Monthly Archives: October 2012

Park Police vs Zombies

Posted on by One comment

The US Secret Service and US Park Police just had a dress rehearsal for the Zombie Apocalypse in the form of repelling a group of zombie costumed shamblers (paid for by AMC)

Things got tense….

“Almost immediately, they were accosted by the Secret Service. You can see the Secret Service guy’s point, the square being right across the street from the White House and the zombies being, well, blood-spattered.

“I’m going to need some more information,” said the officer, clearly not up to speed on the AMC vs. Dish situation.

The apparent leader of the zombies conferred briefly with the Secret Service guy, assuring him they were just passing through, and he allowed them to go on their way.

The U.S. Park Police, however, are made of sterner stuff, and stopped the zombies again, almost immediately, demanding to see a permit. ”

Read the rest at the Washington Post

Warship Wednesday, October 18

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old navies of the 1866-1948 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  October 18

Here we see the WWII Minesweeper USS Inaugural (AM-242/MSF-242) during the closing days of WWII. A 184-foot ship midway between the size of a PT-boat and a destroyer, her job was to clear mines but they were usually pressed into work as gunboats, inshore gunfire support, escorts, supply boats and any number of misc jobs around the fleet and anchorage.

Built in less than six months in 1944, the Inaugural joined the Pacific Fleet in time for the bloody push for Okinawa where she cleared eighty-two mines and was awarded two battle stars for service during World War II. In 1947, she was transferred  to the Atlantic Fleet Reserve mothballs where she waited quietly to be recalled to service for twenty years. She was stricken 1 March 1967 and sold the next year for $1 to become a museum ship in St Louis, Missouri, docked under the famous St Louis Arch. She continued to serve in that capacity for 25 years.

In 1993 the Inagural broke lose from her moorings in the great flood of the Mississippi River and crashed into the Poplar street bridge. Eventually the ship sank South of the MacArther Bridge. About 700 ships that have been recorded as shipwrecked on the stretch of the Missisppi  between Cairo and Hannibal in the past century so she has plenty of company.

Over the past couple decades apparently her 5-ton 40mm Bofors L60 AAA gun has been stolen and restolen no less than three times.  And her forward 3″/50 has vanished.

After 19 years the old minesweeper just recently and literally popped back up and her exposed wreckage has been local news in St Louis.

Specs;
Displacement:     530 tons
Length:     184 ft 6 in (56.24 m)
Beam:     33 ft (10 m)
Draft:     9 ft 9 in (2.97 m)
Speed:     15 knots (27.8 km/h)
Complement:     104
Armament:     1 × 3″/50 caliber gun
6 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
4 × Bofors 40 mm guns (2×2)
2 × Depth charge projectors (K-guns)
2 × Depth charge tracks

The Snubby Snooper Sniper

Posted on by Leave a comment

Most everyone has rode a bicycle at one time or another. Almost as many of us have been chased, at one time or another, by a canine while on said bicycle. This phenomenon led to the invention and popularity of a unique series of revolvers—the Velo Dog.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com 

Sad end to a heroic ship

Posted on by One comment

U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (Oct. 2, 2012) The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) transits back to its homeport of Norfolk, Va. Enterprise is returning from a deployment to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility, where the ship conducting maritime security operations, theater security cooperation efforts and support missions for Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Navy photos by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Scott Pittman & Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jeff Atherton/Released)

Headed back home for decommissioning. At 51-years young, the Big E is the oldest nuclear powered ship afloat, the oldest commissioned warship in the fleet (the Constitution is the oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat, but is no longer an active warship capable of undertaking missions), and the second oldest aircraft carrier in operation anywhere in the world (the Indian Navy’s INS Viraat is two years older and the Brazilian São Paulo is two years younger).

The 95,000-ton ship is to be deactivated in Norfolk on December 1 and decommissioned once all reusable items are removed, Ensign Brynn Olson, the ship’s deputy public affairs officer, said Monday.
The ship will then be towed to Washington state for scrapping, Olson said. What the Enterprise will not become is a museum, she said, because removing its eight nuclear reactors will involve so much destruction that the ship could not be repaired to museum quality. “It would just be too expensive to put her back together,” Olson said.  Newport News Shipbuilding will deactivate and de-fuel the ship after her decommissioning. The process is scheduled to begin in mid-2013 and be completed in 2015. Once the Navy dismantles and recycles the ship’s reactors, there will be very little left to turn into a museum; virtually everything two decks below the hangar bay would have to be cut apart. What remains of ex- Enterprise following 2015 is currently scheduled to be taken to Washington state for scrapping. It remains possible the ship’s island could be removed and used as a memorial.

Whether there will be a ninth USS Enterprise remains to be seen.

Gemstones and Bullets

Posted on by One comment

 

Andrew Tuohy is a former Navy corpsman with Centcom experience who has a blog over at Vuuwapenblog (Dutch for gun, but he writes in English so dont lose your shit)….he’s multitalented and made these from his gemstone collection. They are JHP bullet blooms…Clockwise from top left, blue topaz in .45 HST 230gr, African sapphire in 9mm HST 147gr, tsavorite in .40 HST 165gr, peridot in 9mm HST 147gr, pink sapphire in .38 Special 110gr DPX.

SSN and Cruiser Collide

Posted on by One comment

This just in…..

NNS121013-07.

No Injuries as Two U.S. Navy Vessels Collide Off Eastern US Coast

By U.S. Fleet Forces Public Affairs
NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) — There were no injuries as a U.S. Navy submarine and an Aegis cruiser collided off the coast of the Eastern United States earlier this afternoon.

The collision between USS Montpelier (SSN 765) and USS San Jacinto (CG 56) occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight time.
No personnel aboard either vessel were injured.

Overall damage to both ships is being evaluated. The propulsion plant of the submarine was unaffected by this collision. Both ships are currently operating under their own power.
The incident is currently under investigation.

Both the submarine and the ship were conducting routine training at the time of the accident.
Q

The .45 GAP

Posted on by Leave a comment

With more than twenty versions of the classic Glock pistol, one of the more exotic of subspecies is the rarely seen, but often thought about .45GAP. Let’s talk about this beauty of the nether regions. They really do exist.

Why the need?

The preeminent handgun round of the past 100-years is arguably the .45 Auto Colt Pistol (or ACP.) From the classic Colt 1911 to the space-age polymer Glock 21, the .45ACP is the benchmark that other cartridges are compared against. However, it is well known that to tame this beast, a large framed pistol with a beefy slide is needed to control muzzle flip and recoil. This puts the .45ACP out of the reach of many of the people who would most need it– small statured men and women and older shooters. Gaston Glock started working on a smaller, but no less effective 45-caliber round to fix this– the .45GAP

Read the rest in my column at the Glock Forums

Left, .45 GAP, right, .45 ACP……it doesn’t really seem like a big deal, but it is…

The 22 Handgun for Self Defense?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Carrying or using a handgun for self-defense is a time-honored and Constitutionally protected right in this country. What you carry is also, as many other things in life are, totally up to you. While many argue that the minimum amount of gun to carry to protect themselves is in a caliber that “starts with a 4” there are also some inside the same community that go about half that size and carry… 22’s for self-defense.

Read the rest of the article in my column at Firearms Talk

The Marlin 444

Posted on by Leave a comment

Marlin has long been the king of lever action rifles, and without a doubt the .444 Marlin has been one of the most popular heavy rounds of the last half century. Now as the round is fast coming up on its 60th birthday, let’s put some perspective into the big .444 slugger.

Why the need

Large game hunters in North America in the late 19th century discovered the venerable .45-70 Government round. The .45-70 was adopted by the US Army in 1873 and used in all of the late Indian Wars as well as the Spanish American War by the military, but its greatest calling was in large animal hunting. The .45-70 helped bring the buffalo to near extinction, and line up innumerable bear, cougar, wolves, and elk and mule deer from Texas to Alaska and back. However, the big round needed a big gun, typically a single shot drop hinge action long barreled rifle that weighed at least 9-pounds.

The Marlin 336 rifle, introduced in 1948 was a game changer. With its solid, flat top receiver and side ejection, the 336 could mount optics and its microgroove rifling worked better with a jacketed bullets. Offered mainly in .30-.30, the 336 was a great brush gun for whitetails, but couldn’t be counted on to take large dangerous game. What was needed was a modern heavy round that was short enough to use the 336’s lever action. That’s what led to the development of the .444 in 1964….

Read the rest in my column at the Marlin Forums

The Full Auto Enfield Rifles: The Charlton, the Electrolux and the Rieder

Posted on by Leave a comment

Odds are, if you speak gun, you’ve come across an Enfield rifle at least once in your life. With that being said, you have probably never come across a full-auto Enfield unless you wore a uniform in 1940s. Let’s have a look.

The Lee-Metford and later the Short-Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) in a multitude of variants was the standard British military rifle for nearly 70-years. It served through two World Wars and dozens of smaller conflicts on half as many continents. When World War II erupted in 1939, her Commonwealth allies including New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa joined Britain. Rapid and extensive mobilization saw these Allies ship most of their troops and arms to Europe and North Africa by 1940 to fight the Germans and Italians. Then, in December 1941, the Empire of Japan entered the war.

With the standard light machineguns of the Commonwealth armies, the Bren gun and Lewis rifle, available in few numbers, there was an emergency need for .303-caliber automatics. Interestingly enough, two different inventors, continents apart, came to the same conclusion at roughly the same time: convert the Enfield to full auto.

read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

« Older Entries Recent Entries »