Author Archives: laststandonzombieisland

Discovering the Seventh Continent, to the call of the Shantyman

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Raising the foreyards aboard the 1,500-ton barque-rigged RRS Discovery, base ship for the British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition under Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic, Sir Douglas Mawson, circa 1929 to 1931. Note the shantyman on the accordion as he carefully perches on the head of the capstan and the boatswain with two knives on his belt.

Photo by James Francis “Frank” Hurley OBE, via the State University of South Australia collection.

Built under the supervision of Robert Falcon Scott in 1900-1901 at the cost of £51,000 for the Royal Geographical Society, the 172-foot steamship was registered as a “sailing yacht.”

Besides her chief claim to fame for carrying Scott and Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica on an epic 1,311-day run as soon as she finished her builder’s trials, Discovery went on to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company on a regular summer route through the Canadian polar regions until 1913. Then, laid up in England at the time of the Great War, clocked in carrying munitions to Russia during the conflict and the follow-on Russian Civil War — with time out for an abortive attempt to rescue Shackleton in 1916 that wasn’t needed as Shackleton effectively rescued himself. In the 1920s, she returned to research work, this time for the Crown proper– designated as a Royal Research Ship– after a refit and Mawson’s BANZARE explorations fell into this period.

Besides establishing the Australian Antarctic Territory claims, as noted by the SLA, “Another outcome of BANZARE’s oceanographical program was the demonstration of an undersea land platform which clearly indicated that Antarctica was a continent rather than composed of a series of islands.”

As for Discovery, the end of BANZARE would cap her use as a research ship due to her age and she would languish in London for the rest of the 1930s as a static training ship for Sea Scouts, then serve as a depot ship in the Thames during WWII. Becoming HMS Discovery in the 1950s, she was rebuilt and would continue to serve the Crown as a drill ship for London area naval reservists with a White Ensign on her mast.

Transferred to the Maritime Trust in derelict condition in the 1980s, she would be rebuilt yet again and moved to Dundee, her place of birth, where she has been on display as a museum ship for the past 30 years.

And the capstan is still there, sans shantyman.

500 Rounds with the Newest FN 5.7

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FN recently debuted the third generation of its 5.7x28mm caliber pistol, bringing the curious pistol from the 1990s kicking and screaming into a more modern period.

I’ve been testing for the past few months and have a 500-round review.

What the new MRD MK3 brings to the game is the ability to mount just about any micro red dot optic (hence “MRD”), something that was particularly hard to retrofit on previous models, as well as a lot of updates to the pistol’s ergonomics. All this in a hammer-fired delayed blowback action semi-auto with a semi-fixed barrel chambered for the spicy little 5.7 round.

A big bonus on the MRD MK3 is that it carries new stippling and textures on the frame as well as enhanced serrations on the slide, trigger guard, and safety selector that update the pistol’s ergonomics. Past classic and MK2 models have a much slicker surface texture. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

How does it shoot? More in my column at Guns.com.

How a small family business became a household name

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While in Georgia a couple of months ago, I paid a visit to the Trulock Tool Company and found out they were about a lot more than just shotgun chokes.

As a choke is the last part of the barrel and is relied on to pattern the shot, precision is key to every aspect of its design and production.

George Trulock, the family paterfamilias and founder of the company, was a full-time police officer for the small Grady county town of Cairo– his birthplace– and part-time gunsmith who specialized in large-framed wheelguns, with special attention to big Smith & Wesson N frames. Having to craft his own tools to get the job done, he hit on the idea that other folks may have been having similar issues and started to manufacture specialized pistol smith tools such as frame wrenches and crane straighteners.

If you have an old copy of just about any gun magazine from the late 1970s and early 1980s, you can find his ads under the gunsmithing sections.

Soon, George pivoted from wheel guns to making his shotgun chokes of an innovative type that could be retrofitted into the common cylinder-bore shotgun barrels of the time, without the user having access to a machine shop to make it happen. With demand for these new Tru-Choke style choke tubes being heavy, to say the least, he took the plunge in 1982, hung up his badge, and started clocking in as Employee No. 1 at the newly formed Trulock Firearms, which later morphed into the company that continues his name today.

And, with Mr. George now passed, the company is still innovating, now in the hands of his sons, who are very much still in the “family business.”

More in my column at Guns.com.

Atlantic Lands FEG HD-18 SVD Whales

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So Atlantic Firearms just brought these in. Drink in this Hungarian beauty made by the same folks that made the old PJK-9 Hi-Power clone, which, in my opinion, was the best P35 clone ever produced.

I give you, the Hungarian Dragunov-18 Rifle:

Imported by B&T USA, they run a PSzO-1M2 4x optic, have the classic SVD-style wood furniture that looks to be oak (or, possibly Hungarian Black locust?), and come with lots of goodies.

The bad news is that Atlantic is selling these for $7,500 which is astronomical, especially as these are new production guns and not surplus martial pieces that never passed a military inspector’s eye. Still, the market will probably bear it as Russian-made commercial Izhmash Tigers from the early 2000s run $7-8K with collectors and even Chinese Norinco NDM-86s from the 1980s are pushing into the $10K region.

Folks just love SVDs….

Hopefully, some Pewtuber guy in the firearms industry known for his ability to corner the market on these Eastern European SVD types won’t buy all these up and jack up the price higher than a Chinese spy balloon!

Update: Annnnnd, they are all sold out.

Fuji Cherry Blossoms

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With the sakura about to bloom in Japan in the coming weeks, I thought this imagery was appropriate.

Official caption: Paratroopers from 陸上自衛隊 Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s 1st Airborne Brigade (Narashino kūtei-dan) descend from United States Air Force C-130J Super Hercules aircraft over JGSDF East Fuji Maneuver Area, Japan, during “Airborne 23,’ Jan. 31, 2023. In all, some 300 JGSDF paratroopers performed a static-line jump to drop zones at the Higashi-Fuji training field, carried by planes operated by the 374th Airlift Wing’s 36th Airlift Squadron out of Yokota Air Base, showcasing the strategic importance of engaging in joint airborne operations.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Yasuo Osakabe)

(U.S. Air Force photo by Yasuo Osakabe)

(U.S. Air Force photo by Yasuo Osakabe)

(U.S. Air Force photo by Yasuo Osakabe)

(U.S. Air Force photo by Yasuo Osakabe)

(U.S. Air Force photo by Yasuo Osakabe)

The jump came just two weeks after the annual New Year’s Jump during which USAF, U.S. Army, British Army, Royal Australian army, and Japanese 1st ABN members conducted at Camp Narashino on 8 January.

As for the 36th Airlift, they are celebrating some 80 years in the paratrooper biz in 2023, having conducted airborne assaults on Sicily, Normandy, Holland, and Germany during World War II.

Walther’s Bespoke Alligator and Alien

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Walther makes some extremely high-end pieces as part of its niche Meister Manufaktur line, and I have just loved them in past years. For instance, take a look at these:

Limited to a single example this year in the Meister Manufaktur series is the “Alien,” which features a hand-engraved Xenomorph motif across the entire frame and slide of a specially selected Q5 Steel Frame 9mm. Walther told me they give a team of engravers and custom works people 18 months to produce something interesting and this one did not disappoint.

The cost is $35,000.

Another of Walther’s one-of-one Q5 Steel Frame creations at SHOT Show this year is the “Alligator.” Featuring finely engraved gator-style plates on every external metal surface along with a flat-faced gold trigger, you would be hard-pressed to find something that has more attention to minute detail than this pistol. Walther said this gun took two years to produce.

Cost, like the Walther Meister Alien, is $35,000. Click to get a better look at those plates.

A little video:

Of Norwegian P-8s, NDSTC, and Nordstream…

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“Munin,” (SN 169586) the third out of five Boeing P-8 Poseidon (militarized 737-800) maritime patrol aircraft on order for the Royal Norwegian Air Force seen landing for the first time in its home country last May. The type is replacing elderly both P-3 Orion and DA-20 Falcon EW aircraft in Norwegian service. Note the “Saint” logo on its tail. All five have names from Norse mythos– Vingtor, Viking, Ulabrand, and Hugin– and will be operated by the RNoAF’s 333 Squadron out of Evenes Air Station. (RNoAF photo)

Just going to leave this here, without judgment or throwing any shade or rocks.

Old school journo Sy Hersh– formerly of the NYT and the guy who broke the story on Abu Ghraib and My Lai– is now over at substack because that’s just how the 2020s work.

Well, on Wednesday, he published a 5,500-word article based partially on unnamed confidential sources (which, of course, always take with a grain of salt) that Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center (NDSTC) personnel (aka “The Panama City Boys” in his piece) laid remotely triggered demo charges on the Nordstream pipeline where it rested on the seabed 260 feet down (well within a technical dive depth) a few miles off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm in conjunction with the Norwegian Navy. The emplacement, he contends, was done during the regular Spring BALTOPS exercise and triggered remotely long after.

From Hersh:

The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the procedure involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four pipelines could be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of ocean background noises throughout the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea—from near and distant ships, underwater drilling, seismic events, waves, and even sea creatures. To avoid this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low-frequency tonal sounds—much like those emitted by a flute or a piano—that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives. (“You want a signal that is robust enough so that no other signal could accidentally send a pulse that detonated the explosives,” I was told by Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. Postol, who has served as the science adviser to the Pentagon’s Chief of Naval Operations, said the issue facing the group in Norway because of Biden’s delay was one of chance: “The longer the explosives are in the water the greater risk there would be of a random signal that would launch the bombs.”)

On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place.

So anyway…

Sudden Squall

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With all the heavy winter rain we have been getting lately, this painting struck me as being relative.

Official caption: “USS De Haven (DD-727) provides anti-aircraft and anti-submarine protection for the carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) while on Yankee Station, an operational staging area just off the coast of North Vietnam. The winter monsoon in that region is characterized by consistent heavy clouds and rainfall that make operations difficult.”

Painting, Oil on Canvas; by R. G. Smith; 1969; Framed Dimensions 53H X 65W. NHHC Accession #: 88-160-FI.

The second vessel named after 19th Century polar explorer LT Edwin Jess De Haven, the above Sumner-class destroyer was christened by his grandaughter at Bath Iron Works and commissioned on 31 March 1944. She was soon screening the fast carriers of TF38 striking Luzon in support of the invasion of Leyte by that November. Across her 49-year career, this second DeHaven received five battle stars for World War II service and in addition to her Navy Unit Commendation picked up a further six for Korean War service and decorations for 10 tours in off Vietnam between 1962 and 1971.

Transferred to the South Korean Navy in 1973, she was renamed ROKS Incheon (DD-98/918) (she was present at the landings there in 1950) and served under the flag of that country until 1993.

The USS DeHaven Sailors Association remembers both tin cans today and is very active on social media.

As for the painting, its artist has a number of haunting Vietnam-era works in the NHHC’s collection. 

Coming Home to Roost by R.G. Smith, A-4Cs over USS Shangri La

“Enterprise on Yankee Station” by R.G. Smith, Oil Painting, c. 1968. Accession: 88-160-EU Courtesy U.S. Navy Art Gallery, Naval History and Heritage Command

Shades of Gray

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Check out this great shot from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Fleet feed.

Taken on 5 February, it shows the Takanami-class destroyer JS Makinami (DD-112) steaming close by the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Charleston (LCS 18), in “a bilateral exercise in the South China Sea to enhance our tactical capabilities and interoperability between the JMSDF and the U.S. Navy.”

As scale modelers will be quick to tell you, for the past quarter century, the shade of grey has been attributed as Modern USN Haze Grey (FS 26270) while the Japanese shade is a much deeper, JMSDF 2705 Dark Gray N4.

Comparing the two, the 6,300-ton Makinami is a true escort, fitted with an OTO Breda 5″/54 mount up front, a 32 cell VLS behind it filled with a mix of 32 VLA ASROC and Sea Sparrows, twin 20mm CIWS mounts front and back, eight Type 90 anti-ship missile cans amidship, six ASW torpedo tubes, and room for an SH-60 type helicopter. This makes her much better prepared for air defense, ASW, and NGFS than her partner. 

Meanwhile, the 3,100-ton Charleston carries a 57mm MK110 Bofors up front, an 11-cell SeaRAM mount over the stern, and, gratefully, is fitted with a full eight-pack of new Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles, giving the four-year-old LCS arguably better over-the-horizon anti-ship capabilities than the 19-year-old Japanese destroyer, especially if she has a combined MH-60S Sea Hawk/MQ-8C Fire Scout det embarked to deliver OTH airborne sensor details as the MQ-8C is equipped with the ZPY-8 search radar and a Brite Star II electro-optical/infrared sensor.

Plus the Japanese still wear blueberries. 

Modular Mine Laying Cube

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The Baltic probably has more sea mines along its bottom than any other body of water in the world. It is estimated that there are 80,000 live mines left over from the two World Wars in the ancient sea, a legacy that has kept NATO MCM flotillas regularly employed every summer.

But of course, going beyond minesweeping and hunting, the narrow seas, craggy coastline, and shallow depths of the Baltic make it ideal for the employment of such weapons and most of the countries that border it or operate upon its waves have some sort of plan for their own use of mines in a future conflict.

With that, it should come as no surprise that this little piece of bolt-on kit is being advertised and developed by a Baltic consortium based in Denmark and Finland, to both store and very rapidly deploy (when needed) modern sea mines.

Via Danish SH Defence, in cooperation with the Finnish DA-Group and FORCIT Defence companies:

SH Defence, Denmark; DA-Group and FORCIT DefenceOY AB, both located in Finland, have signed a multiparty Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to corporate and jointly explore the potential in the development of launching, laying, and storing sea mines designed by and manufactured by DA-Group and FORCIT, such as but not limited to the BLOCKER and TURSO sea mines, into the Containerized Multi-Mission Module system called The Cube™ System.

The cooperation will be based on SH Defence’s modular mission concept, The Cube™ System with associated handling equipment, and will include design and conception; supported with DA-Group patented modular SUMICO naval minelaying concept. 

Lars Gullaksen, Area Sales Director, SH Defence, said: “The Cube™ System from SH Defence is rapidly becoming the standard within modularization of maritime mission capabilities for naval, coastguard, and SAR vessels around the world, especially within NATO and around the Baltic Sea. Hence our motto The Cube – changing the game at sea.

Modern naval vessels must be capable of carrying out different missions and roles both in peacetime and wartime. Therefore, the easy and rapid exchange of capabilities is an increasing requirement for new buildings and the retrofit of naval vessels.” 

He continued: “The Cube™ System, currently available with more than 300 different payloads from approximately 160 vendors, offers a flexible and cost-efficient solution that enables reconfiguration of a vessel in only a few hours. 

This partnership with DA-Group and FORCIT allows us to jointly develop the multi-mission capabilities and expand the portfolio of payloads to include the most modern sea mines for the adaptability of both Scandinavian, NATO, and other foreign navies.” 

Kristian Tornivaara, Chief Business Officer at DA-Group Defence and Aerospace, said: “We are excited to start the collaboration with SH Defence. They are now taking real action and provide world navies the future-proof modular solution for naval minelaying. We have been working with sea mines and mission modularity for years and we have seen the need for such a system. This is also the reason for SUMICO patent, which now can be utilized in Cube System to enhance navies’ operational capabilities and flexibility.”

Hannu Hytti, Executive Vice President, Forcit Defence, said: “Forcit Defence has been developing and manufacturing modern naval mines since 1988. Recent developments in the security environment have emphasized the importance of sea denial and naval mine capabilities. With this partnership with SH Defence and DA Group we are able to provide world class full spectrum naval capabilities for maritime defence.

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