Monthly Archives: February 2018

Why the Army’s new pistol has a top plate, and why that’s a big deal

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In the above video shot by my homie Ben Philippi, Sig’s Rich Morovitz talked to us at SHOT Show about the U.S. Army’s new M17 sidearm and points out some of the differences between the military’s variant and winner of the landmark Modular Handgun System contract and the standard Sig Sauer P320. Besides the manual safety– an Army requirement– Morovitz also goes into detail on the removable top plate for a Leupold DeltaPoint Pro sight, which is a big move for a MIL-STD handgun meant for the common Soldier in the field.

More info if you are curious here.

Happy Groundhog day, in a nautical way

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So yeah, it is national rodent meteorologist day…

And in celebration, here is a picture of the Ton-class minesweeper HMS Packington:

Why the connection?

After service in the Royal Navy for a few months in 1959, the little minesweeper was transferred to the fledgling South African Navy and recommissioned as SAS Walvisbaai. Under the South African flag, she served for 41 years during the darkest days of that country’s fight against Soviet/Cuban-backed forces to the North.

Still don’t get it?

The humble 153-foot/440-ton vessel was then sold on the surplus market for a song and subsequently used in 2003 as the R/V Belafonte in the Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, filling in, of course, for Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s famous R/V Calypso, herself the retired 136-foot Royal Navy minesweeper HM J-826.

Now you get it…

Packington/Walvisbaai/Belafonte is now a yacht, the Mojo, under private ownership.

Calypso, long out of service after sinking in an accident in 1996, is being refurbished under the direction of the Cousteau Society for use as a museum.

Shackle, is that you?

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The Navy was already experienced in marine salvage prior to World War II. However, the Navy did not have ships specifically designed and built for salvage work when it entered WWII, and it was not until the start of the war that salvage ships become a distinct vessel type.

Then came the purpose-built Diver-class.

Built at Basalt Rock Co., Napa, Calif. — a gravel company who was in the barge building biz– 17 of the new 213-foot vessels were constructed during WWII. Fitted with a 20-ton capacity boom forward and 10-ton capacity booms aft, they had automatic towing machines, two fixed fire pumps rated at 1,000 gallons per minute, four portable fire pumps, and eight sets of “beach gear,” pre-rigged anchors, chains and cables for use in refloating grounded vessels. And of course, they were excellently equipped to support divers in the water with one double re-compression chamber and two complete diving stations aft for air diving and two 35-foot workboats.

They had a surprisingly long life and, even though they almost all left U.S. Navy service fairly rapidly in the 1970s, several gained a second career. Two went to South Korea where one, ex- USS Grapple (ARS-7) is still active as ROCS Da Hu (ARS-552) in Taiwan and another, ex-USS Safeguard (ARS-25), went to Turkey. The latter is supposedly still active as TCG Isin (A-589) though her replacement is nearing.

Three, Escape (ARS-6), Seize (ARS-26) and USS Shackle (ARS-9) went to the Coast Guard as USCGC Escape (WMEC-6), USCGC Yocona (WMEC-168) and USCGC Acushnet (WMEC-167) respectively.

USCGC Acushnet (WMEC-167) arriving at Kodiak, AK, 26 August 2008.
Photo courtesy Marine Exchange Alaska. Via Navsource

Escape was sold for scrap in 2009, Seize/Yocona was sunk as a target in 2006 and Shackle/Acushnet, decommissioned in 2011 as the last Diver-class vessel in U.S. service then put up for sale for years in Anacortes, Wash with efforts afoot to save her in one form or another.

Well it looks like Shackle/Acushnet was in fact picked up last summer by a non-profit group called Ocean Guardian, who intend to keep the Coast Guard name and put her back to work as a research ship/museum/education vessel in conjunction with the National Maritime Law Enforcement Academy.

Seems like you can’t keep a good old salvage ship down.

Want an integrally suppressed Krinkov-length AK SBR? I know a guy…

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Joe Meaux with Aklys Defense is ready to send his 7-pound integrally suppressed AKSV Velociraptor into regular production.

The Baton Rouge-based manufacturer has burned up the social media pipes in the past week with their Krink-sized shiny AK SBR and was at SHOT Show with a couple of examples in tow.

Developed over the past 10 months as their fifth (hence “V”) integrally suppressed AK design, the prototype on hand was crafted on a Sharps Bros custom lower with a folding stock but everything from the trunnion forward is all-Aklys. The magic is a 12-inch multi-stack chamber system sandwiched around a 9.3-inch barrel to keep a handy and lightweight profile.

“It’s meant for an optimal defense carbine,” Meaux todl me about the Velociraptor which is small enough to fit in a backpack with the stock folded.

More in my column at Guns.com

Hard to believe one of these is not an aircraft carrier

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PACIFIC OCEAN (Jan. 20, 2018) Amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6), front, transits the Pacific Ocean conducting a passing exercise next to Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70).

(U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sean M. Castellano/Released)

Of course, America can operate 16 or more F-35Bs, generating 40 sorties in a 14-hour period, which is more than most of the world’s carriers out there, and the last America (CV-66) was a full-fledged carrier that held the line for 30 years during the Cold War, but hey…

Built at Pascagoula and commissioned Oct. 2014, the current America served for almost three years as a test bed for the class and non-carrier operations of the F-35B while underway and is just now finishing up her maiden deployment, a seven-month cruise as the flag of her ARG hosting the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Her cruise highlights:

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