“You can’t ever be too rich, too good-looking, or too well-armed,” as the man says, and a Florida FFL Cerakote shop delivers on that mantra.
Fort Lauderdale-based A Really Bad Design is Alex Manzotti’s studio. A custom artist who cut his teeth using automotive paint on motorcycles and helmets more than 28 years ago, he first encountered Cerakote when a client insisted on using the coating on a bicycle. Four years ago, Manzotti and the shop became Cerakote certified, specialized in artistic applications, and today, as a 07 FFL/ 02 SOT, works exclusively with Cerakote, using it on firearms – and everything else.
A quick look at the shop’s social media shows they have done hundreds of firearms since then in any number of styles.
Check out these brushed steel Berettas with color accents. (Photos: A Really Bad Design)
And these shotguns are done in camo and blue splash. (Photos: A Really Bad Design)
Cel shading
One of the most complicated Cerakoting techniques is mimicking cel shading or “toon art.” Cel shading dates back to the 1980s and is typically applied to flat animation to create the illusion of depth, effectively turning 2D into a perception of 3D. Moving into more modern eras, rotoscoping and Sobel filtering have taken traditional cel shading to a sharper edge, as seen in popular game franchises such as “Borderlands.”
Taking that 2D to 3D style and emulating it on a real object, such as a bike helmet or a firearm, takes skill and genuine artistic capability.
Manzotti has both.
Check out these five Beretta APX A1s he did earlier this summer as a project for the iconic gunmaker:
(Photos: A Really Bad Design)
For Cerakote nerds, the colors used in the project included Periwinkle, Carbon Black, Yellow Jacket, Prison Pink, Slate, Aztec Teal, Burnt Orange, Black Cherry, Robin’s Egg Blue, and Green Mamba.
The result is two APX A1 Full Size Tacticals (Yellow and Gray), and three standard APX A1 full-size models (Cherry, Toxic Green, and Miami Daze).
Beretta sent us the Gray Tactical for a closer look, and it’s impressive. We specifically asked for the Gray as it would give us a better look at the technique, and with cel shading, it is all about the time-consuming technique.
“The work is entirely manual and has many steps,” Manzotti told Guns.com, speaking to how cel shading is harder to pull off when compared to some other effects.
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
APX Tactical models are optics-ready and have really decent suppressor-height sights. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Note the threaded barrel and accessory rail, as well as the attention to shading detail applied by ARBD. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
As with everything, natural lighting makes colors look different.
Outfitted with a SilencerCo 36M and a Surefire X300T, in their natural matte black/graphite.
You can’t have an APX Tactical and not make it…tactical.
And yes, it still shoots, as you would expect for a Beretta. Those extendo mags really help with reloads.
We’d like to thank Alex Manzotti and the whole gang at A Really Bad Design for their help with this piece, as well as everyone over at Beretta who helped make it possible.
Some 110 years ago this week, 22 November 1915. French lines “Somewhere on the Western Front.”
Official caption: “Three men in the cold, in a front-line trench, wearing hats and scarves. One of them, sitting on the firing bench, is handling grenades. While they seem like North African riflemen (Tirailleurs nord africain), they are actually just standard Poliu infantry equipped with mountain caps and hats.”
Note their Lebel rifles and long spike bayonets, as well as the man holding the early F1 (Fusante No. 1) cast-iron fragmentation grenade. Réf. : SPA 1 S 21 Emmanuel Mas/ECPAD/Défense
Last week in Munich, the German Bundeswehr introduced the new Kampfpanzer Leopard 2 A8 main battle tank to the public. The service, which has ordered 123 of the model thus far, stresses that, rather than upgrading older tanks, the Leopard A8 is a completely new design – and thus the first newly built MBT for the German Army since 1992.
Im Werk von KNDS wird der neue Leopard 2 A8 vorgestellt.
Of note, the display model included a Rafael EuroTrophy Active Protection System (APS) factory-installed. While 1,900 MBTs and AFVs around the world have Trophy, this is the first factory-fresh Leopard with the system. It also has a fully digital fire-control suite and an all-round situational awareness system with sensor-fusion capability on top of a host of improvements to the benchline Leopard 2A7HU production model.
Panzer Leopard rollt in München vom Band. Mit dabei: der Inspekteur des Heeres Ulrich de Maizière und Verteidigungsminister Kai-Uwe von Hassel.
The Germans have taken a keen interest in how second/third-hand Leopard 2A4/2A4V/2/2A6s have performed (and have been zapped) during real-life combat in Ukraine over the past few years to improve 2A8.
The first production models fielded will be with the PzBrig 45, also known as the Lithuania Brigade (Litauenbrigade), Germany’s first armored unit based abroad permanently since 1945.
Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann’s sizzle reel:
Future 2A8 operators besides Germany include the Netherlands (46 on order), Norway (54), Czechia (77), Lithuania (44), Italy (132), and Sweden (44), while Austria, Slovakia, and Croatia are all negotiating a purchase, making the new big cat a de facto NATO standard.
1965 Similarity
The rollout comes a little over 60 years since the original Leopard hit the scene, also in a similar event in Munich.
The Bundestag in 1964 allocated 1.5 billion DM for the purchase of 1,500 units of the new model. Subsequently, on 9 September 1965, a test drive was held at Krauss-Maffei in Munich, the main manufacturer, by Defense Minister Kai-Uwe von Hassel (CDU).
Inspector of the Army, Ulrich de Maizière, and the Minister of Defense, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, the first Leopard tank rolled off the assembly line in Munich, Sept 23 1965 (Panzer Leopard rollt in München vom Band. Mit dabei: der Inspekteur des Heeres Ulrich de Maizière und Verteidigungsminister Kai-Uwe von Hassel.)
The official handover of the first Leopard production model to the 4th Company of Panzerlehrbataillon 93 occurred soon after.
By 1976, the Bundeswehr’s total inventory already comprised almost 2,500 Leopard 1s.
Over 10,000 Leopard tanks have been made across the Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 lines, with the Leopard 1 having 6,485 total units built and the Leopard 2 having over 3,600 battle tanks produced since 1979.
And, since you have come this far and may be curious, this is what the U.S. is up to these days with the Abrams– or isn’t.
Official caption: Thanksgiving Turkey is prepared for members of the Camp Pendleton-based “Fighting Fifth” Marine Regiment near the Chosin Reservoir of North Korea, 21 November 1950.
At this stage, a lot of folks thought the Korean Campaign was a wrap with “home by Christmas” talk being thrown around.
Marine Photo A4975 by Sgt FC Kerr, National Archives Identifier 74242756
The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir/Battle of Lake Changjin would kick off just six days after the happy image above was snapped.
Lasting approximately 17 days, it pitted 120,000 enemy Chinese “volunteers” of the Red 9th Army against a force of just 30,000, mostly Marines (primarily of the 1st Marine Division’s 5th, 7th and 11th Marines augmented by the British 41 Commando RM and assigned Sailors) as well as a smattering of Soldiers from the 3rd and 7th Army Infantry Divisions.
This, as an estimated 300,000 Chinese poured across the Yalu, forced MacArthur to notify Washington, “We face an entirely new war.”
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Warship Wednesday 26 November 2025: A Sad Affray
Above we see HM Submarine Affray (P421).
One of a class of 16 British A (Amphion/Acheron) class boats designed for use in the Pacific against the Empire of Japan in the latter stages of WWII, she commissioned 80 years ago this week and, while she did not get to fire a torpedo in anger against the Imperial Japanese Navy, Affray did go on to leave a tragic mark on naval history.
The A-class boats
By 1943, the writing was on the wall at the Admiralty that the naval war would soon shift to the Pacific and would be very different than that in the European theatre. Whereas small subs were ideal for work in the cramped English Channel, North Sea, and Mediterranean, larger hulls, more akin to American “fleet boats,” would be needed for far-ranging Pacific service.
The answer was the A-class boats, Britain’s only full-sized subs designed during WWII, which offered faster surface speeds, improved habitability under tropical conditions (they were the first RN boats to have air conditioning), and a double-hull structure. They used all-welded pressure hulls and welded fuel tanks inside, with ballast tanks adapted for extra diesel storage. With their 280-foot length, they were only a little shorter than the typical 311-footers seen in U.S. service while still being much larger than the Royal Navy’s preceding 204-foot “Long hull” V-class submarines of the 1941–42 Programme. Even the RN’s vaunted T-class only ran 276 feet oal.
By comparison, the A boats could make 18.5 knots on the surface (with a 10,500nm range at 11) as compared to the 15.5 knots (8,000nm @ 10) of the T-class, and downright pokey 11.25 knots (3,000nm @ 9) of the V-class. The operating diving depth of the A-class was 350 feet (max 600), versus 300 on the riveted V and T classes.
The As were also heavily armed with 10 21-inch tubes: six at the bow (two external) and four (two external) at the stern. Besides the 10 loaded tubes, they could cram another 10 Mark VIII fish inside the pressure hull for reloads, although typically just six were carried. Instead of torpedoes, 18 1,700-pound Mark II/Type G ground mines could be carried and deployed. Deck guns included a QF 4″/40 Mk XXII in the sail, a 20mm Oerlikon, and up to three .303 Vickers guns. Sensors included a Type 267W air warning radar, which could function at periscope depth, as well as Types 138 and 152 sonars.
The 1943 Programme called for the construction of 46 Type A boats built across six yards: Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness; Cammell Laird, Birkenhead; Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock; Chatham Dockyard, Plymouth Dockyard, and Vickers-Armstrongs, Walker-on-Tyne.
Only two of the 46, the Barrow-built HMS Amphion (P439) and HMS Astute (P447), were commissioned before the end of hostilities, in March and June 1945, respectively. Even at that, they never arrived in the Far East in time to conduct a war patrol, spending their wartime career in workup and tests.
The 14 sister boats– Acheron, Aeneas, Alaric, Alcide, Alderney, Alliance, Ambush, Anchorite, Andrew, Artemis, Artful, Auriga, Aurochs, and our Affray— were completed between late 1945 and April 1948.
HMS Alliance on sea trials, August 1946, off Barrow. Ref: CRTY 2017/139/776/1.
British Amphion-class submarine HMS Alcide (P415). Note her sail-mounted 4″/40 gun and original WWII profile. The photo was taken in 1947 at Plymouth Sound
Two more, the would-be Ace (P414) and Achates (P433), were not fitted out but, launched and afloat, were in turn converted into target boats.
The order for the remaining 28 units (Adept, Andromache, Answer, Antagonist, Antaeus, ANZAC, Aphrodite, Admirable, Approach, Arcadian, Ardent, Argosy, Atlantis, Agile, Asperity, Austere, Aggressor, Agate, Abelard, Acasta, Alcestis, Aladdin, Aztec, Adversary, Asgard, Awake, Astarte, and Assurance) was cancelled.
A-class submarines, 1946 Janes
Meet Affray
Our subject was laid down at the Cammell Laird yard in Birkenhead on 16 January 1944, launched on 12 April of that year.
The future HM Submarine Affray after launching at the Cammel Laird ship yard, Birkenhead, 1944 LT CH Parnall, photographer. IWM A28195
Affray commissioned on 25 November 1945, and her first skipper was LCDR Ernest John Donaldson Turner DSO, DSC, RN, a submarine service steely regular who had commanded HMS Sibyl (P 217) for 17 war patrols in 1943-44 and had earned his DSO earlier in the war as XO of HMS L 23 (N 23).
Only two of Affray’s Cammell-built sisters, Aeneas and Alaric, would be completed.
Cold War service
Designed for the Pacific, Affray soon left to join the 4th Submarine Flotilla in Hong Kong, centered around the tender HMS Adamant (A164), and with her four sisters, HMS Amphion, Astute, Auriga, and Aurochs, replacing eight T-class boats that Adamant had been supporting since 1945.
By 1949, Affray and, along with the rest of her class, had received a 60-foot “Snort” device, based on captured late-war German snorkel designs, during regular overhauls back home.
HM Submarine Affray (P421), after her 1949 refit. Note the 4″/40 on her fairwater had been deleted, and she has a forward torpedo tube open.
The device overall proved successful. On 9 October 1947, Alliance dived off the Canary Islands to commence a 30-day “snort cruise,” covering 3,193 miles to Freetown, all while submerged. Andrew later made a 2,500nm run from Bermuda to the English Channel in 15 days.
Previously, British submarines could only spend a maximum of 48 hours submerged, and that was largely stationary.
.A class submarine HMS Aeneas off Gosport, circa late 1940s/early 1950s, sans 4″/40 and with her “Snort” fitted
However, Affray’s Snort reportedly leaked “like a sieve” during dives in the Med, and by January 195,1 the hard-used boat had been placed in reserve at Portsmouth, with the globe-trotter having logged more than 51,000nm in just her first five years of service.
It would be a multi-day operation including “a war patrol, dummy attacks on shipping, combining with mock hostile aircraft attacks, Marine Commandos to be landed by cockle-type canoes for a simulated sabotage and enemy observation exercise, then re-embark.”
Instead of her regular crew, she had to land all but 24 experienced members while the boat was crowded with 24 ratings drawn from a new submarine class, a team of four Royal Marine Commando canoeists, and 22 members of a junior officer Executive and Engineering training class.
In all, 75 souls crammed into a boat built for 60~ with only about a third of them being “old salts.”
Affray had dived 30 miles South of the Isle of Wight, some 60 odd miles southwest of St Catherine’s Light, at 2115 on 16 April, and was due to transit to a position 20 miles southeast of Start Point. However, she failed to report her position on 17 April, and a SUBMISS/SUBSMASH alert stated search operations that eventually numbered over 50 ships, including 24 NATO warships.
These efforts continued fruitlessly until 19 April, with only an oil slick observed over Hurd’s Deep, by which point she was considered lost.
During the search, 161 sustained sonar contacts and as many as 70 uncharted wrecks, including another submarine, the 1944-lost U-269, were discovered, each requiring fruitlessly sending down a diver to verify if it was the lost Affray.
On 14 June, after two months, the frigate HMS Loch Fyne (K429) made the first contact with the wreck of Affray on her ASDIC equipment and sent the signal to the Admiralty in Whitehall.
The submarine rescue ship HMS Reclaim arrived on scene soon after and dropped a diver with a Siebe Gorman oxy-helium helmet to a depth of over 200 feet, who reported what could be a submarine below.
To confirm, Reclaim sent down her new underwater television apparatus on 16 June.
The camera container and lights in their frame, on board HMS Reclaim. IWM A 31970
When it neared the bottom at 260 feet, the first grainy image of the wreck, including the word “Affray” on a conning tower, appeared topside on Reclaim’s TV screen.
There is no shortage of educatedtheories as to what happened to the submarine, the last British boat lost at sea. What is known is that her Snort mast was broken, and all hatches and hull seemed otherwise intact.
Hopefully, it was over quickly.
As noted by Submarinefamily.uk:
Her loss is still a matter of controversy, and the exact reason for her loss may never be known, as she is now protected as a grave for those who died in her. The most likely cause is that her snort mast broke off while she was at periscope depth and that the induction hull valve had failed to operate satisfactorily, resulting in water entering the submarine through a 10-inch hole. With her buoyancy destroyed, she would have sunk very quickly.
Epilogue
The 75 men lost on Affray have their names recorded in the Submariners’ Book of Remembrance in the chapel at HMS Dolphin, Gosport. Their names are also listed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, the Submarine Museum Memorial wall at Gosport, and Braye Harbour, Alderney, among others.
Of note, one of the divers from Reclaim working on Affray was LCDR Lionel “Buster” Crabb, OBE, GM, who later became famous when, in 1956, he disappeared in Portsmouth harbor during the visit of a Soviet cruiser with Khrushchev aboard.
The rest of Affray’s class had a happier and much longer service.
At least 10 of her sisters served at one time or another between 1954 and 1967 with the Royal Navy’s 6th Submarine Squadron out of HMC Dockyard, Halifax (stone frigate HMS Ambrose) as “clockwork mice” for ASW training with Canadian and NATO surface ships– with active service deployed North-East of the Grand Banks to warn if Soviet submarines were active during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although not in RCN service, they typically had several “Canucks” as part of their crews, which helped the RCN’s transition to the trio of new Canadian Oberon-class submarines, which began entering service in 1965. The Submarine Room at the Naval Museum of Halifax contains many of their relics, including at least one ship’s bell from HMS Aurochs.
Fourteen received a further modernization akin to the American GUPPY conversions, which removed the old sail and replaced it with a more modern fairwater, as well as a streamlined hull profile. Although their four external tubes and the deck guns were removed, they could still carry 18 more modern Mark 8 Mod 4 torpedoes or 26 1,930-pound Mark V/type Q magnetic/acoustic mines. They also received new sonars (Types 186 long-range passive, 187 medium-range search/attack, and 197 intercept). The big Type 187 attack sonar required a large bulbous dome on the bow, giving the updated Amphions a similar profile to the 1960s Oberon class boats.
When they finished their refit, the GUPPY-fied Amphions received updated S-series hull numbers in place of their old P-series numbers.
HMS Alliance (S67), almost unrecognizable after her modernization.
HMS Artful, Amphion-class submarine, S96
Ironically, despite the original deck guns being removed during modernization in the late 1950s, a very non-streamlined replacement 4″/33 Mark XXIII S gun was installed starting in 1960 on several A boats to counter blockade-running junks during the Indonesian Confrontation with the Singapore-based 7th Submarine Squadron.
Modernized Amphion-class submarine HMS Andrew (S63) leaving Singapore at the end of her service with 7th Submarine Squadron (7SM), in 1968. The crew lining the deck wearing broad terandak hats while a sign hanging from the side reads “Mama Sam’s”. Within two hours of departure, the crew rescued two Malaysian fishermen whose boat had sunk and returned them to Singapore. Andrew was one of the many submarines to leave Singapore in the late 1960s when the decision was made to repatriate all British military “East of Suez”. 7SM closed in 1971. IWM HU 129718
HMS Alliance, in camouflage pattern off Malaysia, 1965. IWM HU 129708
Aerial starboard-bow view of modernized Amphion-class submarine HMS Alliance (S67) seen in 1965 during her service with 7th Submarine Squadron, note her deck gun. She is wearing a camouflage paint scheme appropriate for operations in the shallow waters around Malaysia during the Indonesian Confrontation. IWM HU 129708
Jane’s page on the class, 1960.
The class made appearances in several films, with Andrew filling in for a U.S. nuclear submarine in the 1959 post-apocalyptic film On the Beach.
Sistership Artemis appeared in an RN training film entitled Voyage North, from which stock submarine footage was lifted and reused in movies and TV shows for decades.
Aeneas, however, one-upped her sisters by appearing in the classic Bond film You Only Live Twice in 1967. She later went on to become an SSG, carrying an experimental mast-mounted SAM launcher.
The last of the class in service, HMS Andrew, paid off in May 1977 and was also the final British sub to carry a deck gun.
HMS Alliance, although decommissioned in 1973, would continue to serve as a static training boat until 1979, and survives today.
Alliance has been preserved since 1981 as a museum boat at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, Portsmouth.
HMS Alliance, Gosport
Among her relics is a replica wreath of daffodils, carnations, tulips, and lilies of the valley modeled after the one Alliance’s crew dropped over the resting place of Affray.
The Submarine HMS Alliance lays a wreath over the spot where submarine HMS Affray failed to surface during a training dive in 1951 (Manchester Mirror)
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
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The Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) conducts flight operations while the ship transits the Tsushima Strait, Sept. 18, 2024. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James Finney)
In case you missed it, Gen. Eric Smith, the 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, recently came out and publicly reiterated that the Corps has to maintain three deployed Marine Expeditionary Units aboard Navy afloat Amphibious Ready Groups— the classic ARG/MEU combo — for sustained deterrence and global response.
Which is refreshing.
The Corps’ North Star must remain a steady 3.0 ARG/MEU presence: three continuous, three-amphibious warship formations forward deployed—one from the East Coast, one from the West, and one patrolling from Okinawa, Japan. (If you ask our combatant commanders what they need, the answer isn’t a total of three ARG/MEUs; it’s closer to five or six.) 3.0 is the minimum required to provide our nation and the Joint Force with a capability that can serve as both a warfighting formation and a cross-service integrator. It’s what keeps pressure on our adversaries, supports the maritime fight, and gives combatant commanders and national decision makers scalable options they can employ without delay to buy time, create decision-space, and if required to do so, be first to fight.
Seven standing MEUs routinely deploy.
They include the CONUS-based 11th, 13th, and 15th MEUs on the West Coast (of I Marine Expeditionary Force/1st Marine Division based at Camps Pendleton/29 Palms).
And the 22d, 24th, and 26th MEUs on the East Coast (of the II MEF/2nd Marine Division based at Camp Lejeune).
The 31st MEU is forward assigned and located in Okinawa, part of the III MEF/3rd MarDiv.
The problem is that, while the Marines may have seven MEUs and three divisions on paper, they only have 19 active duty infantry battalions, grouped in five full-strength (3 bn) and two understrength (2 bn) regiments, to flesh them out. Each of the regiments has its own HHC and logistics battalion.
Pendleton/29 Palms has 11 infantry battalions: the three battalion-strong 1st, 5th, and 7th Marine Regiments, as well as 2nd Bn/4th Marines, and 3/4th. Lejeune has eight infantry battalions: the full three-battalion 2nd and 6th Marine Regiments, along with 1/8th and 2/8th. The reason why Pendleton has three more battalions than Lejeune is that they forward deploy three battalions rotationally to III MEF/3rd MarDiv to Okinawa/Darwin, Australia (one of which forms the 31st MEU).
III MEF/3rd MarDiv also includes the Corps’ two 1,800-man MLRs: 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment (formerly the historic 3rd Marine Regiment, from 1914 through 2022) and the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment (formerly the 12th Marine Regiment, from 1927-45 & 1952-2023). These missile-armed Westpac Marines will be the so-called “Stand in Force” designed to give the Chinese navy heartburn from remote forward locations.
U.S. Marines and Sailors with 3d Littoral Combat Team, 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, 3d Marine Division, pose for a unit photo before a ceremony on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Nov. 26, 2024. At the ceremony, 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, 3d Marine Division officially received the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System from Marine Corps Systems Command, becoming the first U.S. Marine Corps unit to field the system. The NMESIS provides 3d MLR with enhanced sea denial capabilities and maritime lethality. (U.S. Marine Corps photo illustration by Sgt. Jacqueline C. Parsons) (This image was created using photo merging techniques.)
Plus, each of the three active MarDivs has a dedicated HQ, Recon, LAV, Landing Support, Supply, Transportation Support, Medical, and Dental battalions, as well as fires, amtrac, and engineer units.
So, with three deployed MEUs, basic 1:3 workup logic (one deployed, three recovering/rebuilding/working up) would make it obvious that the Marines need at least 12 infantry battalions to support them. The five “extra” battalions leave a slim elasticity for fly-out operations and reinforcement. Gratefully, the 4th Marine Regiment, which was scheduled to be reorganized into the 4th MLR in 2027, will stay infantry, “preserving its core mission while preparing to respond to potential crisis and conflict.”
The October Force Design update from the Commandant noted, “We determined through the Campaign of Learning that two MLRs and one reinforced Marine Infantry Regiment in III MEF is the optimal force composition to meet III MEF’s missions and objectives.”
Bottom line meant that turning the 4th Marines into 4th MLR would have made the 31st MEU untenable.
So it’s a good sign that Force Design 2030 is holding at two rather than three MLRs, as it at least preserves the ability to put 3 MEUs in play around the world while having a modicum of reserve infantry battalions on hand.
Now, as far as the ARG part of the equation, each MEU is built around three ships (LHA/LHD and two LSD/LPDs), which means that, on a 36-month 1:2 workup/availability basis, the Navy would need to have a theoretical 9 LHD/LHAs and 27 LSD/LPDs (36 hulls) to keep the necessary 3.0 MEUs at sea. Actual figures are 9 LHD/LHAs, 10 LSDs, and 13 LPDs: 32 hulls, just one more than the Congress-mandated minimum of 31 ships.
The Navy has an up with Forward Deployed Naval Forces Japan (FDNF-J), which has three ‘phibs in Sasebo: USS San Diego (LPD 22), New Orleans (LPD 18), and Rushmore (LSD 47), that deploy with 31st MEU, typically underway for 2-3 months, in port for 2-3 months, and then out to sea for again for another 2-3 months, etc. But that still leaves them on the hook for the East and West Coast ARGs, and (6 working LHA/LHDs and 18 LPD/LSDs), however, with those hulls having something like a 50 percent availability for ships in “satisfactory” material condition, that’s a problem.
Worse, the LSDs are retiring, and incoming LPD numbers are not sufficient to replace them on a hull-for-hull basis.
Sure, the Navy is working on bumping up those numbers, but it is still an issue, and one that will get worse before it gets better.
Further, as any potential maintenance issue with the FDNF-J’s phibs could leave the 31st MEU hanging, Commandant Smith is asking the Navy to stage fivegators from Sasebo to ensure three are ready to deploy at the drop of a hat or already underway. Yes, that would give 31st MEU some insurance, but it would have to come at the price of those other two deployed MEU/ARG combos.
Plus, while the Marines have two MLRs standing up, the Navy still doesn’t have the sealift to carry them to short, so there’s that.
30 November 1940, Scotland. Officers and NCOs of the Free French Navy submarine Minerve (P26), seen while the boat was refitting for further service. She was not alone.
At least the 13th warship with the name under the French flag, going back to 1757, Minerve was commissioned on 5 September 1936 under the pennant number Q185.
The leader of her class of 223-foot coastal submarines, she hit the scales at 870 tons submerged and could make 14 knots on the surface.
Her armament was varied, including a 3″/35 M1928 deck gun, two 13.2mm HMGs, six 21.7-inch internal torpedo tubes (four bow, two stern), each with a single reload. Outside of her pressure hull, she had three smaller yet trainable 15.7-inch tubes with no reloads.
Refitting in FFN service with a new pennant number on the sail. Note that her three external tubes are rotated out
In the early days of WWII, she carried out a surveillance of the Canary Islands for German blockade runners and then rode escort on seven convoys between Gibraltar and Liverpool. Towed out of Brest to avoid being captured by the Germans during the Fall of France in June 1940, she was seized by the British, then commissioned under the pennant number P26 in the Free French Navy with a new crew in January 1941 and soon took part in the chase of the German battleship Bismarck.
De Gaulle seen leaving the Free French submarine sisters, Junon and Minerve, in late 1940. Note Minerve’s win 13.2mm AAA mount. Photo by Harold William John Hamlin, IWM A 2173
Surviving the war, though heavily damaged in a blue-on-blue attack by British aircraft, she was wrecked in September 1945 while being towed back to France.
Of her six boat class, only two others survived the war.
A 14th Minerve (S647), a Daphné-class submarine, was lost in 1968 with a crew of 52 in the Gulf of Lion, one of four modern submarines mysteriously lost that year.
The Ruger Mark IV, the modern evolution of the original circa-1949 Ruger Standard (Mark I) pistol, was introduced in 2016. This updated model features a more user-friendly design, highlighted by a tool-free, one-button takedown mechanism that makes fieldstripping and cleaning significantly easier for users.
Following the release of the Mark IV, Ruger introduced the Mark IV 22/45 variant. The name “22/45” refers to the grip angle and surface controls, which closely emulate those of the famed M1911 Government pistol. Despite this design innovation, the initial 22/45 variant did not include a threaded muzzle or a top Picatinny rail. These features were reserved for the more expensive Mark IV 22/45 Tactical model, which carried a suggested retail price of $669.
Ruger has since released a bull-barreled version of the Mark IV 22/45 equipped with both a Picatinny rail and a threaded muzzle– as featured in this review. This model is offered at a suggested price of $449, with even lower prices often available through retailers. Additional aesthetic improvements include color-matched details; the trigger and Picatinny rail both feature a stainless finish, resulting in a distinct two-toned appearance.
Thus:
Our review Mark IV 22/45. It has a very 1911-ish overall length of 8.5 inches with an unloaded weight of 33.3 ounces. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
As teased earlier, it is both suppressor and optics-ready right out of the box. It is equipped with a Holosun 507C sight on a Picatinny base, and a SilencerCo Switchback modular suppressor in its long format. The as-shown weight is 41 ounces.
The Mark IV 22/45 in this format is close to being perfect when it comes to an all-around rimfire semi-auto pistol. It feels and looks good, is dependable and accurate, and just about every component has a dozen aftermarket upgrades available.
We ran it with a few different cans and several different ammo loads and found it to run almost 100 percent of the time. The worst thing we can say is that it gets seriously dirty, something no 22 is immune to, and you must stay on top of that every few hundred rounds to keep it running.
Compared to the rest of the market, this Mark IV 22/45, as reviewed, is priced right, especially for the big Pic rail on top, the threaded bull barrel, and American manufacture. Sure, guns like the SIG P322 have a significantly larger magazine capacity for about the same price, but its optics interface isn’t as luxurious, you get a pencil barrel, and the aftermarket support doesn’t come close to what is available for the Ruger. The closest Buckmark in features would be the Micro Bull SR, which runs significantly more than the Mark IV.
The only problem we foresee in having one of these neat little Rugers is how often you need to buy ammo.
The mothballed Iowa-class fast battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62)is towed up the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge to the New York Navy Yard, 22 November 1950, for reactivation as a fire support platform for use in the Korean War.
She had been recommissioned at Bayonne the day before.
She would be refitted with SK-2 search radar, MK 12/22 radar on her MK 37 directors, and retained her 20mm Oerlikons, although most of her 40mm Bofors are gone
USS New Jersey (BB-62) commissioning at Bayonne, 21 November 1950, for Korean War reactivation
Already the recipient of nine battle stars for her WWII service, New Jersey had been decommissioned at Bayonne on 30 June 1948, so her hull had only languished on “red lead row” for 28 months and, notably, was still a very young ship, having been commissioned the first time at Philadelphia on 23 May 1943.
After a quick refit and shakedown, New Jersey left for the Seventh Fleet, where she arrived off the east coast of Korea on 17 May 1951 and spent the next seven months as fleet flagship. The recalled battleship’s big guns opened the first shore bombardment of her Korean career at Wonsan just two days later.
Over the next two years, she would pick up another four battlestars.
The battleship New Jersey (BB-62) fires a full nine-gun salvo of her 16″ rifles at a target in Kaesong, Korea, on 1 January 1953. Official USN photograph # 80-G-433953 in the collection of the National Archives,
USS New Jersey (BB-62) fires a nine 16-inch gun salvo during bombardment operations against enemy targets in Korea, adjacent to the 38th parallel. The photo is dated 10 November 1951. Smoke from shell explosions is visible ashore, in the upper left. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-435681
As noted by DANFS:
During her two tours of duty in Korean waters, she was again and again to play the part of seaborne mobile artillery. In direct support to United Nations troops, or in preparation for ground actions, in interdicting Communist supply and communication routes, or in destroying supplies and troop positions, New Jersey hurled a weight of steel fire far beyond the capacity of land artillery, moved rapidly and free from major attack from one target to another, and at the same time could be immediately available to guard aircraft carriers should they require her protection.
New Jersey would be decommissioned a second time on 21 August 1957, was brought back in 1968 to rain 6,000 shells on NVA positions in Vietnam, then decommissioned a third time the next year, and brought back a fourth and final time in 1982.
When it comes to arthouse, low-budget, B-grade horror films, there is probably no more prolific actor than German-born Udo Kier, with 411 acting credits in IMDB.
Well, I guess I should say, “was” rather than is. He passed over the weekend, aged 81.
Born Udo Kierspe in Cologne in late 1944– the hospital was bombed and buried the baby and his mother in the rubble– he left West Germany at age 18 for England and appeared in his first of (so) many films in 1966.
To youth on this side of the pond, he is probably best known for his roles in numerous vampire movies, as the high-pressure Operation Paperclip-esque NASA flight psychologist in Armageddon (“Who is Jethro Tull?”), voiceover work in Call of Duty, and as “Moon Fuhrer” Wolfgang Kortzfleisch in 2012’s amazingly over-the-top Iron Sky.
Ironically, he never got to play a Bond villain, which seems strange.
