Monthly Archives: May 2013

Russian Ghost Ship Wanders Atlantic

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This bad boy has been adrift since February and is believed (hoped)– sunk somewhere in the Atlantic.

Lyubov Orlova

Here is an old picture of the Lyubov Orlova  as she sat  in Neko Harbor, Antarctica around 2000.

This 4300-ton (GT) Yugoslavian made cruise ship is something of a Flying Dutchman these days on the Atlantic. Named after the first recognized star of Soviet cinema, famous theater actress and a gifted singer, she was built-in 1975 for the Cold War Soviet Far East Shipping Company based in Vladivostok. After the fall of the Soviet Union she continued taking tourists on cruises in the polar regions (she had a strengthened hull) until she was sold in 1999. Since then she has been registered in the Cook Islands and has gone downhill. After running aground in 2006 she was by 2012 a derelict in St Johns Newfoundland, with her company in arrears.

Her sister ship, MV Clipper Adventurer, is also known to have a storied reputation. On 27 August 2010, ran aground of a supposedly uncharted rock in the waters of Nunavut’s Coronation Gulf during a cruise. It was later found that the rock was indeed a known hazard and had already been properly reported by the Canadian Hydrographic Service.

Sold to creditors she was being towed to the Dominican Republic for breaking up, valued at about $800,000 in reclaimable metals…but on 24 January 2013 she broke her tow ropes. After being chased around by her towboat off the coast of Canada and finally regained her. The ship not being worth the money being poured into her recovery, the tow boat cut the line on February 7th in International waters some 250-miles from North America.

Since then Orlova has wandered the Atlantic. Three weeks later a spy satellite from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, spotted her some 1300 miles off the coast of Ireland. At the end of February she was 700 miles from the coast of Kerry, having traveled halfway across the Atlantic on her own.

The Flying Dutchman is a legendary ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever.

The Flying Dutchman is a legendary ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. Perhaps she has a new 

In March her EPIRB went off. Now these distress beacons only sound if they are submerged so the popular thinking is that she went to Davy Jones, but who knows. However there were sightings of her adrift as late as March 12  –– more than a week after her
EPRIB went off, which leads to the speculation that some passing boarder/ghost/rat may have just kicked the beacon over the side. Her last known position was 49°49.12N 36°15.44W where the 37-year old ship was still very much afloat, with no crew, no lights, no nothing.

Current thinking could put her anywhere from arctic Norway to North Africa…..the wordpress

blog where is lova is tracking her as we speak

deckplan

Specs
Tonnage:     4,251 GT
Length:     295 ft (90 m)
Beam:     53 ft (16 m)
Draught:     15 ft (4.6 m)
Ice class:     L3
Installed power: Diesel engines; 5,280 bhp (combined)
Propulsion:     Two shafts
Speed:     11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Capacity:     110 passengers
Crew:     70 (maximum)

HITRON: Hunting drug dealers from helicopters with the USCG

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The United States Coast Guard has, since 1916, been the preeminent maritime law enforcement and search and rescue agency in the country. This odd coin with two very different sides has produced a military force that has to be flexible to meet challenges that no one could imagine a hundred years ago. To stop the myriad of high tech superfast smugglers who try to outrun the fuzz, the Coasties have created a unique unit to take super high-powered rifles to the air. These helicopter borne snipers are the men and women of the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON).

Read the rest where I delve into the weapons of this elite group of coasties at GUNS.com

100223-G-8227N-290 HITRON

The Lahti 20mm Anti-tank Gun: The ‘Finnish Boombeast

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You’ve all seen the pictures of the bearded gun guy spooning a gigantic seven-foot long rifle deep in the woods (well, you have now). While we can’t give you an answer as to who the lucky lovebird is, we can identify the object of his affection as the Lahti L39 anti-tank gun. Some just call it the Finnish Boombeast and it’s real.

In the late 1930s, it was thought that any future war would involve the use of armored vehicles. But about that. The tanks and armored cars of say, 1938, were far from the M1 Abrams and M2 Bradleys of today. These early tanks, such as the German PzKpfw I and the Soviet T-26 were small slow tanks (under 20 mph top speeds) with thin armor that ran 6-15mm thick. It was thought that a group of tank hunters—a couple soldiers on foot armed with a very large rifle—could move around the battlefield and pick off these vehicles like big game hunters on safari.  This led to such guns as the British Boys Anti-tank rifle, the German/Swiss Solothurn S-18, and others.

Finland in 1939 was on shaky ice with the Soviet Union, who at the time, shared a border with the small country. As the Soviets had no less than 18,000 tanks, the Finns felt the need to get their own locally made anti-tank rifle ricky tick.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

The Finnish boombeast being spooned in the woods....location undisclosed...

The Finnish boombeast being spooned in the woods….location undisclosed…

Warship Wednesday, May 29 First US Torpedo Boat

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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,  May 29

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Here we see the first US torpedo boat, USS Cushing (TB-1). Torpedo boats were a daring new concept in the late 18th century. These small Davids were thought capable of using their amazingly fast speed (23knots!) to leap out of the narrows in a littoral and pumping a locomotive powered torpedo into the hull of a Goliath battleship, sending the ship of the line to the bottom for its troubles.

She originally carried a white paint scheme and was in 1898 changed to a dark green for camouflage.

She originally carried a white paint scheme and was in 1898 changed to a dark green for camouflage. Note the framework for her canvas deck awning. The awning is shown installed in the picture below.

Cushing was the first of her type in US service and one of the first in the world. She was preceded by the HMS Lightning in 1876. The Lightning, a 87-foot long steamship that could do 18-knots didn’t look like much but she carried a pair of Whitehead torpedoes. This sent tremors across the seas and the USN’s answer to this was Cushing.

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Authorized in  August 1886, Cushing was completed and commissioned 22 April 1890, given the name of one of the most famous of all swashbuckling bluejackets  of the Civil War. She spent most of her career at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport where she raised a young crop of the US Navy’s first destroyer-men. Only 140-feet long, she could float in just 4-feet of water. Her two dozen officers and men were used to man the 2 6-pounder guns and fire her three above water torpedo tubes. From 1890 to 1897 she carried Howell Mk1 locomotive torpedoes (one of which was just found last week off the California coast) and after 1897 she carried the more effective Whitehead type.

Cushing at speed with her dark green paint scheme. Note how low she sat to the water. In February 1898 she lost Ensign John Cable Breckenridge overboard in heavy seas. These were not boats that you wanted to be above deck on in a good sea state.

Cushing at speed with her dark green paint scheme. Note how low she sat to the water. In February 1898 she lost Ensign John Cable Breckenridge overboard in heavy seas. These were not boats that you wanted to be above deck on in a good sea state.

When the Spanish-American War erupted in 1898, Cushing performed picket patrol in the Florida Straits and courier duty for the North Atlantic Fleet. She captured five small Cuban ships during the war and escorted them into harbor. She was decommissioned later that year after the peace had been declared.

Truth be told, this innovative ship was already made obsolete by ever faster TBs of bigger size and with larger armament. The entire torpedo boat concept itself was largely negated by 1905 when heavy gun-armed Torpedo Boat Destroyers could make mince meat of the smaller TBs before they could close on the battleships, spoiling their shots. Indeed in the world’s largest use of steam-powered torpedo boats, the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war, some 300 torpedoes were launched by both sides yet only 21 hit their target.

From 1898 to 1920 this is how Cushing spent most of her time.

From 1898 to 1920 this is how Cushing spent most of her time.

With all this in mind, Cushing was kept around as a second-string reserve ship. A partially dismantled dockside trainer for testing and evaluation purposes for two decades. Finally in 1920 she was towed out to sea and sunk, as a target.

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Specs
Type:     Torpedo boat
Displacement:     116 long tons (118 t)
Length:     140 ft (43 m)
Beam:     15 ft 1 in (4.60 m)
Draft:     4 ft 10 in (1.47 m)
Installed power:     1,600 ihp (1,200 kW)
Propulsion:     2 × vertical quadruple-expansion reciprocating steam engines
2 × Thornycroft boilers
2 × screws
Speed:     23 kn (26 mph; 43 km/h)
Complement:     22 officers and enlisted
Armament:     2 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.24 in)) guns
3 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes (3×1)

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!

Lost 110 year old Torpedo found off CA Coast

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A pair of trained military marine mammals (that’s dolphin to you buddy) located a piece of lost naval ordnance off the coast of California near the US Navy Special Warfare base at Corondano.  Now the concept of the dolphin thing isn’t that hard to grasp, the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program  has been using them to find lost items at sea for going on sixty years. The thing is, it wound up being a Howell Torpedo from the 1890s. Which is pretty dope.

What the heck is a Howell Torpedo ?

Until this week this was the only survivor of Howell's 50 Mk1 Locomotive torpedoes.

Until this week this was the only survivor of Howell’s 50 Mk1 Locomotive torpedoes.

In 1883, when Congress appropriated funding to purchase automobile or self-propelled torpedoes, the Navy issued a public solicitation for concepts and to conduct a competitive evaluation. The specification required each competitor to build an experimental model at his own expense and demonstrate it to the Navy Torpedo Board for evaluation.

The Navy received three proposals. The American Torpedo Company and Asa Weeks both proposed surface-running, rocket-powered torpedoes. LCDR John Howell, USN, proposed an ingeniously designed flywheel-powered brass torpedo. Howell, a career navy man (USNA class of 1858), had encountered torpedoes first hand (actually submerged sea mines) at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 5 August 1864. His ship, the steam sloop USS Ossipee, with USS Itasca alongside, past the forts and entered Mobile Bay with Farragut and participated in the ensuing naval battle, playing a large role in the struggle with Tennessee which finally forced the well fought, heavy southern ironclad ram to surrender. During the battle Farragut gave his famous command of ‘Damned the Torpedoes, full speed ahead’ after the mighty ironclad monitor USS Tecumseh was sunk and Union sailors noticed mines floating all about the harbor.

Howell’s design, a 132-pound flywheel, spun up to 10,000 rpm by a steam turbine, provided the stored energy to move the torpedo through the water. This means of propulsion outperformed all others for the next thirty years. The flywheel also acted as a gyroscope, keeping the torpedo on its lateral course.

plate01

The torpedo was 11 feet long, 14 inches in diameter, and weighed about 500 lbs. It could be launched from either above water or submerged torpedo tubes. The Howell attained a speed of 26 knots for 400 yards with great accuracy. It could be set to maintain a desired depth and explode upon contact with its target. Now when you consider that in the 1880s, most ships were still sailing powered, and the steamers that were out there were coal-fired boiler driven vessels that would be doing good to break 16-knots, the Howell was lightning fast.

In 1886 Lieutenant Commander Barber of the Bureau of Ordnance testified before the Senate Committee on Ordnance and Warships:

“The Howell torpedo is the most valuable American locomotive torpedo that has yet been invented for naval use…Our government should take the necessary action to perfect it…Its principal advantages over the Whitehead are directive force, its size and its cost. Its remarkable power for maintaining the direction in which it is pointed, when acted upon by a deflecting force, makes it possible to launch it with accuracy from the broadside of a vessel in rapid motion, which in my opinion is the most practical method of using a torpedo at sea; no other torpedo presents the advantages in this respect that are possessed by the Howell…”

In 1888 the Navy selected the Howell torpedo as the first automobile torpedo for issue to the fleet. CDR Howell sold his design to the Hotchkiss Ordnance Company which in turn manufactured the 50 of the new Mark 1 Howell torpedo for the Navy at its plant in Provedence RI.

The Torpedo Boat USS Cushing carried the first Howell torpedoes...these ships led to Torpedo Boat Destroyers, which today are simply called Destroyers....

The Torpedo Boat USS Cushing carried the first Howell torpedoes…these ships led to Torpedo Boat Destroyers, which today are simply called Destroyers….

By 1892, U.S. Navy battleships mounted deck-mounted torpedo tubes to fire the Mark 1 Howell. When the Navy ordered its first operational torpedo boats (the Cushing Class), the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, had the task of arming these new craft and training their crews to fire the Howell torpedo. By the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. Navy included operational seagoing torpedo boats that were the forerunners of modern fleet destroyers. During this war a division of the North Atlantic Squadron was commanded by then-Rear Admiral John Adams Howell.

With the relocation of the torpedo tubes to below the waterline, the Navy replaced the Howell torpedo with the Whitehead Torpedo Mark 1, 2, and 3 which did not require a flywheel. The Navy used the Howell for about 10 years and withdrew it about 1900.

This places the torpedo found as being expended at least 113 years ago, possibly older.

Not bad looking for spending more than a century in saltwater

Not bad looking for spending more than a century in saltwater

You can see the distinctive tail shape of the all-brass bodied torp

You can see the distinctive tail shape of the all-brass bodied torp. Note the green patina.

It is only the second known Howell in existence today, the other one being an exceptionally well-preserved one on display at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.

Howell died in 1918 at age 78 as a retired Rear Admiral.  At the time of his death, World War One was raging and the most common way to sink a ship was with a self-propelled torpedo, which had to bring the Civil War veteran a moment of  ” I told you so.'”

Today the “Howell Basin”, in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Cape Cod, and the “Howell Hook”, a submerged reef off the coast of southern Florida, are named in his honor, as the career officer had been involved in lots of survey work whenever he wasn’t fighting Rebels, Spaniards, or making underwater ordnance. All in all, he was pretty forward-looking.

…But I doubt he would have ever dreamed dolphins would recover one of his ‘damned torpedoes.’

mms-mk7

Please Remember Memorial Day Today

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A Nation that does not honor its heroes, will not long endure- – Abraham Lincoln

The clouds were threatening, but the weather held while Old Guard Soldiers (3d U.S. Infantry Regiment) http://www.army.mil/info/organization/unitsandcommands/commandstructure/theoldguard planted flags at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. After the storm broke overnight, the Soldiers were back in the Cemetery today, fixing any flags that had been broken or knocked loose. Here, Spc. Jacob Caughey of Hotel Company fixes a damaged flag. Photo by Jacob Caughey.

The clouds were threatening, but the weather held while Old Guard Soldiers (3d U.S.Infantry Regiment)  planted flags at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. After the storm broke overnight, the Soldiers were back in the Cemetery today, fixing any flags that had been broken or knocked loose. Here, Spc. Jacob Caughey of Hotel Company fixes a damaged flag.

5 Rimfire Subguns Ready for War

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Today we think of the humble 22LR as a round best left for slaughtering tin cans. But what you may not know is that this much loved pipsqueak has been pressed into both military and police service over the years, in a rather unique series of weapons—rimfire subguns.

Modern shooters have always held the .22 LR round (which dates back to the 19th century and is one of the cheapest and, until 2013, most readily available cartridges available) to be the perfect training round for military and law enforcement and with a lot of familiarity with the round at the target range came a lot of experimentation. It didn’t take these shooters long to discover that if you take this same practice round, put it in a low-recoil select-fire rifle capable of going full-auto and give it a huge magazine, you now have something much different than a cheap to shoot plinker.

Although the 22LR round was never designed as a man-stopper with very marginal one-shot stopping capabilities, a burst of 15-20 of these rounds could ruin what plans you had for the rest of your life. Additionally, guns built around these comparatively low-pressure rounds could use lighter materials than full-sized rifles firing high-velocity cartridges thus keeping the weight and cost down—always buzzwords in military trials. From these humble beginnings, the .22 submachine gun formula was hatched and has been repeated often, with mixed results:
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

k 74 kilot1.qxd

Colonel Cooper’s Bren Ten: Shooting Too Close to the Sun

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Legendary Marine Colonel John Dean “Jeff” Cooper was possibly one of the greatest ambassadors of the arts of combat shooting. The Colonel was and remains among the most influential thinkers on modern tactical shooting yet his greatest foray into the handgun market was the ill-fated Bren Ten.

Though he often taught pistol with 1911s, Cooper was a fan of the Czech designed CZ-75, a 1970s double stack 9mm with great ergonomics. The Colonel liked everything there was about the CZ, except its caliber, deeming it too low-powered.  After reading an article Cooper wrote about the CZ and its perceived limitations, two like-minded gunmakers, Tom Dornaus and Mike Dixon, reworked the basically public domain design, stretching it out to a 10-shot doublestack magazine holding .45 ACP.
This gun in hand, they went to talk to the Colonel.

Read the rest in my column GUNS.com at

bren ten note the Cooper Raven on the frame

The Neat Little Davy Crickett Rifle

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Your child’s first gun is a momentous choice to make. Children who are brought up without an introduction to firearms become adults who are afraid of guns. One of the best firearms on the market today is the Cricket series of single shot 22 rifles.

This is no high-power sniper rifle that you can run out and take Cape buffalo with at 1000-yards during a hailstorm. Its super-simple youth model rifle that is just…tiny. The has a short length of pull, an ideal for those pint-sized shooters. The firearm will only accept one round (in the chamber) and after inserting the .22 caliber cartridge, you have to cam the turn bolt forward then cock the striker before you can fire. This gives the user, especially new shooters, a simple and safe experience.

A nice little rear peep sight that is adjustable for windage and elevation with a tall ramp front post help train those basics of proper alignment. A pushbutton safety on the bottom of the rifle will lock the bolt from being able to cycle. This safety button pin has a locking key that Mom or Dad can use to disable the rifle to keep those unauthorized little hands out of it….

Read the rest in my artcile at Firearms Talk.com

cricket

The Semmerling LM-4 Pistol: Sleek, strange, secretive, sought

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Sure, it looks like a smooth little semi-auto mouse gun but, as with many things in this crazy world, under it’s sleekness hides some strangeness. First, it’s not a pee-shooter, but rather a 5-shot .45 ACP hardballer. Second, its not semi-auto at all but rather more of a pump-action. It’s the Semmerling LM-4, and though it may look like a swan to some, at its heart it’s still one odd little duck.

Since the beginning of modern time, there have been rough handed individuals whose services are retained by certain quiet branches of the government to maintain a fragile system of covert operations. These individuals are sent to exotic places, meet interesting people, and occasionally have to fight for their lives to make it back home.

In the 1970s, a small shadowy company in the Boston area by the name of the Semmerling Corporation began producing a compact little gun for the special purpose of arming such individuals. The primary tenants of the pistol was that it be a small and durable as possible, with absolute reliability but crucially pack a decent punch—no mouse guns, as the gun was to allow a covert agent working deep cover, to have a concealed firearm to engage in violence if they could not otherwise extract themselves from the situation.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

semmerling holster stainless

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