Take the Tour: Photo Album Above
WELCOME aboard. We took up the invitation and toured the USS New Orleans. The conclusion: this is a big ship.
Along the tour, we asked several sailors what they thought of Phuket.
The conclusion: they are enjoying themselves here and will probably continue to have fun for as long as they can.
The USS New Orleans completed sea trials in 2006, so it's a relatively new US Navy vessel, capable of carrying 700 marines into combat.
We prefer the peacetime version, although is grey really necessary? Isn't it time the US Navy learned that grey is hard to see at sea?
Just joking.
As a high-tech amphibious assault ship, the USS New Orleans does not have a lot of portholes. This ship is built to fight.
It will get to shore and drop those marines, no matter what. On Phuket, the gangplank makes life a little easier.
They say the design ''reflects a revolutionary emphasis on shipboard survivability through an organisation that will support both traditional manning and core/flex approaches, a focus on vulnerability reduction, and 21st-century survivability features.''
We think this means that the USS New Orleans is capable of taking a lot of punishment and staying afloat to finish the job.
The ship carries ''two high rate-of-fire Mk 46 Mod 1 automated 30mm Close-in Gun System mounts. The Mk 46 provides long-range lethality while engaging small, high-speed, surface targets.''
If the leaders of Burma and North Korea are reading this, we hope they understand that resistance is useless. Give up now, and give peace a chance.
Our hope is that the friendly young sailors we met on board grow to be old men and women without ever having to fire a shot in anger, or duck something hard and heavy coming their way.
Around the five US warships that docked this week a small village has sprung up offering money exchange, ATMs, and some different if high-priced ways to spend the cash.
It will be ''Bon Voyage'' all too soon.
Phuketwan Phuket News
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