rogueusmc
Posts: 4583
Joined: 2/8/2004 From: Texas...what country are YOU from? Status: offline
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From the beginning the Texas was a floating laboratory. The ship we saw is far different from the one launched so long ago. That launch, by the way, was the first one ever recorded on a new moving picture camera. Seven years later, she became the first battleship from which an airplane took off A Sopwith Camel did so from a short "run-off platform" sloping downward across the two forward gun turrets. Unfortunately, it still had to land on dry ground. In 1939, the Texas became the first ship with commercial radar. She was retrofitted with antiaircraft guns, a tall command tower, still fancier radar, and cranes for launching and retrieving two reconnaissance seaplanes. Torpedo tubes on the original ship were removed after WW-I and never put back. The form of war changed, and the Texas changed with it. Even before WW-II, the Navy had been turning from battleships to more versatile weaponry. From this site: Click here
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There are only two kinds of people that understand Marines: Marines and the enemy. Everyone else has a second-hand opinion. Gen. William Thornson, U.S. Army
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