ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 14, 2013) An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator launches from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). George H.W. Bush is the first aircraft carrier to successfully catapult launch an unmanned aircraft from its flight deck. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Timothy Walter/Released)

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  May 15

Here we see the light carrier USS Independence (CV/CVL-22). Began as the light cruiser USS Amsterdam (CL-59) in 1940, she was converted while still at New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J to help fill the urgent and pressing need for fast carriers after Pearl Harbor.  A 30/30 ship, she could make 30+ knots and carry 30+ aircraft while having legs long enough to cross the Pacific and operate on her own for a few weeks before she needed to find an oiler. While she was much smaller than a regular fleet carrier such as the Enterprise that could carry 80-90 aircraft, she could still put a few squadrons in the air.

In effect, she was good-enough.

Above you see a scale model of the USS Duluth (CL-87) compared to the USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) both are directly related to the Indy. The Duluth is a Cleavland-class cruiser and is what the Indy was originally ordered to be. The Belleau Wood underwent to same conversion that Indy did. Notice the similarity in the hull. Both ships only differed above the 01 deck.

When Independence was commissioned on January 14th 1943, the only other carriers in the fleet of the original 8 that started WWII were the Enterprise and Saratoga who were fighting for their lives off the Solomons, and the small USS Ranger which was up to her ass in U-Boats in the Atlantic. The new USS Essex had commissioned just a couple of weeks earlier and was in shakedown. The old carrier Langley, converted to a seaplane tender, had been lost early in the war, the huge Lexington was sent to the bottom at the Battle of the Coral Sea, Yorktown lost at Midway, Wasp and Hornet (stricken literally the day before Independence was commissioned from the Naval List) lost in the Solomons.

In short, the Indy came just in time and she was put to hard work fast. Before the year was out she was conducting raids off Marcus Island, Rabaul, and the Gilberts– tying down Japanese forces needed elsewhere. It was in these raids that the Indy picked up a torpedo (one of a half-dozen fired at her) in her starboard quarter. As this was repaired, she received a new air-group, an additional catapult, and a new mission– that of a night carrier.

The first full-time night Air Group was Air Group 41, established through the drive and persistence of Lt. Commander Turner F Caldwell. He commissioned VF(N)-79 in January 1944, training at NAAF Charlestown, Rhode Island. While at Charlestown Caldwell sold his idea of an ‘pure’ night air group to anyone who would listen. With the availability of the CVL Independence Caldwell got his wish. VF(N)-75 was dissolved and reformed as VF(N)-41, with an enlarged TBM contingent designated as VT(N)-41. Total size of the Air Group was 14 F6F-5N’s, 5 F6F-5′s and 12 TBM Avengers. Independence sailed for Eniwetok at the end of July 1944 to join Task Force 38. Air Group 41 finished it’s tour in January 1945. In that time it had claimed 46 kills, but lost ten of it’s 35 night fighter pilots in action, A further three were lost to operational causes – a tribute to the high training standards and skill of the group. The CVL Independence was the only light carrier to be completely equipped with a Night Air Group. Later in 1945 several large carriers and even a much smaller Jeep Carrier (CVE-108 Kula Gulf) went to Night Groups including Enterprise, Saratoga and Bon Homme Richard– but the Indy was the first.

By the end of the war she held 8 battlestars.

The Japanese couldn’t sink her, so the Navy decided to use her for testing. Since the USN had dozens of brand new fleet carriers of the Essex types, it didn’t need the old Indy anymore. Therefore, she was only 1/2 mile from ground zero on 1 July 1946 when the A-bomb went off in the Bikini Atoll tests. When she didn’t sink, they used her again for another A-bomb test three weeks later. Still afloat, she was only scuttled in 1951 off the coast of San Fransisco. Five of her remaining sisters pressed on and were used during the Cold War as transports, anti-submarine carriers, and as the first modern carriers that the French and Spanish navies had– one, the former USS Cabot, even tested the first Harriers at sea.

Indy is just to the right of the giant column of water that is much wider than she is long….

In the end you can say that the Indy had a hard life in her eight years above water to say the least.

Today, even after being under 3100-feet of seawater for 60 years, she is still on the job. You see ,she took down 70,000 sealed barrels of 1940s radioactive materiel with her which she is guarding in the forever night of the deep ocean and is forbidden to dive on using any means.

In a way, she is still a night carrier, with a very dangerous cargo.

Specs:
Displacement: 11,000 tons standard; 15,100 tons full load
Dimensions (wl): 600′ x 71′ 6″ x 26′ (max)  /  182.9 x 21.8 x 7.9 (max) meters
Dimensions (max.): 622′ 6″ x 109′ 2″  /  189.7 x 33.3 meters
Armor: no side belt (2″ belt over fwd magazine); 2″ protective deck(s); 0.38″ bridge; 5″/3.75″ bhds; 5″ bhds, 2.25″ above, 0.75″ below steering gear
Power plant: 4 boilers (565 psi, 850°F); 4 geared turbines; 4 shafts; 100,000 shp (design)
Speed: 31.6 knots
Endurance (design): 12,500 nautical miles @ 15 knots
Armament: 2 single 5″/38 gun mounts (soon removed); 2 quad 40-mm/56-cal gun mounts (in place of 5″ mounts); 8 (soon 9) twin 40-mm/56-cal gun mounts; 16 single 20-mm/70-cal guns mounts
Aircraft: 30+
Aviation facilities: 2 centerline elevators; 1 hydraulic catapult
Crew: approx. 1,560

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!

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  May 8

Here we see the lead ship of an odd class of warships, the USS Alaska (CB-1). This ship would have made an impressive World War One batttlecruiser, but she was designed some 20-years too late and was underutilized.

Designed in the late 1930s, she was authorized under the Fleet Expansion Act on 19 July 1940. These ships were never intended to be battleships, but instead just really big cruisers with 9x 12-inch guns (most heavy cruisers only had 8-inch guns) and a standard displacement of 29,000-tons. Her mission was to mix it up with such large overgrown cruisers as the German Deutschland-class pocket battleships, the twin 29,000 ton/9×11-inch gunned Scharnhorst class large cruisers, the 18,000-ton Admiral Hipper class and the huge 15,000-ton Japanese Mogami/Tone class. Her overall layout was similar to the South Dakota class battleships only smaller (or alternatively similar to a scaled-up Baltimore class heavy cruiser) using the same below-deck machinery as the Essex-class aircraft carriers

Laid down ten days after Pearl Harbor, where a number of battleships that were more heavily armored than this compromise cruiser design hit the bottom, no one really knew what to do with this ship. This delayed her commissioning until the last half of 1944, at which point all of the Mogami, Tone, Scharnhorst, and Deutschland class pocket battleships had been withdrawn or sunk.

Without a mission, Alaska found herself as a fast carrier escort where her  102 20/40/127mm AAA guns helped keep kamikazes at bay and her 12-inch main battery could be used on shore targets if needed.

She served in 1945 off Iwo and Okinawa then was placed in reserve status and decommissioned in February 1947 after less than three years service. Her sisterhip USS Guam was completed September 1944 and only served for 11 months in WWII while the follow-on ships Hawaii, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Samoa were never finished (and indeed the last three were never even laid down). Hawaii was broken up on the ways when over 80% complete and her machinery was cannibalized and placed in storage for the Alaska and Guam.

In 1960, along with the six mothballed  North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships, the Alaska and Guam were disposed of. Big gun ships in an age of missile armed boats seemingly obsolete. Both of these large cruisers were scrapped.

Specs:

Displacement:

29,771 tons
34,253 tons (full load)
Length:     808 ft 6 in (246.43 m) overall
Beam:     91 ft 9.375 in (28.0 m)
Draft:  27 ft 1 in (8.26 m) (mean) 31 ft 9.25 in (9.68 m) (maximum)
Propulsion:     4-shaft General Electric steam turbines, double-reduction gearing, 8 Babcock & Wilcox boilers
150,000 shp (112 MW)
Speed:     31.4 knots (58.2 km/h; 36.1 mph)  to 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Range:     12,000 nautical miles (22,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h)
Complement:     1,517–1,799–2,251
Armament:

9 x 12″/50 caliber Mark 8 guns(3×3)
12 x 5-inch (127 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose guns[4] (6×2)
56 ×40 mm (1.57 in) Bofors (14×4)
34 × 20mm Oerlikon (34×1)
Armor:

Main side belt: 9″ gradually thinning to 5″
Armor deck: 3.8–4.0″
Weather (main) deck: 1.40″
Splinter (third) deck: 0.625″
Barbettes: 11–13
Turrets: 12.8″ face, 5″ roof, 5.25–6″ side and 5.25″ rear
Conning tower:10.6″ with 5″ roof
Aircraft carried:     4× OS2U Kingfisher or SC Seahawk

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!

Like the existing Mark 41 and Mark 57 VLS launchers in the fleet, the ship’s VLS would presumably be able to launch a variety of weapons, including SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6 Standard missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and other weapons. Forward on the ship, HII placed a fairly large rail gun mount, a system now under development by the Navy. The model features 57mm guns in mounts similar to those on the Littoral Combat Ships and Coast Guard National Security Cutters, but not the Mk 46 30mm mounts fitted to LPD 17s.

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  May 1

Here we see the US Navy’s first iron warship, the gunboat USS Michigan as she appeared around 1905. In the image above, she was already sixty years young.

In 1841 Congress authorized the construction of a side-wheel steam man-of-war for use on the Upper Lakes, to match the British naval strength in those waters. This craft, launched in 1843 was the made using iron as a substitute since in the Lake Erie region at the time quality shipbuilding timber was at a premium.

In the 1860s, she carried a standard dark scheme until the 1890s when she was repainted white

From a 1940s USNI article:

“Practically nothing was known at that time in this country about designing an iron ship, or the technique of fabricating the unfamiliar material. Nor were other than the most primitive construction facilities available at Erie. As a result, the lines adopted for the Michigan were those of the sailing ship of the period, and the frame was designed to afford the requisite structural strength without recourse to the strength available in the hull plating, providing a hull so strong that, despite years of abuse, it is structurally sound today. [100 years later]

I-beams being unknown at the time, the ribs were made from T-bars, and the longitudinals were built-up box structures about 12 inches by 24 inches in cross-section.  In all there were five longitudinals, the keel being the only one projecting beyond the skin of the ship.  Three of the longitudinals ran the full length of the ship and two were beneath the machinery spaces.  The hull plates were all shaped by hand, and the rivet holes were punched by the same means.

The hull material was wrought iron made by the charcoal process in Pittsburgh and carted to Erie.  The purity of this material is attested by the fact that the metal is still in excellent condition…The original two-cylinder direct-acting condensing engine, which develops 170 horsepower, still remains in the ship.  It has a bedplate that is a cast iron slab 22 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 inches thick which carries the two 36-inch by 8-feet cylinders.  The engine is secured to 14-inch timbers that are inclined at an angle of 22 ½ degrees.  Transporting the heavy bedplate 130 miles from Pittsburgh over the roads of that day must have presented a problem to the teamsters.”

When commissioned she was a steamer whose giant paddle-wheel turned enough to give her a speed of 8-knots with an auxiliary sail rig.  Planned with twelve 32-pound carronades and two Paixham 8-inch pivot guns, she was to be the most heavily armed craft on the Great Lakes. This brought a protest from Great Britain and instead she was completed with a single (1) 18-pounder.

The Michigan steamed the Great Lakes for 68-years conducting patrols that included intercepting would be crooks, revolutionaries and assassins in the Timber Rebellion, the Beaver-Macinack War, Civil War draft riots in Detroit and Buffalo, the Fenian Raids, the Niagra Raids and the Philo Parsons Affair. She was up-armed during the Civil War with a 30-pounder Parrott rifle, five 20-pounder Parrott rifles, six 24-pounder smoothbores, and two 12-pounder boat howitzers– mainly due to the potential of British intervention in the Civil War, but she did not have to fire a shot in anger. After the war ended her armament was changed to 6 3-pounders, which were more than sufficient for her freshwater duties.

In 1905 the familiar ship was stripped of her name, the Michigan moniker going to a new battleship, and dubbed USS Wolverine (IX-31). In 1912 she stricken from the active Navy List and transferred (still armed) to the Pennsylvania Naval Militia. These naval reservists used her for another 11 years before her engineering plant, then more than 70-years old, gave out. She was kept by the City of Erie, PA as a floating museum and gathering place until her poor condition won over and by the 1940s she was a derelict, settled on the harbor bottom.  In January, 1943, the ship was left nameless through transference of its name to an aircraft carrier.

In 1949 she was scrapped, her keel some 107 years old. Of that time she spent 68 years on active duty and another 11 as a reserve training ship. She was the only armed US Navy ship to regularly patrol the Great Lakes.

Today her foremast remains in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, made into a flagpole and erected in 1950. Her cutaway iron prow, showing impressive construction techniques, is at the Erie Maritime Museum and her anchor is on public display at a park

Specs:
Displacement:     685 tons
Length:     163 ft (50 m)
Beam:     27 ft (8.2 m)
Draft:     9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion:     2 × 330 ihp (250 kW) steam engines
Speed:     10.5 kn (12.1 mph; 19.4 km/h)
Capacity:     115 tons of coal
Complement:     88 officers and men
Armament:

As Michigan:
Original: 1 × 18-pounder
American Civil War: 1 × 30-pounder Parrott rifle, 5 × 20-pounder Parrott rifles, 6 × 24-pounder smoothbores, 2 × 12-pounder boat howitzers
As Wolverine: 6 × 3-pounders (47 mm (1.9 in)), 2 one-pounder rapid fire

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!

Back in 2007, the US Navy started looking at high-energy lasers for use as an active weapon.  The most promising of these, the Laser Weapons System (LaWS) has already downed target aircraft and is on the way to the fleet.

(The LaWS prototype aboard the USS Dewey in 2012)

The LaWS uses series of six commercially available 5.4-kW fiber lasers focused through a frequency doubling crystal. This active laser system can fire a very tight 32kW beam at line of sight ranges than can travel in excess of 10-miles on a clear day. The typical commercially availible red laser pointer is about 1 milliwatts and is advertised to be able to damage your retinas if you stare into it. This laser is 32-kW, which means that it is 32,000,000-times more powerful than the thing you chase your cat around the house with. It costs some $32-million to develop, which may seem like a lot but when compared to such high-tech weapons as the multi-billion dollar F-35, it’s a comparative bargain.

How effective is it?

In a recent test aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Dewey last summer the LaWS prototype downed a BQM-147A target UAV drone. This weapon, when fielded will be able to shoot down slow moving aircraft, such as UAVs and helicopters, as well as be able to engage small boats and possibly even targets ashore. Its beam does not have to destroy the target if not required. It can simply damage it, blind its sensors, or in the place of a small boat, kill its engine and leave it dead in the water.

Warning shots

If just a small portion of the laser energy is used, rather than a full power blast, an intense and visible beam can be projected to significant ranges to provide a clear and unmistakable warning that a potential target is about to be zapped unless an immediate change in their behavior is observed. This feature could also be used as a laser dazzler, a sort of less-lethal weapon, to disorient and warn away the crew of an aircraft or ship. In short the LaWS could be used to ‘flash’ an approaching unidentified craft at long distances, in the hope that a little bit of eye irritation could result in saving lives on both sides. While the 1995 United Nations Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons bans weapons designed to cause permanent blindness, the use of the LaWS in this sense could be examined if it could be turned down enough to not cause permanent damage.

A test video of the LaWS in action, shooting down a remotely piloted UAV drone. Pretty dramatic footage. From the Navy’s website: “120804-N-ZZ999-001 SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Jul. 30, 2012) the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) (shown here conducting an operational test) in San Diego, Calif., is a technology demonstrator built by the Naval Sea Systems Command from commercial fiber solid state lasers, utilizing combination methods developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. LaWS can be directed onto targets from the radar track obtained from a MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon system or other targeting source. The Office of Naval Research’s Solid State Laser (SSL) portfolio includes LaWS development and upgrades providing a quick reaction capability for the fleet with an affordable SSL weapon prototype. This capability provides Navy ships a method for Sailors to easily defeat small boat threats and aerial targets without using bullets. (U.S. Navy video by Office of Naval Research/ Released)”

Smoke one UAV

Costs $1 per shot

According to the Navy, the LaWS can fire a full-power burst that costs less than $1 per session. By comparison a SM-2MR surface to air missile, the Navy’s standard plane and missile killer for the past thirty years, costs about $400,000 a pop. Even smaller close in point defense type missiles such as the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) can run over $700K apiece. Further, whereas the number of missiles, shells, and bullets carried by a ship is always finite, as long as the ship’s engineering department can produce power, the LaWS can be fired.

This beast is the old 1989-era Sea Lite Beam Director, the Navy’s first active high-energy laser. Well, the USN has now figured out how to shrink this down to package that is more pallet-sized than supersized.

How will it look when it is adopted?

LaWS will deploy on the Persian Gulf next year on the USS Ponce. The Ponce is a nearly 50-year old former amphibious warfare ship that had been converted to an Afloat Forward Staging Base inthe Persian Gulf. An experimental Ord-Alt’ed CIWS on the Ponce is expected to carry the system sometime after October 2013.

The current US Navy’s Phalanx MK15 Close In Weapons System (CIWS) fires a high-speed computer controlled radar guided 20mm Gatling gun at over 4500-rounds per minute. It’s expected that the Navy will add the LaWS laser to this already cutting-edge gun after 2016.

(The red ‘can’ on the side of the CIWS is the LaWS laser…coming to the fleet at least in experimental form as early as this year)

The Navy is intending to add this system to the more than 250 CIWS Phalanx mounts found through the fleet. These devices are the familiar R2D2-looking systems that marry a small radar, fire-control system, and 20mm Vulcan cannon to track targets out to 10 miles away and destroy them once they are within 2.2-miles with accurate gunfire. The addition of the LaWS laser to this will allow the CIWS to engage threats first with the laser then with the 20mm Vulcan if needed.

This combined laser/gun mount, after testing and acceptance will be known as the CIWS Mk 15 Mod 41 with production and fielding in the fleet by 2017.

Times, it seems, they are a changing.

North Korea says what?

Back in 1918, German arms engineer Reinhold Becker came up with a 20x80mm round that fired using primer ignition blowback in a very large machine gun to fire at 300-rounds per minute. This gun was to be used to help sweep the sky of the Western Front of those pesky thousands of American, British, and French biplanes in the last year of World War 1. Too bad for Becker, (not to mention the Kaiser) the guns were never made in enough numbers to affect the war and his design was shelved.

In 1934 the Swiss based company of Oerlikon Contraves (Oerlikon being the name of the town the factory was located in and contra-aves being Latin for “against birds”) dusted off Becker’s design and super-sized it to be able to better shoot down the more modern fighters of the 1930s.

This gun, typically just referred to as the 20mm Oerlikon, became perhaps one of the most effective AAA (antiaircraft artillery) cannons of World War 2.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

Congressmen loving the W54 as used on the Davy Crocket. I mean who couldn’t love a 50-pound nuke!

Speaking of which, at this time the W54 warhead was hatched. This was about the smallest US warhead ever used at just 10.75 inches diameter (270 mm), about 15.7 inches long (400 mm), and hefted slightly over 50 pounds (23 kg). It could be variable yielded due to its implosion type of design from anywhere ranging in 10 tons to one kilotons of TNT equivalent.

It was also very dirty–when fired it would produce an almost instantly lethal radiation dosage (in excess of 10,000 rem) within 500 feet (150 m), and a probably fatal dose (around 600 rem) within a quarter-mile (400 m). The W54 was designed by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and built by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Around 400 units were manufactured from 1961 until early 1962. These were given to the USAF who used them as the warhead of a few AIM-26A Falcon AAM and the AGM-45 Walleye ASM’s. The Army used them on the 2-mile range (talk about your balls glowing in the dark!) M-29 Davy Crockett Weapon System, a tactical nuclear recoilless gun for firing the M388 nuclear projectile. Then there was a couple hundred left that were used in a distinctly more…simple..delivery system.

By foot.

Called the MK54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), the W54 was attached to a battery-powered code-decoder lock and firing unit, packed inside a waterproof/shockproof case and the whole affair crammed into a very well-padded OD rucksack (the H-912 transport container). This gave a 163-pound overall weight that could be toted by a beefy paratrooper or frogman where it needed to go.

(1965 Sandina Labs Film on its use)

The concept behind the SADM was that it could be paradropped or combat swam behind enemy lines by a 2-3 man team of Green Berets or Navy SEALs (both of which were founded by Kennedy in the early 1960s). Said commandos could plant the device at an enemy arsenal depot, a strategic crossroads or bridge, key stockpile, important factory (the Soviets loved to have everything made at one BIG factory), or in a harbor. Once planted the device could be set to go off on a delay while the troops were extracted by Skyhook, helicopter, small plane, or (in the case of the SEALs) by small boat or submarine offshore.

A view of the interior components of the W45 MADM, showing (from left) the packing container, warhead, code-decoder, and firing unit. The MADM was a similar design to the SADM

Besides this, more low-speed engineering units could use the SADM to destroy key points in West Germany should 10,000 Warsaw Pact tanks swarmed over the Fulda Gap. It wouldn’t be outside the vein of thought that at least a few (deniable) SADMs were prepositioned overseas in foreign capitals in time of crisis should they be needed.

A SADM on display in New Mexico (inert of course) left is the device housing, right is the backpack

The locked storage suitcase that the SADM rested in when not being hurled out of airplanes, smuggled over the border on the back of a yak, or going for a drag by a frogman

The H912 Rucksack. It looks comfy because it HAS to be. Afterall it has 163-pounds of atomic love in it capable of bringing 1-kiloton of party favors to the get together.

They were withdrawn in 1988 and are not currently maintained (probably because they came up with a classified replacement that doesn’t weigh 160-pounds).

Just saying.

Both are under construction.

Coronado is set to commission this year and will be the second LCS to feature a high-speed trimaran hull and will be designed to (hopefully) defeat littoral threats and provide access in coastal waters for missions such as mine hunting, naval special warfare support, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare.

Specs when finished of Coronado :
Displacement:     2,176 tons light, 2,784 tons full, 608 tons deadweight
Length:     127.4 m (418 ft)
Beam:     31.6 m (104 ft)
Draft:     13 ft (3.96 m)
Propulsion:     2× gas turbines, 2× diesel, 4× waterjets, retractable Azimuth thruster, 4× diesel generators
Speed:     40+ knots, 47 knots (54 mph; 87 km/h) sprint
Range:     4,300 nm at 20+ knots
Capacity:     210 tonnes
Complement:     40 core crew (8 officers, 32 enlisted) plus up to 35 mission crew
Sensors and
processing systems:
Sea Giraffe 3D Surface/Air RADAR
Bridgemaster-E Navigational RADAR
AN/KAX-2 EO/IR sensor for GFC
Electronic warfare
& decoys:
EDO ES-3601 ESM
4× SRBOC rapid bloom chaff launchers
Armament:
BAE Systems Mk 110 57 mm gun
4× .50-cal guns (2 aft, 2 forward)
Evolved SeaRAM 11 cell missile launcher
modular Mission modules
Aircraft carried:
2× MH-60R/S Seahawks
MQ-8 Fire Scout

The JHSV was originally ordered by the US Army (yes, they have ships too)  to transport U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps company-sized units with their vehicles to forward areas ‘intratheather’. This is soft power” missions — responding to natural disasters, providing humanitarian assistance, conducting port visits and training partner military forces, among others. Its based on the Hawaiian Superferry. Since its built to commercial standards (its aluminum), manned by civilians(operated by the Military Sealift Command -MSC), has neither a well deck nor a landing ship bow ramp, and is unarmed (well there are four mounts for M2/Mk19/M240 style crewserved weapons if needed), its not capable of making ampibious assaults on hostile beaches. However it IS capable of everything but and the idea is that it will free up legit Ampibs for that purpose while it handles the light duty ‘operations other than war’ stuff in what is termed today as ‘permissive environments’. Of course it a situation like off the Somali coast, it could be used with CRRC type rubber boats with marines aboard, or SWCC guys in fast boats with frogmen.

But then again, look at what happened to the civilian crewed and unarmed RFA Sir Tristain and RFA Sir Galahad (both the same general size as the JHSV) in the Falklands . Hopefully the big blue will keep these JHSVs out of harms way as a lesson from 1982.

Specs when finished of USNS Choctaw County (JHSV-2)
Tonnage:     1,515 tonnes
Length:     103.0 m (337 ft 11 in)
Beam:     28.5 m (93 ft 6 in)
Draft:     3.83 m (12 ft 7 in) — that’s pretty shallow
Can turn in an 86 foot diameter
Propulsion:     Four MTU 20V8000 M71L diesel engines with Four ZF 60000NR2H reduction gears (waterjets, not props)
Speed:     43 knots balls out. (35 when fully loaded)
Range = 1200 nm
Troop Capacity = 312 seated airline style seats and 144 berths that can be rotated for long trips
Weight/cargo Capacity = 635 tons in a 20,053 square feet cargo area which could carry 280 cars, Abrams tanks, or 6 shipping containers with a loading ramp that can support the M1.
Crew = 22 MSC civilian mariners plus 17 USN commo/support
Cost = $250M each, $2.5B program
Aircraft carried: landing pad for upto CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter, ondeck storage space for HH-60 sized helicopter.