Very old ships still commissioned

[Ensign Arrgh]

I learned recently that HMS Victory was still commissioned in the RN, although the rank of the CO went down from Captain to Lieutenant-Commander through th ages, and I currently wonder, what kind of things could be done with a ship that old (think NX or Daedalus in the TNG era). What would be the current mission profile of the ship, flag showing, Commander training, in-system (or in-sector) training ship for cadets prior to their Cruise, insult to a dishonored but still commissioned officer of Field Grade, torpedo bait for simulations? What is the old Victory used for?

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

IIRC, most ships are scrapped for spare parts once their decomissioned. Those which aren't are used by cadets for training or like in the Bikini Island nuclear test as targets.

Some could be donated to museums once their stripped of valuable components.

[Sea Tyger]

Well, if you look at the Enterprise's example from Star Trek II, becoming a training vessel is a viable solution. Remember, she's about 40 years old at that point, and apparently still has some service life in her (since she's supposedly getting a new, younger crew after the cadet cruise is over).

Now, looking into TNG, we find that the Excelsior and Miranda classes have ships that actively serve for 60+ years. Starfleet probably had many more that act as training vessels. And post-DW is a bad example, since the fleet will probably need every ship it can field following wartime losses, and older ships will be upgraded to stay as up-to-date as possible. There probably won't be a mass decommissioning of older ships until at least the 2385-2390 timeframe, and they would be so old that they would have little use for other purposes.

Considering your question on a Daedelus in TOS, I'd say that there are probably only a few surviving ships...one or two are now museums, another one may be a training vessel for a planetary defense force (although I would expect that most PDFs would have ships more up-to-date than a century-old model).

[J.T Edwards]

The RAN uses them for torpedo practice and/or turns them into natural reefs around Australia for divers and wild-life. If you could find a "Trek" solution like this one I think it could be kind of neat.

Another thing you could do is what the RAN also did with the HMAS Ovens - turn it into a museum exhibit for everyone to come along and see how Sailors operate. A tribute to the glory of Starfleet exploration?

[Owen E Oulton]

Actually, in real life ships are decommissioned every time they go in for major refit and recommissioned when they go back into service. There is some evidence for this being the case in Trek, too. If you recall, the Enterprise-A is slated to be decommissioned, but there is also the mention in the official ship's log of future crews. The reference sounds to be specific to the actual physical ship, not to future ships which will bear the name.

Just a few asides on the Enterprise-A...
Since we know that a new Enterprise will be commissioned only a few yeasr later, I suspect that the E-A reverted to its original name and registry - we know it was specificallty renamed when it was assigned to the recently-demoted Captain Kirk, and that Paramount states that it was originally the Yorktown. The Yorktown appears in ST:IV as one of the ships damaged by the alien probe, only a few months before Kirk assumed command; and it is quite explicit in ST:V that the Enterprise-A is either a newly refit ship or a new build. This can all be easily fit into a coherent continuity - when the alien probe disabled the Yorktown, it was either a new ship or a recent refit undergoing recommissioning trials. When Starfleet places the ship under Kirk's command, it is recommissioned Enterprise for the duration of Kirk's command. When he retired, the ship was decommissioned and recommissioned as Yorktown, and the name Enterprise assigned to the new uprated Excelsior class ship seen in Generations. We know that Starfleet is quite capable of renaming ships in this manner to honour a distinguished captain, as we see them do it again for the Defiant, renaming the Sao Paolo.

As far as ships being in service for extremely long periods of time, I have no real problem with that - a starship is (whatever the economic system) an extremely expensive and resource-intensive piece of equipment. I see them as having a long design life - in the ST:TNG Technical Manual, the Galaxy class is stated to have a design life of 100 years. Hell, even in today's world, equipment is being produced and upgraded to last a long time - the newest of the venerable B-52 Stratofortresses are 40 years old, and their service life has just been extended to the year 2035 at which time they will be 73 years old. The Iowa class battleship USS New Jersey was in and out of commission for 49 years, first commissioned in 1942 and finally retired in 1991.

Given such storage yards as Surplus Depot Z-15 at Qualor II (TNG Unification) and the high numbers of ships belonging to the 100-year old Miranda class seen in the Dominion War, It's obvious that the UFP keeps ships around for a looooooong time, although not always in front line commissioned service...

[redwood973]

The USS Constitution will be 206 years old this October. The oldest commissioned ship in the United States fleet.

I recommend taking a look at her web page:

http://www.ussconstitution.navy.mil/

The Danish Merchant Marine still requires all her personnel to train aboard the Danmark on old sailing ship. And the United States Coast Guard has a training sailing ship also, but I am not sure if training aboard her is required for everyone.

[Sea Tyger]

Actually, in the US Navy, we don't decommission our ships when they are overhauled. When I was on the Milwaukee, we underwent a major refit just before we were originally slated to deploy to the Gulf in 91, and we certainly weren't decommissioned in that time.

Not even the nuclear ships, who periodically have to change their reactor cores, are decommissioned for major shipyard periods, which can extend over a year. And, btw, the Enterprise (CVN-65) was commissioned in 55 or 56, IIRC, and she's still a very active part of the fleet. At this point, I've heard nothing about any plans to replace her.

[toadkiller]

To respond to the original question - these old sailing era ships aren't really "used" for anything related to the military, some like the US Coast Guards Eagle are "training" ships, but in reality even that is more of a "show the flag" thing as the art of sailing isn't much like gas turbines, nuclear reactors, and radar.

In the same way I had my PC's recover a lost un-refit Connie that ended up in decent enough shape. It has been disarmed and is used as a traveling museum going about the UFP showing off the grand history of Star Fleet.

[Capt.Hunter]

Going by LUGTrek, the original Constitution-Class USS Eagle is kept fully operational in orbit of Andoria as a national museum (entirely Andorian crew).

The USS Republic mentioned as a training vessel in DS9 "The Valiant" was over 100 years old.

[Bill Harris]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger

Not even the nuclear ships, who periodically have to change their reactor cores, are decommissioned for major shipyard periods, which can extend over a year. And, btw, the Enterprise (CVN-65) was commissioned in 55 or 56, IIRC, and she's still a very active part of the fleet. At this point, I've heard nothing about any plans to replace her.

She was christened on 9/24/1960, according to her webpage, and was first deployed in 1962.

She's not the oldest active carrier in the fleet, either. Kitty Hawk and Constellation are both older. They're slated to be replaced by the Reagan (CVN 76) and the Bush (CVN 77).

Enterprise will probably be replaced by the first of the new carrier class, although it's possible they might replace Kennedy first.

[StyroFoam Man]

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[Sea Tyger]

No, the Navy doesn't keep hull numbers like that. The name Enterprise will be used again, and I suspect that it will be one of the new CVX carriers (CVX is a generic term that is being used for the "next generation" aircraft carrier), but, like the nuclear Enterprise (CVN-65) used a different hull number from the original WWII-era Big "E" (CV-6), the new Enterprise will have a unique hull number.

Bill, thanks for the clarification...I was being lazy yesterday and didn't feel like looking up the info. Still, the E is over 40 years old, and probably won't be replaced for another 10-15 years (I also suspect that the John F. Kennedy will be replaced first). Have they actually settled on George H.W. Bush for CVN-77? (Not that it's a bad thing, mind you...he was a WWII naval aviator who later became President...just like naming SSN-23 for Jimmy Carter, a former submariner...they're both decades removed from their service and out of the Oval Office).

[StyroFoam Man]

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[Cybrludite]

Any word yet on what they're going to call CVN-78? In a cyberpunk setting I briefly ran, she was named USS Barry Goldwater. Gave them a nice "We aren't in Kansas anymore" moment.

[Cybrludite]

Dug my "Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World" out of storage this weekend & found something useful for this thread in the section on Chile. It seems that they captured the monitor Huscar from Peru back in 1879, and have kept it in commission ever since. (It's now non-operational, but still not de-commissioned.) Peru still wants it back, but Chile seems to want to keep nthe ship to annoy them. Couldn't you just picture the Klingons doing something similar with an old-series Warbird? Especially given that the Rommies try to self-destruct rather than allow themselves to be captured... maybe the Klingons ambushed to and a lucky hit decompressed the entire ship before they could go to red alert, much less self-destruct.