re: #197 Feline Fearless Leader

Yep. Have been down in Pensacola and Mobile. Spent a few hours in a museum at NAS Pensacola yesterday. :)

The park with the USS Alabama also has a sub (USS Drum - Gato class) a hanger with a bunch of warbirds in it, and a number of tanks and artillery pieces as well.

The tour of the Alabama is self-guided and you can get on 8-9 different decks. You can enter the after-parts of all three 16-in gun turrets, and even a few of the 5-in gun turrets. However, you don’t get to go down into the main barbettes or engine spaces. (In comparison, you can get down that far in a tour of the USS North Carolina.)

I gotta question. Who maintains these ships, the Navy or someone else? I ask because the former Soviet carrier I visited last month was a derelict that no one seemed to be maintaining well at all.