USS Thresher. Starboard bow view, July 24, 1961. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph)
More than a half-century after their loss, 129 brave submariners will be given a standing memorial at Arlington.
USS Thresher (SSN-593), commissioned in August 1961, was the lead ship of a new class of nuclear-powered, fast-attack submarines and was the most technically advanced ship in the world.
On April 10, 1963, she sank approximately 200 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. All souls aboard were lost that day; 129 U.S. Navy Sailors and civilian workers. Thresher was the first nuclear-powered submarine lost at sea, and the largest loss of life in the submarine force’s history.
As a result of this, the Navy immediately restricted all submarines in depth until the causes of this tragic loss could be fully understood, leading to SUBSAFE.
Loss of the Thresher by A. L. Karafylakis NH 86731-KN
Now, Veteran Navy submariner and president of the non-profit USS Thresher Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Foundation Kevin Galeaz formally announced Monday night that a proposed memorial had received approval of Secretary of the Army Mark Esper.
“This is a long time coming for the families, 55 years, and I have tears of joy that it is finally being realized,” said Galeaz.
Below we see snaps from a recent test in which a single C-17A Globemaster was able to carry 5 combat-loaded Polaris MRZR-2 and 6 GD-OTS Flyer 72 lightweight tactical vehicles, along with a light company-sized unit to man them. In short, an airmail fast recon team.
The Pentagon has been trialing the Flyer 72 and MRZR-2 for the past couple years, as the robust light vehicles have a lot of potentials, especially when it comes to raids, SF/expeditionary type gigs and operations in off-road environments.
Green Berets from 3rd Special Forces Group ( Airborne) traverse the desert in Polaris Razors during a personnel recovery training exercise March 2, 2016, in Nevada. (U.S. Army photo by 3rd SFG (A) Combat Camera)
Air Force airmen driving a Polaris MRZR and a minibike wait to drive into the back of a C-130J Hercules aircraft in Djibouti
Throughout history, captured weapons have been recast into trophies by the victors. The historic Vendôme column, ordered in 1803 by Napoleon, was decorated by a series of bronze plaques cast from melted down Austrian cannon captured in his Italian campaign. Likewise, Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square was in turn made from French cannons captured from “The Little Corporal” himself.
The British repeated the gesture after the Crimea by casting the original Victoria’s Crosses from the Tsar’s guns taken in that war.
With that in mind, the Russians picked up some 3 million usable weapons from the Germans in the tail-end of WWII and, taking them back to the Motherland, lovingly cleaned them, packed them in cosmoline, and stored them just in case they were ever needed again. After all, it is 100% cheaper to keep an old gun rather than make a new one.
They gave freighter-loads of them away for generations to hard-working proletariat masses in the various People’s Republics of Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, where they were often encountered during the Cold War and continue to pop up to this day.
MG-42 and three StG-44s, all WWII-era German guns, which were captured by French Gendarmes in Djibouti in 1976
Well, the Russians still apparently have warehouses full of the stuff.
Like Indiana Jones-Lost Ark-storage style government warehouses:
Filled with the most amazing stuff:
And they are going to be culling some to craft the stairs to the Russian state military chapel.
Warship Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019: The ‘$2 million Fighting Monster’
NH 108456 (2000×1043)
Here we see the S-class submarine USS S-49 (SS-160), one of the last class of “pig boats” commissioned with letters rather than names, in heavy seas during her brief time in the Navy. Somehow, after a short and unlucky naval career, S-49 was sold to a huckster who turned her into a (sometimes) floating tourist trap that wound up taking his case to the Supreme Court.
True story.
The S-class, or “Sugar” boats, were actually three different variants designed by Simon Lake Co, Electric Boat, and the Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) in the last days of the Great War in which U.S.-made submarines had a poor record. Looking for a better showing in these new boats, of which 65 were planned, and 51 completed in several subgroups. These small 1,000~ ton diesel-electrics took to the sea in the 1920s and they made up the backbone of the U.S. submarine fleet before the larger “fleet” type boats of the 1930s came online.
The hero of our tale, USS S-49, was 231-feet oal, could dive to 200 feet and travel at a blistering 14.5-knots on the surface on her two 900hp diesel engines and two Westinghouse electric motors for 11-knots submerged. Armament was a quartet of 21-inch bow tubes with a dozen fish and a 4″/50 cal popgun on deck for those special moments. Crew? Just 42 officers and men.
Laid down on 22 October 1920 by the Lake Torpedo Boat Co., Bridgeport, Conn., she commissioned on 5 June 1922 and soon joined New London’s experimental unit, Submarine Division Zero, operating in that role in a series of tests and evaluations into 1926.
U.S. Submarine S-49, during launching NH 108460
This made her one of the most well-photographed of these early submarines.
USS S-49 (SS-160), 1922-1931. NH 108464
USS S-49 (SS-160) NH 108465, on the surface, note her 4″ gun
NH 108462 USS S-49 (SS-160), at periscope depth
NH 108463 USS S-49 (SS-160), with decks awash
NH 108455 USS S-49 (SS-160), looking like she could beat her 14.5-kn max speed
NH 1374 USS S-49 (SS-160). What is the bluejacket on her bow doing?
At about 0750 on Tuesday, 20 April, S-49’s engines were started. Seven minutes later, just as a pilot cell cover was removed to test the specific gravity of the electrolyte, the forward battery exploded. The hydrogen gas explosion destroyed the cells in the forward half of the battery and forced up the battery deck. Ten men were injured. Two others were gassed during rescue operations. Four of the twelve died of their injuries.
The battery compartment was sealed and kept shut until mid-afternoon when the outboard battery vent was opened. During the night, the submarine took on a slight list to port and air pressure was used to keep ballast. At about 0515 on the 21st, a second explosion occurred in the battery room when wash from vessels departing for torpedo practice rocked S-49. The compartment was resealed for another few hours, after which the work of clearing the wreckage was begun.
Repaired and operational again by early 1927, S-49 made a cruise to the Florida Keys that Spring for exercises and then, on return to New London, was sent with her twin sister S-50 to red lead row in Philly in March to be placed in mothballs. Decommissioned 2 August 1927, she was stricken in 1931 to help bring down the Navy’s tonnage after the London Naval Conference.
S-49 was subsequently sold to the Boston Iron and Metal Co., Baltimore, Md., on 25 May 1931– but she was not to be scrapped.
You see, a Florida man by the name of “Capt. F.J. Christensen” purchased the gently-used boat as a hulk for a cost of $25,000 (about $400K in today’s dollars) in 1936 and soon put her to work as a privately-owned tourist attraction in the Great Lakes and East Coast, shuffling her between Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, and New York, among others.
For this purpose, she was disarmed, her engines disabled, most of her bunks pulled out (the class was notoriously cramped), registered as a “yacht” to comply with Canadian regulations on warships on the Lakes, and billed as “The $2,000,000 Fighting Monster.”
(Archives of the Supreme Court)
Admission to, “See how men live in a Hell Diver!” was 25-cents for adults, 15 for kiddies, with a souvenir book and other trinkets for sale on board for an added fee.
Privately owned sub S-49, open to the public at Point-o-Pines in Revere, near Boston, Aug 1931. Via Leslie Jones: The Cameraman
Ashore at Revere by Leslie Jones. Note that her torpedo door is open
U.S. Submarine S-49, at Great Lakes Exposition- Cleveland. NH 108461
From her souvenir keepsake book:
USS S-49 was only the second U.S. Navy submarine to be privately owned after naval service– with the first being former Warship Wednesday alum, the O-class diesel-electric submarineUSS O-12 (SS-73), which was stricken on 29 July 1930 and leased for $1 per year (with a maximum of five years in options) to Simon Lake’s company for use as a private research submarine. Dubbed the Nautilus, O-12 was to explore the Arctic but instead only made it as far as Norway before the venture tanked and she was sunk in deep water on the Navy’s insistence.
As for Christensen, he flew under the radar and continued in his operation for almost four years until he crossed paths with NYPD Police Commissioner Lewis “Nightstick” Valentine who, appointed in 1934 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, ran the agency for over a decade before heading to Post-War Tokyo to take over the Metropolitan Police Department there with MacArthur’s blessing. The fuzz brought the submarine owner’s “sandwich men” on charges in 1940 of distributing illegal handbills (the above advert) in a case that went all the way to the nation’s high court in 1942– with the Supremes backing Valentine.
With a war on and Christensen facing mounting legal bills, after all, you can’t fight city hall, he sold the immobile submarine back to the Navy who dubbed it floating equipment and intended to use it for experimental work at the Naval Mine Warfare Proving Ground, Solomons, Md.
However, she sank on the way in 132-feet of water while under tow off Port Patience in the Patuxent River.
As for her sisters, though obsolete, several S-boats remained on the Navy List and served the Navy well in both the Atlantic and Pacific (including several lost to accidents) during WWII. A half-dozen were even transferred to the Royal Navy as Lend-Lease including class leader and the former submersible aircraft carrier, USS S-1.
None of these hardy, if somewhat unlucky, craft endure though Pigboats.com keeps their memory alive.
Specs:
Displacement: 876 tons surfaced; 1,092 tons submerged
Length: 231 feet
Beam: 21 feet 9 inches
Draft: 13 feet 4 inches
Propulsion: 2 × MAN diesels, 900 hp each; 2 × Westinghouse electric motors, 447 kW each; 120-cell Exide battery; two shafts.
Speed: 14.5 knots surfaced; 11 knots submerged
Bunkerage: 148 tons oil fuel
Range: 5,000 nautical miles at 10 knots surfaced
Test depth: 200 ft. (61 m)
Armament (as built): 4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (bow, 12 torpedoes)
1 × 4 inch (102 mm)/50 caliber Mark 9 “wet mount” deck gun
Crew: 42 officers and men
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With more than 50 years of scholarship, 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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Remington broke ground on the concept of a handgun with the heart of a bolt-action rifle back in the 1960s with the XP-100, long before there was such a thing as the TC Encore or similar designs.
The XP100 in the 1960s was advertised as the “World’s Hottest Handgun”
Flash forward to this year and the company has both the 40-XP, which is just another name for the XP-100, as well as the more interesting (and obtainable) Model 700 Chassis Pistol.
Now that’s spicy: the CP today. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Chambered in 300 Blackout, .223 Remington and .308 Winchester with an overall length of less than 22-inches, these bolt pistols make great bench guns or, after a Form 1, coupled with a stock, decent but rugged glass, and a heavy can (they are suppressor-ready) to give you a great brush gun or backpack gun that can still thump out at distance.
Rosemary Mariner in the 1990s when she was commanding officer of red-star-insignia’d ‘Flashbacks” of VAQ-34, the last Skywarrior and EA-7L electronic aggressor squadron in the Navy.
Texas-born Rosemary Bryant Mariner (nee Conaster) grew up in San Diego fascinated with aviation, graduating from Purdue in 1972– at age 19– with a degree in Aviation Technology, picking up both flight engineer and pilot ratings before she signed on with the Navy the next year when she became one of the first eight women to enter Naval Aviation training at NAS Pensacola.
She went on to be being assigned to fly the rather pedestrian S-2 Tracker with the “Blue Tails” of VC-2 before she checked out on both the A-4C Skyhawk and A-7E Corsair, going on to become the first woman to fly a front-line tactical aircraft in U.S. service when she joined the fleet in 1975 and later contributed to studies on the ability of female pilots to withstand G-tolerances.
When placed in command of the “Flashbacks” of Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 34 (VAQ-34)– an EW squadron flying the classic ERA-3B Whale and the rarely-encountered EA-7L Corsair in 1990– she was the first American female military aviator (in any branch) to lead an operational air squadron, which she did in Desert Shield/Storm. In all, she racked up 24 years of service with over 3,500 hours in 15 different aircraft types.
All of the aviators participating in the flyover are from squadrons based at Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana and will be flying F/A-18E/F “Super Hornets.”
With the recent decision by the Navy to dispose of the ex-USS Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) rather than donate it for preservation, the calls went out for other military museum ships to come get what they could carry for use in their on-going efforts. You see, when you visit a museum ship, you are bound to see, touch and tread upon relics from dozens of other historic vessels.
Case in point:
The USS New Jersey battleship museum in Camden “brought back two tripods for .50cal guns, electronics parts, and flooring for the CIC restoration, tools, and equipment to fill in empty racks on the ship, and a bore sight for the 5″ gun, among other odds and ends.”
For use in JPKs restoration, we acquired another torpedo dolly for the ASROC/Torpedo magazine, the ASROC deck guides for the ASROC loader crane, thermometers, valve wheels, and misc engineering parts, casualty power cable, three DC Chart holders for our repair lockers, blackout curtains, key internal parts for our DRT table in CIC, SONAR and ASROC system test sets, dozens of information and safety placards, CPO locker handles, glass globes for the ASROC magazine, a cleaning gear locker, and much more.
To preserve the history of DDG-2, we acquired both her throttle wheels from her After Engine Room, both sides of her Engine Order Telegraph in the Pilot House, information placards from her 5”54 gun systems stamped DDG-2, and some navigation instruments all marked USS Charles F Adams. These items will be saved for use in our future renovated Admiral Burke National Destroyer Memorial and Museum.
In short, Adams will endure.
DDG-2 Charles F Adams, in the Atlantic, 16 November 1978. USN 1173510
On the 75th anniversary of the January 1944 launch of USS Missouri (BB 63), the USN commissioned the second (of 3) Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers on Saturday. Named for Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, the second Navy SEAL to receive the Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror, she carries a fine name and is a beautiful ship of some 16,000 tons and 610-feet in length– the same size as a the biggest pre-dreadnought-era battleship of the 1900s, since we are talking battleships.
Of note, she is larger than any American cruiser commissioned after USS Long Beach became active in 1961.
181207-N-LN093-1056 SAN DIEGO (Dec. 7, 2018) The guided-missile destroyer Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001) transits the San Diego Bay. The future USS Michael Monsoor is the second ship in the Zumwalt-class of guided-missile destroyers and will undergo a combat availability and test period. The ship is scheduled to be commissioned into the Navy Jan. 26, 2019, in Coronado, Calif. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jasen Moreno-Garcia/Released)
Sadly, her showcase big guns, a pair of stealthy BAE 155 mm/62 (6.1″) Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS) mounts, which were supposed to be capable of firing 10 rounds per minute at ranges of up to 83 nautical miles, are inoperable because the Navy does not have any ammo for them– and isn’t planning on buying any in the foreseeable future. The R&D cost of their unique shells, which was supposed to be amortized across a planned 32-ships, skyrocketed when the program was whittled down to just a trio of hulls (6 mounts), leaving the rounds too expensive to buy, and the AGS cannot fire standard 155mm rounds, which ironically is one of the most common in the world.
At around $1M per round, the 155mm shells for the AGS were too expensive and the Navy only bought 90 of them for testing. Each Zumwalt is supposed to carry a warload of 920
This leaves these giant ships armed with 80 deep Mk 54 VLS cells that are capable of fielding the Tomahawk, Standard 2s, and the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile, which is less punch than any other DDG in U.S. service, although with half the complement (147 souls) when compared to a much cheaper Arleigh Burke-class destroyer due to extensive automation.
A third Zumwalt, USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002), is set to deliver to 2020.
Sure, everyone and their mother is now making a subcompact, single-stack, 9mm polymer-framed striker-fired handgun, but Mossberg’s new MC1sc pistol has all that and a little extra. Like it has clear magazines (that interchange with G43 sticks) and a super-easy take-down system that does not require you to pull the trigger– which is always a bonus! Plus they offer it with an optional cross-bolt manual safety, which is sure to be a hit with the guys that are into that sort of thing.
Front and rear slide serrations, flat-profile trigger, an optional manual safety, 6/7+1 9mm capacity, 19-ounces, 6.45″ x 4.25″ x 1.06″ dimensions = The MC1sc has a lot going on
The gun was the buzz of SHOT Show last week and everyone was lined up at Mossy’s booth to lay hands on it.
Mission des Nations Unies au Mali (MINUSMA) suffered the loss of 10 Chadian peacekeepers and another 25 wounded in an attack at a United Nations base near Aguelhoc, a village in northern Mali over the weekend. This, coupled at attack that killed two Sri Lankin peacekeepers and injured six when their convoy hit an IED near Douentza in the Mopti region, brings to a total of 189 blue helmets that have lost their lives to action in Mali since the UN mission began in 2013, leaving it one of the most dangerous in the organization’s history.
The attack at Aguelhoc was, by all accounts, a classic defensive operation that involved the Chadians standing their ground for hours against determined insurgents attempting to snuff them out. According to MINUSMA Force Commander Lt. Gen. Dennis Gyllensporre, Swedish Army, the defenders fought “for hours” until the attackers broke off the engagement and retired.
Gyllensporre, in the beret, inspecting the damage (Photos: UN)
That’s an RPG hit for sure
Note the UN-marked technical gun truck with an AAA gun in the bed. Keep in mind the French-trained Chadians were involved in the Mad Max-style Toyota Wars in the 1980s against Libya
The Chadians of the Forces Armées Tchadiennes have lost at least 57 men alone in the country. This video, from 2017, highlights a patrol by a Chadian unit in Mali.
“Many of my friends have died here in Mali. We lived together, ate together. Unfortunately, they lost their lives here,” says Chief Sergeant Mahamat Tahir Moussa Abdoulaye.
