Weapons free (a little late)
Always nice to see an MK75 76mm OTO Melara guns in action. The U.S. military only has like 15 of these left– all on Coast Guard Cutters. Back in the 1980s, there were nearly 100 of these Italian rapids floating around in the fleet between shoreside spares, 25 cutters, 51 FFG-7s, and six PHMs.
Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane fired a commemorative shot Thursday to honor the 158th anniversary of its namesake’s action near Fort Sumter, 30 May 2019. Although the anniversary was actually in April, Lane was in the midst of an 80-day patrol and thus out of pocket. She caught Charleston on the way back home to Virginia (USCG Photo)
From the Coast Guard (bold mine):
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane fired a commemorative shot Thursday to honor the 158th anniversary of its namesake’s action near Fort Sumter.
On April 11, 1861, United States Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane made history by firing the first naval shot of the Civil War. Cutter Lane fired across the bow of the merchant steamship Nashville. Nashville was attempting to enter Charleston Harbor without displaying a flag indicating its nationality. Congress merged the Revenue Cutter Service with the United States Lifesaving Service in 1915 to form today’s United States Coast Guard.
The cutter Harriet Lane, a 270-foot medium endurance cutter, is returning to its homeport of Portsmouth, Virginia after conducting a successful 80-day counter-narcotics patrol of the Caribbean Sea. The cutter saved the lives of two mariners in distress, conducted several boardings on the high seas, and seized 2,069 pounds of cocaine valued at $27 million.
Of note, we covered the original Harriett Lane, a very active steam powered Revenue Cutter that saw lots of Civil War service, in a past Warship Wednesday.