Interesting charts from 85-page “Government Accountability Office report, Littoral Combat Ship: Actions Needed to Address Significant Operational Challenges and Implement Planned Sustainment Approach on Feb. 24, 2022.”
I think they speak for themselves.
The most current map, via the British MOD:
Tea leaves?
The minutes after the Russian offensive into Ukraine kicked off, RIA Novosti, which is owned and operated by the Russian federal government and is basically just a descendant of the old Sovinformburo, released a fairly wild piece by commentator Petr Akopov that, while it has been zapped from RIA’s website proper, still exists in web archives.
So interesting, and mechanically translated, excerpts (with commentary added), basically painting the conflict as a civil war that is correcting the wrongs of 1918, when the old Russian Empire fell apart, and 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed:
A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era – and in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian.
Russia is restoring its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together – in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians (Ukrainians). If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.
…
Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations.
…
Now this problem is gone – Ukraine has returned to Russia.
…
Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev?
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has set up a Telegram channel with videos that it says show captured Russian soldiers– which the country says they have over 200– and in public statements say they were tricked or otherwise threatened to take part in the operation. These statements were replayed on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is of course paid for by the U.S. government.
These kinds of videos are extremely distasteful, no matter who puts them out, as EPOWs should never be made to release public statements while in enemy custody.
However, it does kind of point to the fact that the Russians seem to have pushed into Ukraine with their “B Team” of second-line units and recalled reservists outfitted with old equipment– the better to soak up Ukraine’s limited supply of expensive donated MANPADS and ATGMs (NLAW, Javelin, Stinger, Panzerfaust 3, etc).
Notably, when you see Russian vehicles and aircraft in videos and images from the conflict they are older models with none of the cutting edge types (e.g. Su-57 strike aircraft and T-14 Armata tanks) seen. Further, there are few divisional- or even brigade-size maneuvers, with the Russians sticking to battalion-sized elements, as well as a lack of significant night-time operations, another indicator of lower-trained, under-equipped troops.
Now a half-week in motion, Russian troops seem to be facing growing morale and logistics issues, with videos circulating widely of tanks and AFVs parks on roadways out of fuel and with poor (no) perimeter security. As anyone who has been around tracks can vouch, armor is the Great White shark of the battlefield, always hungry, always looking to top off every day, whether on the move or not.
The Pentagon on Sunday acknowledged, “We believe that their advance was slowed both by resistance from the Ukrainians, who have been quite creative in finding ways to attack columns and, number two, by the fuel shortages and the sustainment issues that they have had.”
The British MOD had the same take on Saturday:
With the Russian lines of communications being very porous, and growing longer every day, the current Ukrainian bywords seem to be “Ласкаво просимо до пекла!,” or “Welcome to hell” with roadway signs defaced with the warning and official government ministries signing off their social media posts with the catchphrase.
Ironically, as far as I know, the most popular pop culture reference to this is in the tragically underrated popcorn action film Men of War (1994) in which Swedish strongman Dolph Lundgren, portraying former SF weaponsman Ameri-Swede Nick Gunar, uses it when taking on a group of mercs looking to carve off a random South Pacific island for its value in guano. Welding a CG-84, he also delivers a great “Spring, era jävlar” line, which is funny if you know Swedish.
The Ukrainians say the current tally (as with all “body counts” issued during war should be taken with a grain of salt) 60 hours into the war is:
Aircraft – 14 (including an Il-76 reportedly full of VDS)
Helicopters – 8
Tanks – 102
Combat armored vehicles – 536
Guns and howitzers – 15
SAM (Buk-М2) – 1
The war is also getting very asymmetric, with reported “Russian saboteur teams” engaging in wild gun battles in Kyiv and elsewhere. These units, dressed in Ukrainian police and military uniforms, and in Ukrainian-marked vehicles, are a throwback to Skorzeny’s Battle of the Bulge Operation Greif and need lots of pre-planning.
At the same time, the Western Europeans are getting more muscular with their support of Ukraine, mirroring roughly what was seen with the Finns and the Soviets in 1939.
As noted by the ISW:
The European Union announced direct military aid to Ukraine for the first time in EU history (€500 million worth) on February 27 while Germany announced a dramatic reorientation of its foreign policy to mitigate the threat that Russia poses to Germany and its allies. Germany will prioritize military spending and energy independence despite short-term economic costs.
Unexpected new allies such as Belgium, Sweden, and Germany are all sending Ukraine anti-armor weapons directly from their war stocks while France and Denmark have announced they will allow volunteers– including furloughed military personnel– to head to join a new “foreign legion” set up by Kyiv and recruited through the country’s embassies and consulates abroad.
A number of Americans have been war tourists in Ukraine since 2014, sometimes paying for it with their lives, and I am 100 percent sure this next wave will be high and deep. I can vouch that some of my own acquaintances have messaged they will be taking an extended vacation in Eastern Europe starting as early as next week, a sticky proposition if captured, as they are on the Retired Reserve rolls.
While peace talks are reportedly on the horizon, there seems to be little hope of them yielding any results in the near future. I hate to say it is WWIII by proxy, so maybe let’s just call it the Winter War Part II.
Official caption: “Navy’s Atomic Depth Bomb Lulu. Lulu, is the nickname for the Navy’s atomic bomb displayed in the bomb bay of an S2F Tracker, while turning in flight, at Long Island, New York. Lulu is designed for fast accurate strikes against submarines by nearly all types of Navy aircraft. Its kill radius covers vast areas, giving enemy submarines a small chance of escape. The S2F, an anti-submarine warfare aircraft, also carries impressive underwing armament including four conventional acoustical-homing torpedoes and two high-velocity air rockets (HVARs). The photograph was released on December 30, 1960.”
330-PSA-1-61-3
Two “Lulu” atomic depth bombs in the bomb bay of an S-2 Tracker, photograph released January 4, 1961. USN 710854
Lulu was better known to the Navy as the Mk 101 Lulu. According to the Atomic Archive, it “was a small implosion-type nuclear depth bomb. The Lulu exploded at a depth and time that allowed the delivery aircraft to escape.”
Lulu carried the 11-kiloton W34 tactical nuclear warhead– which was also used on the Mark 45 ASTOR torpedo, and the Mark 105 Hotpoint nuclear bomb. When assembled, Lulu was just over 7-feet long, and weighed 1,200 pounds. It replaced the earlier Mark 90 “Betty,” a device some three feet longer that carried the 32-Kt Mark 7 warhead and was withdrawn from service by 1960.
“The Lulu atomic depth bomb is the Navy’s deterrent against the control of the seas posed by the huge Communist submarine fleet. Lulu is designed for fast, accurate delivery from nearly all types of U.S. Navy planes. Examining Lulu is Robert J. Goss, a project engineer at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, Silver Spring, Maryland, where the weapon was conceived. The nuclear warhead was designed and developed by the Atomic Energy Commission.” January 17, 1961. USN 710853
“Explosion of Underwater Nuclear Device, October 1957. The Navy’s new atomic depth bomb “Lulu” was designed to be dropped from a US Navy plane on an enemy submarine lurking beneath the surface. The vast waterspout shown, reaching hundreds of feet into the air, dominates the horizon and dwarfs the instrumentation on ships and barges. Navy experts consider the new “Lulu” weapon a major element in the US defense against the menace of an enemy’s huge submarine fleet. “Lulu” was conceived and developed by the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, Silver Spring, Maryland, in collaboration with the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance.” 80-G-709977
Besides Trackers and SP-5A/SP-5B Marlin flying boats, it was tested on tactical fixed-wing aircraft, such as the Skyraider.
Lulu nuclear depth charge mounted aboard a Douglas AD Skyraider during tests, circa 1960. USN 1052478
Lulu was also rated for use by ASW helicopters.
Navy’s Atomic Depth Bomb “Lulu” on an HSS-1 (Sikorsky H-34 Seabat/Seahorse) Anti-Submarine Helicopter at Long Island, New York, December 1960. 330-PSA-1-61-1
The Mk101 Lulu was fielded from 1958 through 1971 and, once it was withdrawn, the only ASW nukes left in the fleet were W44/W55-tipped ASROC/SUBROCs that continued to serve until 1989, at which point the Cold War was declared over and peace ensued.
I grew up reading books like WWIII: August 1985, Red Storm Rising, and Team Yankee as a kid. After all, I was a military brat growing up in a coastal town that was mass-producing destroyers, cruisers, and LHAs as fast as they could hit the water because the Russians– led by Ivan Drago— Were Coming.
Now we have this conflict in Ukraine, the closest thing to a modern near-peer war since 1982, and while it is many things, it is not entertaining.
I don’t have the space, intestinal fortitude, and energy to detail what is already being termed the Russo-Ukrainian War, encompassing an estimated 180,000 Russian ground troops against a mobilized 240,000 Ukrainian army and paramilitary forces.
But I do have some interesting notes that I have noticed while watching a war unfold on my phone in real-time.
While “official” losses in terms of human life are slim compared to World War daily figures– the Ukrainians claim to have inflicted 800 casualties while suffering under 450 of their own, the images and video coming from the region would seem to belay that as a gross underestimation on both accounts.
According to the Pentagon:
The assault started in darkness this morning, Ukrainian time, with a Russian missile barrage of around 100 intermediate-range, short-range, and cruise missiles, the official said. Missiles came from land, sea and air platforms.
The Russians used roughly 75 fixed-wing, heavy and medium bombers as a part of their assault. The targets were primarily military bases and air defense nodes.
The British MOD said:
In the early hours of the morning, President Putin launched a major unprovoked assault on Ukraine, firing missiles on cities and military targets. The invasion came despite weeks of Russian claims that they had no intention of invading.
Then later in a day-end update, remarked that “It is unlikely that Russia has achieved its planned Day 1 military objectives. Ukrainian forces have presented fierce resistance across all axis of Russia’s advance.”
The Ukrainians claim to have knocked out 30 much more modern Russian tanks, 130 assorted military vehicles, and 14 aircraft as well as capturing a handful of Russkis, while the Russians claim to have totally neutralized the Ukraine air defense net, made in-roads into the country from at least five points, and have shot down nine aircraft that managed to get off the ground.
A couple of key takeaways, though, is that the Ukrainian T-64BVs, ancient tanks that were obsolete as far back as Team Yankee, have taken a severe beating.
In another, it looks like the Western NLAWs and Javelins rushed to the country by NATO have taken their toll on Russia’s most advanced combat vehicles, defeating stand-off cages and other countermeasures, leaving lots of broken armor and blunted convoys in their wake. Their recently-withdrawn British, Canadian, and American (Florida National Guard’s Task Force Gator) training cadres are no doubt nodding into their whisky as they watch the footage.
Ukraine troops have shown off lots of Western-supplied Stinger MANPADS, M141 BDM (SMAW-D), the NLAW, and the Javelin ATGM, seen above their transit cases.
While the Russian VDV and Spets guys are fanatical, a lot of these Russian troops, especially those driving trucks and recovery vehicles without adequate top cover, are likely conscripts. Cannon fodder. I almost feel bad for them.
Regardless, depictions of Ukraine’s two newest patrons, of our ladies of the top attack, St. Javelin and St. NLAW, are circulating widely.
Further, while the Russians have steamrolled Ukraine’s airfields and at least one (some reports say damaged) SU-27 made an emergency diversion to Romania, there does seem to be a Fulcrum driver that is– and this could be wild propaganda– been holding his own around Kyiv, downing a reported six Russians. The feat would make him the first attributed European air ace since Korea.
They call him the “Ghost of Kyiv,” and there is a ton of buzz and memes floating around about him even if he doesn’t exist.
I can vouch that there is a stirring video purporting to be a low-flying Ukrainian MiG-29 dogfighting with a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 (but looks to me just like two Fulcrums working high-low).
The David and Goliath struggle has been exemplified by the reported lop-sided stand on Snake Island by 13 Ukrainian border guards against the Russian cruiser Moskova, with the words “Russkiy voyennyy korabl’, idi na khuy” now ringing around the globe.
Finally, in a return to low-tech, with both sides fielding much the same kit– after all, Ukrain inherited most of its equipment from the old Soviet Union– the Russians are using an “Invasion Stripe” recognition stripe in the form of a painted-on “Z” despite the fact there is no such letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, something that had been noticed by reporters in Belarus as far back as the 19th.
Either way, if you’re the praying sort, the Ukrainian people could use some.
Dornier Flugzeugwerke’s all-metal three-engined Do 24 flying boat was designed in the mid-1930s to replace the Dutch Navy’s Dornier Do J Wal (whale) aircraft flown in the Dutch East Indies.
Below we see a Dornier Wal, taking off next to the Dutch cruiser Java, somewhere in the Dutch East Indies. As pointed out by Georgios Nikolaides-Krassas, an avid LSOZI reader, the Wal was “Do-24s ‘grandfather,’ so to speak, and predecessor in the Netherlands Naval Aviation Service (Marineluchtvaartdienst-MLD). Judging by the presence of the 75 mm/55 cal. Bofors/Wilton-Fijenoord Mark 4 AA guns and the awnings, the photograph must have been taken in the Dutch East Indies at some point between 1926, when the Do-J was introduced in MLD service, and the refit in the early 1930s that saw the removal of said AA guns, a few years before the first flight of the prototype of Do-24 (which, it must be pointed out, was developed to meet a requirement by the MLD).”
The Do 24 was a big, beautiful aircraft, with an 88-foot wingspan– nearly as wide as the famed PBY Catalina. With a 150kt cruising speed, the ability to carry over 2,600-pounds of ordnance under its wings, and a 1,600nm range, they could pose a serious threat to approaching sneaky enemy fleets.
Dornier Do-24K-1 maritieme patrouillevliegboot X-13 (1938-1942).
Bomb suspension of the first Dornier Do 24K-1 maritime patrol flying boat (German: Hochsee-Aufklärungsflugboot) of the Naval Aviation Service (MLD), built by Dornier in Friedrichshafen (South Germany). They could carry six 200 kg (440-pound) bombs, three under each wing. Also, note the searchlight on the engine cowling.
The Dutch wanted 90 of the aircraft, with the first third built by Dornier in Germany and the rest under license by Aviolanda in Holland.
A formation of nine Dornier Do-24K maritime patrol flying boats and six smaller Fokker T.IV naval bombers over ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy, circa 1939.
However, by 1940, this plan was dead in the water.
When the Germans swept through the Lowlands in May 1940, they captured 26 incomplete aircraft in Holland and went on to build another 159 for the Luftwaffe on the Dutch line, substituting BMW-made Braamo engines– the same type used in the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, some 37 Do.24s were in service in the Dutch East Indies, concentrated mostly at Naval Air Station Morokrembangan near Soerabaja in eastern Java, and proved vital in the short three-month campaign for those islands.
De Dornier Do-24K-1 maritieme patrouillevliegboten X-2 (1938-1941) en X-3 (1938-1942)
It was a Do.24 that alerted the Dutch garrison at Tarakan that the Japanese invasion fleet was over the horizon, allowing the important oil fields there to be put to the torch.
Dornier 24 flying boat of the Royal Netherlands Navy sights the Japanese invasion fleet off Kuching, British Borneo, 23 December, 1941
The Japanese Fubuki-class destroyer Shinonome met her end on the morning of 17 December 1941 while part of the Borneo invasion force at the hand of a Do 24.
As detailed by Combined Fleet:
After it became apparent that the Dutch East Indies could not be held in the face of the overwhelming Japanese effort, 11 surviving Dorniers were able to evacuate to Australia in late February 1942– some 80 years ago today.
Three days later, an air raid on Roebuck Bay left five of the remaining Do.24s sunk, along with four Dutch PBYs.
“A Japanese air raid on Tuesday morning 3 March 1942 resulted in the loss of nine MLD flying boats, which were moored in Roebuck Bay near Broome (Western Australia). These were the Dornier Do-24K-1 flying boats X-1, X-3, X-20, X-23, X-28, and the Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina flying boats Y-59, Y-60, Y-67, and Y -70. The photo shows the smoke development, which presented a sinister spectacle over the bay just after the attack.”
The final six Do 24s served with the Australians, absorbed in No. 41 Squadron RAAF as A49 1-6, serving as amphibian transports between Australia and New Guinea until late in the war.
Lake Macquarie, Australia’s largest coastal saltwater lake, C. 1943. A Dornier Do 24 Of the Dutch Royal Marine Airforce flies low over the lake. AWM 044610.
The exiled Do.24s mirrored the work of the Free Dutch No. 320 (Netherlands) Squadron RAF, which was formed from Marineluchtvaartdienst personnel that escaped from Holland to the UK with eight Fokker T.VIIIW twin-engined patrol seaplanes. The latter squadron finished the war flying Hudsons.
All photos via the NIMH, which has a very nice photo collection of these aircraft in action, both in German and Dutch livery.
With a 3.2-inch barrel, the commonly-encountered G3C is just 6.3-inches overall, putting it right at an inch shorter than the G3XL, and couple of ounces heavier. However, in terms of height and width, the guns are a match for each other, no surprise as the G3XL uses the same grip frame as the G3C.
In the hands, the extra inch of slide/barrel really makes a difference. The G3C, left, G3XL on the right
More in my column at Guns.com.
While the rifle grenade– pioneered on the Western Front in the Great War– was nothing new by the 1940s, the American M1 Grenade Adapter allowed GIs during WWII to toss standard fragmentation grenades (pineapples) rather than special rifle grenades downrange.
To point out how it worked, in great detail, is CSM(Ret) Rick Lamb in a great 20-minute piece over at Tactical Rifleman.
Enjoy!
Col. Gail Seymour “Hal” Halvorsen, AKA the “Berlin Candy Bomber” or “Uncle Wiggly Wings,” passed away last week at age 101, leaving a life well-lived.
Hal, born in 1920 in Salt Lake City, joined the Civil Air Patrol and later the Army Air Force during WWII, spending the conflict at the yoke of transport aircraft in the Far East. By the time of Operation Vittles– the Berlin Airlift– the C-47 and C-54 pilot launched his own “Little Vittles” campaign, dropping candy via tiny parachute to the city’s children. Keep in mind this was just two years after the end of WWII, a period in which the Allies dropped a much different cargo over the German capital.
Hal’s effort was magnified and led to literally tons of candy dropped over the city in a quarter-million miniature parachutes, proving a strong signpost during the Cold War to which side would ultimately win the world’s hearts and minds.
Hal is seen below in a 10-minute interview with the American Veterans Center.
His funeral was attended yesterday by hundreds.
The Gail Halvorsen Foundation (TheCandyBomber.com) has the following information for those wanting to honor his memory.
At Gail’s request long before his passing he asked that in lieu of sending flowers that donations would be made to the following organizations as a memorial:
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation (www.spiritoffreedom.com)
Gail S. Halvorsen Aviation Education Foundation
(GailSHalvorsenAviationEducationMemorialFund)
Primary Children’s Hospital of Salt Lake City (https://intermountainhealthcare.org/primary-childrens/give)
Your donation will be memorialized by the foundation of your choice, and your gift will help perpetuate the great work that these organizations perform.
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-21955
Here we see the crew on a four-barreled 1.1-inch/75cal anti-aircraft gun located on the flight deck of the famed Yorktown-class aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV 6), ready for the moment when the word “Commence Firing” is passed. The photograph was released 3 April 1942, just a few months after the much-disliked “Chicago Piano” had its baptism of fire.
The Navy in the 1910s, rushing into the Great War, one in which floatplanes and Zeppelins were a real (even if not perceived great) threat to warships at sea and nearshore, began adding a handful of “balloon guns” and anti-aeroplane pieces to their vessels which extra deck space. This boiled down to stubby 3″/23 mounts placed on higher-angle AA mountings as well as, after 1916, Maxim/Hotchkiss Mark 10 37mm “1-pounder” Pom-Pom automatics of the type which was already in use in the Royal Navy at the time.
The Mark 10 1-pounder Pom Pom (Model E Hotchkiss), seen at Watertown Arsenal in 1916 with its deck penetrating naval mount. Note its water jacket and ability to go almost max vertical. The gun itself, in earlier formats with a more limited mounting, had been used by the Navy as far back as the Spanish-American War.
The Hotchkiss pom pom, seen in a period postcard, left, and fitted on the flush deck destroyer USS Israel in 1918, NH 102923. While these guns served in the U.S. Navy only briefly and were withdrawn soon after the war, other European powers continued to use them well into WWII.
Although the 37mm pom pom gun could be manned by a single bluejacket in a pinch, and it was capable of firing 25 shells in a minute before it needed reloading, its short-cased ammunition was limited to a range of just 3,500 yards.
Something better…
By the late 1920s, directly after Billy Mitchell’s antics, while the Navy shrugged off the possibility that land-based bombers could destroy capital ships underway, they quietly began upping their AAA capabilities with a trio of weapons.
This trifecta included the M1921 and later M2 water-cooled .50-caliber Browning heavy machine gun on pedestal mounts with “tombstone” magazine boxes. Capable of running through a 110-round belt in about a minute, it had a higher rate of fire but an even smaller round than the old 1-pounder pom pom with an engagement range of under 2,000 yards.
It was the water-cooled .50 cal that Dorie Miller became famous on at Pearl Harbor.
USS Enterprise (CV-6), view of part of the .50 caliber anti-aircraft guns gallery in action against attacking Japanese planes during the raid on the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, 1 February 1942. The wing in the background is from one of the Douglass SBD-3 Dauntless aircraft in the carrier’s air group. NH 50935
While the .50-cal was the low end of the USN’s interbellum AAA, the high end was the newly developed 5″/38 DP Mark 12 gun on Mark 21 mounts, which began reaching the fleet’s destroyers in 1934 with USS Farragut (DD-348), could fire AAC shells out to 17,270 yards with a ceiling of 37,200 feet. Early Mk 33 directors could concentrate this fire with great accuracy– for the early 1930s– and better, faster versions of the 5″/38, augmented by late 1942 with radio proximity fuses (VT fuses) would make the guns much more effective against aircraft.
This left the mid-range between the big 5-inchers and the puny .50 cals. This is the space the 1.1-inch gun filled.
As detailed in “The Chicago Piano” by Konrad F. Schreier, Jr. in Naval History, July/August 1994, the gun took six years to hammer out from the prototype to a (semi) working example:
The 1.1 gun was designed as a weapon to be used against dive and horizontal bombers and as such supplement the defensive characteristics of the caliber .50 machine gun. The first definite action in this direction took place on October 11, 1928, when the Chief of the Bureau announced a meeting of a Special Board on Naval Ordnance for October 17 to consider and submit a plan for the development and test of a machine gun of 1″ or greater. As a result of this and successive meetings, the decision was made to develop a 1.1″ machine gun.
On December 13, 1928, Mr. C.F. Jeansen, a Bureau Engineer, began an investigation of the weight of ammunition for the gun and in March 1929 Mr. Burk and Mr. Chadwick, likewise Bureau Engineers, were designated to design the gun mechanism. The round as finally adopted weighed 2 pounds and employed a .92 pound percussion-fuzed projectile. The design of the gun mechanism was completed in 1930 and tests on the initial models were carried out in March, April and May 1931. The tests, which demonstrated a cyclic rate of 90 r.p.m., were characterized by primer blow backs, misfires, and stuck cases—as well as magazine and cradle difficulties. During the next two years, designers corrected these faults and the cyclic rate increased to 140. The design was turned over to the Naval Gun Factory for production in 1934.
The shell used, spec’d out as 28x199mmSR, was a handful, no doubt.
1.1 shell OP4 plate 16
For reference, the closest thing in the Navy’s arsenal today is the 25x137mm Bushmaster as used by the Mk38 chain gun system or its follow-on 30×173 mm Bushmaster II as used in the Mk 46 gun system.
From my own collection: a .30-06 M2 ball round as used in the M1917/M1903/M1, the .50 cal BMG as used in the M2 machine gun, and a 25x137mm Bushmaster dummy. Keep in mind that the 28×199 as used by the 1.1-inch gun is about 2.45-inches longer. (Photo: Chris Eger)
Ordnance Pamphlet No. 4 (May 1943) mentions the following about the fuzing of the 1.1-inch shell, “For AA projectiles in the 1.1-inch caliber, supersensitive nose fuzes are provided to ensure bursting action immediately in the rear of very light plate or fabric, while, for common and high capacity projectiles of 3-inch and up, time fuzes are furnished to burst the projectile at the point desired in the air.”
As noted by Tony DiGiulian at NavWeaps, “A 1934 report to the Navy General Board concluded that a single 1.1″ (28 mm) hit on any part of an aircraft would probably result in a forced landing.”
The following range table from Ordnance Pamphlet 1188 (June 1944), giving a range of 7,000 yards, although its best hope of hitting something was closer to 2,000 yards. The ceiling for the gun was 19,000 feet.
When it came to utilizing the weapon in the fleet, which took until 1938 before it reached what could be termed IOC today, the “one-point-one” was used in a four-gun side-by-side water-cooled mounting that weighed 5-tons, later ballooning to almost 9-tons in its final Mark 2 Mod 6 mount.
Quad 1.1″ (28 mm) mounting. Sketch from OP-1112. Image courtesy of HNSA, via Navweaps.
Clip-fed via four hoppers, one for each gun, the mount had a theoretical rate of fire of about 550 rounds per minute. Between all the loaders, the gun mount captain, slewers, and elevators, it required upwards of 15 men to make one of these work, and that isn’t counting clippers in clipping rooms and humpers in the magazines sending up rounds from down in the bilges.
Each 8-round clip weighed 34 pounds when loaded and empty clips can be seen being manually removed by gun crew members in this great action shot.
1.1 Chicago Piano AA gun USS Philadelphia CL-41 Operation Torch, LIFE Eliot Elisofon
USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) 1.1 Chicago Piano clip hoist inside the kingpost 19-N-28408
USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) kingpost. Note the two 1.1 Chicago Pianos under the tripod pagoda. 19-N-28416
USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) eight-round 1.1 ready service clips, essentially the M1 Garand’s en-bloc clip on steroids
The guns were soon fitted to a range of new-construction destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and fitted to older battleships and carriers.
USS Maryland BB-46 off Hawaii August 1941 showing one of her 1.1-inch guns, complete with canvas cover. LIFE Peter Stackpole
1.1″ Quadruple Anti-Aircraft Machine Gun Mounting on the new carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), 26 February 1941. 80-G-464857
On the morning of 7 December 1941, the Piano had its first recital and was credited, at least in initial reports, with its first kill, that from the new Porter-class destroyer USS Selfridge (DD-357). Commissioned on 25 November 1936, she had four twin 5″38s, two quad 1.1s, and some .50 cals. Only the latter two got into play against the Japanese that day.
From Selfridge’s report:
This vessel participated in the defense of Pearl Harbor and the ships based therein during the air raid of 7 December 1941.
Berth occupied was X-0 on heading approximately north-east, outboard and starboard side to U.S.S. Case, Reid, Tucker, Cummings and Whitney.
Service .50 caliber and 1.1″ caliber ammunition was clipped and in ready boxes at all machine guns prior to the action. Guns were ready for instant use except for being manned and loaded.
Nine officers and ninety-nine percent of the crew were on board.
Approximately four minutes before morning colors the Officer of the Deck witnessed the launching of a torpedo against the U.S.S. Raleigh by a Japanese plane. Almost simultaneously came a report from the signal bridge that the Naval Air Station was on fire.
The Officer of the Deck sounded the alarm for general quarters, set condition affirm and directed the engineering department to light off boilers and make preparations to get underway.
At about 0758 Selfridge .50 caliber machine guns were firing on Japanese planes, shortly followed by the 1.1″ machine guns. It is believed that these guns were the first to fire in this area.
Two enemy planes fired upon were seen to crash. One was hit by the after 1.1″ while diving on the Curtiss. The wing was sheared off causing the plane to crash near the beach at Beckoning Point. Another plane flying low on a southerly course to westward of the Selfridge released a bomb in the North Channel opposite the U.S.S. Raleigh and crashed in flames in the vicinity of the U.S.S. Curtiss while being fired on by the forward 1.1″ machine gun. A third plane, under fire by the forward 1.1″, was seen to disappear behind a hedge halfway up a hill at a location bearing about 045 True from the Selfridge. A fourth plane, hit in the underpart of the fuselage by the port .50 caliber machine gun, started smoking and when last seen was headed toward a cane field to the northward of the Selfridge. It is now known definitely however that this plane crashed.
850 rounds of 1.1″ and 2,340 rounds of .50 caliber were expended during the action. There were no personnel casualties. The only evidence of material casualty is a small conical shaped dent in the starboard side of the director which appears to have been made by a small caliber machine gun bullet.
The performance of the ship’s equipment was excellent, as was that of the crew. At no time during the raid was there a lull in firing caused by an interruption of ammunition supply. Men not engaged at the guns broke out and clipped ammunition in a most efficient and expeditious manner. The conduct of no one officer or man can be considered outstanding because the conduct, cooperation, coolness, and morale of the crew as a fighting unit was superb.
According to an October 1945 report, an estimated 43 planes (actually just 29 by all sources) were shot down on that Day of Infamy, an amazing 27 of them with .50-caliber machine guns, 8 with 5-inch, six with 3″/50, and just two with 1.1s– the latter by Selfridge.
However, the rest of the war proved the 1.1 was lacking and, unliked by almost everyone involved with it and prone to jams, its days were numbered.
Still, it went forward with the fleet throughout 1942, seeing action in all theatres. In all, the Navy assessed the 1.1 fired 57,131 rounds that year, accounting for 38 enemy aircraft, a rate of 1,503 rounds per kill.
Mail transfer at sea, circa 1942. The mailbag is high-lined between the photographer’s ship and a Benson (DD-421) class destroyer, whose after deckhouse is seen. Note Two-tone paint; 1.1″ quad anti-aircraft gun; life rafts; stub mainmast, ensign, and comm. pennant; searchlight; depth charge throwers. 80-G-K-15338.
North African Invasion, 1942. Crewmembers of one of the Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31)’s 1.1″ anti-aircraft guns eat sandwiches at their battle station, during operations off North Africa in November 1942. Note breech of their gun at left, with ready-service ammunition stowed along with the splinter shield. 80-G-30439.
North African Invasion, 1942. A 1.1″ anti-aircraft gun on alert aboard the carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) during the Torch landings, November 1942. Note the loading hoppers and crew waiting with fresh clips. 80-G-30334.
The Lassen-class ammunition ship USS Rainer (AE-5), view of the ship’s bridge, taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 15 April 1942. Note 1.1″ anti-aircraft guns on each bridge wing. 19-N-29183.
Omaha-class light cruiser USS Milwaukee (CL-5) at New York Navy Yard, 7 January 1942. Note the 1.1″ anti-aircraft gun and its Mk44 director. 19-N-27090.
1.1 Chicago Piano AA gun, USS Philadelphia CL-41, Operation Torch, LIFE Eliot Elisofon
Seydisfjord Seyðisfjörður fjord Iceland June 1942, PQ-17 convoy, USS Wichita CA-45 with 5in/51 and 1.1-inch Chicago piano next to USS Wainwright DD-419. HMS Somali (F33) is in the background. LIFE Scherschel
Another image of the above, showing the 1.1 to the top left
A Vought OS2U Kingfisher hoisted on the battleship USS New York BB-34 while on North Atlantic Convoy Escort Duty in 1942. Note 3”/50 and (cased) 1.1” Quad AA Gun Mounts, signal flags at ready, and what seems to be a gas mask drill going on below. Also note the troopship (liner) on the horizon. LIFE Magazine Archives – Frank Scherschel Photographer
One was also used ashore in the Philippines that year, manned by the Army against the Japanese invasion.
Via the Moore Report:
Also, late in January 1941 a 1.1-in quadruple mounted automatic weapon intended for shipboard service, together with several thousand rounds of ammunition, was turned over to the Defense by the local Naval authorities. Under supervision of the Machine Gun Defense Commander that weapon was emplaced on an especially constructed concrete base atop Malinta Hill. A small Crossley automobile motor, a tank and a small boat pump, all salvaged, were used in the water cooling system.
Manned by a detachment of men selected from the 3d Battalion, 60th Coast Artillery (AA) and trained by a Naval gunner, it was assigned to Mobile for tactical control and first got into action on or about 11 February. Although its effectiveness was reduced because there was no director available, the “one-point-one” rendered good service-mainly through its apparent effect on enemy morale, and particularly in the zone lying between the minimum and maximum effective ranges respectively of 3-in guns and .50-caliber machine guns-until it was destroyed by enemy artillery fire a few days prior to the capitulation.
The Piano soon gave way to the much more effective 20mm/80 Oerlikon, 40mm/60 Bofors, and various marks of updated DP 5-inch high-angle guns, the new trifecta.
Kodachrome showing 5″/38 guns firing in gunnery practice, on board an Essex class aircraft carrier in the Pacific, circa 1944-1945. Note 40mm gun barrels in the foreground, also firing, and manned 20mm flight deck gallery beyond. 80-G-K-15382
Nonetheless, the 1.1 was still seeing combat into 1943 and later as many of the old mounts were still afloat and on ships forward-deployed in combat zones.
A 1.1-inch quad anti-aircraft machinegun mounting located on the starboard side amidships of the Brooklyn-class light cruiser USS Nashville (CL-43). Photographed 11-13 May 1943, before or just after the 13 May bombardment of Japanese positions on Kolombangara and New Georgia islands. Note the metal shroud installed around the barrels of this gun mount. NH 97963 cropped
80-G-54554: Battle of the Kula Gulf, July 5-6, 1943. Aboard USS Honolulu (CL 48). Shown is the night gunnery by the 1.1 gun crew on superstructure lit by gunfire.
Check out this rare color footage, from the light cruisers USS Helena (CL-50) and the USS St. Louis (CL-49) in June 1943, showing a 1.1 gun crew in action against Japanese aircraft.
For 1943, the Navy assessed 10,727 1.1-inch shells that had been fired in anger, accounting for four enemy aircraft. Although a further 18,138 shells were fired in 1944 and 45, the system would claim just two additional kills in the last 20 months of the war. In all, the 1.1 fired 85,996 rounds during the conflict for 44.5 kills, just two percent of all enemy aircraft downed, at a rate of 1,932 rounds per hashmark.
By comparison, during World War II, the Navy experience was that it required an average of 11,143 rounds for a .50 caliber machine gun to bring down an aircraft. The .50 caliber weapons on ships were credited with 65.5 aircraft kills for 729,836 rounds expended. This, at least, shows that round-per-round, at least the 1.1 was more effective than the .50 cal.
It was also more effective than the 20mm Oerlikon, which although it downed 617.5 aircraft (28 percent of those on the balance sheet) during WWII, it needed a mean of 5,287 rounds for each of those kills. Ironic.
Only the larger caliber 40mm, 3-inch, and 5-inch mounts were able to best the rounds-to-kill ratio of the 1.1.
Thus:
At least one was recycled for use by the Japanese during WWII, perhaps the one mentioned in the Moore report.
Dismounted and wrecked U.S. Navy 1.1″ anti-aircraft gun mount, photographed on Corregidor after its capture by the Japanese in May 1942. Copied from the Japanese book: “Philippine Expeditionary Force,” published in 1943. Courtesy of Dr. Diosdado M. Yap, Editor-Publisher, Bataan Magazine, Washington, D.C., 1971. NH 73589
Others still stand guard on the doomed American wrecks on the bottom of the Pacific, especially those from 1942.
These are the two quad guns just aft of the exhaust. USS Lexington, via RV Petrel
USS Astoria CA-34’s 1.1-inch guns. , RV Petrel
USS Hornet CV-8’s 1.1 inch 75 cal Mark 1 anti-aircraft guns. Note how good the waterlines look, even after 80 years underwater. RV Petrel
USS Wasp (CV-7)’s quad 1.1 Chicago Piano. RV Petrel
Few remain in museums, with the 1.1 retained in a few battleship parks, the last fans of the sad Chicago Piano.
1.1 Chicago Piano AA gun on museum ship USS North Carolina
Lastly, the guns showed up in CGI format in the recent film, Midway.
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Via the Camp Roberts Historical Museum:
Arlin Weinberger, a supporter of our museum and member of our Chancellery, visited us recently and donated these photos of her father, taken during his training at Camp Roberts as our nation was entering World War 2. Her father, Caspar Willard Weinberger, went on to become Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, serving from Jan. 1981 to Nov. 1987.
Weinberger at the time of the below images was a 2nd LT, fresh from Fort Benning, with the 186th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard unit that went on to become one of the famed “Jungleers” of the 41st Infantry Division in the grueling push from New Guinea to the Philippines.
As noted in Weinberger’s DOD bio:
He entered the U.S. Army as a private in 1941, was commissioned, and served in the Pacific theater. At the end of the war he was a captain on General Douglas MacArthur’s intelligence staff. Early in life he developed an interest in politics and history and, during the war years, a special admiration for Winston Churchill, whom he would later cite as an important influence.