Monthly Archives: October 2012

Warship Wednesday Oct 10

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  October 10th


Here we see the Second Class Battleship/Armored Cruiser USS Maine sailing past the Brooklyn Bridge around 1895.

This beautiful ship was the start of the US Navy’s Great Battleship race that ran from about 1886 to the Post-WWI Washington Naval Treaty. Although she was the most advanced ship in the world when laid down in 1886, by the time she was commissioned 9 years later she was already obsolete. At only 6,000-tons she was too small for a battleship, and at 16-knots too slow for a cruiser. Although she had up to 12-inches of  nickel steel armor, by 1900 new Harvey and later Krupp armor made it look like cardboard. Likewise her mixed armament of 25 guns of 6 different calibers from .45-70 to 254mm, would be made totally obsolete by 1905. However she would not be around by then….


At 21:40 on 15 February, 1898 an explosion of unknown origin on board Maine occurred in the Havana Harbor. Later investigations revealed that more than 5 long tons (5.1 t) of powder charges for the vessel’s six and ten-inch guns had detonated, obliterating the forward third of the ship. The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor.  Even though she was  divided into 214 watertight compartments, she sank in less than five minutes. The ship’s crew consisted of 355: 26 officers, 290 sailors, and 39 marines. Of these, there were 261 fatalities:

2 officers and 251 sailors/marines either killed by the explosion or drowned
7 others were rescued but soon died of their injuries
1 officer later died of “cerebral affection” (shock)

Of the 94 survivors, only 16 were uninjured.

The Maine became a rallying cry for revenge and the Spanish-American War was a direct result of the sinking. Teddy Roosevelt himself, the Asst Secretary of the Navy when the Maine was sunk, carried a salvaged Navy 38 revolver from the ship up San Juan Hill.

After the war, the crippled ship was raised and towed to sea, where she was interred in the Florida Straits in over 600 fathoms of water. Parts of her including the main mast, anchors, brass torpedo tube hatches, the conning tower, artillery shells, and the capstan are on public display in more than twenty states from coast to coast, making her the one of the best remembered battleships….that really wasnt a battleship…

Specs:
Displacement:     6,682 long tons (6,789 t)
Length:     324 ft 4 in (98.9 m)
Beam:     57 ft (17.4 m)
Draft:     22 ft 6 in (6.9 m)
Installed power:     9,293 ihp (6,930 kW)
Propulsion:

2 × shafts
2 × vertical triple expansion steam engines
8 × boilers

Speed:     16.45 kn (30.47 km/h; 18.93 mph)
Range:     6670km (3600nm) at 10 knots
Complement:     374 officers and men
Armament:

2 × 2 – 10 in (254 mm) guns
6 × 1 – 6 in (152 mm) guns
7 × 1 – Driggs-Schroeder 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) guns
4 × 1 – 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) Hotchkiss guns
4 × 1 – Driggs-Schroeder 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) guns
4 x 1 – Gatling guns .45-70 caliber
4 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes

Armor:

Belt: 12 in (305 mm)
Deck: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Turrets: 8 in (203 mm)
Conning tower: 10 in (254 mm)
Bulkheads: 6 in (152 mm)

Free Zombie Fiction !

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Tales of the Zombie War has just published RICK, THE OTHER WHITE MEAT By yours truly on their website.

“The hunter sat with his back against the thick loblolly pine and felt his shoulders dig into the wet bark. The gnat hat, a screen of camouflage mesh, covered his face and neck, but still the little bastards made their way in and attacked his sweaty skin. As they took their blood meal, his only reaction was to blink and will them to hurry it up. He absolutely refused to move. Movement gave you away.

Through the brush behind, he heard the snap of a twig. He remained silent and still, controlling his blinking and the surge of adrenaline that he felt. The rustling in the brush told him that it was the game he was looking for. Time to call it in.

On the top of his left thigh, just above his knee he had sewn one side of a velcro patch. The other side of the patch was glued to the back of his phone and held it in place.  His left hand barely extended its index finger and touched the ’send’button.

Taped to a tree about 40 feet in front of the hunter, a cell phone lit up and started playing the Benny Hill chase music on max volume. After about twenty seconds, the hunter pressed the ‘end’ button on the cell phone on his thigh and the ring tone stopped. The strains of Benny Hill ceased and the cell phone went quiet and dark against the tree.

He craned his ear for any sound that would confirm his call was heard. The sound of an animal crashing through the brush towards the tree came to him. As it grew closer, he could hear the grunts and pants of the charging beast. Just feet away from the tree that held the decoy phone, the zombie stopped dead in its tracks….”

Check out the rest (for free) at the link

And don’t forget about our other Free Zombie Fiction Here….and (almost free) Zombie Fiction Here

Scratch One LCS

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Remember the $11.9 63-M long space-age looking LCS ringer that Indonesia just put in the water?

 

brand new…was just fixing to be turned over to the Navy….

Apparently it was made of compressed kindling and kerosene as it sank to its keel after becoming an inferno during its first refueling….

 

“Hey guys, anyone see what I did with that Camel? …..Oh, nevermind….”

The Full scoop here>

I’m sure that our LCS’s can take a pretty good beating in a high-threat environment though, nothing to see here, keep walking…..

 

A High Tech Technical

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Have a surplus Soviet Bloc machinegun and no way to use it to shoot down government helicopters coming to strafe your band of freedom fighters? Well, here is a lesson in battlefield ingenuity. Yes, the Syrian rebels are at it again and CJ Chivers of the New York Times details a surplus 14.5mm heavy machine gun used on a rebel Technical (commercial pickup truck used as a combat vehicle, more on those below.)

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Salvaging a Cold War Wreck

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The Soviet cruiser Murmansk was a 16,640 ton Sverdlov-class cruiser launched in 1955. They were some of the last all-gun armed cruisers built for any navy. She had an impressive armament of 12 x 152mm/57 cal B-38 guns in four triple Mk5-bis turrets, 12 x 100 mm/56 cal Model 1934 in 6 twin SM-5-1 mounts, 32 x 37mm  AA guns and an impressive 10 x 533mm anti-ship torpedo tubes.

 

 

She was decommissioned at the end of the Cold War in 1989 and sold for scrapping in 1994, but was wrecked while being towed to the breakers.

The Russian cruiser ” Murmansk ” struggled under tow heading for scrapping in India, and fell partially outside Sørvær in the Sørøya on the coast of Finnmark near Hasvik, Norway on Christmas Eve 1994. Coastal Administration has given AF Decom AS  task of removing the wreck by establishing a dry dock around the wreck, then to demolish the wreck dry.

The method to AF Decom AS was considered to have the best environmental profile, with the least risk for the spread of pollution sources. The method was also considered to be the technically best for a safe execution of the removal operation.

The project is unique in the world. This camera is intended as a tool for the AF and the Norwegian Coastal Administration to document the project. The pictures taken will be used as a time-lapse sequence in an upcoming film. All workers in the project are informed and have their representatives in the project given permission to set up the webcam as project documentation.

The pictures shown here are not live, but added with 24-hour delay. This is in the interests of their own employees. ”

Watch removing the wreck of the Russian cruiser “Murmansk” at Sørvær,Finnmark,North Norway on web cam

A great way to keep up with what happens before and during removal.

Click on this link:

The Johnson M1941

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Believe it or not, when if came to military weaponry the US Army actually entered World War II behind the 8-ball with most military historians agreeing that US tanks and aircraft in 1941 were lacking overall when compared to those of Nazi Germany. America’s saving grace however, was a better standard infantry rifle—the M1 Garand, which firmly elbowed out the bolt action Mausers, Carcanos, and Arisaka of the Axis. Despite this, one inventor stateside, Melvin Johnson, would have had it differently and his rifle, the M1941 Johnson remains one of the great American could-have-beens of World War 2.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

The Lebman 1911 Machine Pistol

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The Colt 1911 had seen many modifications over the past 100+ years, but one of the most interesting was by a quiet Texas gunsmith by the name of Hyman Lebman. His customers included the infamous gangsters John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, though this was unknown to him at the time, while his ingenious revisions to the classic handgun were equally dynamic.

Mr. Hyman Saul Lebman (who is also referred to in some documentation as Lehman) was a San Antonio, Texas saddle maker and gunsmith who specialized in custom leatherwork and firearms for Texas sportsmen, oilmen and cattle wranglers for more than fifty years. One day in 1933, he met a pair of otherwise charming young men who were in need of some effective firepower.

They portrayed themselves as new money Texas oilmen and gave Mr. Lebman no evidence to the contrary. What the gunsmith did not know was that one of them was a man born Lester M Gillis, but infamous later as “Baby Face Nelson” and the other one John Herbert Dillinger. Both were master outlaws and desperados who raced to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List. The two even visited the Lebman home and ate dinner with his family

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

Slowly Disarming

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The United State is by no means an old country when compared to the thousand year old+ nations of Old Europe and Asia. Born long after the age of swords and clubs, it was a country born with and through the judicious use of firearms. However, since our birth we have slowly been disarming, even as the world around us grows closer and more unstable. Let’s take a comparative look at where we were in 1812 and 1912 compared with today for some perspective.

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk http://www.firearmstalk.com/entries/Slowly-Disarming.html

Exit Humanity Zombie Flick

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Being a zombie novelist (who isn’t these days, right!) I tend to watch a lot of zombie cinema. Most of it is a good example of what not to do. However I just watched a new zombie film, Exit Humanity, that is the exception to that rule.

Exit Humanity is set in the years just after the Civil War where Confederate Rebel Edward young returns home to find things a little on the undead side at home.

The bad (lets get it out of the way)
Brian Cox is top-billed in the film, although he is only the unseen narrator. The uniforms look too ‘fresh from the costume shop’ (and made of Gaberdene) for my tastes. The general is cliche and the lever-action 92 series rifles and Colt peacemakers are about 10-30 years too early for the film.

The good
Its a very well done piece of zombie horrror that stays with the watcher long after you see it. Its a refreshing look at an old-school could have been. In the end its haunting and visually well-done. Ive seen much higher budget zombie flicks that don’t tell a story 1% as good as this one.

Better yet, if you have Netflix its availible online for free!

Five Worst Handguns of All Time

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Throughout the past several centuries, handguns have sprouted several evolutionary branches. Some of these branches are shorter than others. We look at five of the shortest, and the reasons behind them. See if you agree with me.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

Rohm Model RG 10 double-action .22 short caliber six-shot capacity revolver with its original packaging purchased at the Golden Valley Sportcenter in Minnesota. The revolver is made of blued steel and has checkered white plastic grips with round “ROHM” medallions. The original two-piece paper box bears a black “RG 10” medallion. Also included are a cylindrical cleaning brush and an instruction page in English and German. Made in Sontheim, Germany……worth $19.95 in 1967, and about that much today….

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