Saturday, June 30, 2007

More high quality "military news" from the Associated Press

Q: What's wrong with this story?

ABC Money
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Navy on Wednesday awarded a $29.8 million contract boost to a unit of General Dynamics Corp. for maintenance and repair on the USS Texas battleship.

General Dynamics' subsidiary Electric Boat Corp. will provide alterations and testing on the ship as part of an effort to correct deficiencies on one of the oldest battleships left since World War I [...]
A: BB-35 (the Texas) hasn't been an active fleet vessel in over 55 years, having been decommissioned in the late 1940's.

Apparently the military hardware mavens at AP have recognized this "slight error" and have issued a correction stating that its NOT a close to 100 year old antique being refurbished, rather the slightly more modern nuclear Virginia class SUBMARINE the SSN Texas. However, in the "correction" the AP still refers to the SUBMARINE Texas incorrectly as "USS Texas" rather than "SSN Texas".

Of course anyone can see how such a goof could be made, since submarines and 100 year old battleships look so similar. I mistake one for the other all the time. See for yourself:

This is BB-35, the battleship Texas

This is the SSN Texas

See what I mean? They're both kinda long and thinish, both involve water, both are made of metal. Pretty much the same thing, right?


H/T Murdoc

2 comments:

Ymarsakar said...

War is hard.

Georg Felis said...

speeling wright is pretty hard too :)

I kind-of miss the era of the 80s battleships. Something that you park off the coast with 16 inch guns has a lot more impact than 'We have a submarine parked out there. Somewhere. Really. Honest.' In terms of explosive on target against single coastal targets, a BB can deliver more non-nuclear firepower than a full carrier group.