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by drblast 2710 days ago
The top grads of the academy get their pick of jobs and most of them pick aviation or nuclear surface/subs.

Surface warfare officer is not the most desireable job for most people.

And it sucks so bad most people have much better options and leave after the initial five year commitment.
1 comments
dmurray 2710 days ago
Why is that? Battleships are badass and you don't have to spend the whole time in a tiny metal box underwater. If you're joining the Navy, don't you want to be in command of a big ship in the open seas?
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jcranmer 2709 days ago
The US Navy doesn't own any battleships. After fleet carriers, the next level is going to be destroyers and missile cruisers.

According to Wikipedia, the US decommissioned its last battleship in 1992. Even then, the US Navy largely forswore battlehsips after WWII, and battleships were decommissioned and recommissioned twice during the Cold War. The last time two battleships ever fired at one another was the Battle of Surigao Strait 74 years ago.

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ethbro 2710 days ago
Not sure if it's true, but I heard that smaller than aircraft carrier surface vessels feature microwaved meals instead of a full mess (cost savings).

This was from a younger Navy guy and older Navy guy swapping stories. The older guy was horrified.

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ams6110 2709 days ago
This was a destroyer though. Pretty small compared to a battleship or a carrier. Not really a high prestige command.
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JohnBooty 2709 days ago
Battleships were phased out decades ago.

Really, the advent of military aviation made them more or less obsolete in WWII.

There were almost no ship-to-ship battles involving battleships in WWII; they were used almost exclusively to shell inland targets close to shorelines, but there are much more efficient ways to do that and those ways aren't limited to striking targets within gun range of the shoreline.

So it's pretty much carriers and destroyers as far as combat ships on the surface these days. (Not sure the term "destroyer" is used much these days, but the non-carrier surface combat ships are roughly comparable in size to what would have been called a destroyer in the old days)

And then of course you have the many amphibious assault ships, support ships, etc.

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

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wbl 2710 days ago
Top Gun vs Master and Commander.
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