Too expensive. The USN uses old nuke subs as training vessels. Several of the ones my Dad helped build are now beached in Washington state somewhere, IIRC. They are retired suprisingly early - about 30 years. I saw the Daniel Webster launched in 1963 and it's a now a trainer and has been for a while. I imagine their reactors and weapons are stripped, though. I hope their reactors and weapons are stripped. I'd hate to think of someone taking one of them for a joy ride.
A good diesel sub like the Russky Kilo:
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might actually be the best solution. Runs on diesel fuel you can get from any passing merchant ship at the point of your deck gun. Who's going to try to break in when you're at sea? As long as you're out there, why not even move to a place not in crisis? If we all put in a million dollars, we might be able to buy one. They're currently selling at $3.2 billion for a six-pack:
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I think the Russians, having learned from us, are screwing them on ancillary support and maintenance equipment and the Vietnamese are balking and rightfully so.
Still, they're a nice, quiet boat. In service all over the world like the AK-47. Double-hulled, too. Probably a very good place to wait out most calamities. As HeyBub will attest, the Sovs and friends make some damn serviceable and affordable weapons, large and small.
I used to have a link to pics of a doz nuke subs in various stages of dismantlement, but can no longer find it. I saw some when I took a trip to Port Townsend WA about 10 yrs ago. Bremerton, I think.
We dry inside - big savings on the gas bill - the only problem being lint. All that stuff that *used* to get caught in the dryer's lint trap gets stuck on the clothes. Still looking for a solution to that problem.
Dude, that's work! Set it, forget it, come back to get dinner the next day. The BB gun might be useful in keeping poachers and larger animals away from the traps although I'd prefer the .223 Ruger for that.
Depending on the nature of the disaster, pain meds could be worth far more than gold, especially to people dying slowly of radiation poisoning. Ibuprophen ain't going to cut it.
That describes nearly every scripted drama on TV these days! House having his MD's break into people's houses to look for medical evidence? CSI - crime scene techs magically being promoted to detectives and solving crimes on their own initiative? The Event? Where do you start?
It's too sad to look at. Sub launches were always a big deal to the people who helped build them. It was a little like sending your kids off to college. A mixture of pride and sadness. And a very impressive sight to see a big sub sliding into the water for the first time.
I still recall the big hubbub about Aurora's very detailed model of a nuke sub that my dad bought me. TPTB decided that it was TOO accurate and demanded that it be taken off the market. As if a) the Russkies didn't already have detailed construction plans and b) that stopping sales of a model that had already sold 1,000's of units was going to be helpful to NatSec in any way.
The real start of organized religion was Og the caveman who watched his clan cowering from athunderstorm. The light dawned on him "hey, if I dress really wierd and toss a few bones around, these fools will believe me and I won't have to work a day in my life'
I suspect it's one of the questions we'll never have a real answer to. But as we've both conjectured, it almost certainly had something to do with Og or someone managing to take credit for something random he had no real effect on but that other tribe members believed he did.
The last truly primitive societies are probably where we could study how "medicine men" arise out of a tribal collection of individuals. However, I don't think there's a single one left that hasn't been "contaminated" by contact with modern man. In almost every article I read about them, they're wearing Nikes and shrewdly trading trinkets to anthropologists for worthwhile items like steel knives and such. (How's that for a reversal of the deal for Manhattan island!)
I recall reading that Neanderthals did not trade amongst themselves while Cro-magnon man did. That leads me to believe that "business" is built into our genes. Trading amongst individuals apparently conferred some sort of survival skill that allowed Cro-Magnon man to get the edge on their Neanderthal brothers. I suspect it was the trading of ever-more sophisticated arrow and spear tips that sealed the deal.
I did a science project in jr high ('60?) based on that model. It was so detailed it even had a bas relief outline of a pin-up model on one of the bulkheads. Only pre-teen eyeballs where sharp enough to see it, unaided. ;)
Could be, but I've come to realize that my memory is turning into Swiss cheese with huge, gaping holes. I seem to remember a later model with the rounded nose - the Nautilus had more of a conventional bow but as I said. I vaguely recall the George Washington SSN 593 but the GW was 598 and 593 belonged to the Thresher. Hmmm. Since this was before the Internet Age, on-line searching probably won't do much good. I'll bet it's an extremely valuable collector's item because it was pulled. I seem to remember the ad for it coming in some science magazine for kids my folks had subscribed me to, so it got around.
Well, I've been looking for an hour and found a lot of interesting things. Spent a lot of time in the NYT archives where "US Submarine Model" brought forth 100's of hits including:
A NEW MARINE MONSTER; THE TORPEDO BOAT BUILDING AT FORT LAFAYETTE. MERITS CLAIMED FOR IT--ABLE TO T... [PDF] Busy laborers have been hard at work for several months in the ruins of Fort Lafayette constructing a torpedo boat which, if a success, will prove a submarine wonder that will startle the world. The craft is made after the style of a model prepared for it... August 31, 1885 - Front Page
Oh well. Just more proof that many things that happened before 1990 didn't make it to the information age.
NEWSFLASH! Got it! You were right - the Nautilus was yanked. Only 1,000 of the GW SSN598 were made (in the original) - apparently Revell (don't know why I thought Aurora) reissued them.
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Pictures of the details at the above site.
The big issue was the detail of the reactor design and weapons systems. It was an incredibly detailed model so I don't doubt it had a pinup - every sub in the fleet does and probably will have until the time that women are actually serving on submarines. That initiative began a while back but I haven't tracked whether they have implemented it yet. IIRC, the subs had to be redesigned to accomodate sailorettes.
The Navy was very paranoid about sub technology going to the Russkies. My dad gave a talk at a symposium that got the FBI on his back. Their claim was that even though every word of the speech was taken from publicly available documents, the way he assembled them made them classified. Your government hard at work!
You're probably right about that. It was a round nose sub.
That looks very familiar, especially the stand. I don't remember the Abe Lincoln name, but I was probably thinking Polaris when I said Nautilus. The whole project was based on the fact I was incredibly lazy and jes happened to have this model. But, I did actually learn a lot about nuclear subs from it. Plus, I was always a fascinated by submarines. Not enough to be in the service, but always loved sub movies.
The most fun was when I was able to finally see a real sub, the USS Pampanito, at Fisherman's Wharf in SF:
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For someone who grew up watching Cary Grant and Burt Lancaster "crash dive" their movie subs, this was a jaw-dropping eye-opener of the first magnitude. There's absolutely NO room on those things. It made Das Boot totally believable.
I'd love to see a real nuclear sub. Are any on display in the US?
There were two different models that caused the Navy heartache - your Nautilus model, which I believe they went around taking off the shelves and mine, the bullet-nosed George Washington (the cutaway model on the stand) which they simply stopped making but didn't hunt down the sold or unsold models. All at the request of Hyman Rickover, the biggest SOB to ever serve in the USN. On the plus side, only an SOB could have created the nuke sub fleet.
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