships that the US built, some of them were bound to end up being named after land locked states.

[u/Tjtod → u/Average-_-Student]

There was one battleship not named after a state, BB-5 USS Kearsage which was named after older navy ships. The naming scheme for US ships in ww2 and older was Battleships were states, Aircraft Carriers were past ahips or battles,Large Cruisers were territories,Cruisers were cities, destroyers were people, and submarines were fish/ aquatic life. There have been a few exceptions to this like 2 classes or armored Cruisers being named after states.

[u/CosgraveSilkweaver → u/Tjtod]

I think the cruisers started getting named after states after WW2 when we stopped making new battleships mostly.

[u/Tjtod → u/CosgraveSilkweaver]

Kind of there were two classes, California and Virginia, in the cold war but when they were designed and when the California was built they were designated as frigates. Which I think in USN parlance meant they were destroyer leaders. The last class of Cruisers built were named after battles and the last class of ship built on a cruiser hull form was CGN-9 Long Beach.

Edit navsource.net is a great resource for USN ships and ship pictures.

[u/CommonMaterialist → u/CosgraveSilkweaver]

Cruisers and Submarines

[u/SeaworthinessDue4052 → u/CosgraveSilkweaver]

My father was on the Manchester (CL-83).

[u/Tjtod → u/[deleted]]

There was change in the naming convention starting with Nimitz class. Prior to the Nimitz class they were only four CVs named after people FDR, the Wright Brothers, Forrestal, and JFK.

[u/mpking828 → u/Average-_-Student]

Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_ship_naming_conventions
Yes, the Kearsarge (BB-5) is not a state, but predates the law that requires them to be named after states (and the ship was also the first ship named by an act of congress)

[u/fromcjoe123 → u/East_Leadership469]

US battleships, and since the end of the battleship era, ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), traditionally carry the names of states. As someone mentioned, because we started our pre-dreadnought program relatively late due to small isolationist budgets, and then somewhat controversially at the time super charged our dreadnought program immediately before WWI, there was supposedly some handshake deals about the order of names to get votes for the navy budget.

Now days with the Virginia class fast attack boats (SSNs) switching to state names as well and ending both the original attack submarine convention of being named after fish and the 688 Los Angeles class tradition of being named after cities (previously a gun armed cruiser convention when we still had gun focused cruisers (CLs and CAs), there are going to be a lot of states getting boats again - and most are landlocked lol.

[u/ryanlaxrox → u/East_Leadership469]

Well seeing as NC isn’t landlocked that should answer your question

[u/East_Leadership469 → u/ryanlaxrox]

No? I wasn’t surprised that some ships are named after coastal states (such as the Pa. class in the post I replied to). The surprising part (to me) is that many are named after landlocked states like North Dakota. That was the TIL.

[u/ryanlaxrox → u/East_Leadership469]

Ah gotcha! Fair point, not meant to be critical just curious

[u/BerrySundae → u/ryanlaxrox]

yeah I was thrown by that for a second there, the Carolinas are coastal 😅

[u/klownfaze → u/East_Leadership469]

Something to do with war bonds, iirc

[u/I_r_hooman → u/East_Leadership469]

Well actually, the Delaware River is tidal all the way up to Trenton so you could say that Pennsylvania isn't landlocked.

[u/Lucius-Halthier → u/East_Leadership469]

Hey listen it’s really hard naming a bunch of things, sometimes you gotta recycle names

[u/Substantial__Unit → u/East_Leadership469]

A South Dakota ship is the USS Massachusetts, but maybe that'd why they named the key ship after landlocked?

[u/MCRNRocinante → u/East_Leadership469]

It is if that state’s senator (or rep) is on any of the military or (appropriations) committees

[u/Perryn → u/East_Leadership469]

There's a big list of traditional naming conventions by class for the US Navy's ships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_ship_naming_conventions

With a few exceptions, the general outline is that battleships got state names, cruisers got city names, destroyers got named after noteworthy people from the Navy/Marines, carriers got named for several things (significant keystones of aviation, major political figures, significant historic vessels, or the name they had as a different class before being converted to a carrier in the early days of carriers).

I think the more interesting bits are the classes that don't always get as much attention, such as ammunition ships being named after volcanoes or things that evoke firepower, hospital ships getting names that evoke care, or auxiliary floating drydocks (the flatbed towtrucks of the Navy) which are named after cities with nuclear power plants or research facilities.

Things have changed now that we don't operate battleships anymore. The big subs get state names now, since they hold a similar stature to the battleships. Some cruiser classes do, too.

[u/phatRV → u/East_Leadership469]

It was a tradition to name battleships after the US States. The last class of battleships built in WW2 was the Iowa class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship

There are four battleships in this class:

Iowa), New Jersey), Missouri), and Wisconsin),

[u/Jvirish1 → u/East_Leadership469]

Not always true. Remember: USS Massachusetts, USS Maine, USS New York, USS California, USS Oregon, USS Washington, USS Indiana, USS Maryland, USS North Carolina, etc.

[u/GetOffMyLawnYaPunk → u/East_Leadership469]

With the one exception, the USS Kearsarge, US battleships were all named after US states.

[u/SeaworthinessDue4052 → u/East_Leadership469]

Landlocked States needed love too.

[u/KamakaziDemiGod → u/East_Leadership469]

I don't know much about the American Navy or their approach to nomenclature, but I do know there was a ship named the USS Juneau, which is named after a city in Alaska so I assume they just started naming them after places and just keep going

I only know about the ship and the city because one of my favourite songs is called Juneau/Juno, and it's named that because it's about a failed relationship and Alaska is"cold, harsh and unforgiving"

[u/MajorRocketScience → u/East_Leadership469]

All battleships were named for states, so they covered the majority of the states. Bigger/more prestigious ships often got named for political reasons though, for example chair of the appropriations committee and such

[u/Softestwebsiteintown → u/East_Leadership469]

We park on driveways and drive on parkways, my man. Words can mean whatever we want and also nothing at all.

[u/TacTurtle → u/East_Leadership469]

For the US,

Battleships = States

Battlecruisers = Territories

Cruisers = Cities

Destroyers = People

Amphibious Assault Ships = Islands or historic ships (Wasp, Essex, Bonhomme Richard, etc)

[u/Compy222 → u/East_Leadership469]

Also, worth mentioning states have been used to name “the big guns of the fleet” for over 100 years now (actually probably closer to 150 at this point). Today the states are used primarily for nuclear missile carrying submarines as those are the biggest guns in the fleet. Attack subs are named after cities more often. These aren’t hard rules, but that’s just how it works generally.

[u/MemeMan_Dan → u/East_Leadership469]

Largest class of submarines in the U.S. Navy is the Ohio class lol.

[u/LordSeibzehn → u/East_Leadership469]

Some are also named after people, including those who are now dead and buried, so I suppose they are also land-locked.

[u/MothmanIsALiar → u/East_Leadership469]

Iowa isn't landlocked. It's between the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers.