Name this Naval Vessel

"Good morning class. For our next picture, we'll watch an epic science fiction film. This movie, by the pioneering director Andrey Tarkovskiy, considers questions of intelligence and reason on the distant setting of a research station. The languid pacing, surreal juxtapositions, and innovative camera work inspired many imitators, including most famously Stanley Kubrick's master work 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Is your generation scared by speeches like that? I preferred Metropolis, but I must confess that I actually liked Potemkin. Still need to give Alexander Nevsky a watch. I still rather wonder if you are accusing my generation of collectively groaning over Potemkin. Art thou Boomer, Xer, or base common popular?

Fast catch Cpl. I look forward to your next post.

 

Groan, double groan, In Italy Sergej M. Ejzenštejn's Battleship Potemkin (did you mix your director's intentionally? your reference looks to be about Tarkovskiy's Solaris but Alexander Nevsky is by Eijzenstein). was staple diet in Italy at all low cost "cinenmas d'essay" and cineclubs that students could afford. Most of my generation has "watched" it multiple times, pram scene and all, so it became something of a joke.
Very intetresting movie, and groundbreaking usage of technique, but not worth the replay unless forced into it by "teen group dynamics" or looking for a last row seat with a nice girl. IIRC the movie was mostly shot on another battlewagon, I think Evstafi, not the original Potemkin.
Anyway nice work for Cpl. and looking forward to your next one too.

 

Ah, I've only watched it once. Yes, the reference was about Solaris. I figured you disliked it because it was forced on you in a film class or something. And the director juxstaposition was intentional. Just figured Solaris might be a similarly "revered" film. Figured that Eisenstein went without saying. (As does Fritz Lang, for that matter.) So it was just supposed to be a generic class announcement groaner.

Sorry about the confusion. Wasn't aware the film was that popular in Italy. It's well known in the U.S., but not generally shown in theatres anymore. (Occasional festival and college showings, but no more than any number of other films of similar vintage; like The General, City Lights, or Metropolis.) Wasn't aware you are or were in Italy. May have missed that part. (Though it does explain your interest in the RM.)

 

Before moving on to the next quiz I thought I might share this photo of the pre-dreadnought USS Oregon. It's unusual because of the high resolution and it's candid nature, which is refreshing seeing as how much of the photography from that era is generally grainy soft-focused poses of self-conscious subjects. I include a largish thumbnail for reference and a link to the WikiCommons source. The online version is 2500 x 1982 pixels, so I thought I'd avoid tying up that much bandwidth here.


The larger version is here.

This shot was taken in the summer of 1898 while Oregon was refitting in the Brooklyn Navy Yard drydock after her stormy voyage around Cape Horn. The photographer evidently used the best equipment available in those days, not only is the image exceptionally fine-grained the shutter speed is set unusually high as well, note the general lack of motion blurring. There is so much going on in this photo, so many stories and insights... In WWII the general practice was to throughly document yard visits by warships with photography. There must have hundreds of NCO technicians doing nothing but this kind documentary photography considering the hundreds of thousands of archival pictures (mainly shot with the 4x5 Graflex Speed Graphic) that exist. Every time a ship called at a port or anchorage some type of major or minor work was done, either by the crew or by specialists. Sometimes it was just paint -- a new camo measure applied, or an upgrade to the radar or the AA suite, or it could be major battle damage repair. Whatever work was done was out came the cameras to document the change, however minor. (Whenever a sub called at Mare Island the yard crews descended on her with a will, sometimes making what seemed to be wanton changes to the silhouette just for the hell of it.) Yet in spit of of all the miles of film and photopaper exposed, and the oceans of developer and hypo expended I have never seen a better photograph of a warship's daily life than this one.

Evidently Oregon experienced some damage to her rudder or tiller as there are four or five yard workers busy removing hull plates near her sternpost, probably to gain access to some internal components of the steering gear. Notice that these guys are working confidently about forty feet above the floor of the drydock while standing on some very rickety looking scaffolding. One chap is apparently knocking out rivets with a sledge hammer. I for one wouldn't want to be swinging a hammer in that position without even a safety rope around my waist. This kind of nonchalance about heights and tricky footing seems to be a point of pride among steepjacks, high steel workers and similar loonies.

Down on the floor there are several yard types clustered around her starboard screw. They don't seem to be doing anything, perhaps they're just inspecting. Notice the oxidation on the bronze. I wonder if they polished her screws before flooding the dock?

In the distant background one can see some of the skyline of old Brooklyn from a time when a tall building had three floors above the street. Notice the advertisements for fresh butter, cheese and eggs and other comestibles painted large and prominent, well visible from the Navy Yard. One wonders if those businesses wanted to tempt returning sailors to spend their pay on fresh delicacies. It was after all still a largely salt pork and biscuit navy back then.

On deck is an image of sailors at ease. There are a few working in dungarees, but most on the men are in summer whites doing nothing in particular, watching the yard gangs labor and generally loafing around waiting for liberty call. Whites are seen mostly, but two can be seen in blues wearing the goofy looking flat hats of the time. (I like the looks of the WWII flat, and I wish the Navy would revive them, but those 19th century hats were too extreme. A sailor looked like a street mime impersonating a thumbtack.) BTW, did you know that the proper way to wear a flat hat is not with the ribbons directly astern, but so that the ribbons hang just behind the left ear?

Also on deck are two Marines, an officer and an enlisted man. The enlisted Marine seems to be wool gathering on the quarter deck. A third Marine, another officer, can be seen on the gangway talking to a little boy in a white skimmer. His son, perhaps. The kid must have been the cock of the walk back home, dad being an officer aboard "McKinley's bulldog."

 

I'd much rather be the guy on the scaffolding swinging the hammer than the guy on the ground below him with nothing over his head buy a cloth cap. (They guy right behind the screw seems most at risk to my eye.) It's amazing how high steel will bounce when you drop it from high enough. (And while the thirty five or forty feet between hammer and head might not look like much from up top to a guy accustomed to heights, it's enough.)

Even looking up at something falling you never have enough time to react. "Oh, hey, there's a shackle falling through the air. Neat. Wow, that just bounced ten feet."

That truly is a great picture. It's struck me once or twice before. (Though thankfully not on the head.)

 

The pity of it there has a chance to save her as a museum ship but was scrapped because she violated the Washington naval treaty

 

Back to the quiz...

The coulda been shoulda been casus belli

 

USS Panay, AFAIK other similar "incidents", limiting the research to US warships, involved USS Samuel B. Roberts, USS Maine (though recent research seem to prove it was an accident similar to what happened in many other navies with the early propellants), USS Liberty, USS Maddox and USS Cole, any others? (Possibly the Sirte Gulf one but it was basicall an air affair).

EDIT: You cold also add USS Greer, USS Kearny and USS Reuben James to the list but that was more of an "undeclared war".

 

Umm belasar,

The USS Oregon was a museum ship from 1925 to 1942, when, due to World War II, she was sold for scrap. However, the Navy backed out of the deal, instead, deciding to use the old battleship as a barge. During the war, the barge was towed to Guam, where she remained for several years, not being scrapped until the mid-1950s.

IIRC, the decision was between the USS Oregon and USS Olympia, one of them had to go.


@CPL Punishment

USS Panay

 

To be fair Greer, Kearny and Ruben James weren't going about their business quite like the ships of a neutral navy ought. Panay, however was wantonly and deliberately attacked. The Japanese did it because they could.

Related: In 2009 a film about John Rabe, a Seimens telephone executive and Nazi party member, was released. Rabe became famous a when his efforts to stop the Nanjing massacre was revealed to the general public by the publication of his diaries in 1998. The film John Rabe (City of War in the UK) is pretty good and worth seeing, but the director made such a gross error in his portrayal of the Panay Incident, it can only make one doubt the truth of the whole effort. In the movie (directed by Florian Gallenberger) the Panay is shown to be a huge ocean liner of 10,000 tons or more. The absurdity of such a ship being used by the USN to patrol the Yangtze is beyond words. One wonders if any film maker today bothers to do research.

TiredOldSoldier has the floor.

 

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View attachment 13308

 

Could she be Curtatone????

 

Wrong navy and she's bigger than Curtatone. She was US built but didn't serve in the navy she was built for.

 

Man, I would not have guessed that was a US built ship. Very small. Rather simple looking optical fire control. (Looks like a unit intended primarily or exclusively for use against surface targets.) British style crows nest. Maybe a sub chaser? Will need a little time to dig on this one.

 

I'm thinking ToS is being purposefully ambiguous. I'm thinking a British design built in the US and commissioned in Canada.

She looks a lot like an I class, but it seems in the image above that the bridge is aft of the break in the main deck?

 

I'm feeling generous not ambiguous . She was classed as a cruiser though only her 6" main gun armament qualified her as such by WW2 as there were bigger "destroyers" by then, the original buyer was China and her final fate is related to posts 807 and 808 which is why I though of posting her.

Now if you can't identify her after that much help .......

 

They called several things cruisers that weren't really worth the title. I'd swear I looked right past that. (Maybe meant to investigate further, but completely forgot, leaving Jane's open to Greece.)

Yat Sen it is.

 

You were nearly there ... but then got sidedetracked she's NOT Yat Sen but a sister to Ying Swei that was never delivered to China. I really want the name she is better known under but the chinese one would do ....

 

Could that be the Greek Minelaying Light Cruiser Elli?

Her original name was to Fei Hung.

 

At last !

The Elli/Fei Hung I thought the reference to peacetime attacks on warships would make it more obvious.

http://www.ww2f.com/naval-war-mediterrean-malta-crete/28940-sinking-greek-cruiser-elli.html

What always baffled me about that episode was that, as far as I could discover, neither Mussolini nor Ciano were aware of it, queer kind of dictatorship where a local commander can take this sort of "initiative".