Here we see have what the locals’ term “Big Grey AL,” the battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), just outside of downtown Mobile near the Austal shipyard at the park she has called home since 1964.
Note her distinctive large SK3 radar antenna array near the top of her mast. Photo by me on Leap Day 2020
Commissioned 16 August 1942, Alabama‘s entire active career ran just 4 years, 4 months, and 24 days before she was mothballed for another 15 years then stricken from the Navy List and later retired to her home state, with just 22 years on her.
Of note, the top of Alabama’s main mast is 194-feet above baseline to the roof of the truck light and TDG antenna– as is the rest of her class, which includes the scrapped USS South Dakota and USS Indiana, along with the preserved USS Massachusetts (BB-59). In terms of buildings, this works out to right at 18 stories, relatively, making Alabama about the 14th tallest in the state, if she was on dry land.
How does that compare to the later American battlewagons? Post-1980s refit, the Iowa-class battleships ran 216-feet, 5-inches ABL, peaking at the tip of the lighting rod above the newly-installed AS-3240/URN-25 TACAN Antenna.
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So I’m guessing because of the qualifier (“not on dry land”), the author is referring from the Keel Up and not the Waterline Up…
Correctaumndo!
Last “Iowa” I saw up close was USS “Wisconsin” at Nauticus, Norfolk, VA. And trying to picture it’s side profile, while superimposing a 17-story building just behind it. I live on the 2nd story of a 4-story condo, with a 17-story apartment building just next to it. And from what I can remember at the time (c1991/92), it doesn’t seem to be that tall…
Well of course, the 200ft+ figure is for the ABL height, from the bottom of the keel, so subtract everything in the brine.
https://laststandonzombieisland.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/uss-wisconsin-bb-64-battleship-plans-by-ingalls-1986-iowa-class-inset-e1583419125488.jpg Wisconsin’s profile plans from the Ingalls 1986 booklet, tower detail circled to the left.
Thanks, but the reality of it is still just out of reach, while the comprehension of it is slowly (i.e. “Snails Pace”) sinking in…