Category Archives: asymmetric warfare

Warship Wednesday 25 February 2026: ‘Sorry, Your Bird’

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday 25 February 2026: ‘Sorry, Your Bird’

Via The Times History and Encyclopaedia of the War Vol XXI, London 1920 (p.127)

In the above depiction, we see, on the left, HM’s Armed Merchant Cruiser Alcantara (M.94), late of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co, fighting what appears to be a Norwegian-flagged steamer Rena but was actually the very well-armed German auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) SMS Greif, some 110 years ago this week.

It was a cutthroat affair, one of swirling action, six-inch guns, and, finally, torpedoes.

At the end of the day, both ships were at the bottom of the North Sea.

Meet Alcantara

Built at Harland & Wolff, Govan (Yard number 435G) for the RMSP Company’s Southampton-to-South America run, RMS Alcantara was a beautiful A-series ocean liner of some 570 feet in length with a displacement of 15,831 GRT. Carrying one large single funnel, two four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines drove her two outward screws while a low-pressure steam turbine drove the centerline shaft, enabling the liner to cruise at 18 knots all day.

RMS Alacantara, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. 1_125487

She had accommodation for 1,390 passengers (400 first class, 230 second class, and 760 third class passengers, as well as five holds and a refrigerated cargo space for frozen meat.

Launched 30 October 1913 and completed 28 May 1914, she was preceded in service by her sisters, the Belfast-built RMS Arlanza, Andes, and Almanzora.

Alcantara’s only pre-war commercial cruise was a maiden voyage in June 1914 on RMSP’s route from Southampton to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires.

Once the Great War kicked off in August 1914, she and several of her sisters were subsequently taken up from trade and quickly modified into armed merchant cruisers. They had lots of company as the Admiralty had over 60 commissioned AMCs employed on patrol– and later convoy protection– during the Great War.

In this, the now HMS Alacantara was fitted with eight BL 6″/40 Mark II naval guns repurposed from old battleships, two 6-pounders, and two 3-pounders. By 10 March 1915, she then joined the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, a catch-all outfit for AMCs that at one time had 33 such vessels on its list, tasked with enforcing the blockade along the Northern Patrol.

Her only wartime skipper was a regular, Capt. Thomas Erskine Wardle, RN, who came aboard on 23 March 1915. Shipping out on the training ship HMS Britannia at the ripe old age of 13 in 1890, Wardle had previously commanded the old battlewagon HMS Canopus in 1909, served as Naval Secretary to the Ordnance Board, and been the skipper of the armored cruiser HMS Crescent and then the small AMC HMS Calyx (formerly SS Calypso) in operations around St Kilda earlier in the war.

Wardle was a scrapper.

Her log books for her 11 months with the Northern Patrol detail she was a busy little searcher, challenging at least 57 ships encountered on the sea and boarding another 77 via small boat despite rough sea states, low temperatures, and howling winds common in the region. During that period, she spent no less than 215 days at sea.

Meet Greif

Meanwhile, the planned 432-foot, 4,962 GRT, steel-hulled ship Guben for the German-Australian Line (DADG) was still on the builder’s ways at Neptun Werft AG, Rostock, when the war began. Unfinished, she was subsequently converted for naval service at Kaiserliche Werft, Kiel in 1915 and commissioned as SMS Greif on 23 January 1916.

The only image I can find of Guben/Grief. Her external appearance was later altered by removing her distinctive second funnel, which was false anyway. She was disguised as the freighter Rena from Tønsberg with large Norwegian flags painted on her sides, plus “NORGE” (Norway)

Slow at just 13 knots on her two-boiler/3,000shp suite, she was armed with four 5.9-inch SK L/40s (two forward abeam, two staggered aft, taken from old battleships) and a single 4-inch SK L/40 hidden aft as well as two 50cm torpedo tubes, one on each side of the bow. and provision to carry as many as 300 mines. Outfitted with an oversized 317-man crew (10 officers, including two doctors; and 307 enlisted– 130 regular navy and 167 reservists), she carried extra manpower to equip prize vessels encountered while on patrol.

Speaking of which, two 2.3-inch landing guns were carried, broken down, for use in arming future raiders of opportunity, ideally in the Indian Ocean.

Her only wartime skipper was Fregattenkapitän Rudolf Tietze, aged 41, previously commander of the old coast defense battleship SMS Wörth, which had been reduced to an accommodations hulk in January 1916.

Inspected on commissioning by Großadmiral Prinz Heinrich von Preußen, Greif was detailed to raid the South Atlantic and work her way into the Indian Ocean. Packing enough coal and canned foodstuffs in her holds for an expected 35,000nm sortie, she also shipped aboard 600 6-inch shells, 200 4-inch shells, 12 torpedoes, an extensive small arms locker, and crates of demolition charges. While designed for mines, I am not positive she carried any.

If unable to return home, Greif’s crew was ordered to attempt to land and join colonial warlord Lettow-Vorbeck, holding out in the rump of German East Africa.

Greif set sail from Cuxhaven on 27 February 1916, following behind the submarine U-70, which would see her through the minefields of the Skagerrak.

Our subjects meet

Naval Intelligence advised Jellicoe that an armed German raider was steaming north from the Skagerrak. On this news, he ordered two light cruisers and four destroyers to sail from Rosyth to secure the English east coast against an advance by the expected German auxiliary cruiser. It was probably initially assumed that Greif would lay mines off one of the English naval bases, similar to what SMS Meteor had done at the time.

In addition, three light/scout cruisers, HMS Calliope, Comus, and Blanche, each accompanied by a destroyer, were sent from Scapa Flow to the Norwegian coast to block the northern route for the enemy. They would soon join the alerted Alcantara, low on coal and due to be relieved by her sister Andes. 

The AMCs Columbella and Patia were tasked with searching north of the Shetlands.

Post-war German reports note that Greif encountered two large British auxiliary cruisers working their searchlights and quietly sending short low-power Morse signals back and forth– surely Alcantara and Andes–while poking some 70 miles off Bergen in the pre-dawn of 29 February 1916, but, halting engines and engaging their smoke device, Greif managed to remain unseen.

At 0855 on the same morning, while some 230 miles east of the Faeroes, Alcantara, with Andes not far off, sighted the Norwegian ship Rena, alerted to the prospect that a German raider was trying to break out into the Atlantic. Alcantara fired two blank charges from her 3-pounder, ordered the ship to stop, and prepared a boarding party to check for contraband.

After much hemming and hawing and back-and-forth challenges, Alcantara and “Rena” closed to within 1,100 yards.

FKpt. Tietze ordered his guns to open up at 0940, and Greif’s initial salvo, as noted by Wardle, “put the tellmotor steering gear, engine room telegraph, and all telephones on the bridge out of action, besides killing and wounding men, and disabled Alcantara’s communications equipment.”

Wardle also noted that Greif, most ungentlemanly, dropped the Norwegian ensign and “fought under no flag.” German accounts later note that her Reichskriegsflagge war ensign had been mounted on a corroded line, which broke, then rose later.

The combat was swirling, with the larger and better-armed Alcantara, which had regained steering control, missing two of Greif’s torpedoes but unfortunately catching the third, while the British gunners raked the raider’s decks, hull, and superstructure.

The raider’s ready ammunition for her stern guns was hit, sparking a secondary explosion and blaze that soon spread to her oil tanks.

Greif’s torpedo officer, one Lt. von Bychelberg, remained on the raider’s burning bridge until that final fatal torpedo was fired at 2,800 meters.

By 1015, “Rena” (Greif) was aflame some 3,500 yards off Alcantara, which was listing. With the enemy fire ceased, Wardle ordered his own guns to stop while likewise passing the word to abandon his own stricken ship.

By 1120, Alcantara was under the waves, her survivors attempting to crowd into 15 lifeboats. As the engagement took place “North of 60,” the water temperature was a balmy 44 degrees F.

Meanwhile, her sister Andes, joined by the faster and more proper cruiser Comus and the destroyer Munster, rapidly arrived on the scene.

View of HMS Comus alongside Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard, seen from the south side of the River Tyne, c1915. Equipped with two 6-inch and eight 4-inch guns as well as four torpedo tubes, the 28-knot C-class light cruiser was more than a match for Greif, even if Greif was still in fighting condition when Comus came on the scene. (TWAM ref. DS.SWH/5/3/4/2/B187).

When a round cooked off on the sinking Greif, Comus followed by Andes, opened up on her from 8,000 yards, then, receiving nothing further, signaled, “Sorry, your bird.”

Greif drifted, ablaze, from 1139 to 1212, then sank, carrying 192 of her crew to the bottom, including five of ten officers, her skipper and XO among the lost. With just two of her boats not shot out and generally reserved for use by wounded men, Greif’s survivors grabbed whatever would float that was at hand– ammunition box lids, hatch covers, planking– and took to the water.

Her survivors were picked up by Comus. Post-war German naval tomes report that the remaining officers from Greif were treated well on Comus, fed in the officers’ mess, while the enlisted were “provided for as best as possible.”

Her most senior officer remaining was the navigator, KptLt (Reserve) Jungling, who later compiled a report to the German admiralty in 1919.

Those surviving officers were encamped in Edinburgh Castle, and there found out the extent of British Naval Intelligence’s reach.

Translated from Der Kreuzerkrieg in den ausländischen Gewässern: 

From the interrogation questions posed to the prisoners in Edinburgh Castle by naval officers who spoke fluent German, it emerged that the English knew that the Greif had been moored in the Kiel shipyard next to SMS Lützow and that the Greif crew had been provisioned there initially. Furthermore, it was known that the Greif had been inspected on February 24th by Prince Henry of Prussia and the station commander, Admiral Bachmann. It was also known that the Greif had been anchored in Gelting Bay on February 23rd and 24th.

Her movements out to sea were also apparently known, likely due to decoded signal traffic from U70.

“Alcantara sinks in battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Greif, February 29, 1916” By Willy Stoewer

Alcantara lost 72 with two ratings passing of wounds later in March. Her survivors were picked up by Munster and Comus.

HMS Comus rescuing survivors of the Greif, 29 February 1916. The sinking ship on the left is the Greif, which was finished off by the Comus after being crippled by gunfire from the armed merchant cruisers Andes and Alcantara. The ship shown indistinctly on the far right is probably the Andes since the Greif returned the fire of Alcantara, also managed to torpedo her, and she too sank in the action. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection

Of note, the Kaislerliche Marine once again tried to send a raider out, the Hilfskreuzer Leopard, disguised as the Norwegian Rena, in 1917. That ended with Leopard being sunk with all hands by the intercepting British cruisers HMS Achilles and Dundee.

Versenkung des deutschen Hilfskreuzers Leopard durch HMS Achilles und HMS Dundee, Art.IWMART15814

Not the first odd twist in this tale.

Epilogue

While FKpt. Tietze, Greif’s skipper, was killed by shrapnel during the sea fight, Capt. Wardle of Alacantra was decorated with a DSO for his gallantry in this fight, then, after a stint with the Naval Intelligence Division, was given command of the light cruiser HMS Lowestoft in the Med, followed by the famed battleship Dreadnought, and, post-war, the cruisers Danae and Calliope. In 1924, he was made Rear-Admiral Commanding, Royal Australian Navy Squadron, a position he held for two years before retiring after a 36-year career.

Appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath, he was made a vice admiral on the Retired List in 1931 and passed in 1944, aged 67.

Vice-Admiral Thomas Erskine Wardle, CB, DSO. Australian War Memorial photos. 

One of Alacantra’s most famed survivors was English stoker and firefighter Arthur John Priest, who had previously survived a collision at age 19 aboard RMS Asturias in 1908, then the collision between RMS Olympic and HMS Hawk in 1911, the sinking of the RMS Titanic (1912) and the loss by mine of HM Hospital Ship Britannic (November 1916), then would go on to be an albatross of sorts on his old ship, HMHS Asturias (torpedoed and beached March 20-21st, 1917), and the SS Donegal (sunk in April 1917). Priest, “The Unsinkable Stoker,” subsequently left sea work and spent the rest of his life on dry land in Southampton, passing in 1937 at the age of 49.

Shifting to more infamous survivors, Greif’s waterlogged ship’s doctor from the raider’s decimated wardroom, Assistant Naval Surgeon (Reserve) Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, went on to become a fairly well-known psychiatrist and neuroscientist. After spending just three months in a British POW camp, he was part of a prisoner exchange and spent the rest of the war assigned to the German naval mission to Constantinople, where he was discharged in 1919. He went on to discover Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and had a rather “complicated” working relationship with the SS during WWII that is beyond our scope.

In a curious twist of fate, the later Royal Mail Lines steamer RMS Alcantara, built by Harland & Wolff in 1926, was taken up in WWII and used as an AMC for three years. She also encountered a German raider at sea, the Hilfskreuzer Thor, with both ships landing hits on each other in the South Atlantic in 1940, then mutually breaking off the fight and limping away.

HM Armed Merchant Cruiser Alcantara (1926) showing battle damage while anchored off Brazil in August 1940 with the Kriegsmarine raider Thor

Sometimes history is like a carousel. You see the same horses over and over.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Gaming the Suwalki Gap

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Last December, WELT collaborated with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt-University of the German Armed Forces to conduct an all-day war game centered on an October 2026 Russian move into the Baltics without the bedrock promise of immediate U.S. military support.

Under the guise of a humanitarian emergency in isolated Kaliningrad (still occupied former German East Prussia), the 65-mile Suwałki Gap between the Lithuanian borders becomes a fortified Russian superhighway in an operation that could be interpreted as somewhat short of all-out Article 5-invoking war.

The outcome, gamed by a group of German high-ranking former defense bigwigs, is interesting, albeit a bit slanted.

More here. 

Dugout Doug Does Kimpo, Pines for Chaing

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Some 35 years ago this week.

A very well bundled General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 71, is shown inspecting troops of the 24th Infantry on his arrival at the recently recaptured Kimpo airfield, Republic of Korea, for a tour of the battlefront. 21 February 1951.

NARA FILE #: 306-PS-51-10432

At the time, the world’s most famous corncob pipe enjoyer was the SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in the Pacific, a post he had held since August 1945; Commander of the Far East Command (FECOM), a post he had held since January 1947; was Commander of the United Nations Command, Korea, a job he held since 7 July 1950; and was Governor of the Ryukyu Islands (USAR), an office he held since December 1950.

In early 1951, MacArthur was the senior soldier in the American army — “senior,” quipped one junior officer, “to everyone but God” — and the next president, Eisenhower, had served under “Mac” for seven years in the 1930s.

Old “Dugout Doug” was only about six weeks away from being replaced in all of those posts by Gen. Matthew Ridgway on orders of Harry Truman, capping MacArthur’s epic military career, one that unofficially started at his birth in 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, son of a regular Army captain.

The KMT’s second front(s) in the Korean War

It was as the unofficial Field Marshal of the Philippine Army in the mid-1930s that MacArthur became aware of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of KMT China. This acquaintance that became an active friendship once MacArthur was recalled to active service as  U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) after Pearl Harbor.

The two men, the exiled 63-year-old generalissimo and the most powerful man in the hemisphere, only met once, at Taipei, Formosa (Taiwan), on 31 July 1950– just weeks after the North Koreans marched across the 38th Parallel and kicked off the biggest war of the decade.

Chiang offered MacArthur 73,000 troops —three full infantry divisions and support troops —for use in Korea, as well as 20 of the C-47s he had on Taiwan to help move them.

The White House immediately torpedoed the idea, but MacArthur continued to ask Truman to allow his use of KMT troops in South Korea until just a few weeks before he was sacked. Ridgeway did not entertain such a fantasy.

Chiang saw it as just an extension of the Civil War, which he had been fighting against the Chinese Reds since 1927.

Keep in mind that at the time he met with MacArthur, Chiang’s forces were still actively fighting an insurgency war under General Ma Hushan in mainland China’s northwest and Yunnan region that would last until 1958. Further, his exiled 93rd Nationalist Division– with a few mysterious but well-connected American “civilian” advisers among them– was conducting a low-key border conflict under General Li Mi in Burma. 

Chiang was also effectively tying down Chicom General Chen Yi’s 3rd Field Army and Piao’s 4th Army along the Fukien coast across from Taiwan, where the Reds were “massing 5,000 vessels for the invasion by commandeering freighters, motorized junks, and sampans and refloating ships that had been sunk in the Yangtze River during the fight for the mainland. Further, they gathered and trained over 30,000 fishermen and other sailors to man the flotilla.”

And the KMT, having lost the bulk of their heavy weaponry on the evacuation from mainland China to Taiwan, had in late 1949-early 1950 (before Korea kicked off) been greatly bolstered by surplus American hardware– signed off on by MacArthur– to allow them to keep holding. Most of it was unwanted and had been warehoused in the Western Pacific, destined for scrap, so it made sense.

KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 75mm pack howitzers

KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 M5A1 tank

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

Going past fighting off a planned Chicom invasion of Taiwan, Chiang was actively planning to invade the mainland, prepping a 270,000-man force.

Check out these images from the Taiwan-based KMT’s October 1950 Pingtung landing exercises:

M3 half track, M5 Stuart, October 1950, Pingtung exercise, ROC Taiwan KMT

The deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in a series of “naval parades” in the Taiwan Straits during the Korean War effectively halted the KMT plans for a major, direct invasion from Taiwan, while likewise spoiling (but not releasing) the bulk of the 300,000 Chicom fighters assembled along the Fukien coast.

To help keep them there, the KMT’s irregular Anti-Communist Salvation Army — trained by the CIA as “civilian” employees of the Agency-run Western Enterprises — raided the Chinese coast from ROC-controlled islands near the mainland from 1951-54, encompassing most of the Korean War period. This low-key conflict carried on well into the 1960s.

Meanwhile, General Ma’s forces in Burma (at least those that didn’t want to stay behind in the Golden Triangle and become warlords) would only be repatriated to Taiwan with U.S. assistance in November 1953, once the Korean war had ceased, while unreconstructed KMT holdouts there would keep fighting the Reds as late as 1961.

ROC KMT Chinese troops, Burma, 93rd Division of the 6th Army, going to their “new” home in November 1953. 

French Marine Commandos Pour one out for Jaubert

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Born in Perpignan near the Mediterranean coast and the border with Spain in 1903, François Gabriel Pierre Jaubert entered the École navale in October 1922 and graduated as an ensign (2nd class) two years later, shipping out immediately for the cruiser Jules-Michelet, stationed overseas in the Far East naval division.

Soon, Jaubert was serving aboard the French river gunboat Doudart-de-Lagrée in the Yangtze River flotilla, then commanded a landing company from the cruiser Mulhouse ashore during China’s warlord period. Further service saw him as XO of the aviso Aldebaran, shipping along the extensive and often wild Indochinese littoral, a brown water warren filled with pirates and smugglers. He then commanded the marines aboard the cruiser Suffren.

His first assignment in Metropolitan France was as an instructor at the Naval Fusiliers School in Lorient, which he joined in 1934 after a decade overseas. Soon he was back in the colonies, skipper of the gunboat Balny on the Yangtze.

By the time war came with the Germans, he only made it back home in time to see France fall and was reduced to cooling his heels in the acoustics lab in Marseille during the Vichy era.

Surviving the German advance in November 1942 after the Torch Landings, Jaubert soon was serving with the Free French and, by late 1944, was made commander of the newly-formed Brigade marine d’Extrême-Orient (Far East Marine Brigade), a 1,000-man amphibious force meant to land in Indochina and start the work of kicking the Japanese out. Equipped with American-provided inshore landing craft (LCA, LCVP, LCM, LCI, and LCTs) by the time they made it to the Far East, they augmented this with locally acquired motorized junks and barges.

Pushing into the Mekong delta and the rest of Indochina’s river networks from their headquarters at the old Saigon Yacht club, starting in October 1945 to clear Japanese holdouts, they soon were fighting a new foe: the Viet Minh.

Indochina: French Dinassaut mobile riverine force, Mekong Delta, Vietnam, U.S. Navy Historical & Heritage Command photo NH79376

Jaubert laid out the plan that would later be used by the U.S. Navy in Operation Marketime, but he never lived to see it. He was seriously wounded in operations in Than Uyên province on 25 January 1946, then succumbed to his wounds several days later. Besides his WWII Croix de guerre (with palm), he earned a Légion d’honneur (posthumous). He was just shy of his 43rd birthday

Initially buried in Saigon, where he served most of his career, he was exhumed post-1954 and reinterred in the small Pyrenees mountain town of Ponteilla, from where his extended family hails.

The French Marines remembered him by renaming his Far East Brigade after him in 1948.

Today, the special operation-capable Commando Jaubert is one of the seven such named marine commando units of the French Navy. They have since seen action in Algeria, Somalia, the Comoros (against the old war dog Bob Denard), Afghanistan, and Mali. Their badge still retains a Chinese dragon to mark their origin.

The unit that bears his name just marked the 80th anniversary of his passing, visiting his grave on the occasion to pay Hommage.

MCM Torch Passed in the Arabian Gulf (Again)

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The four recently decommissioned 224-foot U.S. Navy Avenger-class Mine Countermeasures ships — the former USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator, and USS Sentry — have departed Bahrain aboard the 65,000-ton Norwegian-flagged merchant heavy-lift vessel Seaway Hawk, marking their final voyage through the Arabian Gulf.

Seaway Hawk was escorted by USS Canberra (LCS 30), one of the three-pack of newly MCM-optimized Independence-class ships– the others being USS Santa Barbara (LCS 32) and Tulsa (LCS 16)-– that are currently forward-deployed to Bahrain, replacing the legacy Avenger-class ships that have served in Task Force 55 for over 30 years.

This isn’t the first time 5th Fleet MCM has passed the torch in the region with generational changes. Several circa-1950s wooden-hulled 120-foot Aggressive-class ocean minesweepers, including the USS Adroit (MSO-509) —subject of an upcoming Warship Wednesday —the USS Impervious (MSO-449), and the Leader (MSO-490), were deployed to the Persian Gulf beginning in 1990, notably supporting Operations Earnest Will, Desert Shield, and Desert Storm.

Before that, the old ‘phib USS Okinawa (LPH-3) had operated Navy RH-53D Sea Stallion minesweeping helicopters in the Gulf during Operation Ernest Will, and six small minesweeping boats (4 x 57-foot MSBs and 2x 36-foot MSLs) of Mine Group Two, Mine Division 125, had arrived in the region on USS St. Louis (LKA-116) and USS Raleigh (LPD-1) in the summer of 1987.

Mine Division 125 personnel watch as a yard crane lifts the minesweeping boat MSB 16 from the Cooper River. The boat will be placed on a skid for loading into the well deck of the amphibious transport dock USS Raleigh (LPD 1). August 1, 1987. MSGT Dave Casey, USAF. 330-CFD-DF-ST-88-03132

These brownwater boats were later augmented by the Aggressive class bluewater boats USS Fearless (MSO-442), Inflict (MSO-456), and Illusive (MSO-448), towed by USS Grapple (ARS-53) to the region. The epic nearly 10,000-mile journey began on 6 September 1987 and lasted roughly eight weeks, arriving in the Gulf of Oman on 2 November 1987. Upon arrival, the Inflict discovered and destroyed the first underwater contact mines in the northern Persian Gulf countered by an American minesweeper since the Korean War.

The salvage ship USS Grapple (ARS 53) tows the ocean minesweepers USS Inflict (MSO 456), USS Fearless (MSO 442), and USS Illusive (MSO 448) to the Persian Gulf to support US Navy escort operations. September 1, 1987 PH2 C. Duvall. 330-CFD-DN-ST-88-01143

The ocean minesweeper USS INFLICIT (MSO 456) heads towards the Persian Gulf to support US Navy escort operations, 9/1/1987

Marine Narco Sub ops continue

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We’ve been covering the Marines’ interest and initiative in fielding their own, more legitimate, take on the narco sub or LPSS for use in supplying isolated outposts and quiet Marine Littoral Regiment fires elements dotted around the less visited atolls and islands of the Western Pacific.

With that in mind, check out these recently cleared images of 1st Marine Logistics Group Marines testing an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel, on or about 22 January 2026.

The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals.

U.S. Marine Corps photos by Sgt. Mary Torres.

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Carlos Perez-armenta, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, operates an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mary Torres)

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Luna Eben, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, conducts safety pre-checks before operating an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mary T

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Carlos Perez-armenta, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, conducts safety pre-checks before operating an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Carlos Perez-armenta, a logistics specialist with 1st Distribution Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, operates an Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel during testing on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Jan. 22, 2026. The ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system the Marine Corps is experimenting with to deliver supplies and equipment in a timely manner throughout the littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mary Torres)

And these earlier shots in early December 2025 of India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conducting an at-sea resupply drill with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan.

U.S. Marine Corps photos by Sgt. Alora Finigan.

U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct a simulated resupply with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel to during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 2, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuou

U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct a simulated resupply with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel to during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 2, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuou

U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct an at sea resupply drill with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 3, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuo

U.S. Marines with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct an at sea resupply drill with supplies from an autonomous low-profile vessel during unmanned surface vessel training operations as part of MEU Exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan on Dec. 3, 2025. The ALPV has the ability to deliver multiple variations of supplies and equipment through contested maritime terrain. The 31st MEU, the Marine Corps’ only continuo

Marines are getting FPV drone serious

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A Neros Archer first-person view drone sits on a case during a demonstration range at Weapons Training Battalion on Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, March 7, 2025. The Marine Corps Attack Drone Team used the Neros Archer FPV drone to engage targets on the range to showcase the drone’s capabilities on the battlefield. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Joshua Barker)

The Marines have a new training program for drones, which is currently standing it up at the battalion level, and “By May 2026, all infantry, reconnaissance battalions and littoral combat teams across the Corps will be equipped to employ FPV attack drone capabilities.”

Seven organizations are designated as regional training hubs with the authority to immediately begin conducting the pilot courses, while the newly formed Marine Corps Attack Drone Team is taking the show on the road.

A recent effort with 22nd MEU Marines certified 14 attack drone operators and 11 payload specialists “fully trained, equipped and ready for contingency operations” on Neros Archers. 

From a presser: 

Six approved pilot courses will certify Marines while testing instructional methods and curriculum. These courses include training for drone operators, payload specialists, and instructors, with specific prerequisites such as simulator experience on Training and Education Command-approved systems. The courses aim to ensure proper integration and supervision of new drone capabilities. The Training and Education Command has also established a process to grant certifications to Marines who have existing qualifications and experience through an exception to policy.

The Corps is looking to pick up 10,000 American or Allied-made FPVs at $4K a pop. 

Depending on the configuration, the Archer costs about $5K and is “capable of carrying a 2 kg/4.5 lb payload over 20 kilometers.” It has already been tapped by Big Green. 

There is also a three-week counter-drone, or C-UAS, course in both soft and hard kill methods, which is equally important.

Check out this from 1st Marines at Pendleton.

The Icelandic Coast Guard sees you, and they want you to know they see you

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The Icelandic Coast Guard (Landhelgisgæsla Íslands, or LHG) was established in 1926– predating the country’s independence by almost two decades– but has roots that go back to 1859.

And, as we have talked about in the past, they are the Stan “I didn’t hear no bell” Marsh of the racing stripers.

The plucky Icelandic Coast Guard Cutter Tyr chasing off one of HM’s much larger and better armed frigates during the “Cod Wars” in the 1970s.

The closest thing the country of 200,000 has to a uniform military service, the 200-member LHG has a small but well-cared-for collection of cutters and aircraft, and runs the Skógarhlí-based Iceland Air Defence System (Íslenska loftvarnarkerfið) whose four U.S.-established radar installations–formerly run by the country’s Radar Agency (Ratsjárstofnun)– augmented by satellites, provide a full-time surveillance capability of the country’s air and waters, interfacing with NATO and commercial ship tracking services.

The service recently posted that they had 295 active vessels at sea under the watchful eyes of the LHG, and that five Russian fishing vessels were huddled up, just skirting the line of the country’s EEZ.

As noted by the LHG (mechanically translated)

Surveillance and law enforcement with Icelandic jurisdiction is carried out both with remote surveillance and satellites alongside real surveillance carried out with TF-SIF [a Bombardier Dash 8-Q-314 maritime patrol aircraft], Coast Guard cutters Thor and Freyja, as well as Coast Guard helicopters.

Coast Guard ships have been monitoring the eastern part of the country lately and have, among other things, boarded foreign ships that fish herring within the jurisdiction. The journeys of these ships will continue to be closely monitored.

You’re damnned right they are closely monitored.

Skal!

The Fake Chinese Secret Iranian Type 56

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When it comes to the AK platform, no gun writer knows more about them than Vladimir Onokoy. You’ve seen his work everywhere if you read gun mags, books, or sites. I mean, he effectively wrote the books on them.

A couple of days ago, Recoil Magazine published Onokoy’s article about Iranian AKs.

Although these rifles are used in conflict zones all over the Middle East, not much information is available, so the piece is interesting, for sure.

Clandestine Kalashnikov: The Fake-Chinese Secret Iranian AK-47

Coast Guard Mobile Afloat Bases, a historical perspective

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Last week’s post about the USCGC Waesche (WMSL 751) serving as a Forward Afloat Staging Base off Alaska during NORTHCOM’s Exercise Arctic Edge 2025 reminded me of the service’s long-standing tradition of such operations.

It actually predates the Coast Guard itself.

City Point (1895-1913)

Due to the shifting waters near the falls of the Ohio River, the Louisville Lifeboat Station (Lifesaving Station No. 10), put into service in 1881, was afloat.

The Louisville Lifeboat Station

Successful, its 1902 replacement was of the same pattern as was its 1929 steel-hulled successor, and remained in USCG service in 1972. Today, it is preserved as the only surviving floating lifesaving station of the United States Life-Saving Service.

This sets the stage for the more blue water City Point Station.

The original USLSS City Point Station, circa 1896-1913, Nathaniel L. Stebbins photographic collection PC047.02.4110.16294

Dialing it back to 1895 (the USCG was formed in 1916), a U.S. Lifesaving Service station was originally described as a “floating station in Dorchester Bay, Boston Harbor,” was authorized as the region had suffered the loss of forty lives on the water, usually in the summer months, from 1890 to 1894. Congressman Michael J. McEttrick introduced a bill in Congress, which was finally passed, and the station was secured, and it was dubbed the “City Point Station.” 

From the USLSS 1895 Annual Report:

And duly installed, as noted from the service’s 1896 report:

The anchored wooden-hulled station, approximately 100 feet long and 33 feet abeam, was home to a 10-man crew and housed a pair of naphtha-powered launches, a dighny, and a heavy surfboat.

Equipped with a generator, they had electric wiring and a large searchlight and signal lights up top.

An innovative feature was an early well deck or “harbor room” in the stern.

As further detailed by The Toomey-Rankin History of South Boston, circa 1901:

An appropriation of $7,000 was made for the construction of the station itself, and in a short time the strange craft was growing under the hands of workmen at Palmer’s shipyard at Noank, Conn., and for 50 days the work progressed, at the end of which time the station was completed, and towed from Noank, Conn., to Boston, and on its arrival Sunday, August 3, 1896, was moored to Loring’s wharf to await fitting out.

It is needless to say that the station, being an innovation, attracted much attention. Visitors saw it as it is today, except for the doors, which were afterward cut on each side of the harbor room. Its form is that of a huge flat iron, the forward end, or bow, coming to a point, while the rear or stern is cut off short. It is 100 feet long,33 feet beam, 6 feet deep, and draws about two feet of water, and is a double-deck affair, the upper deck being about 15 feet above the waterline.

The feature of the station is the harbor at the stern, or what might be called the main entrance to the station. This harbor in which the two naphtha launches of the station are kept, is formed by having an opening 30 feet long and 17 feet wide, cut from the stern directly into the center of the station, leaving on three sides about eight feet of deck room, while the entire harbor is sheltered by the upper deck, which extends to the end of the station.

From the harbor, or launch room, a hallway extends the entire length of the station, off of which are several rooms; on the left is the kitchen, dining room and the crew’s quarters, and on the right the captain’s office, his bed room and the store room, the space at the bow being devoted to the windlass and anchors with which the station is held in position.

Leading from this hallway on the right is a small flight of stairs to the upper deck, and in addition to this are the two other flights, leading from the harbor room, one on the port and one on the starboard side. The upper deck is completely clear with the exception of a lookout, which sets about 30 feet from the bow in the center of the deck, with a flight of steps leading to it. It is surrounded by a railing and is connected with the launch room and the captain’s room by speaking tubes.

Rising from the deck is a flagpole, upon which the national emblem is displayed during the day and a lantern at night. At the stern, on huge davits, hangs the heavy surf boat, in a position to be lowered at an instant’s notice. Davits on the port and starboard sides hold smaller boats. In the harbor are the launches, one of which is 28 feet, with a speed of ten knots, and the other 25 feet in length, with a speed of eight knots.

Towed into position each April/May and then towed back to its winter berth near Chelsea Bridge in October/November, the station was manned by the same crew for the duration of the summer with no relief. The 10 men consisted of a station captain and nine surfmen (one of whom was also paid as a cook), with three of the latter on duty round the clock.

Completed too late to get much practical use in 1896, its first full season deployed was in 1897, where its crew helped 115 small craft in distress and rescued 23 persons, who were taken back to the station for care.

1898 saw 19 persons rescued, 129 persons rendered assistance, and 58 boats saved.

The year 1899 set a new record of 33 persons saved and 183 assisted while coming to the rescue of 97 boats, the latter valued at $63,285, or nine times the initial outlay to build the station.

From a period Roland Libbey article on City Point in the Boston Globe

From a period Roland Libbey article on City Point in the Boston Globe

City Point had its naphtha-powered launches replaced by steam launches in 1900 and was extensively rebuilt in 1913 “to replace a structure that is old and unsuited to present-day needs.”

She would be joined by other bases in the 1920s.

A half dozen floating bases during Prohibition

Speaking of which…

In 1924, with the “Rum War” afoot and the now USCG with a serious need to push assets further offshore to intercept bootleggers speeding out to usually British or Canadian-flagged “blacks” (so named as they ran at night sans flags or lights) anchored just off the three-mile limit on “Rum Row,” the service acquired five new floating bases– Argus, Colfax, Moccasin, Pickering, and Wayanda.

Four of these new bases (Argus, Colfax, Pickering, and Wayanda) were concrete boats originally commissioned for the Army Quartermaster Service for troop and supply transport between Army bases along the coast. The Army had built 16 such flat-bottomed vessels, powered by twin gasoline (!) engines, then quickly disposed of them.

The Army QM Corps concrete riverboats, Colonel J. E. Sawyer and Major Archibald Butt, at a dock in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1920. 

The other two, the reconstructed City Point and the new Moccasin, had wooden hulls. All but City Point had propulsion plants.

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, circa 1916-1939 by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

All had extensive cabin structures topside and served as moored motherships for the service’s 36 and 38-foot picket boats, much closer to Rum Row than the coastal bases.

The 38-foot cabin picket boat. USCG Photo

The Boston-based City Point of the era was a wooden-hulled floating platform that was rebuilt in 1913 at Greenport, New York, and was 109′ 6″ by 33′ by 3′ 6″.

Colfax was the former Army QM vessel General Rufus Ingalls and was 150 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 13 feet deep.

Argus was originally the concrete-hulled Army QM vessel Major E. Pickett. Her dimensions were: 128′ 5″ x 28′ x 12′. Commissioned as Argus on 1 December 1924 at Rockaway Inlet, New York, and was moved to New London, Connecticut, in May of 1925, she was the flagship of the Coast Guard Destroyer Force.

Pickering was the former Army QM Brigadier General O. A. Allison, and was a concrete boat built to the same plan as Major E. Pickett/Argus in 1921 for the War Department. After her acquisition by the Coast Guard, she was stationed at Atlantic City, New Jersey, as of October 1924.

Wayanda was the former Army vessel Colonel William H. Baldwin, a 128-foot ‘crete boat like Pickering and Argus. She was purchased on 21 October 1924 from the John W. Sullivan Company in New York.  She was stationed at Greenport, New York, as of 26 November 1924.

Moccasin was the former wooden-hulled Liberator, 102′ 6″ by 47’9″ by 10′, that was built in 1921 at Lybeck, Florida.  She was purchased from Gibbs Gas Engineering Company on August 20, 1924, and commissioned on November 17, 1924. She served in Miami, Florida.

With Prohibition winding down, the Coast Guard started ridding itself of these floating bases by the late 1920s, and only the concrete Baldwin/Wayanda and the wooden-hulled City Point II outlived the Volstead Act.

Wayanda was last listed in Coast Guard records in 1934, while the second City Point only disappeared from the list of USCG stations after the 1939 season.

In the meantime, the cutter Yocana served as a mothership to clusters of picket boats during the 1937 floods on the Mississippi.

A dozen Coast Guard picket boats muster beside the former CGC Yocona on the Mississippi River during the Great Ohio, Mississippi River Valley Flood of 1937. U.S. Coast Guard photo. Yocona was a 182-foot Kankakee-class stern paddle wheelers built for the Coast Guard in 1919 and stationed at Vicksburg. Click to big up

Other examples

Of course, the service’s large blue water cutters have filled the role of offshore mothership several times since then, with its CGRON3 in Vietnam clocking in to feed, bunk, and refuel both USCG 83-foot patrol boats and Navy Brown water assets such as PBRs and PCFs, as well as the sustained offshore surveillance of Grenada in 1983-84 (Operation Island Breeze).

Point class refueling from USCGC Dallas in Vietnam 2

More recent mothership ops have been seen with the long-distance deployment of FRCs to the Persian Gulf in 2022 and in response to 2017’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

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