Although America’s longest war is over, the Taliban isn’t fully victorious in its now-liberated country. There are several groups still holding out against the resurgent regime. After all, it is a civil war there.
Ahmad Massoud, 32, the well-spoken leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, is the son of the famed Soviet Afgha War-era mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated in 2001 while heading of the Northern Alliance. A graduate of Kings College and the University of London, the younger Massoud last week published an op-ed in the WaPo pleading for help.
I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban. We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew this day might come.
Of course, although he is asking for arms and support from the West, the likelihood of it coming overtly is slim to none.
However, it should be noted that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is is funded almost exclusively by the American government, is running short reports highlighting his struggle.
At the same time, Amrullah Saleh, one of the old republic’s vice presidents and former Intelligence chief, is still in the country and, along with former Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi (one of the elder Massoud’s better commanders in the Northern Alliance against the Soviets and a former Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army), are in the Panjshir with Massoud The Younger, where they are trying to form a larger resistance movement in line with a government in exile concept.
At least some are coming to the call.
Massoud is being joined by “Hundreds of Tajiks from the southern town of Kulob” who “say they’re prepared to join anti-Taliban militias in Afghanistan. The Afghan fighters are based in the Panjshir Valley, a predominantly ethnic-Tajik region that has repelled Taliban incursions in the past.”
Other reports are not quite as glossy as the Taliban move in to put down the unruly valley, just 100 miles from Kabul.
Still, if Massoud and the gang can make it to the end of the fighting season, 2022 could be a big year for them.
Meanwhile, there is an Uzbek angle.
Another vice president and warlord-figure, the aging Abdul Rashid Dostum (who was marshal of the Afghan National Army and a senior officer of the Communist-era ANA) along with Atta Muhammad Nur, a well-known Tajik who served as a mujahideen resistance commander for the Jamiat-e Islami militia against the Soviets before joining the Northern Alliance back in the day, fled from their stronghold in Mazar-e-Sharif to Uzbekistan a couple of weeks ago, where they no doubt still have a myriad of contacts across the border. Whether or not they make inroads back into the country remains to be seen but, as they say, you can run the warlord out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the warlord.
The early flight River-class offshore patrol vessel HMS Severn (P282) was decommissioned in 2017 after a planned 15-year career with the Fishery Protection Squadron in the UK’s home waters, but the Admiralty recently decided to return her to service post-Brexit and she was recommissioned into the Royal Navy on 28 August 2021 (although she was working with still listed “In Reserve” for the past 14 months) to perform her old role as a fish cop/EEZ sovereignty patrol with the fisheries squadron (now termed the Overseas Patrol Squadron) as well as provide a school ship for navigation training.
Importantly, it is the first time that a British ship has been reactivated for the RN from mothballs since the Falklands.
HMS Severn departing Falmouth, 19th August 2021, on her way to London for recommissioning in her Western Approaches livery (RN photo)
Compare her modern new/old look to a vintage predecessor:
Canadian destroyer HMCS Restigouche (H00), circa 1944-1945, in Western Approaches scheme. Canadian Navy Heritage photo CT-284
The combination of blue-grey and green-grey on a background of white and light grey was first applied to destroyer HMS Broke in 1940 and was subsequently ‘worn’ by ships operating in the namesake approaches – extending about 1,000 miles from the UK into the Atlantic – to make it difficult for German U-boat commanders to spot them, especially in heavy seas.
HMS Severn is the first vessel to receive the paint job since World War 2 and while radar makes the use of maritime camouflage largely irrelevant, it is a tribute to sailors of the Battle of the Atlantic who operated in the same waters Severn regularly ploughs.
She sailed into the Thames for her ceremony, tied up next to the old cruiser HMS Belfast, a D-Day veteran with a similar paint job.
HMS Severn alongside HMS Belfast for her recommissioning ceremony
Of note, the scheme was applied in Falmouth Docks by the same team who gave later generation sisterships HMS Tamar and Spey their new/old North Atlantic “Dazzle” camo look in time for their deployment to the Indo-Pacific region later this month.
Wing Inflatables Inc., Arcata, California, is awarded a $31,921,100 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the purchase of up to a maximum 904 Enhanced – Combat Rubber Reconnaissance Craft. Work will be performed in Arcata, California, and is expected to be complete by August 2026. Fiscal 2019 and 2022 procurement (Marine Corps) contract funds in the amount of $3,126,894 will be obligated on the first delivery order immediately following contract award and funds will expire the end of the fiscal 2022 and 2023, respectively. This contract was competitively procured via the System for Award Management website, with three proposals received. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M67854-21-D-1801).
Wing’s five-chamber P4.7 series inflatable runs 15′ 5″-feet long, has a 6′ 5″-foot beam, offers 38.32ft² of usable deck space on a 12×3-foot deck. Empty weight is 180-pounds not counting the 274-pound rollup hard deck insert and can accommodate a 65hp outboard and 10 passengers/2,768-pounds of payload. The whole thing folds up into a 27″x29″x56″ package, or roughly the size of a curbside garbage can.
Each of the 7 Marine Expeditionary Units (a battalion landing team with a bunch of stuff bolted onto it and a harrier/helicopter airwing for support) has a bunch of different ways to get to the beach. These include of course the choppers, navy landing craft (LCU, LCAC, etc), and the Marines own amtrac swimming APCs. However, each one of these MAUs also has 18 of these little rubber zodiac-style boats, designated Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC, or “Crick”).
PACIFIC OCEAN (Aug. 30, 2013) Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (13th MEU) depart from the stern gate of the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) in a combat rubber raiding craft (CRRC). Boxer is underway as part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, comprised of Boxer, the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18), the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49), and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brian P. Biller/Released)
A little larger than a sectional couch and powered by an outboard (or two) these can motor out from a task force still some 20 miles out at sea and approach an enemy-held beach, port, or vessel with very little footprint. They are hard to spot by eyeball, radar, or other means, especially in a light chop state. It’s a wet ride for the Marines aboard and anyone who has ever ridden one through the surf doesn’t look forward to doing it a second time– especially on a contested beach.
For landings, a company of the battalion landing team is designated the “Boat Company” and they spend a couple weeks figuring these boats out. This includes sending as many as 36 of its force before deployment through a four-week coxswains school where they learn basic sea-nav, and what not to do with these temperamental crafts. Meanwhile, other members of the Boat Coy head off to scout swimmer school where they learn the finer points of exiting a rubber raft on fins and doing lite frogman shit.
In the end, Cricks allow a 144-man company to be landed on a strip of beach or empty pier in three, six-boat waves. The former was done under OOTW conditions by Marines in Somalia in 1992.
Air transportable, Cricks can be slid out the rear ramp of MV-22s or parachuted from cargo planes such as the C-130 (and Navy C-2 CODs), can be launched from surface vessels such ranging from Amphibious assault ships (shown) or smaller craft like patrol boats, LCS and frigates. They can also be (and are) carried up from submerged submarines by divers for inflation on the surface.
The thing is, if you do the basic math on 7 MEU boat companies x 18 E-CRRCs, you get just 126 boats. Even if you double that amount to cover training and attrition, then add some for SEAL ops from submarines and for the use of Force Recon/Raider units, you still have like ~500 extra small boats.
That’s an interesting thing to ponder.
I’d like to mention that a few months back, I theorized that the Marines might use Cricks to displace human assets from anti-ship missile batteries after they have fired their missiles from isolated atolls before the Chinese show up in force. Fire off their NSSMs, drop some WP grenades on their trucks, hop in the inflatables, and meet with a passing SSN or EPF just past the 15-fathom curve. May be easier to accomplish and have less of a footprint than an MV-22 pickup.
As I have mentioned a few times before, I really like FN’s 509 and 503 series pistols and have spent some extensive periods running them on T&Es over the past couple of years as part of my “day job.” I even got to go behind the scenes at FN’s factory in Columbia, SC back in 2019 to see how they are born.
I knew about the FN 502 back in December, when I saw the PTO trademark for the name filed. However, what I did not fully know this week, is that it is a hammer-fired .22LR!
A “tactical” gun built on the lessons learned and profile of the 509 (it uses the same holsters), the 502 includes an optics-ready slide and a threaded barrel, as well as a 15-round magazine option.
Yes, I have one inbound for testing! You know this…
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on Sept. 1 that U.S. Army Pvt. Stephen C. Mason, 21, of Jersey City, New Jersey, killed during World War II, has been recently identified.
Mason, assigned to Headquarters Co., 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd (“All American”) Airborne Division, was reported missing in action during the famed “Bridge too far” that was Operation Market Garden after his patrol failed to return from a mission “into a heavily-fortified enemy position and by aggressive action gained specific information of the enemy disposition and strength” near Beek, Netherlands on 3 November 1944. His body was unable to be recovered. Mason posthumously received the Silver Star for his actions.
Declared “non-recoverable” in January 1951, PVT Mason was later memorialized on the “Walls of the Missing” at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten.
Fast forward to 2017, and DPAA set to analyze a set of remains known as “X-3323 Neuville,” which had been recovered near Beek in 1946 and interred in the UK. This July, after extensive efforts, it was determined that X-3323 Neuville was Mason.
He will be buried in North Arlington, New Jersey, and a rosette placed next to his name at Margraten.
Warship Wednesday, Sept. 1st, 2021: Fortunate Son, the Army Flat Top Edition
Photo by SP4 Ingimar DeRidder, 69th Sig Bn, via U.S. Army CMH files.
Here we see USNS Corpus Christi Bay (T-ARVN-1), a 14,000-ton floating aircraft maintenance depot, anchored in Cam Ranh Bay, 12 November 66. Note at least three Army UH-1 Hueys on her deck. The Veteran WWII-era Curtiss-class seaplane tender, disarmed and manned by civilian mariners, was the closest thing the Army had to an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War.
The two Curtiss-class tenders, which include class leader USS Curtiss (AV-4) and her sistership USS Albemarle (AV-5) — the latter would become the above-shown Army flattop– were the first purpose-built seaplane tenders constructed for the Navy, with the previous vessels being repurposed minesweepers and destroyers. Ordered in 1938, they were laid down side-by-side at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey, and were commissioned in November and December 1940.
USS ALBEMARLE (AV-5) (Foreground) and sistership USS CURTISS (AV-4), fitting out at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. CURTISS departed Philadelphia on 2 January 1941 for shakedown, ALBEMARLE on 28 January. Both ships had been commissioned there in November/December 1940. USS TRIPPE (DD-403) and a sistership are at right; OLYMPIA (IX-40) is visible in the reserve basin at the top, along with an EAGLE boat. Note NEW JERSEY (BB-62) is under construction in the slipway at the far left; two motor torpedo boats are visible just to the left of ALBEMARLE’s bow. NH 96539
USS ALBEMARLE (AV-5) passing south yard, Sun shipyard, Chester, PA., c 1941. NH 57783
The newly-commissioned USS ALBEMARLE (AV-5) on her shakedown cruise, anchored at Havana Harbor, Cuba, on 22 February 1941, “dressed” for Washington’s birthday. Note Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes on the flight deck, aft. NH 96538
Some 527 feet long (keep in mind destroyers of the age were in the 300-foot range), they had a very wide 69-foot beam and drew over three fathoms under their hull when fully loaded. Packed with four high-pressure boilers that pushed a pair of geared turbines, they could make a respectable 19.7 knots, which was faster than most auxiliaries of the era, and steam for 12,000 miles at 12 knots– enough to halfway around the globe. Equipped with CXAM-1 radar from the time they joined the fleet, at a time when many of the world’s best cruisers and battleships didn’t have such luxury gear, they were well-armed with four 5″/38 singles and an array of Bofors and Oerlikons.
One of Albemarle’s four 5″/38 DP mounts notes the 40mm Bofors tub in the distance. By the end of WWII, they would carry 20 40mm and 12 20mm guns for self-defense against enemy aircraft, more than most destroyers. Not bad for a “tender”
But of course, their main purpose was to support a couple squadrons of patrol bombers, such as PBY Catalina or PBM Mariner flying boats, with a large seaplane deck over the stern and extensive maintenance shops in the superstructure forward.
A U.S. Navy Martin PBM-1 Mariner of Patrol Squadron 55 (VP-55) is hoisted on board the seaplane tender USS Albemarle (AV-5, in 1941. Note the Neutrality Patrol paint scheme on the aircraft and the sailors manning the handling lines. U.S. Navy National Naval Aviation Museum photo NNAM.1986.014.022
The third (and last) such U.S. Navy ship named Albemarle— after the sound in North Carolina, a traditional naming structure for seaplane tenders– she commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 20 December 1940, CDR Henry Maston Mullinnix in command.
Graduating first in the USNA Class of 1916, Mullinnix was a destroyerman until he switched to Naval Aviation in the 1920s. Leaving Albemarle in early 1941 to be the skipper of Patrol Wing Seven, he would go on to command the carrier Saratoga in the Pacific before making RADM. He was killed aboard USS Liscombe Bay (CVE-56) as Task Force Commander off Makin Island on 24 November 1943 when the escort carrier was sent to the bottom by Japanese submarine I-175.
With the Americans and British becoming increasingly cooperative despite U.S. neutrality, Albemarle was dispatched soon after her shakedown to patrol Greenland and the western Atlantic, arriving on 18 May 1941 with the PBYs of patrol squadron VP-52 at Argentia, Newfoundland. It should be noted that, just two days later, the Royal Navy was bird-dogging the German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen across the North Atlantic. Soon, VP-71, VP-72, and VP-73 would join the tender.
Little Placentia Harbor, Argentia, Newfoundland. USS Albemarle (AV-5), with an AVD alongside, in the harbor, circa 1941. Note PBY Catalinas in the foreground. NARA 80-G-7448
Greenland Expedition by USS Albemarle (AV 5) May-September 1941. East Coast of Greenland with PBY Catalina making observations, May 25, 1941. The PBYs performed long reconnaissance missions to provide data for convoy protection. Caption: Greenland – A Mysterious Land of Mountain and Ice. Majestic fjords indent the coast, serrated by rocky buttes, some of which are precipitous cliffs attaining elevations of two to three thousand feet. 80-CF-73186-6 Box 126.
Her crew earned the American Defense Service Medal for the ship’s peacetime actions in the Atlantic, 23 Jun 41 – 22 Jul 41, 15 Aug 41 – 1 Nov 41.
She was one of the unsung Brotherhood of the F.B.I.“The Forgotten Bastards of Iceland” and survived a strong (hurricane-force) storm there in January 1942.
WAR!
After a refit on the East Coast, she would spend most of the rest of 1942 and the first half of 1943 running around much warmer climes, delivering aeronautical material and men to naval air bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific coast of South America, as well as in the northern South Atlantic.
OS2U Kingfishers aboard USS Albemarle AV-5, 14 May 1942
Her relatively fast speed enabled her to keep ahead of U-boats, and she, ironically, would carry back captured German submariners from sunken boats– killed by patrol bombers– to POW camps in the U.S.
Crossing the Line Neptunus Rex Party onboard USS Albemarle (AV 5). September 28, 1942. NARA 80-G-22195, 80-G-221182, 80-G-22193
USS ALBEMARLE (AV-5) underway in the Atlantic, with a PBY Catalina on her seaplane deck, 30 December 1943. 80-G-450247
Her role as a high-speed aviation transport continued with convoys to North Africa in 1943, delivering 29 dive bombers on one such trip.
U.S. Navy seaplane tender USS Albemarle (AV-5)was underway in the Atlantic Ocean on 10 August 1944. She is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 5Ax. The photo was taken by a blimp of squadron ZP-11. 10 August 1944. Note her heavy armament for an aviation support ship. 80-G-244856
Same as above. Note the array of emergency brake-away rafts. She carried a 1,000+ man complement and often carried 200 or more transients. 80-G-453347
Post War Mushroom Collecting
In May 1945, just after VE-Day, she was detailed to begin carrying flying boat squadrons from the Atlantic Theatre to the U.S. for transfer to the Pacific Theatre, which was still active. Likewise, our broadly traveled seaplane tender was planned to receive extra AAA mounts and gear in preparation for her own transfer Westward to take part in the final push to Tokyo. Her sistership, Curtiss, had a much more active war in the Pacific, being in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and going on to earn seven battlestars supporting island-hopping operations.
However, VJ-Day halted things, and when Albemarle finally arrived at Pearl Harbor in November 1945, it was to join the “Magic Carpet” fleet returning American veterans home from the Pacific. This would include carrying the entire 658th Tank Destroyer/Amphibian Tractor Battalion back from the Philippines, landing them at San Francisco on 13 January 1946.
She went on to support Operation Crossroads Atomic tests, moored in Kwajalein lagoon during the Able and Baker drops at Bikini Atoll, and otherwise took part in staging for and follow-up from those mushrooms from May to August.
After a brief East Coast stint, she was back in the Pacific with Joint Task Force Switchman, arriving at Eniwetok in March 1948 to serve as a floating lab ship for the triple nuclear tests during Operation Sandstone– “X-Ray” with an experimental 37 kt A-bomb made from a 2:1 mix of oralloy and plutonium. (15 April 1948), the 49 kt oralloy “Yoke” (1 May 1948) and 18 kt oralloy “Zebra” (15 May 1948) bombs.
Swapped back to the East Coast after the conclusion of the tests, she was attached to the New York Group, Atlantic Reserve Fleet, decommissioned on 14 August 1950 and berthed at Brooklyn, where she rested for six years. Meanwhile, sistership Curtiss, who had operated helicopters in Korea, was decommissioned on 24 September 1957 and would only leave mothballs again in 1972 when she was scrapped.
Seamaster
Albemarle was recommissioned at Philadelphia on 21 October 1957 after a 20-month conversion to be able to operate the planned Martin P6M Seamaster jet-equipped flying boats. Intended to be a nuclear deterrent, the Seamaster program was one of the Navy’s top priorities.
Martin P6M Seamaster. Just 12 of these strategic bombers in the guise of high-speed mine-laying flying boats were made. They could carry a 70-kt B28 nuke to a combat radius of 700 miles.
However, as Seamaster never reached the fleet, Albemarle ended up spending the next three years quietly tending more traditional Martin P5M Marlin flying boats off and on while participating in operations with the Atlantic Fleet. As Seamaster was canceled– it turned out the Polaris FBM submarines were a better idea– she was placed out of commission, in reserve, on 21 October 1960 before being laid up with the James River Fleet. Transferred to MARAD, Albemarle was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 September 1962 and likely would have been scrapped.
However, her special services were soon needed by someone else.
Vietnam War – Project Flat Top – USNS Corpus Christi Bay
On 7 August 1964, MARAD transferred ex-Albemarle back to the Nav,y and six months later, er she was transferred to the Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service (which became today’s MSC in 1970), entered the NVR as USNS Corpus Christi Bay (T-ARVH-1). She was sent to the Charleston Naval Shipyard for an $11 million conversion to become a maintenance depot at sea for Army helicopters in Vietnam.
The idea was that, instead of shipping damaged helicopters back to the U.S. for refit, Corpus Christi Bay could, with her 32 on-board repair and fabrication shops, blueprints for every model helicopter in service, and cargo of 20,000 spare parts, rework them. Meanwhile, her sister Curtiss, which had been laid up since 1957 and had been stricken in 1963, was robbed of everything useful to keep Albemarle/Corpus Christi Bay in shape.
USNS Corpus Christi Bay (T-ARVH-1) In port, probably at the Charleston Naval Shipyard, South Carolina, in 1966. Photographed by Captain Vitaly V. Uzoff, U.S. Army. This ship was originally the USS Albemarle (AV-5). Official U.S. Army Photograph from the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Military Sealift Command collection. Catalog #: NH 99782
Delivered for sea trials in December 1965, on 11 January 1966, she was placed into service.
Dubbed an Aircraft Repair Ship and helicopter as part of “Project Flat-Top,” Corpus Christi Bay lost her seaplane ramp and had her superstructure reconstructed to include a 50×150 ft. landing pad to accommodate just about any of the Army’s choppers. Damaged helos could be dropped via sling loads from CH-47s or CH-5s or barged out to the ship and lifted aboard by a pair of 20-ton cranes. All her remaining WWII weapons were removed. She picked up the extensive air conditioning, a cobbler shop, a barbershop shop, modern dining facilities, a dental clinic and medical center staffed by Army flight surgeons, and other amenities that the Navy’s flying boat aviators of 1940 could have only dreamed of.
The MSTS crew would be just 130~ civilian mariners and 308 green-uniformed helicopter techs of the Army’s specially-formed 1st Transportation Corps Battalion (Seaborne), which she picked up at Corpus Christi, Texas on 22 January.
As a lesson learned from the sinking of the former Bogue-class escort carrier-turned-transport USNS Card (T-AKV-40) in 1964 by Viet Cong sappers, the MSTS made assorted security changes to vessels operating for extended periods in Vietnamese ports. This included helmets and flak vests for topside personnel, sandbags around the bridge, grenade screens secured on portholes, extra medkits, firefighting equipment kept at the ready, bilge and ballast pumps warmed up, and towing wires ready for a tow without assistance from the ship’s crew. In addition to this, her Army techs maintained an extensive small arms locker, including several machine guns to replace damaged ones on gunships.
She had two Hueys assigned to her full-time for liaison work, Flattop 086 (68-16086) and Flattop 045 (69-15045).
Corpus Christi Bay operated out of Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, as a Floating Aircraft Maintenance Facility, or FAMF, arriving on 2 April 1966, and would remain overseas until 19 December 1972, spending almost seven years overseas, rotating crews and Army maintainers out regularly.
USNS Corpus Christi Bay at dock during the Vietnam War era, TAMUCC collection
As a seaborne asset of the United States Army Material Command, she was designated a floating Helicopter Repair Depot. Ostensibly manned by civilian merchant mariners of the MSTS, she was still owned by the Navy but, for all intents and purposes, was an Army ship.
Army Veteran Peter Berlin remembers her fondly and in detail:
The Floating Aircraft Maintenance Facility was designed for use in contingency operations, initially for backup direct support and general support and provided a limited depot capability for the repair of aircraft components. It was equipped to manufacture small machine parts and also to repair items requiring extensive test equipment operating in a sterile environment such as avionics, instruments, carburetors, fuel controls, and hydraulic pumps. The mobility offered by the ship also contributed to the effectiveness of aircraft support since it could move from one deep water port to another as the density of aircraft units shifted with changing tactical situations. The guys aboard this FAMF could fix anything..
Ultimately, it was determined by MSC to be “in excess of current and future requirements.” Corpus Christi Bay was taken out of service in 1973 and berthed in ready reserve status at Corpus Christi, Texas.
Corpus Christi Bay served six tours of duty in the Republic of Vietnam and earned four Meritorious Unit Commendations. Determined by MSC to be “in excess of current and future requirements,” she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 31 December 1974, just two weeks after she returned to Corpus Christi from overseas. On 17 July 1975, she was sold to Brownsville Steel and Salvage, Inc. for the princely sum of $387,777 and subsequently scrapped.
Epilogue
The Army is a good caretaker of the vessel’s relics, with a scale model, the ship’s bell, and other artifacts on honored display at the Corpus Christi Army Depot in Texas, an important cradle of Army aviation maintenance. Former members of the ship’s crew meet at CCAD from time to time.
The USS Albemarle bell stands at the entrance of the CCAD Head,q quarter, along with other relics from her day as USNS Corpus Christi Bay.
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the IN, RO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.
I thought this shot was interesting, as it shows something I personally have never seen before: the below-deck stowage of rounds aboard USS Charleston (LCS 18) for the ship’s No. 1 mount, its Bofors Mark 3/BAE Mk 110 57 mm gun. Capable of a whopping 220 rounds per minute until its 120 round automatic loader drum is empty, GMs would likely then have to refill said drum from this magazine.
PHILIPPINE SEA (Aug. 20, 2021) Mineman 2nd Class Hunter Auslander, left, from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Mineman 1st Class Danielle Epperson stow 57mm rounds aboard the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Charleston (LCS 18), Aug. 20, 2021. Charleston, part of Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 7, is on a rotational deployment, operating in the U.S. 7th fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with partners and serve as a ready-response force in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Adam Butler) 210820-N-WU807-1040
With a range of 9.1 nautical miles, the MK 110 gun is installed aboard both classes of LCS and the Coast Guard’s large National Security Cutters, taking the place of the 75mm OTO Melera gun in the fleet. It is also set to be used on the Constellation-class frigates and the USCG’s offshore patrol cutters.
Personally, I’d like to see all of the above carry a MK 45/62 5-incher, firing beautiful 70-pound shells, but that’s just me and SECNAV never returns my phone calls.
USS Delbert D. Black (DDG-119) conducted the first live-fire of her Mk. 45 5in 62 Mod 4 gun, Feb 2020. (U.S. Navy photo)
Smith & Wesson’s large N-frame revolvers are a favorite among handgun hunters, competitive shooters, and classic wheel gun enthusiasts.
With a basis in the old school circa 1908 Hand Ejector First Model “New Century” double-action revolver, the first handgun chambered in .44 S&W Special, this early S-frame morphed during World War I into the Model 1917, chambered in .45 ACP, and a series of similarly beefy descendants such as the Model 27 – the world’s first .357 Magnum – and, the subject of our tale, the hand-filling Model 29.
I recently got to handle these bad boys while I was in the Vault in Minnesota. There is a reason these have been in production for over 60 years.
The Japanese Type 38 (as in the 38th year of the Meiji period) rifle, was first adopted in 1906 by the Emperor’s troops after feedback from the recent wars with Qing-dynasty China and Imperial Russia. Almost 3 million of these simple bolt-action 6.5x50mm rifles would be made at three Japanese arsenals (Tokyo, Kokura, Nagoya) as well as one in Japanese-occupied Korea (Jinsen) and Manchuria (Mukden) until as late as 1944. While you would think that these all went into Japanese military hands, you would be incorrect as lots were exported abroad including 728,000 to Russia of all places during the Great War; 150,000 to the UK to arm British sailors in the same conflict; 200,000 to Republican China in 1917-18, and 24,000 to Estonia in the 1920s.
It would seem that at least some of those (probably non-firing) Arisakas are still soldiering on in Thailand as training rifles, as witnessed by these recent photos:
The above green-uniformed/bereted troops are members of the NST, or Military Student Training Supervisory Authority. The program, which runs for five years, is coordinated by local Territorial Defense Commands in the country and trains young men and women 17-25 with some 40 to 80 hours of field/classwork per year instead of joining the military proper for a period of active service (Thailand has conscription with anywhere from 6 months to two years spent in the colors). After completion of the NST period, members transition to a non-drilling reserve, and, while college students can substitute attending Ror Dor (ROTC) classes while in university for active servce, for those not headed to post-secondary schools the NST is popular.
Besides the Arisakas, the NST also uses lots of M1 Carbines, M1 Garands, and M60 GPMGs in their live fire and fieldwork, which is run by local cadres from active-duty units. Besides the Vietnam-era hardware, they also run locally-made ALICE gear, M1956-style bottle canteens, and the like.
USS KIDD (DD-661) at rest in her cradle in downtown Baton Rouge, LA, USA, where she now serves as a museum — August 2021 (Photo copyright Hunter Svetanics; used by permission)
Note her five 5″/38 singles, 14 Bofors, 12 Oerlikons, five-pack of 21-inch torpedo tubes, stern depth charge racks, and 6 K-gun depth charge projectors– the same armament layout she had in August 1945.
An early Fletcher-class destroyer named after RADM Isaac C. Kidd, who perished on the bridge of USS Arizona on December 7th, the “Pirate of the Pacific” earned 12 battlestars in WWII then continued her service in the Korean conflict and the Cold War. Her buccaneer moniker came from a giant figure of the famed privateer captain on her stack. Destroyer nose art, if you will.
80-G-202517: “USS Kidd (DD-661), with an elaborate figure of the famous pirate captain painted on the smokestack, the destroyer keeps a fighting name sailing the high seas.”
After languishing on red lead row for almost two decades, she was one of three Fletcher-class tin cans set aside by the Navy– but the only one left largely in her WWII configuration (i.e., not FRAM’d)– and has been a museum in Baton Rouge since 1982.
USS Kidd (DD-661) underway at the time she was recommissioned for Korean War service, circa March 1951. This image was received by the Naval Photographic Center in December 1959, but was taken much earlier. Note that the ship still carries World War II vintage radar antennas and is otherwise fitted as she was in mid-1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Photo #: NH 107198.
She is so well preserved that she served for the topside footage of the fictional USS Keeling in the recent Tom Hanks film, Greyhound, which is sadly trapped on AppleTV.
