Gun Companies Stand with the People
In recent months there has been a concerted push by the gun control (they now prefer to be called gun violence) advocates to strictly regulate the arms that are available to the public. With a small but vocal minority of left-wingers screaming from the rafters and trotting out event figurines, they are asking for unprecedented restrictions on currently legal firearms and accessories. Not to cave into the fear mongers, some of the biggest names in the industry are making a very public choice to stand with the people and not against them.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk
Warship Wednesday, March 13
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.
- Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, March 13
Here we see the retired ex-USS Alabama (BB-60) laying in Mobile Bay as a publicly operated museum ship when I toured her last year.
She was the last and some argue the luckiest of the four South Dakota-class battleships and, with the exception of the follow-on Iowa class ships, the most modern and best equipped US battlewagon ever to take the sea.
Designed with a standard displacement ‘not to exceed 35,000-tons’ to fit with the Washington and London Naval Treaties, the ship still sported a 12.2-inch armored belt, which increased to 16-18 inches at the conning tower, barbettes, and turret faces. Behind this armor was 7/8 inch (22 mm) thick STS plates behind the belt, which made the SoDak class immune to hits from super-heavy 16-inch shells at any distance further than 17,000-yards. Once fully outfitted during WWII, these ‘treaty battleships’ came in at over 44,519 tons (full load) and could still make 27-knots. The follow-up Iowa class had virtually the same armament (although they did use a more advanced 16-inch gun), and same armor but only real design improvement was a top speed of 33-knots. Other than that, the Alabama came to the table with the same thing as the Iowa.
Commissioned on 16 August 1942, just eight months after Pearl Harbor, she was rushed into service. However, with British strength sapped in the Atlantic, she spend her most of her first year at sea with the Royal Navy, trying to lure the SMS Tirpitz out to sea battle. It would have been an interesting match, with the Alabama having a larger suite of heavier guns (9×16-inch, 20x127mm vs the Tirpitz 8×15-inch, 12x150mm, 16x105mm guns) with slightly better armor protection over the German ship to boot. Whether US radar fire control or German radar fire control was better would have told the story of this great ‘could have been’.
German battleship Tirpitz in the Alta Fjord, Norway, during World War II. Her and Big Al never met…
With the Germans refusing to lose the Bismarck‘s sister ship, Alabama soon found herself shifted to the Pacific where she spent most of 1944-45 in the hectic job of screening fast carrier task forces with her massive AAA armament and radar. During the Marianas Turkey Shoot, it was Alabama that helped provide the early warning of incoming Japanese attack planes, her radar giving the ship, and thus the US fleet, the upper hand.
Winning 9 Battlestars for her combat operations, she was never the victim of noteworthy enemy action and never lost a man to either the Germans or Japanese. Her gunners were credited with shooting down no less than 22 attacking Japanese planes and her main battery of 16-inch guns fired an estimated 1,250-rounds in anger at enemy shore positions.
She was decommissioned in 1947 after serving just 52-months on active duty, 11 of them spent in post-war deactivation overhaul. In 1954 it was planned to reactivate the Alabama, remove at least one turret and much topside weight, re-engine her with more modern turbines, and give the leaner, meaner, ship a 31+ knot top speed to escort the new super carriers. However this proved a non-starter for budgetary reasons.
The Navy held on to the virtually new ship until she was stricken in 1962 just short of her 20th birthday. Her and her three sister ships, USS South Dakota, USS Indiana, and USS Massachusetts were ordered sold for scrap that year. Indiana went to the breakers who paid $418,387 for her, as did the SoDak. The Massachusetts was saved by a local effort from her namesake state and today sits in Fall River, MA.
Since 1964, the Alabama has silently protected Mobile Bay as a museum ship, her engines inactive, great props cut from their shafts, her 16-inch guns filled with concrete, her breechblocks removed.
Still, a mighty sight if ever there was one. If you are ever in Mobile, or Fall River where her twin sister lives, check it out.
Specs:
Displacement: 35,000 long tons standard as designed
Length: 680 ft (210 m)
Beam: 108.2 ft (33.0 m)
Draft: 36.2 ft (11.0 m)
Propulsion: oil-fired steam turbines, 4 shafts
Speed: 27.5 kn (31.6 mph; 50.9 km/h)
Range: 15,000 nmi (17,000 mi; 28,000 km) at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Complement: 1,793 officers and men
Sensors and processing systems: radar
Armament: 9 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 cal Mark 6 guns maximum range of 36,900 yards (20.9mi)
20 × 5 in (130 mm)/38 cal guns
24 × Bofors 40 mm guns
22 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons (ever-increasing)
Aircraft carried: OS2U Kingfisher scout planes
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.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.
I’m a member, so should you be!
Posthumous CMoH for Korean War Catholic priest, sainthood possible
WICHITA, Kan. — A Roman Catholic priest from Kansas will be awarded the nation’s highest military award for bravery for his actions during the Korean War, according to former Kansas Congressman Todd Tiahrt.
Tiarht told the Wichita Eagle that Emil Kapaun will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama in April. Tiahrt also posted a letter from a Pentagon official on his Facebook page, saying that Kapaun will be honored April 12 at the Pentagon.
Kapaun, a priest from Pilsen, Kan., who died in 1951, has been celebrated for his actions during the Korean War. The Vatican has also classified Kapaun as a Servant of God, a step in the process to sainthood.
Seal Sniper Chris Kyle killed by Gunman at shooting range
Details are sketchy but it seems that the greatest American sniper in US history, SOC Chris Kyle, USN, was killed by a gunman at a range in Texas yesterday.
Nicknamed Al-Shaitan Ramad (English The Devil of Rahmadi), he had an estimated 160 confirmed kills and wrote the book “American Sniper” that currently sits on my desk. Like myself he was 38.
He survived multiple tours in Centcom, won 2 silver stars, 5 bronze stars, and got zapped by a clown in the US.
What a waste. He deserved to die an old man in his sleep decades from now.
You will me missed Chief Kyle.
(photo by ABC news)
Coast Guard DUCK Found
Ever seen the old 1971 flick Murphy’s War in which Peter O Toole takes on a German U-boat in a lost stream in Africa? In it he flies (pretty badly) a J2F Grumman Duck. The Duck was used by the Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard from 1936-1950s, and only about 600 were built.
The United States Coast Guard is currently working with North South Polar Recoveries to recover a J2F-4 Duck downed in a storm on a Greenland glacier. Three Coast Guard airmen were lost and presumed still entombed at the site. The Duck is presumed to be under 38 feet of ice.
“NEW YORK – The Defense Department’s Joint POW/MIA Personnel Accounting Command said an exhaustive search by an expedition team of U.S. Coast Guard service members and North South Polar, Inc. Scientists and explorers has produced sufficient evidence that the crash site of a WWII Coast Guard Grumman Duck rescue aircraft missing for 70 years with three men aboard, beneath the ice near Koge Bay, Greenland, has been found, Coast Guard officials announced Monday.
By using historical information, ground penetrating radar, a magnetometer and metal detection equipment, the expedition team isolated the location where the aircrew crashed on Nov. 29, 1942. The team then melted five six-inch-wide holes deep into the ice and lowered a specially designed camera scope. At approximately 38 feet below the ice surface in the second hole, the team observed black cables consistent with wiring used in WWII-era J2F-4 amphibious Grumman aircraft.
KOGE BAY, Greenland – Possible wreckage of the WWII Coast Guard J2F-4 Grumman Duck rescue aircraft missing for 70 years with three men aboard, beneath the ice near Koge Bay, Greenland, Aug. 29, 2012. An expedition team of Coast Guard servicemembers and North South Polar, Inc. Scientists and explorers located the crash site. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Mitchell Zuckoff.
Warship Wednesday, January 2, 2013 (Happy NEW Year)
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.
- Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, January 2, 2013 (Happy NEW Year)
Here we see the HMS Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up in 1838.
While normally we cover steel ships, powered by coal, oil, diesel, or some other fossil fuel, the Temeraire deserves a special mention. Ordered in 1790, she spent 8-years in the stocks being constructed at the Chatham Dockyard before entering service during the Napoleonic Wars in 1799. Built as a Neptune-class ship of the line, she was a huge 2120-ton 185-foot long battleship of the sail era and as such carried an amazing 98 cannon arrayed on four decks. With each of these guns requiring a 5-7 man crew, the ship when fully manned carried over 700 sailors, officers, and marines.
She helped blockade both Spain and then France before having her moment of glory at the famous Battle of Trafalgar. It was there, in 1805, that she earned her reputation. Coming to the aide of Nelson in the HMS Victory, the Temeraire fought off the 112-gun Spanish ship Santa Ana, 74-gun French ship redoubtable, and 74-gun French ship Fougueux. This fighting was done at close quarters, usually within a football field and often involved ramming and lashing together. She had more than 125 casualties, all of her sails and masts yards shot or burned away, and her starboard hull and rudder head staved in. The battle ended with both Fougueux and the Redoubtable striking their colors and captured by Temeraire.
Trafalgar: The damaged French Redoubtable caught between the Victory (the large ship in the foreground center) and the Temeraire (seen bow on). The Fougueux, coming up on Temeraire’s starboard side, has just received a broadside. 1836 oil on canvas by Clarkson Frederick Stanfield.
Repaired but never the same again, she continued to serve for another decade of the Napoleonic wars, seeing combat against Danish and French ships. By 1812, no longer needed in the line and with her wood in decay, she was placed in reserve. Her guns were landed, her crews dispersed, and she was pressed into use as a first a prison ship, then a receiving ship, victualing ship, and finally as a guard ship, before her old but still majestic hulk was sold to the breakers in 1838.
“”The flag which braved the battle and the breeze, No longer owns her.”
The famous painting of the proud but stricken vessel being towed to scrap “The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838″ by J. M. W. Turner, has sat at the National Gallery in London since 1851. In 2005, The Fighting Temeraire was voted the greatest painting in a British art gallery and an aging RN Commander James “Shaken, not stirred” Bond admired her in last year’s Skyfall movie. Her name went on to grace a steam-powered warship, a Bellerophon class battleship in World War One, but has not been on the ocean since 1921. Today HMS Temeraire is the name of the shore side Directorate of Naval Physical Training and Sport (DNPTS) in Portsmouth.
Specs:
Tons burthen: 2,12058⁄94 (bm)
Length: 185 ft (56 m) (gundeck)
152 ft 8 in (46.53 m) (keel)
Beam: 51 ft 2 in (15.60 m)
Depth of hold: 21 ft 6 in (6.55 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 738
Armament: 98 guns:
Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns
Middle gundeck: 30 × 18-pounder guns
Upper gundeck: 30 × 18-pounder guns
Quarterdeck: 8 × 12-pounder guns
Forecastle: 2 × 12-pounder guns
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO) They have one of the largest collections of ships photos from avid martial art enthusiasts around the world, many never before seen. Some of the collection online is at http://www.warship.org/ship.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.
I’m a member, so should you be!
Charles Durning passed away today. He was a great character actor and military veteran
He was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his Army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.
In later years, he refused to discuss the military service for which he was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
“Too many bad memories,” he told an interviewer in 1997. “I don’t want you to see me crying.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2012/12/25/charles-durning-dies-actor/1790203/
Merry Christmas Everyone
As you are safe and comfortable this year, take a minute remember those in the Foxholes, FOBs, COPs, TOCs, and other places today and in Christmases past.
For generations there have been servicemen out there standing on the line so we dont have to. Here we see just such a man, a squad leader as he looks for German movements in the valley 200 yards away. Snow, rain and mud make life miserable for these Japanese-American front line troops of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team in the winter of 1944. US Army Photo SC340950.
A Zombie Short Story Win
My short story, Hokahey, about zombies at Custer’s Last Stand, is a winner of the 11th Tales of the Zombie War’s contest.
If you are looking for some zombie Old West military action, its up on thier website for free and in its entirety.
Excerpt:
They left on the fastest ponies in the camp and chased after the attacker of the village. For days, they followed the trail. They found two of the tribe’s kidnapped children, infected and wandering the tall grass.
They had attacked a white man riding alone across the range and were slowly eating his face. Sage tried to save the youngsters but Black Knife was firm. The beasts were dispatched and left at peace. The trail led them deep into what the white man referred to as Montana Territory where they came across another attack. A ranch house in a beautiful valley contained a family of five. The stench of death hung heavy there. Two had been massacred, their body parts chewed and scattered. The other three had been infected.
When the hunting party rode off, all five victims were at peace and being consumed by the raging fire they had started in the house.
That was days ago and the trail was turning cold. Yellow Eagle was cleaning the rabbit when the riders appeared on the horizon. Black Knife watched them grow closer and released the riders to be Sioux braves.
He could see brightly colored paint on the braves’ faces. Feathers and plumage fluttered in the breeze as they rode. Numbering 15, they and their ponies were adorned for war….
Bird Brained Code Breakers
Several years ago they found a coded message Army carrier pigeon …or at least his remains.. in a chimney in England. Now remember the fields of Flanders and the coast of Normandy are within range of a pigeon roost in England so its possible this little guy left from a battlefield and winged his way west with an important dispatch– never to arrive….
“Britain’s code-breakers acknowledged Friday that an encrypted handwritten message from World War II, found on the leg of a long-dead carrier pigeon in a household chimney in southern England, has thwarted all their efforts to decode it since it was sent to them last month.
As the bird’s story made headlines, pigeon specialists said they believed it may have been flying home from British units in France around the time of the D-Day landing in 1944 when it somehow expired in the chimney at the 17th-century home where it was found in the village of Bletchingley, south of London.
After sustained pressure from pigeon fanciers, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, its code-breaking and communications interception unit in Gloucestershire, agreed to try to crack the code. But on Friday the secretive organization acknowledged that it had been unable to do so. “
Now thats a good code….
Goodreads
