Monthly Archives: January 2024

Putting the ‘Fortress’ into the B-17: A Look at the Guns

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It is no understatement to say that the B-17 bomber is one of the most famous airplanes to fly a mission. Today we look at the hardware that lived up to its well-deserved “Flying Fortress” name.

When it first flew in 1935, the original B-17 wasn’t very well equipped with defensive gun armament; after all, its main armament was its massive 5,000-pound bomb load.

The YB-17 prototypes had a single gun up front, two in side nacelles, one for the radio operator, and one below – just five all told, all with limited fields of fire. (National Museum of the Air Force)

Boeing YB-17 nose turret via National Museum of USAF 

Boeing YB-17 flex gun turret via National Museum of USAF

Wartime experience soon changed this, and by the time the B-17G model took to the air, it carried 13 .50-caliber air-cooled machine guns and almost 7,500 rounds of ammunition to keep them firing. While a few of the bomber’s crew were dedicated gunners, everyone save for the pilot and co-pilot had a gun at their disposal and were expected to use it if needed.

B-17G Flying Fortresses Drop Bombs On Berlin, Germany 26 February 1945. [91St Bg] 59348AC 342-FH_000123

For a closer look, head over to my piece at Guns.com that includes a walk around we did out at Pima. 

Vandy 1 Hanging with the Dragonlady

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These are just great images, I don’t care who you are.

231127-N-VX009-1006 CHINA LAKE, Calif. (Nov. 27, 2023) An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the “Vampires” of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9), and a U-2 Dragonlady fly over Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. VX-9 is charged with the testing and evaluation of weapons and their related systems in direct support of the United States Naval Aviation Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jonathan Newbery)

231127-N-VX009-1004 CHINA LAKE, Calif. (Nov. 27, 2023) An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the “Vampires” of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9), and a U-2 Dragonlady fly over Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. VX-9 is charged with the testing and evaluation of weapons and their related systems in direct support of the United States Naval Aviation Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jonathan Newbery)

231127-N-VX009-1002 CHINA LAKE, Calif. (Nov. 27, 2023) An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the “Vampires” of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9), and a U-2 Dragonlady fly over Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. VX-9 is charged with the testing and evaluation of weapons and their related systems in direct support of the United States Naval Aviation Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jonathan Newbery)

231127-N-VX009-1001 CHINA LAKE, Calif. (Nov. 27, 2023) An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the “Vampires” of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9), and a U-2 Dragonlady fly over Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. VX-9 is charged with the testing and evaluation of weapons and their related systems in direct support of the United States Naval Aviation Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jonathan Newbery)

The China Lake-based Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine, under COMNAVAIRPAC, has been around since 1951, starting off with Skyraiders, and has since operated EA-6Bs, various models of the F-14, and, as shown above, is now a Rhino/Growler unit.

Freemantle days with the BPF

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As part of AUKUS, the Royal Navy is set to forward-deploy one of its precious seven nuclear attack submarines (SSN) to Freemantle from around 2027. Of course, this has all happened before.

Here we see two Royal Navy T class submarines in Freemantle, Australia in 1945, outboard of a light cruiser, while American submarines and a sub tender are off in the distance.

The closest T-boat, with her crew busy working on her 4-inch gun and loading supplies, has her name board out of view but the second is HM Submarine Thorough (P 324).

Via the State Library of WA

Commissioned at Vickers in March 1944, Thorough was posted to the Far East in July, conducting her first 5 war patrols from Trincomalee, then shifted to Freemantle in March 1945 along with the general move into the region by the British Pacific Fleet. It was from the Western Australian base that she conducted Patrols Nos. 6-8.

HMS Thorough (P324), a T-class submarine. The class was equipped with an impressive battery of 8 21-inch bow tubes (2 external) as well as two amidship tubes, with 17 torpedoes carried. However, Thourogh by far used her forward 4-inch mount, 20mm stern Oerlikon cannon, and a trio of .303 machine guns more.

In August 1945, in company with HMS Taciturn, which may be the second T-class boat in the picture, Thorough attacked Japanese shipping and shore targets off northern Bali, sinking a coaster and a sailing vessel with gunfire, bringing her wartime total to 40 “kills” all via surface gun actions.

She survived the war, completed the first circumnavigation by a RN submarine in 1957, and was decommissioned in 1962, scrapped at Dunston on Tyne.

Those wacky Army sea mines

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The beautiful and brand new 188-foot 1,300-ton U.S. Army Mine Planter No. 16, Col. George W. Ricker, at New Orleans’s Pauline Street Wharf, 14 May 1943. She arrived at the New Orleans Port of Embarkation from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on 11 May 1943 from her builder, Marietta Manufacturing Co. She only served the Army for a year before the Navy picked her up and commissioned her as the Minesweep Gear and Repair Ship, USS Planter (ACM 2), in April 1944. Struck from the Naval Register on 23 December 1947, she was sold to commercial interests and was still in use as a fishing trawler into the 1970s. Official U.S. Army Photograph 298-1-43 via the WWII Museum.

Lost in the sauce when it comes to U.S. mine warfare in World War II is the Army’s sea mine planting efforts during the conflict.

Brainstormed by the Army as early as 1866 from experience gained against Confederate “torpedoes” in the Civil War, by 1876 an experimental defensive minefield was sown at Fort Mifflin in Pennsylvania. This led to an explosion (pun intended) in floating Army minefields during the Endicott Period of coastal defense.

By the Spanish-American War, at least 28 harbors and coastal chokepoints had Army-controlled electric submarine mines installed.

Mine 1919 Fort Pickens, outside of Pensacola. Typically 45 mines in seven groups were planted there between 1917-18

This only continued to grow and, after Army sea mines were transferred from the Corps of Engineers to the Artillery Corps, leading to the dedicated Coast Artillery Corps in 1907, the branch even kicked off an Army Mine Planter Service in 1918. At least 37 large planters, typically named after colonels and generals, were used by the AMPS during this period as well as twice as many “junior mine planters”, or “pup planters.”

Army-controlled submarine nets, mines, and shore batteries protected the entrance to San Francisco Bay May 1942 Ft. Cronkite. Of note, Fort Funston with its modern 16-inch guns, is not listed

By the time WWII came, the Coastal Artillery controlled 27 Harbor Defense Commands with minefields, at least five of them overseas in Hawaii, the Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Speaking of which, USAMP Col. George F.E. Harrison and USAJMP Neptune sowed Army minefields at Manila Harbor in 1941 to help block the Japanese advance. Both planters were sunk during the Luzon campaign, with Harrison earning a Navy battle star.

The 704-ton, 172-foot USAMP Col. George F.E. Harrison moored pierside at Ilollo, Panay, Philippine Islands, 2 February 1933. Sunk by Japanese dive bombers in May 1942, she was later raised and would serve as the Japanese Imperial Navy cable ship IJN Harushima, only to be sent to the bottom again, this time by American dive bombers, in 1945. U.S. Army Signal Corps photo # 331549, U.S. National Archives 111-SCA-Album-2986.

On 7 December 1941, the Army had approximately 5,000 controlled mines on hand for harbor defense and during the war would sow 7,320 (3,569 contact and 3,751 magnetic) domestically along with 1,847 mines ex-CONUS.

That doesn’t even count the no less than 12,000 air-dropped offensive mines laid by the USAAF in the Pacific during the war, which is a whole different story.

Operation Starvation. Loading aerial mines on a B-29 of the 468th Bomb Group, 24 January 1945. (NARA)

Via Navweaps: 

By 1945, the Army Air Force was devoting considerable resources to the mining role, with 80 to 100 B-29s based at Tinian being used to mine the home waters around Japan. These B-29s could carry seven 2,000 lbs. (907 kg). or twelve 1,000 lbs. (454 kg) mines. “Operation Starvation” started in March 1945 and continued until early August with 4,900 magnetic, 3,500 acoustic, 2,900 pressure, and 700 low-frequency mines being laid. These mines sank 294 ships outright, damaged another 137 beyond repair, and damaged a further 239 that could be repaired. In cargo tonnage, the total was 1.4 million tons lost or damaged which was about 75% of the shipping available in March 1945.

With the Army’s airborne minedropping capability going in 1947 to the newly established USAAF (which still maintains the little talked about skillset), and the disbandment of the Coastal Artillery branch soon after, when the defunct AMPS was fully zeroed out on paper on 22 January 1954– 70 years ago today– it closed the Big Green’s 88-year run with sea mines.

Love Boat on a South American Cruise

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40 years ago this month: January 1984. A port view of the brand-new (commissioned 16 February 1980) Spruance-class destroyer USS Thorn (DD 988) entering a port during the multinational naval Exercise UNITAS XXV.

Photo by PHC Terry Mitchell, DN-ST-90-01494/330-CFD-DN-ST-90-01494

And another on the same cruise:

A view of the Mark 45 5-inch/54-caliber gun on the stern of the destroyer USS Thorn (DD 988) as the ship approaches the Bridge of the Americas on the Pacific Ocean side of Panama. The THORN is participating in Exercise UNITAS XXV, 9/1/1984. (PHCS Kirby Harrison, USN. 330-CFD-DN-ST-88-02592 OPA-NARA II-2015/12/24).

The “Sprucans” were vitally needed in the late 1970s/early 1980s to replace the cramped and worn-out FRAM’d WWII-era destroyers that were still lingering. Big ships when compared to the ones they were replacing, they were derided at the time as “Love Boats”  since they were the size of WWII light cruisers (8,000 tons), yet only carried a pair of 5-inch guns (albeit the then-new MK 45 rapid-fire jobs that provided more firepower than twice as many of the old Sumner’s 5-inch/58s), twin triple ASW tubes, a Mark 16 8-cell ASROC launcher, and an 8-cell NATO Sea Sparrow SAM launcher (also capable of being used against surface ships), a fit that Thorn carries above.

All ships also gained an 8-pack of Harpoon SSM and a pair of 20mm CIWS for swatting away incoming missiles.

Other additions (10 of 31 class members fitted) included a 21-cell RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launcher mounted on the starboard fantail to further protect these ships from more modern anti-ship missiles, a 61-cell Mk41 VLS system (24 of 31 fitted) like on the Ticonderoga class cruisers (which were based on the Spruance hull) in place of the ASROC to carry VLA and TLAMs or quadruple ABL Mark 43 Tomahawk missile launchers like on the recommissioned Iowa class battleships– in the end making them fairly well-armed.

This changed over time and by the late 1980s, they were pretty capable ships

Thorn in her final form:

Here she is 19 years after the above image, fitted with a Mk.23 target acquisition system, SQR-19 TACTAS, SLQ-32(v)3 ECM, SLQ-25 Nixie torpedo decoy, SSQ-108 ELINT system, a 21-cell RAM launcher aft, Harpoon cans amidship, and a 61-cell ASW/land attack VLS forward. Official caption: Atlantic Ocean (Sept. 22, 2003), the Spruance-class destroyer USS Thorn (DD 988) escorts USS Enterprise (CVN 65) during the Comprehensive Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX). The Enterprise Strike Group is underway participating in COMPTUEX in preparation for a Mediterranean Deployment.” U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Joshua C. Kinter 030922-N-7748K-004

Sadly, while Thorn and her fellow Sprucans held the line til the end of the Cold War, the Clinton administration — in full cooperation with Big Navy who wanted more shiny new DDGs but couldn’t justify them with old cruisers and DDs around taking up space on the Navy List– snuffed out the class early, disposing of them in SINKEXs or via scrapping after most reached 20 years, but that is another story.

Thorn would be decommissioned on 25 August 2004– less than a year after the above image with Enterprise— and was sunk two years later as a target.

The Destroyer Escort that Fought like a Battleship

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80 years ago today, a dramatic photo of the side launch of the future USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) leaving the ways at Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas, 20 January 1944.

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 82850

The first American warship named in honor of Coxswain Samuel Booker Roberts, Jr., “a good-looking kid with a cockeyed smile” who earned the Navy Cross, posthumously, at Guadalcanal in 1942, the John C. Butler-class destroyer escort was commissioned on 28 April 1944. She was sponsored at the above launch by Mrs. Anna [Wexler] Roberts, mother of Samuel, and soon sailed for the Pacific to avenge his death. Among her plankowners was Roberts’ younger brother, Jack, who was the “voice” of the Samuel B. Roberts on the ship’s intercom.

Her first combat, as part of RADM Thomas L. Sprague’s Escort Carrier TG 77.4, came while a member of the ill-fated Taffy 3 task unit. There, at the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944, she and her fellow tin cans attempted to fight off a group of much larger Japanese cruisers and battleships, and the brave little greyhound succumbed to 14-inch shells and her crew– Jack Roberts included— endured three hellish days in the water before rescue.

From launching to loss was 274 days.

The ship’s national ensign was saved by Chief Torpedoman Rudy Skau and is part of the NHHC’s artifact collection.

She is remembered by the Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association. 

Her shattered hull was located more than four miles beneath the surface of the Philippine Sea in 2022. 

The ship’s fighting spirit, however, echoes through the Navy.

A bronze plaque commemorating the crew of DE 413 was aboard the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) when the ship struck an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf on April 14, 1988. The mine blew a 15-foot hole in the hull of the ship, breaking its keel. Because of the fast actions of the crew, after a five-hour effort to purge water and fight fires, the ship was saved. The captain of the vessel, Cmdr. Paul Rinn noted that while running to their stations to save the ship, the FFG crew would touch the plaque for good luck to honor and recognize the bravery of the crew of DE 413.

If you want a cheap MP5 clone, they keep getting cheaper…

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The Cold War-themed Tennessee-based subsidiary of SDS Imports has gone MP5 and plans to hit the market with two very affordable 9mm roller locks.

“While we take our inspiration from the days of caterpillar mustaches, Thomas Magnum and Sonny Crockett, our contemporary products represent the cutting edge of technology in design and manufacturing for government and commercial clients,” notes MAC as part of its company ethos.

And what could be more 1980s cool guy vibe than an MP5, right? 

The new MAC-5 series are both 9mm pistols that use a very well-known style of roller-locked blowback actions and are compatible with HK and most other aftermarket products designed for MP5 variants. Both models have a 1/2x28TPI muzzle thread under a tri-lug, adjustable rear sights, use a paddle-style mag release, and sport a SEF pattern trigger with a 4.25-pound pull. They are HK claw mount compatible and have button-rifled barrels with fluted chambers.

The series introduction includes two models, the short MAC-5 and the shorter MAC-5K.

The Military Armament Corporation MAC-5 is 17.9 inches long with an 8.9-inch barrel and is 5.5 pounds unloaded. (Photos: MAC)

Meanwhile, the MAC-5K is 13.7 inches overall with a 5.8-inch barrel and weighs 4.6 pounds.

While it is not clear who the manufacturer of these semi-auto MP5 clones is, MAC says they are “Built on modern tooling based on original HK specs and decades of expertise,” which would seem to point to MKE in Turkey, who has been in the MP5 biz for generations. That would track as SDS gets most of their other stuff (Tisas, etc) from Turkey.

Similarly, Century has been importing its AP5 line from MKE as of late while Virginia-based Zenith had long been an importer for MKE before striking out to make guns domestically.

The MAC-5 Series pistols have an MSRP of $1,099– which could be lower at dealers– and ship with a premium case, sling, two 30-round magazines, cleaning kit, tri-lug flash-hider, trigger lock, and instruction manual. That undercuts all but the most fire-sale sub-MAP AP5s, is roughly half the ask of an American-made PTR-9, and is about a third the price of a German-made HK SP5.

I’ll bring you more on these from this year’s SHOT Show.

Just taking my drone boat for a walk

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Just walking around the Gulfport harbor on the weekend– back when it was 70 degrees just a week ago– and spied this, now increasingly familiar, scene: an Ocean Aero Triton Autonomous Underwater and Surface Vehicle (AUSV), with its recycled USCG 26ft RB-S chase boat (note the red showing through on the sides) and the replica of the old Ship Island lighthouse on the west horizon. The new (post-Katrina) Coast Guard station is to the left. 

(Photo by Chris Eger)

Ocean Aero is based at the port, nestled in among the banana boat facilities, and tests its production Triton AUSVs from the harbor before packing them up for delivery.

They typically run them 2 at a time, which leaves open the possibility of drone boat races? I think they should keep that in mind. I grew up with the submarine races in Pascagoula back when Ingalls was making Sturgeon-class hunter-killers and that was a blast.

CSAR to Get a Dedicated Bird at Pensacola

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As covered, the National Naval Aviation Museum (formerly the Naval Air and Space Museum) in Pensacola recently reopened to the public after being off-limits for years– and they just got a new (to them) bird with a hell of an unsung history that will be the centerpiece of a new exhibit.

I am pretty sure I saw this helo on a flatbed at AMARG when I was in Tuscson earlier this year and am glad to know it is being preserved.

This from The Red Wolves of HSC-84:

Sikorsky HH-60H 163787, better known as Red Wolf 202, arrived at the in Pensacola, Florida on 13 January 2024.

The aircraft will be restored to display condition over the next several months, unsure of the time table for display.

Initially accepted by the Firehawks of HCS-5 in 1989, 163787 served with HCS-4, HCS-5, HSC-84, and a brief stint with VX-1 in 1992. The aircraft has 980 hours of combat time in Iraq and performed 17,710 landings (including two mishaps).

Now interned at the National Naval Aviation Museum, the aircraft will serve as a memorial to all those who served with the Red Wolves and Firehawks, spanning 30 years of dedicated CSAR and Special Operations support.

Task Group 317.5

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Probably the last time the RN was able to send a cruiser-based surface action group to sea in a meaningful way to include a half dozen frigates, a trio of unrep support ships, and a hunter-killer:

The above is the Royal Navy’s Fourth Group Deployment (Task Group 317.5), 14 February 1977, during the fleet review for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, showing HM Submarine Churchill (S46) leading the formation, followed by two Leander-class frigates including HMS Ariadne (F72), the 28,000-ton oiler RFA Tidepool (A76), the mighty 12,000-ton “helicopter and command cruiser” HMS Tiger (C20) in the center flanked by the storesship RFA Tarbatness (A345), the Type 21 frigate HMS Antelope (F170) on the outside, three further Leanders trailing and on the periphery including HMS Euryalus (F15) and HMS Danae (F47), and the supply oiler RFA Green Rover (A268).

As far as “throw,” the gun armament was limited to the 4.5-inch guns on the frigates and two 6-inchers on Tiger augmented by a sprinkling of 3-inch, 40mm, and 20mm AAAs. Besides the guns, air defense was limited to a few close-in short-range (5,000m) Sea Cat launchers. Air assets would be a half dozen Wasps on the frigates and as many as four Sea Kings on Tiger. You could think of the group as largely a counter-submarine force as they carried a wide array of ASW torpedo tubes, Limbo mortars, Ikara missile-boosted torpedos, the helicopters, and Churchill.

It’s important to note that the above capability would soon fade as Tiger was decommissioned in April 1978 and her only completed sister, HMS Blake (C99) mothballed the following year. Plus the group was formed at a time when the RN was carrier-poor, with the (barely wanted) Invincibles still under construction and wouldn’t begin to enter the fleet until 1980, the old Ark Royal on the retirement list, and the WWII-era light carrier HMS Hermes relegated to an ASW mission.

Of course, all of this would change in 1982. Speaking of which, many of the above vessels would go on to see service in the Falklands, with Antelope sunk there on 23 May 1982 by Argentine aircraft.

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