Throwback Thursday! A neat old British video, “Riflemen All” from the late 1970s (?) that takes about 15 minutes to break down use of rifles by British troops ranging from experimental Light Dragoons guns, the screw breech Ferguson, capping breech loaders like the Mont-Storm, the Snider, Martini-Henry, Lee-Metford, Enfield, SMLE and so forth. Almost all are shown in (brief) detail, including a little range time.
The handkerchief over the Sharps thing is new to me…and if nothing else there is some bonus footage of a rather cranky Vickers at the end.
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off 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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday April 20, 2016: The Slugger of the Nevada Test Site
NHHC Catalog #: 80-G-466457
Here we see the Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CL/CA-28) at the Naval Fleet Review in New York Harbor on 31 May 1934. If you will, please note USS Lexington (CV-2) in the background. The sparkly new “Treaty cruiser” found herself in the thick of a very unsportsmanlike naval war just seven years after this peaceful scene.
When the U.S. wrapped up World War I, they stopped making large cruisers for over a decade, coasting on the legacy vessels commissioned during and prior to that Great War. Then in 1928 came the top-heavy but very modern two-ship 11,500-ton (full load) Pensacola (CA-24) class cruisers with their armament of 10 decent 8″/55 (20.3 cm) Mark 9 guns (the same pieces carried on Lexington shown above).
Mark 9 turrets and guns intended for USS Louisville CA-28 under construction at the Washington Navy Yard via navweaps
However, with the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty, the need was seen to trim back on the P-Cola design and the next six resulting 9,200-ton Northampton‘s, with just 9 of the 8″/55s and a trimmed back armor scheme were ordered after.
The subject of our study, CA-28, was laid down at Puget Sound Naval Yard, Bremerton, Washington on Independence Day 1928, just a little over a year before the Stock Market Crash brought the Roaring 20s to a sudden halt. As such, she was the third ship on the Naval List to carry the name, with the first being a City-class ironclad during the Civil War and the second a WWI troopship.
USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28) Gift of Admiral H.G. Bowen, 6/68 Catalog #: NH 65629
Louisville‘s armor was so thin, in fact, that she was originally classified as a light cruiser when commissioned 15 January 1931 (CL-28) but due to the nature of her armament was reclassified as a heavy a few months later.
She had a happy peacetime life, conducting training cruises for mids, visiting foreign ports throughout the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.
Louisville 1934
USS Louisville saluting during Memorial Day ceremonies at New York City, May 1934
Photographed during the early 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 51903
USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28) Caption: Photograph autographed June 1967 by Admiral Thomas C. Hart, USN (Ret). He used the LOUISVILLE as his flagship from 18 July 1934 to 1 April 1935 while serving as Commander, Cruiser Division 6 Scouting Force. Description: Catalog #: NH 51432
Northampton-class sister USS Chicago (CA-29) leads CruDiv5 into the Caribbean, Canal Zone, on 4 May 1934, fleet problem 15. Following are USS Louisville (CA-28), USS Portland (CA-33), and USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
At Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1940. Note ship has 3-inch/50 caliber antiaircraft guns. Description: Courtesy of Donald Robertson Catalog #: NH 92256.
Her world started getting rough when the next World War broke out in 1939 and she started picking up new armament and getting ready for service in the Navy of the world’s largest armed neutral. This included running to South Africa and picking up a load of His Majesty’s gold to bring to the states. She arrived at 22 Jan 1941 at New York with $148,342.212.55 in British gold brought from Simonstown to be deposited in American banks.
When Pearl Harbor changed that whole neutrality thing, she was in waters off Borneo but luckily missed bumping into the Japanese fleet and joined TF 119 for a few pinprick carrier raids before sailing to the West Coast to have her armament changed wholesale.
View taken 10 November 1942, at Mare Island, California. Circles indicate alterations. Boat davits for a 26″ motor whaleboat; bridge alterations; 20mm guns added to no. 2 turret. Note style of bow “28.” Description: Catalog #: 19-N-36771
Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 11 November 1942. Description: Catalog #: 19-N-36765
Once made ready for the new war without treaty obligations, she sailed north for the Arctic region, where she took the fight to the Japanese occupation forces in the Aleutian Islands. She plastered both Attu and Kiska with her big 8-inchers and safeguarded convoys in the Northern Pac.
Steams out of Kulak Bay, Adak, Aleutian Islands, bound for operations against Attu, 25 April 1943. The photograph looks toward Sweepers Cove. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-72060
View of bombardment in a fog, Aleutians. Probably taken during Attu Operation, May 1943. Description: Catalog #: NH 92379
USS Louisville (CA 28) operating in the Bering Sea during May 1943. She is followed by USS San Francisco (CA 38).
Shells Attu, 11 May 1943. View of forward 8″ guns in action. Description: Catalog #: NH 92382
Next came service as the flag of Rear Admiral J. B. Oldendorf and a string of naval gunfire support in the Marshal Islands
Kwajalein invasion, January-February 1944 Caption: Namur Island under heavy bombardment, just prior to the initial landings, 1 February 1944. Blockhouse in lower center has just received a direct hit from an 8″ gun of USS LOUISVILLE, one of whose planes took this photo. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-218802
Then came the Marianas, the Palaus and on to the Philippines, where things got out of hand. As part of the Battle of Surigao Strait, Louisville helped to sink the Japanese battleship Fusō and, along with USS Denver (CL-58) and USS Portland (CA-33) rain fire on the Japanese “Treaty cruiser” Mogami.
Moving on to support operations off Luzon, Louisville was hit by two Yokosuka D4Y Suisei kamikazes in the Lingayen Gulf, 6 January 1945.
USS Louisville (CA 28) is hit by a Kamikaze in Lingayen Gulf, Philippine Islands, 6 January 1945. Photographed from USS Salamaua (CVE 96)
While she was able to remain operable, the damage inflicted by the twin hits killed a Marine and 42 Sailors including RADM. Theodore E. Chandler. She shipped for Mare Island for repairs.
View of wrecked 40mm quad mount and other kamikaze damage by the bridge received January 1945 in Lingayen Gulf. Taken at Mare Island, 7 February 1945. Description: Catalog #: NH 92367
Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 7 April 1945. Note: anchors; NEPANET (YTB-189) at left. Description: Catalog #: 19-N-83899
Rushing back to the fleet, she joined TF 54 off Okinawa and was soon in the gunline pumping shells into the Emperor’s positions.
USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28) off the Southern coast of Okinawa, 30 May 1945. She was hit by a kamikaze a few days later. LCI-1090 is alongside. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-K-5827
Another kamikaze hit on 5 June did less damage than the ones just five months before but she left for Mare Island again a week later for more repairs. Repairs complete, she sailed for Japan again in August but saw no more action before the end of the conflict. Finishing some post-war occupation and repatriation duties, Louisville was decommissioned on 17 June 1946 in Philadelphia.
She earned 13 battlestars for her service.
After floating in the mothballs fleet for 13 years, she was sold on 14 September 1959 to the Marlene Blouse Corporation of New York for her value in scrap.
In a way, she was much luckier than several of her sisters were. Class leader Northampton was sunk in the Battle of Tassafaronga, 30 November 1942 just a few months after Houston (CA-30) went down in the trap that was the Sunda Strait.
Battle of Sunda Strait, 28 February – 1 March 1942. Painting by John Hamilton depicting Louisville’s sister, USS Houston (CA 30), in her final action with Japanese forces
Likewise, sister Chicago (CA-29) was lost in Battle of Rennell Island in 1943.
Of the two survivors besides our hero, USS Augusta (CA-31) spent her war in the Atlantic and Med, being sold for scrap just weeks before Louisville while USS Chester (CA-27) had already been disposed of in the summer of 1959– leaving Lucky Louie as the last of her class on the Naval List
Her bell is preserved at the Naval Support Center in Louisville while her name endures with USS Louisville (SSN-724), a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine commissioned in 1986 and homeported at Pearl Harbor.
However, there is another piece of the old cruiser that is quietly sitting in the high desert, having continued its military service well into the 1950s.
You see one of her Mark 9 turrets, sans guns, was sent to the Nevada Test Site and used there for several years.
The turret’s purpose, in the days when nuclear tests were conducted on towers aboveground, was to cut costs by eliminating multiple stations for measuring the gamma ray output of nuclear explosions detonated at different sites.
The late Bill McMaster of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory saw a way to create a single station that could turn and point its detectors at many sites. He had a surplus Navy gun turret shipped in from Mare Island Shipyard in the Bay Area.
The turret was installed as if aboard ship and fitted with a lead-lined barrel that could be aimed precisely at the top of a 500-foot tower a thousand or more yards away where the burst of gamma rays from a nuclear detonation would indicate its explosive yield.
The turret was used to diagnose three tests in 1957, all part of Operation Plumbbob. Soon after that, the turret was retired, as the U.S. and Soviet Union entered into agreements that led to an end to testing in the atmosphere.
There are no plans to move the old turret, which will likely remain as a quiet reminder of the old cruiser for decades to come.
Specs:
Displacement: 9,050 long tons (9,200 t) (standard)
Length: 600 ft. 3 in (182.96 m) oa
569 ft (173 m) pp
Beam: 66 ft. 1 in (20.14 m)
Draft: 16 ft. 4 in (4.98 m) (mean)
23 ft. (7.0 m) (max)
Installed power:
8 × White-Forster boilers
107,000 shp (80,000 kW)
Propulsion:
4 × Parsons reduction steam turbines, Curtis cruising gears
4 × screws
Speed: 32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h)
Range: 10,000 nmi (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Capacity: 1,500 short tons (1,400 t) fuel oil
Complement: 90 officers 601 enlisted
Armament: (As built)
9 × 8 in (203 mm)/55 caliber guns (3×3)
4 × 5 in (127 mm)/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns
2 × 3-pounder 47 mm (1.9 in) saluting guns
6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
(1945)
9 × 8 in (203 mm)/55 caliber guns (3×3)
8 × 5 in (127 mm)/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns
2 × 3-pounder 47 mm (1.9 in) saluting guns
6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
7 × quad 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors guns
28 × 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons
Armor:
Belt: 3–3 3⁄4 in (76–95 mm)
Deck: 1–2 in (25–51 mm)
Barbettes: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Turrets: 3⁄4–2 1⁄2 in (19–64 mm)
Conning Tower: 1 1⁄4 in (32 mm)
Aircraft carried: 4 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities: 2 × Amidship catapults
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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.
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So yeah just picked 10 Anderson MULTI CAL AR15-A3 stripped 7075-T6 Alum lowers. If you shop around you can get them currently for $40~ per (including FFL transfer fees if you are not one). Besides they are always a good hedge on inflation.
Dr. Will Dabbs over atSmall Arms Review has a very interesting article up about the FrankenSTEN: a newly constructed 9mm upper receiver that mounts on an M16 lower receiver and allows selective-fire from a side-mounted 32-round STEN magazine.
The FrankenSTEN utilizes the factory barrel, magazine housing, magazine, and ejector from a Mark III STEN gun as well as a highly modified STEN gun bolt. The bolt requires the most redesign and machine work as the original STEN is an open-bolt gun with a fixed firing pin whereas the FrankenSTEN utilizes a closed bolt with a floating firing pin and the hammer and trigger assembly from the M16 lower receiver.
Back in 1959, the Marines wanted a small fixed-wing aircraft for observation and close-in-air support that could be operated from forward locations as the Devils moved inland should Naval air not be an option. This led to the Light Light Marine Attack Aircraft (L2VMA) program which nine companies competed in.
One of the entrants, was the Convair Model 48 Charger, a neat twin-boom aluminum and fiberglass aircraft powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6* (which are still around and super popular today). It could be amphibious with the addition of a pair of floats, carried four 7.62 mm machine guns in pods on the side of the fuselage and up to a ton of bombs, rockets and gun pods, on hard points.
Neat as it was, it lost out to the North American NA-300, which was adopted as the OV-10 Bronco and is still flying with the Philippines and in very limited use by the U.S. military over Syria and Iraq.
Heck, maybe Gen Dyn, who owns all the old Charger stuff now, should dust off the plans and reboot the line with some modern ISO tweaks.
*As a side note, both of the light combat aircraft the Air Force has been looking at for missions to bridge the gap between drone and F-16/F-35s as sort-of replacements for the A-10, the Embraer A-29 Super Tucano and Beech AT-6 Texan II, both run a single PT6 engine, though a much updated one. Because the more things change…
In 1963 Colt made a beautiful presentation-grade XM16E1 rifle, the 50,000th made in their famous Hartford, Connecticut factory. Serial number SN# 050000, it had a Gold finish and black plastic stock. It was part of a 85,000 weapon contract issued to Colt to produce the XM16E1 for $121.84 each (about $950 today).
While most of those other rifles no doubt were soon rushed to Vietnam, this special gun, transferred to the Army, was thought to be produced for presentation to President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy, of course a former Naval officer of PT-109 fame, was a gun guy and as a U.S. Senator requested and got a beautiful DCM Type 2 National Match M1 Garand (which I wrote about over at Guns.com). Then as President, was given a Spencer Carbine, serial number 44066, in Dec. 1962 from Springfield Armory in deference to his interest in the Civil War.
However, before the Colt gun could be passed on to Mr. Kennedy, a fateful day in Dallas changed the course of history forever.
As such, the un-fired and never presented gold M16 was quietly transferred to the Springfield Armory collection in 1966 where it sits in storage, Army card #8986, SPAR 3270.
So the NYPD had a fit in a press release and in a social media post about a “fully-automatic Uzi machine pistol” their ESU guys pinched off a group of sketchy guys in Brooklyn who also had a Hi Point pistol complete with “soon to be found at the bottom of the Hudson” finish and about 5 ounces of herb.
Here’s the pic:
As you and I can tell, it’s a IMI/Action Arms imported Micro Uzi from the 1980s/early 90’s which were semi-auto only as evidenced by the two-position selector switch for just a safety and semi-auto fire.
While it’s impossible from the single picture to say whether or not the Uzi impounded was later converted to a Title II firearm, as you would need to take a peak at the internals, the fact that they gun was made with an integral blocking bar in the receiver to prevent a full-auto bolt from being added would seem to preclude that.
As I covered it for Guns.com, I asked NYPD Media Relations for more info as to how they ascertained it was full-auto and haven’t heard back yet.
The traditional legio of the Roman Empire date back to well before Christ and endured as late as 440 AD when Legio I Adiutrix stopped keeping records. At least six centuries of warfare proved them the preeminent military formation of their day and the below breaks them down pretty well in about 3 minutes.
It’s really different to see one of these without the old CH-46 Phrogs and the addition of JLTVs in this break down of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, NC. Most people have no idea just how many wheels and tracks a BLT hits the beach with.
“Why don’t you try shooting something besides bird shot, you Asshole!”, says Hunter S. Thompson using an Artillery Luger while having a shootout with his neighbor.
