Author Archives: laststandonzombieisland

Lucky Legs and her big fish, 75 Years ago

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North American B-25 Mitchell #43-3981 “Lucky Legs” of the 47th Bombardment Squadron, 41st Bombardment Group, 7th Air Force, prepares to take off from Ryuku Retto, Okinawa for a mission against Sasebo Harbor on Kyushu in the Japanese Home Islands, 28 July 1945. Lucky is carrying a Mark 13/44 GT-1 (glide torpedo), a weapon the particular plane used for the first time, in this mission.

[Source: USAF Photo via Mark Allen Collection]

While primarily a Navy-dropped weapon, the Mark 13 was used by the Army in a few instances, such as the 41st BG’s B-25s, and by B-26 Marauder units at Midway and in the Aleutian Islands, the Southwest Pacific, North Africa, and the Mediterranean, with limited success.

Mark 13 Torpedo on display in the World War II Gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Notably, the fish does not have her “pickle barrel” wooden drop nose attached. (U.S. Air Force photo)

With that being said, the Mark 13 was probably the most common air-dropped anti-ship torpedo in history, with more than 17,000 made, and had the distinction of being the U.S. Navy’s final such weapon used in combat, by Skyraiders from USS Princeton against the Hwachon Dam in Korea. Notably, late-war PT-boats also used the weapon as it was lighter than their older Mark 8s. Some 13-feet long and 22.4-inches in diameter (wider than a tube-launched torp) the Mark 13 weighed about 2,200-pounds, including 600 of Torpex high explosives. Once dropped, it could make 33.5 knots to 6,300 yards.

From “U.S. Naval Weapons” by Norman Friedman via Navweaps:

“A review of war experience showed a total of 1,287 attacks [this count only includes those launched by carrier-borne aircraft, other US Navy aircraft launched another 150 torpedoes – TD], of which 40 percent (514) resulted in hits, including 50 percent hits on battleships and carriers (322 attacks, including Midway), 31 percent on destroyers (179 attacks), and 41 percent (out of 445 attacks) on merchant ships.”

More info on the Mark 13, below:

For the record, the 47th BS inactivated 27 January 1946 at Manila and has remained that way while the parent 41st BG endured into the Cold War as an F-4 unit, the 41st TG, until it was inactivated in 1970 at Incirlik. Ironically, the F-4, a tactical fighter, could carry more ordinance than the B-25 of WWII fame.

Black Ghost of the Gulf Coast takes her final ride

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The 180-foot Balsam-class buoy tender USCGC Salvia (WAGL/WLB-400) gave 47 years to the Coast Guard, 28 to the Navy, and will continue to serve in a different purpose moving forward.

Laid down at Duluth, Minnesota’s Zenith Dredge on 24 June 1943 as a member of the Iris subclass, she commissioned 19 February 1944 at a cost of $923,995. She would spend the rest of WWII assigned to the 5th Coast Guard District, stationed at Portsmouth, Virginia, and used for general ATON duty under Navy orders.

USCGC Salvia, 1948.

From 1 November 1945 until her decommissioning in 1991, USCGC Salvia was homeported in Mobile, where the ship did a lot of buoy relocation for constantly-working Corps of Engineer dredges working from Pensacola to Gulfport. The vessel was known as “The Black Ghost of the Gulf Coast” or, unofficially and for logical reasons, “The Spit.”

Salvia seen sometime after the “racing stripe” became standard in 1967 and her decommissioning in 1991

Besides over four decades of thankless ATON work, the buoy tender conducted law enforcement duties as needed and was called to assist in SAR on several notable occasions in waters that are heavily traveled by fishing and commercial vessels.

As detailed by the Coast Guard Historian’s office:

From 20-23 April 1951, Salvia assisted following the collision between the tankers Esso Suez and Esso Greensboro.

From 5­9 April 1953, Salvia searched for the wreck of National Flight 47 off Mobile Point.

From 30 October-2 November 1958, Salvia assisted USS Instill (AM-252).

From 17-18 November 1959, the cutter searched for National Flight 967, famously lost between Tampa and New Orleans.

In late August 1965, Salvia provided men and equipment to fight a fire on the Liberian MV Arctic Reefer off Choctaw Point, Mobile.

From 7-8 December 1968, Salvia searched for survivors from the lost USCGC White Alder, saving three men.

Retired in 1991, Salvia was given to the Navy to be used as an unnamed salvage hulk in Little Creek.

Finally, the gutted and worn vessel was put up for auction by the GSA last year with a final realized price of $18,100. Ownership eventually passed to N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries’ Artificial Reef Program

Now, renamed “Brian Davis” she was sunk last week off the coast of North Carolina as a part of an artificial reef (Memorial project AR-368) in about 70 feet of water approximately 20 miles due east of Wilmington. The three-year project was funded by donations from the diving community as well as Coastal Recreational Fishing License funds.

The Gun Writing World is Diminished

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Jeff Quinn– the gun writer not the current and much younger Notre Dame coach of the same name– has reportedly passed. Every year, I enjoyed bumping into Jeff at SHOT Show and NRA Show. He was most certainly a character and his Gunblast site was unique in the firearms industry.

Jeff, with his brothers Boge and Gregg behind the camera, teamed up in January 2000 to become one of the very first in the online firearms review game back when a 56K dial-up connection was still considered fast in many parts of the country. Keep in mind, they predated Vimeo and YouTube which were founded a half-decade later!

The full-time firearms writer game only has about 100 active players. After all, when compared to other enterprises it is a smallish industry, despite what the left screams. Losing Mr. Quinn feels like we are diminished by far more than just one voice.

So long, Jeff.

I SPY

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Raytheon announced last week that it has delivered the first AN/SPY-6(V)1 radar array to Huntington Ingalls for installation on the Navy’s future guided-missile destroyer USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), the first of the Flight III Arleigh Burkes. [As a side, I met Jack in Hattiesburg several years ago, and he was an absolute gentleman.]

“SPY-6 will change how the Navy conducts surface fleet operations,” said Capt. Jason Hall, program manager for Above-Water Sensors for the US Navy’s Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems in a press release.

The first 14-foot-by-14-foot modular array was transported from Raytheon’s Radar Development Facility in Andover, Mass., to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., company officials said. In November 2019, Raytheon received a $97.3 million contract modification for integration and maintenance of the AN/SPY-6(V) air and missile defense radar system on Navy vessels.

Guttersnipe sights are so 2020…

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Announced last week, the new P938 SIG Anti-Snag model dehorns the squared edges from the pistol for what the New Hampshire-based company bills as a seamless draw. This process includes ditching the standard sight posts for a flush-mounted FT Bullseye fiber-tritium night sight mounted directly into the slide.

The new Sig Sauer P938 SAS

Of course, the FT Bullseye is similar to the old guttersnipe sights of the 1970s ASP..but who I am to point that out, right?

Anyway, more on the Sig Sauer P938 SAS in my column at Guns.com

Kanyon: Not just a torpedo

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Possibly one of the scariest weapons ever devised, the Russian 2m39 Poseidon (aka Status-6) NATO: Kanyon, a 65-foot long nuclear-powered intercontinental torpedo with an estimated warhead as large as 100 mega-tons, may or may not ever become operational. Submarine wonk HI Sutton over at Covert Shores has been covering this device for the past couple of years.

To put the strategy behind such a weapon into perspective, Dr. Mark B. Schneider, a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy, just penned an essay at Real Clear Defense that paints a grim picture.

“Poseidon is a strategic rather than a tactical nuclear weapon. Calling it a ‘torpedo’ is also a mischaracterization,” says Schneider, pointing out that it is a semi-autonomous nuclear-powered UUV drone.

The crux:

The role of Poseidon appears to be to terrorize the U.S. and NATO into not responding to the initial Russian low-yield nuclear attack after the seizure of bordering NATO territory. Under its “escalate to de-escalate” or “escalate to win” nuclear doctrine, Russia is going to use nuclear weapons first. Deterrence and defense are necessary. A new generation of weapons is probably necessary to destroy the Poseidon. At a minimum, deterring genocidal nuclear attacks against our major port cities is a critical equity. There is no nice way of deterring genocide.

More here

It would suck to be a fish off Taiwan this time of year

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The Republic of China Army, formerly the KMT Army, popularly known outside of the ROC as the Taiwanese Army, is no slouch military-wise, having some 130,000 active troops and over a million reservists. The idea is to be too hard of a nut to crack without the enemy either A) having the will to turn the place into glass, which negates the prospect of reuniting a “renegade province” with the homeland, or B) lose an equivalent amount of troops to do it conventionally.

Bolstered by 900 M60 and M48 tanks, which have been much upgraded over the years, a small force of AH-64 Apaches and 1,700 artillery pieces of 105mm and up, their kit is kinda dated but is still a whole lot to chew on if you have to take the beaches there– and remember, an invasion of an island always comes down to pushing in from the surf line unless you want to pull Crete 1941 all over again.

Taiwan M60A3TTS tanks on a beach defense drill

Thus:

Ack Ack in the sky

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“Ack Ack in the sky: When Japanese bombers attempted to sneak in on Cape Gloucester under cover of darkness, Marine units there sent up this concentration of ack-ack tracer fire. It makes very pretty pattern picture but the Japanese didn’t appreciate it and they abandoned the attack.”

USMC Photo 127-GR-87 by Sgt. George Sylvester

Colt’s most underappreciated serpent

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When it comes to 20th Century Colt revolvers, collectors have gone hot and heavy on magnum “snake guns” like the Python, Anaconda, and King Cobra, while the aesthetically-similar Diamondback often gets overlooked, making it more of a sleeper. Worse, it falls further through the cracks to a degree as it doesn’t have the noir appeal of Sam Spade-era guns like the Police Positive and Detective.

With that being said, the Diamondback was in production across three decades in both .22 and .38 format, and in 2.5-, 4-, and 6-inch barrel formats, making them capable of scratching a lot of itches.

And they looked great…

More in my column at Guns.com. 

The briefly rebooted Walther Taschen Pistole

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Walther, originally located in Zella-Mehlis, Germany, was founded in 1886– back when Kaiser Willy was on the throne. After spending the first quarter-century of their existence crafting highly accurate schuetzen competition rifles, Fritz Walther returned to the company from an apprenticeship at DWM, home of the Luger pistol, and, seeing the industry was rapidly moving to produce then-novel semi-auto pistols, urged the older Walther to move in that direction as well.

This led to a flurry of new patents for small, blowback-action semi-autos handguns with fixed barrels and the steady production of little popguns from the Walther Model 1 in 1908 through the Model 9 in 1940. Thus:

Fast forward to the 1960s and Walther, after losing their Zella-Mehlis factory to the Soviets– who transported it to the East to make Walther PPs, err Makarov PMs– set up a new plant in West Germany. Their first German-made product after the move (as the PP/PPK and P-38 were being cranked out in France) was a throwback to Fritz’s little pocket pistols, or taschen pistole.

The Walther TP:

Only produced for about a decade, the Walther TP was “retro” even when it was introduced in the 1960s.

More in my column at Guns.com. 

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