US Navy

This past Monday, Dorian and I toured a US Navy minesweeper.

This is because it was the end of Fleet Week here in San Francisco and I was in the US Navy a long time ago, so I always wanted to take Dorian aboard a US Navy ship. But we ended up on a minesweeper instead.

Okay, I’m being mean to minesweepers. But this is only because they’re a lot smaller than other Navy ships and they don’t shoot missiles or anything, and they’re made of wood.

There were a couple of US Navy ships made out of steel that were docked at the same pier, one being a guided missile cruiser and the other a guided missile destroyer. No, I don’t know what the difference is, other than one cruises and the other destroys. You’d think they’d each be capable of both of those things. Anyway, they were giving tours too, but we landed in a group that ended-up on the minesweeper.

This was because the US Navy was rotating the tours, in that they’d take 20 people out of this massive line we were in and assign them to go on the guided missile cruiser and then they’d assign 20 more to go on the guided missile destroyer and then the next 20 got the minesweeper.

A genuine US Navy Ensign came up to give us our tour and even though he introduced himself I can’t remember his name so I’ll just call him Ensign Bobo, because he looked like an Ensign Bobo. He seemed to enjoy being a crewman on a minesweeper but he kind of brightened up once we got to talking about the guided missile ships because he said he hoped to be assigned to one in the next few years.

This minesweeper, the USS Chief, is about the size of a commercial fishing boat and Ensign Bobo showed us a cool submersible submarine thingy that they put in the water to go after mines and detonate them, then he showed us this array on the back that he said they tow behind the mine sweeper to detect mines, and all of this was being said while other people were on the guided missile cruisers being shown guided missile systems.

I joked with him that I thought we were going to get to see a MIME SWEEPER, which the US Navy deploys to France and Golden Gate Park right here in San Francisco to clear out those pesky white-faced street performers. He didn’t seem to think that was funny as he caressed his side-arm while gazing at me with a look that said, “I already have to give this stupid tour on this dumb wooden boat, so don’t push it.”

Speaking of that, yes the minesweepers in the US Navy are the only Navy “ships” that are still made out of wood. This is because mines are magnetic and are designed to be attracted to the steel hull of regular ships.

We learned quite a bit about mine sweeping during this tour!

Ensign Bobo told us that Iran has the biggest stockpile of mines in the world, so US Navy minesweepers are actually useful because the Navy deploys them to that region as a “defense measure.” He said that Iran doesn’t actually put the mines in the water, because they know the US Navy has badass mine sweepers like this one that will sweep for their mines and then blow them up before the ships get there, so technically the US Navy minesweepers really have nothing to do.

This may account for why Ensign Bobo seemed so bored. I know the poor fella wants to get over to the guided missile cruisers someday and shoot missiles at actual targets, so I hope he gets his wish. But not really, because that would mean we’re at war again and we’ve had enough of that these past 20 years, don’t you think? Maybe he can spend his career shooting practice missiles at deserted islands, like we used to do when I was on a ship.

We’d go out off the coast of California and shoot our big gun at San Clemente island, and sometimes we’d shoot it at old Navy ships left over from world-war 2 that the Navy wanted to sink anyway, and sometimes we’d shoot our surface-to-air missile system at drones, which were just being developed then and had propellers.

We’d also shoot dummy anti-submarine missiles at our own submarines, which we never seemed to hit. That’s how good our own submarines are and how bad my old ship was, which is long gone now but the submarines are still around.

Okay, on to pictures of our minesweeper tour..

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