Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Dec. 16, 2015: The Long Legged Bird of the Java Sea

Naval History and Heritage Command#: NH 85178

Here we see the humble Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Heron (AM-10/AVP-2), while fitting out at her builders in late 1918, being rushed to completion to help serve in the Great War. While her service “over there” was rather quiet in the end, her trip to the other side of the world and experiences in another world war would prove more exciting.

When a young upstart by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the Navy Department in 1913 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he helped engineer one of the largest naval build-ups in world history. By the time the U.S. entered World War I officially in 1917, it may have been Mr. Wilson’s name in the role of Commander in Chief, but it was Mr. Roosevelt’s fleet.

One of his passions was the concept of the Great North Sea Mine Barrage, a string of as many as 400,000 (planned) sea mines that would shut down the Kaiser’s access once and for all to the Atlantic and saving Western Europe (and its overseas Allies) from the scourge of German U-boats. A British idea dating from late 1916, the U.S. Navy’s Admiral Sims thought it was a bullshit waste of time but it was FDR’s insistence to President Wilson in the scheme that ultimately won the day.

While a fleet of converted steamships (and two old cruisers- USS San Francisco and USS Baltimore) started dropping mines in June 1918, they only managed to sow 70,177 by Armistice Day and accounted for a paltry two U-boats gesunken (although some estimates range as high as 8 counting unaccounted for boats).

And the thing is, you don’t throw that many mines in international shipping lanes without having a plan to clean the up after the war (while having the bonus of using those mine countermeasures ships to sweep enemy-laid fields as well).

That’s where the 54 vessels of the Lapwing-class came in.

Review of the Atlantic Fleet Minesweeping Squadron, November 1919. USS Lapwing (AM-1) and other ships of the squadron anchored in the Hudson River, off New York City, while being reviewed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels on 24 November 1919, following their return to the United States after taking part in clearing the North Sea mine barrage. The other ships visible are: USS Lark (Minesweeper No. 21), with USS SC-208 alongside (at left); and USS Swan (Minesweeper No. 34) with USS SC-356 alongside (at right). Heron was there, but is not seen on the photo. U.S. Navy photo NH 44903. Note the crow’s nest for sighting floating mines.

Inspired by large seagoing New England fishing trawlers, these 187-foot long ships were large enough, at 965-tons full, to carry a pair of economical reciprocating diesel engines (or two boilers and one VTE engine) with a decent enough range to make it across the Atlantic on their own (though with a blisteringly slow speed of just 14 knots when wide open on trials.)

Not intended to do much more than clear mines, they were given a couple 3-inch pop guns to discourage small enemy surface combatants intent to keep minesweepers from clearing said mines. The class leader, Lapwing, designated Auxiliary Minesweeper #1 (AM-1), was laid down at Todd in New York in October 1917 and another 53 soon followed. While five were canceled in November 1918, the other 48 were eventually finished– even if they came to the war a little late.

Which leads us to the hero of our tale, USS Heron.

Laid down at the Standard Shipbuilding Co. in Boston, she was the first U.S. Navy ship to carry that name, that of a long-legged seabird of the Gulf Coast. Like all her sisters, they carried bird names.

Commissioned 30 October 1918, the war ended 12 days later but she was still very much needed to help take down that whole barrage thing. Therefore, she arrived in the Orkney Islands in the spring of 1919 where, along with 28 of her sisters and a host of converted British trawlers, she scooped up Mk.6 naval mines from the deep for the rest of the year.

When she returned home, she was transferred to the far off Asiatic Fleet, sailing for Cavite PI in October 1920.

There, she was laid up in 1922, with not much need of an active minesweeper.

Then, with the Navy figuring out these economical little boats with their shallow draft (they could float in ten feet of seawater) could be used for any number of side jobs, started re-purposing them.

Six of the “Old Birds” were reclassified as salvage ships (ARSs) while another half-dozen became submarine rescue ships (ASRs). The Coast Guard picked up USS Redwing for use as a cutter during Prohibition while the U.S. Coast & Geographic Survey acquired USS Osprey and USS Flamingo and the Shipping Board accepted USS Peacock as a tug.

A few were retained as minesweepers in the reserve fleet, some used as depot ships/netlayers, one converted to a gunboat, another to an ocean-going tug, three were sunk during peacetime service (USS Cardinal struck a reef off Dutch Harbor in 1923 while USS Curlew did the same off Panama in 1926 and USS Sanderling went down in 1937 by accident in Hawaii) while nine– Heron included– became seaplane tenders.

While these ships could only carry 1-2 seaplanes on deck, they typically milled around with a converted barge alongside that could park a half dozen or more single-engine float planes for service and support.

U.S. Navy Small Seaplane Tender USS Heron (AVP-2); no date. Note the floatplane service barge alongside. Image via USNI collection.

Recommissioned in 1924 (later picking up the hull number AVP-2, as a Small Seaplane Tender), Heron was photographed with a variety of floatplanes including Grumman JF amphibians and Vought O2U-2 scout planes in the 20s and 30s.

Carrying two Vought O2U-2 scout planes of Scouting Eight (VS-8) while serving in the Asiatic Fleet on 15 December 1930. Photo No. 80-G-1017155 Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-80-G

Serving as an aircraft tender before 1936. Note the aviation roundel on her bow.

She continued her quiet existence in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Chinese and Philippine waters, filling in as a target tower, survey ship, and gunboat when needed.

U.S. warships inside and outside the breakwater, circa the later 1930s. Color-tinted photograph by the Ah-Fung O.K. Photo Service. Among the ships present are USS Black Hawk (AD-9), in left center, with a nest of four destroyers alongside. USS Whipple (DD-217) is the outboard unit of these four. USS Heron (AM-10) is alongside the breakwater, at right, with a Grumman JF amphibian airplane on her fantail. Another JF is floating inside the breakwater, toward the left. Two Chinese sampans are under sail in the center foreground. The four destroyers outside the breakwater are (from left to right): USS Stewart (DD-224), unidentified, USS Bulmer (DD-222) and USS Pillsbury (DD-227). Collection of James E. Thompson, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 90544-KN

Stationed at Port Ciego, Philippines when the balloon went up, Heron was luckier than several of her sisters in the same waters, with six sunk in six months.

• USS Tanager (AM-5), Sunk by Japanese shore battery fire off Bataan, 4 May 1942.
• USS Finch (AM-9), Damaged by Japanese bomb (near miss), 9 Apr 1942 while moored at the eastern point of Corregidor. Abandoned, 10 Apr 1942. Salvaged by Imperial Japanese Navy; renamed W-103. Sunk for good by US carrier aircraft in early 1945.
• USS Quail (AM-15) Damaged by Japanese bombs and guns at Corregidor, she was scuttled 5 May 1942 to prevent capture.
• USS Penguin (AM-33) Damaged by Japanese aircraft in Agana Harbor, Guam, 8 Dec 1941; scuttled in 200 fathoms to prevent capture.
• USS Bittern (AM-36) Heavily damaged by Japanese aircraft at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines; scuttled in Manila Bay to prevent capture.
• USS Pigeon (AM-47) Sunk by Japanese aircraft at Corregidor, 4 May 1942.

Heron was ordered to leave the PI for Ambon Island, part of the Maluku Islands of then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), a strategic key to the area held by some 3,000 Dutch and Australian troops. There, along with USS William B. Preston (AVD 7), she supported PBYs of Patrol Wing TEN until the going got tough and the island was overrun in February 1942.

It was during this time at Ambon that Heron became a legend. Upon hearing that the four-piper USS Peary (DD-226) was damaged, she sortied out to help assist or tow if needed but was caught by Japanese flying boats and proceeded to fight them off over several hours.

As noted dryly in the combat narrative of the Java Sea Campaign:

The Heron, which was sent north to assist the Peary, was herself bombed in a protracted action in Molucca Strait on the 31st. Shrapnel from near hits penetrated the ship’s side and started fires in the paint locker and forward hold. About the middle of the afternoon, a 100-pound shrapnel bomb struck the foremast near the top and sprayed the ship with splinters, which did considerable damage. The Heron acquitted herself well, however, in spite of her 12-knot speed, and succeeded in shooting down a large enemy seaplane.

“Evasion of Destruction” by Richard DeRosset portrays a strafing run by three Japanese “Mavis” flying boats following their unsuccessful torpedo attack on the USS Heron (AVP-2) on 31 December 1941. Heron shot down one of the aircraft with her starboard 3-inch gun; her port gun had been disabled by earlier combat action. This final attack followed a series of earlier ones by twelve other enemy aircraft against the seaplane tender as she sailed alone in the Java Sea. Due to heroic actions by her captain and crew, Heron survived seemingly overwhelming odds during the long ordeal. Heron had approximately 26 casualties, or about 50 percent of the crew, because of the attack.

For her valiant action during this period, Heron received the Navy Unit Commendation.

The rest of her war service was less eventful, serving in Australian waters as a patrol boat and seaplane tender until 1944 when she began moving back to the PI with the massive Allied armada to retake the archipelago. She conducted search and rescue operations and assisted in landings where needed, still providing tender service until she was decommissioned at Subic Bay, Philippines 12 February 1946, earning four battle stars for the War.

Sold for scrap to a Chinese concern in Shanghai in 1947, Heron‘s ultimate fate is unknown but she may have lingered on as a trawler or coaster for some time or in some form.

As for the rest of her class, others also served heroically in the war with one, USS Vireo, picking up seven battle stars for her service as a fleet tug from Pearl Harbor to Midway to Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The Germans sank USS Partridge at Normandy and both Gannet and Redwing via torpedoes in the Atlantic. Most of the old birds remaining in U.S. service were scrapped in 1946-48 with the last on Uncle Sam’s list, Flamingo, sold for scrap in July 1953.

Some lived on as trawlers and one, USS Auk (AM-38) was sold to Venezuela in 1948, where she lasted until 1962 as the gunboat Felipe Larrazabal. After her decommissioning she was not immediately scrapped, and was reported afloat in a backwater channel as late as 1968. Her fate after that is not recorded but she was likely the last of the Lapwings.

For Heron‘s memory, the Navy passed on her name to two different mine countermeasures ships since WWII.

The first, the 136-foot USS Heron (MSC(O)-18/AMS-18/YMS-369), was renamed in 1947 and went on to win 8 battlestars in Korea before serving in the Japanese Self Defense Forces as JDS Nuwajima (MSC-657) until 1967.

The second and, as of now final, U.S. Navy ship with the historic name, USS Heron (MHC-52) was an Osprey-class coastal minehunter commissioned in 1994 and transferred while still in her prime to Greece in 2007 as Kalipso.

But that’s another story.

Specs:

Displacement: 950 tons FL (1918) 1,350 tons (1936)
Length: 187 feet 10 inches
Beam: 35 feet 6 inches
Draft: 9 feet 9 in
Propulsion: Two Babcock and Wilcox header boilers, one 1,400shp Harlan and Hollingsworth, vertical triple-expansion steam engine, one shaft.
Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph); 12~ by 1936.
Complement: 78 Officers and Enlisted as completed; Upto 85 by 1936
Armament: 2 × 3-inch/23 single mounts as commissioned
(1930)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
4 Lewis guns
(1944)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
Several 20mm Oerlikons and M2 12.7mm mounts

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

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140423-N-VD564-013 PACIFIC OCEAN (April 23, 2014) The littoral combat ships USS Independence (LCS 2), left, and USS Coronado (LCS 4) are underway in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Keith DeVinney/Released)

Apparently, SECDEF Ash Carter is the Grinch who stole Christmas from the Navy’s surface fleet (and gave it to Naval Aviation) by trimming its total buy of Littoral Combat Ships/Fast Frigates from 52 to 40 and ordering big blue to select a single shipbuilder and design for the class as part of its fiscal year 2017 budget.

BOOM!

The cash saved will go to buy a few more F-35s– but its all good as Navy didn’t need dem boats anyway.

From USNI

“This plan reduces, somewhat, the number of LCS available for presence operations, but that need will be met by higher-end ships, and it will ensure that the warfighting forces in our submarine, surface, and aviation fleets have the necessary capabilities and posture to defeat even our most advanced potential adversaries,” read the memo.

“Forty LCS/FF will exceed recent historical presence levels and will provide a far more modern and capable ship than the patrol coastals, minesweepers, and frigates that they will replace.”

For the past half-decade the U.S. Naval Special Warfare community has quietly used a device unique to its service– the Battelle Plummet Gun– and its half-Batman, half-Star Wars, and all-cool.

The problem

While after the recent activities in the Global War on Terror in which we see Navy Seals roping out of choppers and moving around on land a lot, they are actually first and foremost combat swimmers. These fighting frogmen, who evolved from the old Underwater Demolition Teams of World War II and Korea, are tasked with taking over suspect ships at sea, sinking the bad guy’s ships in port, and seizing offshore islands and structures such as oil platforms.

Commonly termed Visit Board Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations, its these actions from small boats against platforms and vessels at sea that sometimes put these special operators behind the proverbial 8-ball as the bad guys often don’t leave a ladder down to allow the frogmen easy access.

U.S. Navy SEALs board a ship from a Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat as they conduct a joint Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) exercise alongside U.S. Marines assigned to Force Reconnaissance Platoon, Maritime Raid Force, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), during composite training unit exercise (COMPTUEX) in the Atlantic Ocean, July 20, 2015. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andre Dakis/26th MEU Combat Camera/Released)

This means special devices such as a backpack-sized magnetic ship-climbing device that would “drive” up the side of a ship’s steel hull to the top, where an operator would anchor it and drop a rope ladder to the other team members below.

NSW ship climbing device at the U.S. Navy Seal/UDT Museum, Image by Chris Eger

However, these are big and bulky– not to mention noisy and complicated to employ.

What would be ideal would be a grappling hook gun like the one Luke Skywalker used to escape the Stormtroopers on the Death Star with Leia in tow, or that Batman used repeatedly. Hey, about that…

Meet the 25 pound Battelle Plummet Gun, and yes, it is as big as the M60 shown next to it for scale. Image via Chris Eger

So suffice it to say, this is one piece of kit you aren’t going to add to your turn out bag just yet.

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Another 378 is being sent to pasture with the looming retirement and decommissioning of USCGC Boutwell (WHEC-719), who returned from her final patrol last week, a 41-day run around the Bearing Sea.

Based out of San Diego and named for Grant’s Treasury secretary, Boutwell was laid down in 1967 during a very different time in history than we know now.

(5676 × 4580)

The 3250-ton Hamilton-class cutter has put in 47 years of hard service that included standing by the disabled Soviet H-2 nuclear-powered submarine in 1972, the Prinsendam ocean liner rescue in 1980, the crazy Orca incident,  shelled the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 85 ghost ship under the waves with her 5-inch deck gun (back when the USCG had 5-inch guns), and spent much time on six-week long Alaska Patrols during which she conducted surveillance operations and enforced international treaties and U.S. laws during the heart of the Cold War– often tracking multiple Soviet sonar contacts at the same time (back when the Coasties ran ASW).

More on her long and illustrious service here

She is scheduled to be modified and handed over to the Philippine Navy in coming months.

Although 36 cutters of this class were originally planned, only 12 were ever built. So far six Hamiltons have been retired and passed on to Allied navies including The Philippines who operate Gregorio del Pilar (ex-Hamilton) and Ramon Alcaraz (ex-Dallas), the Nigerians who run Okpabana (ex-Gallatin) and Thunder (ex-Chase) and the Bangladesh Navy with their Somudro Joy (ex-Jarvis) and Somudro Avijan (ex-Rush).

Boutwell‘s decommissioning will leave the USCG with only Mellon, Sherman, Morgenthau, Munro and Midgett in service (for now) from this vintage line.

Fair winds and full sails, Boutwell.

090210-N-4774B-017 SINGAPORE (Feb. 10, 2009) A full moon rises above the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Boutwell (WHEC 719) at anchor at Changi Naval Base, Singapore. Boutwell is part of the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group and is on a scheduled deployment to the western Pacific Ocean supporting global maritime security. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Barker/Released)

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Dec.23, 2015: The lost jewel from Bizerte

960×633

Here we see the French Émeraude-class diesel-electric submarine (Sous-Marin) Turquoise (Q46), captured by the Turks, in dry dock undergoing repairs in Constantinople, 1916.

The French got into the submarine business about the same time as the Americans, launching Admiral Simeon Bourgois’s Plongeur in April 1863.

Before the turn of the century the Republic had flirted with a half dozen one-off boats before they ordered the four boats of the Sirene-class in 1901 followed quickly by another four of the Farfadet-class, the two Algerien-class boats, 20 Naiade-class craft in 1904, Submarines X, Y and Z (not making it up), the two ship Aigrette-class and the submarine Omega.

All told, between 1900-1905, the French coughed up 36 submersibles spread across nine very different classes.

After all that quick learning curve, they proceeded with the Emeraude (Emerald) class in 1903. These ships were an improvement of the Faradet (Sprite) class designed by Gabriel-Émile-Marie Maugas. The 135-foot long/200-ton Faradet quartet had everything a 20th Century smoke boat needed: it was a steel-hulled hybrid submersible that used diesel engines on the surface and electric below, had 4 torpedo tubes, could dive to 100~ feet, and could make a stately 6-knots.

Farfadet-class boat Lutin (Q10), leaving port in 1903.

While they weren’t successful (two sank, killing 30 men between them) Maugas learned from early mistakes and they were significantly improved in the Emeraudes. These later boats used two-shaft propulsion– rare in early submarines–, and were 147-feet long with a 425-ton full load. Capable of making right at 12-knots for brief periods, they carried a half dozen torpedo tubes (four in the bow and two in the stern). They also had the capability to mount  a machine gun and light deck gun if needed.

Again, improvements!

Profile of the Emeralds surfaced.

Class leader Emeraude was laid down at Arsenal de Cherbourg in 1903 followed by sisters Opale and Rubis at the same yard and another three, Saphir, Topase, and the hero of our story, Turquoise, at Arsenal de Toulon in the Med.

Launching 1908

Turquoise was commissioned 10 December 1910 and, with her two Toulon-built sisters, served with the French Mediterranean Fleet from the Submarine Station at Bizerte.

She repeated the bad luck of the Farfadet-class predecessors and in 1913 lost an officer and several crew swept off her deck in rough seas.

When war erupted in 1914, the jewel boats soon found they had operational problems staying submerged due to issues with buoyancy and were plagued by troublesome diesels (hey, the manufacturer, Sautter-Harlé, was out of business by 1918 so what does that tell you).

To help with surface ops, Topase and Turquoise were fitted with a smallish deck gun in 1915.

Saphir probably would have been too, but she caught a Turkish mine in the Sea of Marma on 15 January trying to sneak through the straits and went down.

Topase and Turquoise continued to operate against the Turks, with the latter running into trouble on 30 October 1915. Around the village of Orhaniye in the Dardanelles near Nagara there were six Ottoman Army artillerymen led by Corporal G Boaz Deepa who spotted a periscope moving past a nearby water tower.

Becoming tangled in a net, the submarine became a sitting duck. With their field piece they were able to get a lucky shot on the mast and, with the submarine filling with water, she made an emergency surface. There, the six cannoners took 28 French submariners captive and impounded the sub, sunk in shallow water.

Turquoise’s skipper, Lt. Leon Marie Ravenel, was in 1918 awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honour as was his XO. These sailors suffered a great deal in Turkish captivity, with five dying.

German propaganda postcard, note the Ottoman crew and markings

The Turks later raised the batter French boat and, naming her Mustadieh Ombashi (or Müstecip Ombasi), planned to use her in the Ottoman fleet.

Ottoman Uniforms reports her conning tower was painted with a large rectangle (likely to be red), with large white script during this time.

Via Ottoman Uniforms

However as submariners were rare in WWI Constantinople, she never took to sea in an operational sense again and in 1919 the victorious French reclaimed their submarine, which they later scrapped in 1920.

Her wartime service for the Turks seems to have been limited to taking a few pictures for propaganda purposes and in being used as a fixed battery charging station for German U-boats operating in the Black Sea.

As for the last Bizerte boat, Topase, she finished the war intact and was stricken 12 November 1919 along with the three Emeraudes who served quietly in the Atlantic.

Turquoise/Mustadieh Ombashi has been preserved as a model however.

If you have a further interest in the submarines of Gallipoli, go here.

Specs:

1884×1543

Displacement 392 tons (surfaced) / 427 (submerged)
Length, 147 feet
Bean 12 feet
Draft 12 feet
No of shafts 2
Machinery
2 Sautter-Harlé diesels, 600hp / electric motors (440kW)
Max speed, kts 11.5 surfaced / 9.2 submerged
Endurance, nm 2000 at 7.3kts surfaced / 100nm at 5kts submerged
Armament:
6×450 TT (4 bow, 2 stern) for 450mm torpedoes with no reloads
1x M1902 Model 37mm deck gun, 1x8mm light Hotchkiss machine gun (fitted in 1915)
Complement 21-28
Diving depth operational, 130 feet.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

The Ace of Clubs, 771 Naval Air Squadron, who has celebrated over 40 years of saving lives from RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, started service with the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm 24 May 1939 at Lee-on-Solent flying Fairey Swordfish TSR biplanes, her pilots helped in the search for the Bismarck. Transitioning to SAR in 1961, they hung up their then DeHavland Sea Venoms for Westland Whirlwinds and have been a chopper unit ever since.

Now 771 NAS and HMS Gannet’s SAR Flight, the last two military SAR units in the UK, are standing down. Their 300~ rescues per year will be the duty of civilian contractors who assumed the task from the RAF earlier this year.

On 1st January 2016, the baton of responsibility will be passed onto the Maritime and Coastguard Agency contractor Bristow Helicopters, based at Newquay airport.

Most powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage thereof; We, thy creatures, but miserable sinners, do in this our great distress cry unto thee for help; Save, Lord, or else we perish. –Prayers to be used in [all Ships in]* storms at sea, 1892.

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Dec.30, 2015: Subkiller of the Florida Keys

Image by Chris Eger. All others this post are either by me, or the USCG Historian’s office

Here we see the Treasury-class United States Coast Guard Cutter Samuel D. Ingham (WPG/AGC/WHEC-35) dockside of the old Navy submarine base at Key West near Fort Zachary Taylor, part of the Truman Annex to Naval Air Station Key West, where she has been as a museum ship since 2009.

In the mid-1930s, the Coast Guard had some 40~ oceangoing cutters consisting of a few pre-WWI era slowboats and a host of 165 and 240/250 foot vessels designed for bluewater rum-runner busting during Prohibition. With the Volstead Act repealed and the boozecraft disappearing, the new push in the Treasury department once Mr. Roosevelt took office was for long-legged boats to help patrol the nation’s burgeoning international air traffic routes to affect rescues and provide weather support.

Although the Coasties came up with their own design for a stretched version of their 250-foot Lake-class cutters, the Navy had just coughed up a new gunboat design– the two Erie-class gunboats USS Erie (PG-50) and USS Charleston (PG-51) —  which the service could save some bread on by gently modifying. Instead of the Erie‘s  6”/47 Mk17s, the Coast Guard went with 5”/51’s and saved money in other areas, building their cutters out at about 30 percent less cost than the Eries.

These seven new cutters, classified gunboats (WPG) in Treasury service, were all named after former Secretaries of that cabinet branch with USCGC George M. Bibb (WPG-31) laid down 15 August 1935 followed quickly by Campbell,  Spencer, Duane, Taney, Hamilton and the hero of our story, Ingham— named after Andrew Jackson’s Treasury boss. However, shortly after commissioning all of the names were trimmed to the last name only.

U.S.S. ‘Samuel D. Ingham’ Entering At Havana Harbor-Nov. 12 1936

Capable of over 20-knots and with the capability to carry a seaplane (a JF-2 amphibian), these 327-foot long, 2400-ton cutters could roam across the ocean and back again with an impressive 12,300-nm range. A pair of 5-inch/51-caliber guns augmented a few 6-pounder guns was impressive enough for a shallow water (can float in 13-feet of sea) gunboat and seen as more than adequate to stop smugglers and sink derelict vessels on the high seas. In a pinch, the armament could be increased in time of war, which the Navy was keenly aware of.

These cutters were designed from the outset to accommodate a floatplane

Built at Philadelphia Naval Yard (Ingham himself was born at Great Spring near New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1779), the cutter carrying his name was commissioned 12 September 1936 and was the fourth cutter to bear that name. She was assigned to Port Angeles, Washington, where she participated in arduous Bering Sea patrols until the start of WWII in Europe.

Ingham’s crew undergoing prewar battle practice, in this case firing both of her main 5-inch 50-caliber main batteries.

Given a tasking for “Grand Banks Patrols,” Ingham was homeported in Boston with orders to identify foreign men-of-war, be on the lookout for any “un-neutral” activities, and report anything of an unusual nature. Each cruise lasted approximately two weeks. The cutters ran with their ensign illuminated by searchlight at all times, and prefaced all signals with Coast Guard identification. This transitioned to three-week long weather station duty in the North Atlantic with embarked meteorologists.

In December 1940, she was up-armed with things growing increasingly tense in the North Atlantic and transferred for duty with the Navy on 1 July 1941 and her Coast Guard crew intact, spending part of the year as a floating embassy in spy-rich Lisbon for the U. S. ambassador to Portugal.

Assigned to CINCLANT at the U.S. entrance to the war, she soon began a series of convoy operations, escorting no less than 28 convoys back and forth from the East Coast to Iceland between Dec. 1941 and March 1943. Some were pure milk runs. Others were not.

On SC-107, 16 ships were torpedoed.

On ONSJ-160, Ingham reduced speed and ceased zigzagging as a force 12 hurricane developed and then had to spend three days searching for stragglers.

It was in this duty she rescued survivors from the torpedoed SS Henry R. Mallory, Robert E. Hopkins, West Portal, Jeremiah Van Rensseler and all hands of the Matthew Luckenback.

Then there was the time she gesunken a U-boat.

Ingham fitted out for escort of convoy and anti-submarine warfare. Note her camouflage

Ingham, along with USS Babbitt and USS Leary were near Iceland, where they stumbled on the brand new German Type VIIC submarine U-626 who was on her maiden patrol on 15 December 1942. The cutter made sonar contact with an object and dropped depth charges on the sub, sinking her and killing her entire crew of 47 though some argue the point.

From the journal of Ensign Joseph Matte III, USCGR

During the 8 to 12 watch tonight, while on patrol 3 miles ahead of the convoy, we picked up screw-beats of a submarine while listening, ran in and dropped three 600-pounders. Then, getting contact on the U-boat again by echo-ranging we made another run and gave it a 10-charge barrage. Search was continued for some time, but contact was not regained. There is a strong possibility that we sunk him without forcing him to the surface.

Another surface action in June 1942:

On the 16th, the Ingham broke away from the convoy to investigate a light brown smoke on the horizon and on approaching closer definitely sighted a submarine with conning tower and diesel oil smoke from the exhaust plainly visible. The Ingham increased speed to 19 knots and gave chase, firing one round from the forward 5″ gun at a range of 13,000 yards.

Then in 1944, she found herself in the Med, chasing sonar contacts off Morocco and Spain before assuming flagship of the Senior Mediterranean Escort Group.

U.S.C.G.C. W 35. NAVY YARD, NEW YORK. 28 May 1944 Photo No. F644C6169

Then in May, Ingham proceeded back to the states for conversion to an AGC (Combined operations communications headquarters ship) which took most of the rest of the year and led to her shipping for the Pacific, arriving Dec 26th at Humboldt Bay, reporting to Commander, Seventh Fleet.

USS Ingham, CG (WAGC-35)U.S. Navy Yard, S.C. . .U.S.S. INGHAM, (W 35), Starboard BowPhoto No. 2878-44 11 October 1944

By February 1945, as flag of Commander, Task Group 76.3, Ingham was the HQ and guide ship for the Mariveles-Corregidor Attack Group in the PI and later oversaw the beach landings at Tigbauan, Pulupandan, Macajalar Bay, Sarangani Bay and the seizure of Balut Island. In these attacks she frequently let her 5-inchers release hate on Japanese shore positions while dodging underwater obstacles and swimming sappers.

Ingham as a AGC 1944

Commander Dean W. Colbert wrote in his memoir of life on board Ingham of her crowding at the time with four men assigned to a single rack:

“. . .during major landings, we accommodated up to 360 persons onboard and there was literally standing room only. . .Mealtime was a carefully orchestrated operation. Up to 1000 meals per day were prepared and served out of a galley roughly the size of a kitchen in a 4-bedroom house. . .It was a challenge by any standard, but Ingham’s crew rose to the occasion. Many of the ‘black gang’ . . .and other crew members had been on board during the worst of the U-boat campaigns in the North Atlantic. As a whole, the crew was superb, especially the chief and first class petty officers. They were a tremendously capable and reliable group.”

The end of the war found her off Okinawa as the flag of Adm. Buckmaster who sailed into Shanghai and Haiphong to help coordinate occupation efforts with Chinese army officials.

On 6 January 1946, she arrived back on the East Coast at New York, landed her armament, got her white paint scheme back, and picked up where she left off as a cutter.

Homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, she spent the next 22 years on quiet weather station duty, assisting those in peril at sea and conducting law enforcement operations.

Then came another war.

1965. She would pick up the racing stripe two years later, and ship for Southeast Asia a year after that.

Becoming part of Coast Guard Squadron Three in 1968, Ingham soon became part of the Navy’s Operation Market Time interdiction and coastal surveillance effort in Vietnam. She spent a year in CGS3, conducting numerous naval gunfire support missions, serving as a mothership to Navy Swift boats and Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats, sending medical teams ashore to win hearts and minds in local seaside hamlets, and stopping anything that moved inside her area of operation.

As noted by her official USCG history, “She participated in Operation Sea Lords and Operation Swift Raiders, earning an unprecedented two Presidential Unit Citations, the only cutter to be so honored.”

18 July 1978 Photo No. G-BPA-07-18-78

Still homeported in Virginia, Ingham picked up where she left off in 1969 and continued ocean station duty until the stations themselves were disbanded in 1976. After that, she was a favorite vessel of the USCGA in New London, taking cadets on summer cruises that lasted up to 10 weeks at a time and continuing to do so until 1985.

She took breaks from cadet training to seize drug runners (the Honduran fishing trawler Mary Ann, where the boarding team discovered 15-tons of marijuana in 1979 and the vessel Misfit carrying 35 tons of marijuana in 1982) as well as saving hundreds of lives during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980– often landing refugees and towing Cuban vessels to Key West for processing.

She outlasted all of her sisters in service, with Hamilton being torpedoed during the war off Iceland 29 January 1942, Spencer sold for scrap in 1981, Campbell decommissioned in 1982 and sunk as a target, Bibb and Duane decommissioned in 1985, and Pearl Harbor survivor Taney decommissioned 7 December 1986.

On 1 August 1985, Ingham‘s hull numbers were painted gold, signifying she was the oldest commissioned Coast Guard vessel in service, period. On 24 May 1988, she was decommissioned with a salute from President Reagan. It was the first time in 52 years that she did not have an official tasking.

Ingham in her pre-1967 livery by William H Ravell

Saved as a memorial, she was at first a museum ship at Patriot’s Point, S.C. and then, after dry-dock and repairs, at Key West. A maritime museum keeps her in excellent condition and in 1995 was made the official site of the USCGs WWII memorial per order of the commandant.

I had a chance to tour Ingham last month and here is a sampling of her current disposition:

The ship is a time capsule from her last use in May 1988. I was told the only thing the Coast Guard did when they turned her over was dewat the guns, remove the classified documents from the safe, and pull some sensitive internal panels from the commo, sonar and radar suites.

Officers mess

Remember the comment about a galley for a typical 4 BR house?

Holy 2600, batman

The enlisted mess

Japanese samurai sword picked up in 1945

GMs locker.Dig the M2 giant size training tool and the 20mm OK

Barber

Captain’s cabin

Captain’s cabin. This would be the berth of the Admiral when she was an AGC in WWII

Commo anyone?

Looking forward, note her 5″/38, and saluting gun. Malloy Square and Duval Street are a few blocks up.

CIC

Her bridge is off limits, but note all the brightwork and 1930s style porthole row

Her sistership Taney has been preserved in Baltimore harbor since her decommissioning while sisters, Duane and Bibb, are only about a half hour away from Ingham‘s current location, both sunk as an artificial reef off Key Largo, 27 November 1987.

As a nod to her many years of service to the USCGA, Ingham is often graced with visits from cadets who spend vacation time sleeping in the onboard berths, scraping paint and repairing heads.

When in Key West, she is well worth a stop.

Specs:

Via shipbucket

Via shipbucket

Via shipbucket

Displacement 2,350 t. (lt)
Length 327′ 0″
Beam 41′ 0″
Draft 12′ 6″ (max.)
Propulsion
two Westinghouse double-reduction geared turbines
two Babcock & Wilcox sectional express, air-encased, 400 psi, 200° superheat
two 9′ three-bladed propellers, 6,200shp (1966)
Fuel Capacity NSFO 135,180 gallons (547 tons)
Speed 20.5 kts (max)
Electronics:
HF/DF: (1942) DAR (converted British FH3) ?
Radar: (1945) SC-2, SGa; (1966) AN/SPS-29D, AN/SPA-52.
Fire Control Radar: (1945) Mk-26; (1966) Mk-26 MOD 4
Sonar: (1945) QC series; (1966) AN/SQS-11
Complement
1937
12 officers
4 warrant officers
107 enlisted
1941
16 officers
4 warrant officers
202 enlisted
1966
10 officers
3 warrant officers
134 enlisted
Armament:
1936
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
2 6-pdrs
1 1-pdr
1941
3 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
3 single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts
4 .50 caliber Browning Machine Guns
2 depth charge racks
“Y” gun depth charge projector
1943
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
4 single 3″/50 cal dual gun mounts
2 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
Hedgehog device
6 “K” gun depth charge projectors
2 depth charge racks
1945
2 single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts
3 twin 40mm/60 AA gun mounts
4 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
1946
2 single 5″/38 cal dual gun mount
1 twin 40mm;/60 AA gun mount
8 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
1 Hedgehog
1966
1 single 5″/38 MK30 Mod75 cal dual-purpose gun mount w/ MK 52 MOD 3 director
1 MK 10-1 Hedgehog (removed)
2 (P&S) x Mk 32 MOD 5 TT
4 MK 44 MOD 1 torpedoes
2 .50 cal. MK-2 Browning Machine Guns
2 MK-13 high altitude parachute flare mortars
Aircraft (discontinued after WWII)
1936, Grumman JF-2, V148
1938, Curtiss SOC-4
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

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I’m a member, so should you be!

Germany has spent something like 120~ years making top-notch submarines. In fact, other than the 80 or so Romeo/Ming class diesels operated by the Chinese and the Norks, the most numerous modern submersible operated in the world are the 61 German-made Type 209 class submarines built and commissioned between 1971 and 2008.

However, if it wasn’t for the earlier Type 206 design, there never would have been a 209.

Designed in 1964 by Ingenieur Kontor Lübeck (IKL), these cute little 159-foot diesel-electric boats weighed but 500-tons at full load when submerged. However, they could stay at sea, floating in as little as 16 feet of water when surfaced and hiding in 10 fathoms when submerged if needed, for over a month.

Further, they carried 8 modern 533mm torpedoes which could be delivered all at once, allowing them the capability to sink virtually any warship found at sea–to include a Soviet battlecruiser– with a single salvo.

Some 18 were built for the Bundesmarine (West German Navy), numbered U13-U30, commissioning between April 1973 and March 1975, just under two years, which isn’t bad. Had the balloon ever gone up in the Cold War, these hardy craft would likely have given the Soviets, East Germans and Poles a lot of hell in the Baltic.

They were so nice, in fact, that the Israelis ordered three slightly modded variants they termed the Gal-class as a follow-on, which were delivered in 1976-77.

Further, another 15 very similar (535-ton/155-foot) Type 207s were built as the Kobben class for the Royal Norwegian Navy by 1966 and have gone on to serve not only that fleet but the Danes and Poles as well (the latter of which still have five of these in service) proving the design still holds water after a half-century.

The Germans kept their 18 Type 206’s in service for over 30 years in some cases, decommissioning the last four in 2011 while the Israelis did more or less the same.

In all, the 36 boats of the Type 206/207/Gal design did what they were intended to for their respective users and have gone on to live a second life to a degree. Indonesia looked to pick up as many as five, but then backpedaled, while the Germans shopped both the Type 206s and the surplus Gal-class vessels for a while.

Gal herself is now on display at the Israeli Naval museum in Haifa while two (the recently retired U15 and U17) are laid up in Germany and four have gone on to Columbia. Two, ex-U16 and ex-U18, were sold as spare parts hulks while another pair, U23 and U24 were given length (2012-2015) refits in Germany and shipped to Colombia as the ARC Intrepido and ARC Indomable respectively to begin their new careers.

Two German Type-206 submarines outbound from Kiel to Columbia, 2015.

After all, even at age 40, they are still effective.

Sorry about the late posting this week, in the effort to get to SHOT Show in Vegas this weekend and with the winter weather making horse care more pressing, its been busy this week!

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday (on a Friday): The Tennessee peace cruiser

Image by Robert M. Cieri via Navsource

Here we see the Denver-class protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16/PG-30/CL-18), port bow view, while in New York harbor, 1905. You can tell by her fine lines and ornamental brightworks, she was meant more to impress colonial locals and less to sink enemy ships.

Though she never fired a shot in anger, the hardy little Chattanooga was around for a quarter century and saw immense changes to the fleet she was a part of, changes that eventually left her out of step, though her relics are now a part of the more asymmetric war on terror.

In 1899, Pax Americana found herself suddenly a colonial power after picking up the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and a host of other scattered territories as part of spoils in the Spanish-American War. Further, President McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution which annexed Hawaii in 1898 while the Tripartite Convention of 1899 split up the Samoan islands between the U.S., Germany and Britain– though neither the native Hawaiians nor the Samoans were really happy about either.

With all of these far-flung possessions added to the 45-state Union, the Navy needed some warships to go wave the flag there without depleting the main battle fleet as outlined by the good Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan. These ships need not slug it out in naval combat with a determined foe, they only needed long legs; a few guns to impress the locals while being capable of sending potential pirates, rabble-rousers and armed merchant cruisers to the bottom; and a high mast to show a flag.

This led to the six-pack of Denver-class vessels, peace cruisers if you will.

USS Des Moines (C-15, CL-17, PG 29), a good postcard reference to the Denver class. Note the schooner rig and fine lines.

The Denvers didn’t have much armor (about the thickness of a good butter knife in most places), nor did they have large guns (10 5″/50 Mark 5 single mounts, able to penetrate just 1.4-inches of armor at 9,000 yards though their 50-pound shells were capable of a 19,000 yard range overall which made them perfect for shelling uprisings on shore or warning off undesirable foreign ships creeping around colonial ports), nor were they particularly fast (they were designed but not fitted with an auxiliary Schooner sail rig).

One of ‘Nooga’s 5″ deck guns, probably port side forward. From the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN provided by Herman B. Froelich, via Navsource

However, they were 308-feet of American soil that could self-deploy and remain on station with little support when needed while still being able to float in 15 feet of seawater.

In short, they were the littoral combat ships of 1899.

The six ships, in what seems to be shipyard welfare from Uncle Sam, were built in six different yards near-simultaneously, all commissioning within about 18 months of each other.

The hero of our story, USS Chattanooga, was laid down at Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey, a new shipyard whose historical claim to fame was in building the USS Holland (SS-1), the nation’s first official modern submarine and a number of the follow-on A-class pigboats. She was named for the city in Tennessee and was the second Chattanooga on the Navy List, the first being a Civil War steam sloop that was holed and sunk at her dock by floating ice in 1871.

Commissioned 11 October 1904 during the tensions of the Russo-Japanese War, Chattanooga headed for Europe where she joined the squadron there and helped escort the body of Scottish-American Capt. John Paul Jones, late of the Continental Navy, from an unmarked grave in a Parisian cemetery to a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.

Starboard side view, anchored, 12 OCT 1906. Photo 0-G-1035139 from The National Archives.

Port side view at anchor in Genoa, Italy in the early 1900’s. Giorgio Parodi via Navsource

For the next seven years she cruised the Pacific (via the Suez), the Med, the Caribbean and helped train Naval Militia before entering into layup in 1912.

An early 63-foot A-class submarine, likely USS Grampus (SS-4) or Pike (SS-6) on the Willapa River, at Raymond, Washington, circa 1912. The stern of the USS Chattanooga can be seen in front of the sub. Photo provided by Steve Hubbard of the Pacific County Historical Society, Washington State via Pigboats

When 1914 came about, a new crew manned the rails and brought her back to life for the tensions in Mexico, sailing off the Pacific coast of that country, protecting American interests, chiefly from the port of La Paz through early 1917.

Starboard side view while in San Diego, 1915. Caption on the back of the photo reads: “This photo was taken after were secured from coaling ship and were cleaning her up.” Via Navsource

Nooga’s shipboard naval landing party drills with M1909 Benet Mercie light machine guns. During the Mexican crisis, her landing team and those of the other Pacific fleet ships sent to babysit ports in Mexico drilled non-stop, though did not wind up going expeditionary.  A ship Chattanooga’s size could muster 80-100 men for action ashore, a common tactic in those days. Photo via Navsource from the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN.

In April 1917 with the U.S. entry into the ongoing Great War with Germany, Chattanooga chopped to the Atlantic Fleet and cruised the Caribbean for enemy shipping for a while before joining in convoy duties across the big pond. While vital, her brief wartime service was unexciting.

Following the end of the conflict, she remained a fixture in European ports with a concentration on the Black Sea, where the former Russian Empire was tearing itself apart in a civil war, and around Greece and Turkey, who were warming up a conflict of their own.

USS CHATTANOOGA (C-16) in a European port circa 1919. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983. Catalog #: NH 94980, via Naval History and Heritage Command. She was reclassified as a gunboat, PG-30, 17 July 1920. Her place in the fleet was taken by much more powerful modern cruisers. Note her darker and more smudgy haze gray scheme and simplified rigging. Also note the huge ensign on her mast. That’s what she did.

Chattanooga most importantly helped supervise the liquidation of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy (kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine) in the Adriatic.

She provided support to the Naval Reservist prize crew on the 15,000-ton Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi at Spalato (Split) in Dalmatia. On the morning of 7 November 1920, Zrínyi was decommissioned and Chattanooga took her in tow across the sea to Italy where, under the terms of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, Zrínyi was turned over to the Italian government at Venice.

Bluejackets on the American/Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi, View of the ship’s bow, looking forward from the bridge. This photograph was taken at Spalato, Yugoslavia, while the ship was in US Navy custody pending conclusion of peace treaties. The ship was commissioned in the US Navy from 22 November 1919 to 7 November 1920, when it was handed over to Italy. The ship never got underway while in US hands except for the delivery voyage under tow by Chattanooga in November 1920. Photo Catalog #: NH 43536, Naval History and Heritage Command

Ordered back to the U.S., Chattanooga was decommissioned at Boston on 19 July 1921 and, though reclassified as a light cruiser, CL-18, the next month, never saw active duty again.

She was stricken in 1929 and sold for her value in scrap the following year. As for her five sisters, one, USS Tacoma was lost January 16, 1924 after she ran aground, while the other four vessels were all laid up like Chattanooga and subsequently scrapped.

While a frigate and later a cruiser were both laid down during WWII with intention of continuing her name, they were not commissioned as such and the Naval List has not seen another Chattanooga since 1929.

However, relics of her do exist and have found new importance.

Plaques commemorating the World War One service of the protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16, PG-30, CL-18) on display in the Douglas MacArthur Memorial, in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. One of the ship’s commanders was Arthur McArthur III, brother of the famed general. Image via Flckr.  Ironically, Art Mac Arthur also served on the submarine Holland, built in the same shipyard as Chattanooga and the Grampus, shown near the cruiser in the 1912 image above.

Her bell, image by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette. The bell was made in Chattanooga by the Fischer Evans works. The bell will be displayed at the Navy Ball in Chattanooga this year

Her 200-pound bronze magnesium ship’s bell has been first at the Lions Club hall then the recently shuttered American Legion Post 23 in Shelbyville, Tennessee for more than 85-years. Recently, following the terror attack on the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga that claimed the lives of five naval personnel, a reservist from the base, CS1 Gowan Johnson, was able to track the bell down and reclaim it for the center.

From Stars and Stripes

While the Navy’s reserve center quarters here are being modified, the USS Chattanooga’s bell has found a temporary home inside the National Medal of Honor Museum in Northgate Mall, where it is displayed along with vintage photos of the ship and crew.

“It’s open to the public to view, and touch, if they like,” explains Charles Googe, a museum volunteer.

Meanwhile, Johnson is hard at work preparing the bell for a more permanent home at the Reserve Center. A cast-iron yoke is being fabricated for the bell, he said, and the shrine will be anchored to a black granite base with a plaque honoring the dead. The emblems of the U.S. Navy and Marines also will be part of the exhibit, he said.

“We are thinking that we could toll the bell five times on July 16 when the names are read for the [shootings anniversary] ceremony,” Johnson said.

In the meantime, Petty Officer Johnson has begun to muse about another possibility, now that the Navy is commissioning a new class of ships bearing the names of American cities.

“How about another ship called the USS Chattanooga?” Johnson said.

Perhaps people in high places will get wind of his idea and answer the bell.

Specs:

Displacement:
3,200 long tons (3,251 t) (standard)
3,514 long tons (3,570 t) (full load)
Length:
308 ft. 9 in (94.11 m) oa
292 ft. (89 m)pp
Beam: 44 ft. (13 m)
Draft: 15 ft. 9 in (4.80 m) (mean)
Installed power:
6 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers
21,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
Propulsion:
2 × vertical triple expansion reciprocating engines, 4700 shp
2 × screws
Sail plan: Schooner
Speed:
16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
16.75 knots (31.02 km/h; 19.28 mph) (Speed on Trial)
Range: 2200 nmi at 10 kts
Complement: 31 officers 261 enlisted men
Armament:
10 × 5 in (127 mm)/50 caliber Breech-loading rifles
8 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) rapid fire guns
2 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) guns
Armor:
Deck: 2 1⁄2 in (64 mm) (slope)
3⁄16 in (4.8 mm) (flat)
Shields: 1 3⁄4 in (44 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Finally, to see where the Chattanooga ranks among U.S. cruiser development, the U.S. Naval Historical Command put out the below infographic.

Click here for the full size and go here for more historical information on USN cruisers.

A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter with a yellow paint scheme lands at Coast Guard Air Station Astoria, Ore., Jan. 15, 2016. The yellow Jayhawk helicopter is one of two centennial aircraft that will be stationed in the Pacific Northwest along with an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter that will be located at Air Station North Bend, Ore. in celebration of 100 years of Coast Guard aviation (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg)

(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg)

The yellow Jayhawk helicopter is the first specially painted aircraft delivered by the Coast Guard to an operational unit during the centennial celebration of Coast Guard aviation, and will operate out of the Warrenton base for the next 4 years. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg)

The Jayhawk helicopter is painted yellow to represent the chrome yellow paint scheme that Coast Guard and Navy helicopters used in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Examples include the Sikorsky HO3S-1G used from 1946 to 1955 and the Sikorsky HO4S used from 1951 to 1966.

Preserved Sikorsky HO3S-1G at USS Intrepid Museum with vintage chrome yellow scheme.

The yellow Jayhawk helicopter is one of two centennial aircraft that will be stationed in the Pacific Northwest. An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter is scheduled to be delivered to Air Station North Bend later this month. These two aircraft are the first of the 16 centennial painted aircraft in the country. Altogether, three different Coast Guard aircraft types, including the Jayhawk and Dolphin helicopters as well as the HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane, are receiving historic paint schemes representing various eras of Coast Guard aviation.

Coast Guard Aviator #1, Elmer Stone

Coast Guard aviation officially began April 1, 1916, when 3rd Lt. Elmer Stone reported to flight training in Pensacola, Florida and later embarked on the epic NC-4 flight across the Atlantic. The Coast Guard is celebrating the centennial of Coast Guard aviation throughout 2016, with a variety of activities honoring the accomplishments and sacrifices of the men and women throughout the past 100 years

151117-N-JC374-138 ARABIAN GULF (Nov. 17, 2015) Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Soualiho Fofana, assigned to Commander, Task Group (CTG) 56.1, uses a satellite phone for communications during a U.S.-U.K. Mine Countermeasures Exercise (MCMEX). U.S.-U.K. MCMEX is designed to improve interoperability and evolve the expeditionary mine countermeasures company concept of employment from an afloat forward staging base and afloat platforms of opportunity. (U.S. Navy Combat Camera photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonah Stepanik/Released)

It seems according to multiple operational reports received by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) in the the days after the 15 hour detainment of 10 U.S. Sailors and their two NAVCENT Riverine Command Boats (RCBs) after they drifted into Iranian territorial waters shows that some sat phones were fooled with.

From USNI

A post-recovery inventory of the boats found that all weapons, ammunition and communication gear are accounted for minus two SIM cards that appear to have been removed from two handheld satellite phones.

The Sailors are in good health and continue to go through the reintegration process. The Navy command investigation continues and more details will be provided when it is completed.

Doh

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday: Jan. 20, 2016 The Slow boat up the Paraguay River

ARP Paraguay 2005

Here we see the Humaitá-class gunboat (cañonera) ARP Paraguay (C1) of La Armada Paraguya (go figure) as she sits in 2005. Though she may look humble, she and her sister were a force to reckon with in their day.

With tensions mounting with neighbor Bolivia over the Chaco region in the early late 1920s, landlocked Paraguay has access to the Atlantic through the river system and has had an organized armada to patrol that system (and poke its head out into the ocean from time to time) since about 1900.

However, the fleet of small river coasters just was not going to cut it with a looming war. You see the rugged Chaco was thought at the time to be a rich source of petroleum and with Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil supporting Bolivia; it was only a matter of time before one of the world’s first and worst petro wars, La Guerra de la Sed (Spanish for “The War of the Thirst”) kicked off.

With that in mind, Paraguay, allied with Argentina, ordered a pair of 850-ton, 229-foot gunboats from Odero-Terni-Orlando, in Italy in 1928 at a cost of £300,000 total after shopping around in other yards throughout Europe. Designed by Paraguayan dockyard manager Capt. José Bozzano.

Bozzano, a man of many talents, would later use his Armada dockyard crew to make over 30,000 locally produced Paraguayan grenades plus 25,000 mortar grenades (and the mortars to fire them), 7,500 aerial bombs and some 2,000 vehicles during the Chaco War. Talk about buy local.

Paraguayan gunboat Humaitá without her main armament, shortly after being launched

Anyway, the two gunboats, ARP Humaitá (C2) and ARP Paraguay (C1), arrived in Paraguay on May 5, 1931 with mostly Italian crews and they were pretty neat. Though about the size of a frigate or sloop of the time, they could float in just 5.5 feet of freshwater. Further, they were pretty much the most heavily armed river boats of all time.

Main 4.7-inch twin guns of the Paraguayan gunboat Humaitá before being mounted. Pretty damn big for a river gunboat

Protected from small arms fire and shrapnel by a half-inch steel belt (3/4 inch on the conning tower), they carried an impressive battery of no less than seven 76mm (three Ansaldo 76 mm AAA cannons) and 120mm guns (two twin Ansaldo 4.7 in guns) as well as machine guns and a half-dozen large naval mines to cripple Bolivian shipping should it exist (it did not other than a few small ~100 foot long craft).

Cañonera Paraguay shuttling troops up river. Its all assholes to elbows

Each gunboat could cart a full regiment of infantry up river and drop them off to go do the Lord’s work in slaughtering Bolivians looking for oil.

And slaughter they did.

During the 1932-35 Chaco War, Humaitá ferried 62,546 troops upriver for 84 trips. Paraguay carried 51,867 soldiers to the frontlines in 81 trips. That’s pretty much a battalion-sized group on each trip. When you calculate that the Paraguayan Army only had about 120,000 officers and men deployed to the Chaco, you see how important these two ships were to win that lopsided victory.

Cañonera Paraguay en la Guerra del Chaco

Since then, these two gunboats have been involved in a couple of coups, the Paraguayan Civil War (Paraguay and Humaita, were both seized by the rebels in Buenos Aires while they were undergoing repairs), carried Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina into exile, gave surface commands to retired Kriegsmarine officers in the 1960s and, largely due to the fact that they have spent almost their whole lives in freshwater, are still around in some sort of service today.

Ah Peron being shipped away on ARP Paraguay. Don’t cry for me…

Humaitá has been a museum ship since 1992, though she still serves as a stationary training ship from time to time while Paraguay is used as a receiving and depot vessel while officially listed as the Paraguayan Navy’s flagship. Surely this is the only case of an entire class of surface combatants to have remained in some sort of continuous service for 85 years…

The vintage Paraguayan gunboat HUMAITÁ seen here at the Sajonia Naval Station, Asunción, Paraguay. via shipspotting

ARP Humaitá (C2) as museum ship

The 4.7s are still functional though shells for them haven’t been made since 1943

ARP Paraguay (C1), 2005, note the WWII era 76mm gun over the pre-WWII 4.7 twin mount

For more on this ship, visit here, here and here, all excellent Spanish sources.

Specs:

Displacement: 856 tn
Length: 229 feet
Beam: 34 feet
Draught: 5.5 feet
Propulsion:
2 Parsons geared steam turbines
2 shafts
3,800 shp (2,800 kW)
Speed: 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Range: 1,700 nmi (3,100 km) at 16 kn (30 km/h)
Complement: 86
Armament:
4 × 4.7-inch (120/50 mm)
3 × 3-inch (76/40 mm)
2 × 40/39 mm
6 mines
Armor:
Belt: 0.5 in (13 mm)
Deck: 0.3 in (8 mm)
Turrets: 0.3 in (8 mm)
Conning tower: 0.75 in (19 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

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151218-N-QK571-984 VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. (Jan. 12, 2016) The last two U.S. Navy S-3B Viking aircraft soar over Laguna Peak at Naval Base Ventura County, California. In January, one aircraft left Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 30 and retired to the boneyard; the other went to start a new life with NASA. (U.S. Navy photo by Scott Dworkin/Released)

After over 40 years in service to the Navy, the humble and often unloved S-3 Viking has passed on. This neat little ASW bird was cooked up in the 1970s to replace the aging S-2 Tracker prop plane to give the Navy’s carriers persistent sub-busting and surface control capabilities without having to task a P-3 squadron to each flattop from shore.

While the S-3 never had to actually drop it hot on a Russki sub, they tracked hundreds of them and would have been one of the vital keys to keeping the Atlantic open if the Cold War ever went hot. Post-1989, they were increasingly used (as the P-3 was/is) in supporting overland operations, providing vital eyes and ears in EW recon roles as well as helping the fleet with light COD and aerial refueling (buddy stores).

During the Gulf War, Vikings nailed a number of Saddam’s small fast attack craft as well, proving their teeth worked just fine.

Now, retired from the main fleet in 2009, a number of S-3 aircraft joined Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 30 and continued to be used for range control duties out of Point Magu where they were appreciated.

From the Navy’s presser

“It’s got legs,” Capt. John Rousseau, who led the charge to bring the retired aircraft to VX-30. “It can go fast and long. The radar, even though it’s old, there’s not many better. We still spot schools of dolphins and patches of seaweed” when patrolling the range.

In November, VX-30 retired the first of its three Vikings, flying it to the military aircraft boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The other two, each with 40 years of service on the airframe, were not far behind.

“They still have life in them,” Rousseau said, “but it was time for another depot-level maintenance period, and you have to weigh that cost against the little time you could still get out of them.”

And with that, the last two were pulled off line this month and are headed to the desert.

And maybe Taiwan who could use them to replace (wait for it) 1950s vintage S-2 Trackers.

Other ideas to re-purpose the old “turkey bird” is as a dedicated COD aircraft or even an unmanned carrier-based drone.

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 3, 2016, HMs Unlucky Killer No. 13

Click to very much bigup

Here we see the Royal Navy’s K-class steam-powered (not a misprint) submarine HMS K22, bottom, compared to a smaller and more typical example of HMs submarine fleet during World War I, the HMS E37. As you can tell, the two boats are very different and, by comparing specs of the 800-ton/2,000shp E27 with the 2630-ton/10,000shp K22, you can see just how different.

A brainchild that sprang from the pipe-dream by Jellicoe and Beatty of creating submarines fast enough to operate with the Grand Fleet, these massive 339-foot submarines were designed on the cusp of World War I and a full 21 were to be built. Whereas other subs around the world were gasoline-electric or diesel-electric, the K-class would be steam-electric with a pair of Yarrow oil-fired boilers (! on a submarine!) for use with turbines on the surface, giving them an impressive 24-knot speed.

HMS K7, showing a good profile of these interesting subs. And yes, those are stacks on her amidships

When you keep in mind that the standard British battleship of the time, the brand new Queen Elizabeth-class “fast” battleships had a max speed of 24-knots, you understand the correlation.

The K-class would use their speed to their advantage and, with a heavy armament of eight torpedo tubes and three 3-4-inch deck guns, press their attacks with ease. For all this surface action, they had a proper bridge (with windows!) and even stacks for the boilers.

HMS K2, note the gun deck with her large 4 inchers interspersed between her stacks. Click to big up

In short, they were really large destroyers that happened to be able to submerge. When using one boiler they could creep along at 10 knots for 12,500 nautical miles– enabling them to cross the Atlantic and back and still have oil left.

When submerged, they could poke around on electric motors. With all this in mind, what could go wrong?

Well, about that…

The K-class soon developed a bad habit of having accidents while underway. This was largely because for such gargantuan ships, they had small and ineffective surface controls, which, when coupled with a very low crush depth and buoyancy issues meant the ships would often hog and be poor to respond under control, along with having issues with dive angles like you can’t believe.

In short, they were all the bad things of a 300 foot long carnival fun house, afloat.

Further, since the boilers had to be halted to dive (who wants burnt oil exhaust inside a sealed steel tube?) if these submersibles could dive in under five minutes it was due to a well-trained crew. Then, due to all the vents and stacks that had to seal, there were inevitable leaks and failures, which on occasion sent seawater cascading into the vessel once she slipped below the waves.

Of the 21 ordered, only 17 were eventually completed and these ships soon earned a reputation as the Kalamity-class due to the fact that ships sank at their moorings, suffered uncontrolled descents to the bottom of the sea, ran aground, and disappeared without a trace. This led to improvements such as a large bulbous bow (note the difference in the bow form from early images of these subs to later), though it didn’t really help things all that much.

K4 ran aground on Walney Island in January 1917 and remained stranded there for some time. There are several images in circulation of this curious sight

With all of this, we should double back around to the K22 mentioned above in the very first image. You see, she was completed as HMS K13 at Fairfield Shipbuilders, Glasgow, Scotland.

Launched 11 November 1916, K13 was sailing through Gareloch on 29 January 1917 during her sea trials when Kalimity raised its head.

On board that day were 80 souls– 53 crew, 14 employees of a Govan ship builder, five Admiralty officials, a pilot and the captain and engineer of sister submarine K14. While attempting to bring the decks awash, icy Scottish seawater poured into the engine room of the submarine, killing those stokers, enginemen and water tenders working the compartment. A subsequent investigation found that four ventilator tubes for the boilers had not closed properly.

Fifty men were left alive on the stricken ship, which by that time was powerless at the bottom of the loch. The two seniormost present, K13‘s skipper Lieutenant Commander Godfrey Herbert and his K14 counterpart, Commander Francis Goodhart, tasked themselves to make a suicidal break for the surface on a bubble of air released from the otherwise sealed off conning tower to get help– though only Herbert made it alive.

Once topside and picked up by another waiting submarine, Herbert helped pull off a what is noted by many as the first true Submarine Rescue which involved dropping air lines to the submarine while the 48 remaining men trapped inside endured a freezing, dark hell for 57 hours until they were able to be brought to the surface as the buoyant end of the submarine, pumped full of air pressure, broached the surface and a hole was cut to remove the survivors while the ship was held by a hawser.

From the Submarine Museum’s dry record of the event:

The crew of E50 witnessing K13’s rapid dive closed in on the area discovering traces of oil and escaping air breaking the surface. The first rescue vessel arrived around midnight. Divers were sent down to inspect the submarine and just after daybreak on the 30th morse signals were exchanged between the divers and the trapped crew. At 1700 an airline was successfully connected, empty air bottles recharged and ballast tanks blown. With the aid of a hawser slung under her bows K13 was brought to within 8 feet of the surface. By midday of the 31st K13’s bow had been raised ten feet above the water. By 2100 the pressure hull had been breached using oxy-acetylene cutting equipment the survivors being transferred to safety

However, K13 slipped below the surface once more, taking her dead back to the bottom with her. Raised two months later, she was repaired, the bodies of 29 lost in her engine room removed as was the fallen skipper of K14 (while one body other was recovered from the loch, the remaining men were never found), and she was recommissioned as K22.

British submarine HMS K22 (ex HMS K13) under way at speed during trial in the Firth of Forth after repair and refit Note the change to her bow.

Seeing some war service with the 13th Submarine Flotilla (again with that number!) K13/22 was involved in a collision at night with sistership K14 in a chain reaction event that left two other sisters, K6 and K17, sunk. In all 105 of HMs submariners were killed in one night in 1918 aboard K-boats without a single German shot fired.

By this time, the “K” had changed from Kalamity to Killer and volunteers assigned to these boats called themselves the “Suicide Club.”

Alongside captured coastal U-boat S.M.S. UB 28 in 1918, note the huge size difference.

Soon after the war, the RN divested themselves of the K-class though they were still relatively new, scrapping most of them in the early 1920s.

K13 as K23 late in her brief second life, 1923

K13/K22 survived until she was sold for scrap in December 1926 in Sunderland.

A memorial to her 32 war dead is at Faslane Cemetery while one to her six civilians killed among her crew is at Glasgow.

A third, erected in 1961, is in Carlingford, New South Wales, Australia, and was paid for by the widow of Charles Freestone, a leading telegraphist on K13 who survived the accident and emigrated down under.

The Submarines Association Australia (SAA) visits and pays their respect to the marker in Oz every January 29 while Sailors from HM Naval Base Clyde and the RN Veteran Submarine Association pay theirs at the markers in Scotland.

“Although technology has revolutionized submarine safety over the past century, the special bravery, ethos and comradeship of Submariners and the Submarine Service endures,” said Command Warrant Officer of the UK Submarine Service Stefano Mannucci on the 99th Anniversary service last week.

K13/22 is also remembered in maritime art.

HMS K13 under construction

As for her skipper on that cold January day a century ago, Capt. Godfrey Herbert, DSO with Bar, having served in the Royal Navy through both World Wars, died on dry land in Rhodesia at the ripe old age of 77.

Specs:

Via shipbucket

Displacement: 1,980 tons surfaced, 2,566 tons dived
Length: 339 ft. (103 m)
Beam: 26 ft. 6 in (8.08 m)
Draught: 20 ft. 11 in (6.38 m)
Propulsion:
Twin 10,500 shp (7,800 kW) oil-fired Yarrow boilers each powering a Brown-Curtis or Parsons geared steam turbines, Twin 3 blade 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) screws
Four 1,440 hp (1,070 kW) electric motors.
One 800 hp (600 kW) Vickers diesel generator for charging batteries on the surface.
Speed:
24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) surfaced
8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) submerged
Range:
Surface: 800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi) at maximum speed
12,500 nmi (23,200 km; 14,400 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Submerged: 8 nmi (15 km; 9.2 mi) at 8 kn (15 km/h; 9.2 mph)
Complement: 59 (6 officers and 53 ratings)
Armament:
4 × 18-inch (460 mm) torpedo tubes (beam), four 18-inch (450-mm) bow tubes, plus 8 spare torpedoes
2 × BL 4-inch (101.6 mm) Mk XI guns
1 × 3 in (76 mm) gun
Twin 18-inch deck tubes originally fitted but later removed.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

If you have read this insipid blog long enough you know that I am a fan of icebreakers (the ships, not the chat-up)  and bemoaned the long-running lack of such vessels in U.S. maritime service.

Well it seems Congress is finally doing something about it.

“A Coast Guard Icebreaker on patrol in the Antarctic, moves through the ice floe.” WAGB Southwind by Thomas Carr (ID# 87112) USCG Image. (Click to bigup, very nice image)

The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2015  passed by voice vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday, Feb. 1, approving a bill the Senate passed in December. It now moves to President Barack Obama’s desk for a signature.

As part of the $1.9 billion included with the bill is money for a new polar icebreaker and one for the Great Lakes.

“This bipartisan bill authorizes the Coast Guard for two years and strengthens its ability to recapitalize an aging fleet of cutters and aircraft that are decades past their prime,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California.

Now hold your breath and wait for the ships to pop out, which may be a totally different thing altogether.

The Japan Marine United Corporation is currently building a class of 10 new 44m (144-foot) offshore patrol vessels for the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), paid for in part by Japanese grants. These ships, nice slow patrol boats dubbed “Multi-Role Response Vessels” with long enough legs to keep a presence in the disputed South China Sea, are just what the PI needs. And of course, since a lot of the money comes from Japan, the program allows the Philippines to act as an increased buffer by proxy with China.

The first of these will arrive in the Philippines in September and the type is already in use with the Japanese Coast Guard.

Further, the PCG is looking at two follow-on 92m (302-foot) vessels and hire another 900 coasties.

This, coupled with the fact that the flagships of the Philippine Navy are a pair of retired 378-foot Hamiliton class USCG Cutters, could lead one to wonder just who is the bigger sea service in the Philippines in the next few years.

But of course, that is all part of the chess game with China, as they are ordering huge “Coast Guard” ships themselves pushing 15,000-tons, or the size of a WWII heavy cruiser.

From Foxtrot Alpha

Reports state that these ships will be able to hit 25 knots and will be outfitted with 76mm naval cannons, two secondary gun turrets, two anti-aircraft CIWS mounts as well as being able to carry at least a pair of large Z-8 multi-role helicopters. These helicopters, somewhat akin to a CH-53 Stallion, could move a lot of personnel and material very quickly without a port available.

In addition, Japan is building at least two more 9,000-ton (the size of an Aegis destroyer) Shikishima Class coast guard cutters for their own racing stripe service. So we are in effect looking at a Coast Guard race in the Far East.

Elbit Systems has a new 40-foot unmanned surface vehicle, the Seagull, which is designed to operate in pairs for either mine sweeping or sub busting. The idea is the first vehicle will have surveillance gear to find the sub or mine, while the second will carry either clearance gear (an ROV) or a anti-submarine torpedo to shove right up the sneaky U-boat’s kisser.

From Elbit’s presser:

Drawing on world class know -how derived from generations of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) design, development and operation and its naval capabilities, Elbit Systems’ newest offering in the unmanned platform field is Seagull -an organic, modular, highly autonomous, multi-mission Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) system.

Seagull is a 12-meter USV with replaceable mission modules, with two vessels capable of being operated and controlled in concert using a single Mission Control System (MCS), from manned ships or from the shore.

The system provides unmanned end-to-end mine hunting operation taking the man out of the mine field. It provides mission planning, and on-line operation in known and unknown areas,including area survey, search, detection, classification, identification, neutralization and verification. It is equipped to search the entire water volume and operate underwater vehicles to identify and neutralize mines.

The idea is the two-boat pair can operate within 50-100 miles of the control station and remain at sea for 96 hours, covering a pretty large swath of littoral in the process while their operators sip coffee back in a trailer somewhere. A second set of boats can be kept ready to rotate out the first, making a persistent sea station a very possible endeavor.

This obviously has uses in a MIUWU or PSU augmentation or replacement.

Speaking of which, DARPA’s Sea Hunter–the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV is the U.S.’s version of this, and is mucho larger at some 132-feet long and is getting some love on social media as of late.

Makapu’u Lighthouse stands majestically atop the southeastern most point of Oahu, Hawaii. U.S. Coast Guard photo

From the Makapu’u Light on Oahu’s southeastern most point, the world’s largest lighthouse lens reflects a beam that can be seen from 19 nautical miles away.

The 12-foot-tall and 8-foot-wide Hyper-radiant Fresnel lens takes up more than a quarter of the space inside the 46-foot-tall lighthouse.

With more than a thousand prisms, the lens is almost five feet taller than the First Order Fresnel lens in America’s tallest lighthouse, the 207-foot-tall Cape Hatteras Light in the North Carolina Outer Banks. It is wide enough for several people to stand inside.

“It is, by far, the largest lens that I have ever seen,” said Chief Petty Officer Ernest W. Rucker, who leads the Honolulu-based U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) that maintains the lens.

The Hyper-radiant lens was unveiled at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. Once it reached Hawaii, pieces of the giant lens were hoisted from a moving ship up the steep lava slope and reassembled in the lighthouse.

Displaying its impressive height, a man stands next to the Makapu’u fresnel light in this undated photo. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

Lit in 1909, the Makapu’u Lighthouse shines across the Kaiwi Channel between the islands of Oahu and Molokai.

More here

The Coast Guard’s 47 foot Motor Life Boat, introduced years ago, is much more advanced than the 41 and 30 foot motor life boats, is still a wild ride. (And show up on the surplus market from time to time)

Big Blue is looking to get up to 1,000 additional Archerfish mine destructor vehicles (tiny, really maneuverable, slow torpedoes) for the AN/ASQ-235 Airborne Mine Neutralisation System (AMNS).

Developed by BAE Systems, the Archerfish vehicle was selected as the Common Neutraliser to equip AMNS, part of the USN’s airborne organic mine clearance capability, is deployed from the MH-60S helicopter and is intended to neutralize bottom, close tethered, and moored sea mines. Meant largely for Hawks deploying on littoral combat ships, they could conceivably be used fleet wide.

In a $8 million sole-source pre-solicitation notice published on 29 January 2014, NAVSEA announced its plan to contract BAE Systems “to produce up to 966 Archerfish Neutralizers (Destructor, Mine Neutralization, Airborne EX 64 Mod 0 Archerfish, EX 65 Mod 0 Archerfish, and EX 66 Mod 0 Archerfish)”, together with fibre-optic spools, neutraliser interface boards, neutraliser interface and deployment packages, and support equipment.

Testing of the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS), another component of the system, started with the LaserHawks of HSC-26 in August 2014

140804-N-WX059-219 NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY BAHRAIN (Aug. 4, 2014) An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter from the Laser Hawks of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 26, Detachment 2, equipped with the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) conducts flight operations. Operated from the MH-60S helicopter, ALMDS provides rapid wide-area reconnaissance and assessment of mine threats in littoral zones, confined straits, and choke points. The Laser Hawks began the operational testing and demonstration of ALMDS in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility on the system’s maiden deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sean Furey/Released)

US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) this week dropped another $22 million ($56 cumulative) for Archerfish  which should move the ball down the field a bit.