Category Archives: asymmetric warfare

Australia Goes $1.12B Hard in the Remote Minisub Paint

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Palmer Luckey’s California-based Anduril Industries has developed its Ghost Shark XLAUV (Extra-Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) autonomous submarine from rough draft to finished product in three years.

Scalable, it can be anywhere from 20 feet to 98 feet oal with the sweet spot being the 39-ish foot variant, with a square cross-section that can carry and deploy “dozens” of Copperhead-100 class UUVs (or Copperhead-100M loitering munitions) and “multiple” Copperhead-500 class UUVs (or Copperhead-500M loitering munitions), also developed by Anduril.

The Australian government spent A$140M on the program in 2022, and Anduril has invested another $60M in a “sophisticated, robotic XL-AUV manufacturing facility in Australia, where employees are at work to produce entirely sovereign autonomous maritime platforms.”

Now, the Australian MoD has announced an A$1.7B (US$1.12B) Program of Record to deliver a fleet of Ghost Sharks, with production already underway. The five-year contract will support around 120 existing jobs and create more than 150 new jobs at Anduril Australia.

As noted by the company:

The reason for the magnitude of risk-taking in this enterprise is clear: the Ghost Shark’s entry into full-rate production marks the start of a new era of seapower through maritime autonomy. For years, Australia has faced the persistent and threatening presence of Chinese naval assets in its home waters. Ghost Shark is the instantiation of a Program of Record for AUVs that can directly address this challenge through coastal defense patrols and area-wide domain awareness powered by artificial intelligence at scale. Success in this effort would be a landmark opportunity to demonstrate the potential of autonomous seapower to address clear and urgent national security problems.

Ghost Shark can fit inside a 40-foot shipping container, which in turn can fly out on a C-17 or similar. The RAAF flew a prototype to Hawaii for last year’s RIMPAC.

The following is from Anduril on how the Copperhead/Ghost Shark combo can draw a “line in the sea,” so to speak.

Sea denial, 21st Century style.

War Pigeons on the Marne

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110 years ago this week. 31 August 1915, along the Marne.

A French Brillié Schneider P3 model bus has been converted into a mobile pigeon coop (pigeonnier mobile) for the Army

Réf. : SPA 29 M 467. Albert Moreau/ECPAD/Défense

Pigeonnier militaire aménagé dans un bus Berliet à impériale

The French military’s use of pigeons for communication dates back to the War of 1870, after the Prussians besieged Paris, and citizens volunteered 300 of their birds.

The program reached its zenith during the Great War, with upwards of 30,000 pigeons used by the French alone.

Proving especially adept at avoiding “the Boche” during the country’s German occupation in WWII, the Resistance used another 16,500 SOE-supplied birds— which had been parachuted in as part of Operation Columbia! As the birds had been bred in England, once released by French underground cells, they quickly winged their way back home across the Channel to their coops, carrying brief but vital intel.

The French only officially ended their pigeon program in 1961 after the Algerian War.

However, since 2014, the 8th Signal Regiment (8e Régiment de Transmissions, 8e RT) has maintained a small in-house pigeon breeding program as a hedge on potential electromagnetic attacks that could disrupt other communication methods.

“La relève de nos pigeons voyageurs est assurée!”

Rube Goldberg Torpedo, Balikpapan edition

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Some 80 years ago this week.

Balikpapan, Borneo, then part of the newly liberated Dutch East Indies.

Unlike the six types/classes of Japanese Kaiten manned suicide torpedoes, the below seems more akin to the Kriegsmarine’s “Neger” attack craft, which amounted to an awash delivery torpedo carrying a coxswain instead of a warhead while a live G7e was clamped below it, albeit much more ersatz in nature.

Original historic wartime caption: “The Japanese 21-inch controlled torpedo. Usual procedure of the 21″ was as follows: Torpedos were stored in shelter; placed on rails launched into sea; wooden super-structure visible on torpedo was tied on with rope; operator rode torpedo within a striking distance of target; armed torpedo utilizing a rope; dropped axe on ropes binding super-structure torpedo and was cast free. 10 August 1945. (Two torpedoes were found, but there was no evidence of them ever being used in the area.)”

Note very excited sun-helmeted khaki-clad U.S. Navy lieutenant “riding” the torp while two Australian troops look on. US Air Force Reference Number: 63295AC (National Archives Identifier: 204953594)

Semper Paratus: Sandbox edition

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Today is the 235th anniversary of the circa 1790 founding of Alexander Hamilton’s old Revenue Cutter Service/Revenue Marine, which became today’s U.S. Coast Guard.

It is also the rough 35th anniversary of the beginning of the USCG’s continuing service in the Arabian and Persian Gulfs, which is about 6,700 miles as the crow flies from the continental U.S.

When Saddam crossed the line into Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the resulting Operation Desert Storm build-up in Saudi Arabia soon saw Coast Guard Marine Safety Offices (MSOs) activate personnel to inspect the nearly 80 Ready Reserve Fleet (RRF) vessels preparing for sea duty.

Soon after, four 10-man USCG LEDETs and a 7-man staff liaison team deployed to the Gulf to work from U.S. and allied vessels to inspect shipping.

USCG LEDET on a Turkish ship during Desert Shield

The first Iraqi ship impounded, Zanoobia, was on 4 September by a LEDET team from USS Goldsborough (DDG 20). Once the shooting started as Desert Shield became Desert Storm, LEDET personnel helped clear Iraqi oil platforms, securing 11 such platforms and aiding in the capture of 23 Iraqi prisoners, with one of the busiest being on the OHP-class frigate USS Nicholas (FFG-47).

Something like 60 percent of the 600 boardings carried out by U.S. forces were either led by or supported with the USCG LEDETs– which shows how busy those 40 guys were!

Further, 950 USCGR personnel were activated to support Desert Storm, with over half of those being in Port Security Units.

As noted by the USCG Historian’s Office:

  • On September 14th, PSU 303 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) became the first Port Security Unit deployed overseas when it was assigned to Al Damman, Saudi Arabia.
  • On September 22nd, PSU 301 (Buffalo, New York) deployed to Al Jubayl, Saudi Arabia, and on November 14th, PSU 302 (Port Clinton, Ohio) deployed to Bahrain.
  • These PSUs featured the first Coast Guard women to serve in combat roles, including female machine gunners assigned to “Raider” tactical Port Security Unit boats.

The first allied craft into Kuwait’s Mina Ash Shuwaikh Harbor on 21 April 1991 was a Coast Guard Raider tactical port security boat from PSU 301, which gingerly led a procession of multinational vessels into the harbor.

Members of the U.S. Coast Guard Port Security Unit 302 patrol the harbor aboard a Navy harbor patrol boat during Operation Desert Shield.

Finally, to address the ecological nightmare that occurred once Saddam ordered scorched earth on the Kuwait oilfields during the liberation, on 13 February 1991, two USCG HU-25A Falcon jets, equipped with AIREYE side airborne looking radar (SILAR) and oil detection equipment, flew from Air Station Cape Cod to Saudi Arabia, supported by two Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules cargo aircraft from Air Station Clearwater packed with ground crew, spare aviation parts and support packages.

The Falcons were deployed for 84 days and mapped over 40,000 square miles of the Persian Gulf. They logged 427 flight hours in the region and maintained an aircraft readiness rate of over 96 percent. These flights provided daily updates on the size and direction of the spill.

Post Desert Storm, with LEDETs continuing work with the 5th Fleet Maritime Interception Force adjacent to Operation Southern Watch from 1992 onward, in November 2002, the all-USCG Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA) was stood up with what would eventually become six 110-foot Island class cutters (USCGC Adak, Aquidneck, Baranof, Maui, Monomoy, and Wrangell).

Persian Gulf (April 27, 2005) – Coast Guardsmen aboard U.S Coast Guard Cutter Monomoy (WPB 1326) wave goodbye to the guided missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 74) after the first underway fuel replenishment (UNREP) between a U.S. Navy cruiser and a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. Antietam completed fuel replenishment with the Monomoy in about two hours and saved the 110-foot patrol boat a four-hour trip to the nearest refueling station. Antietam and Monomoy are conducting maritime security operations (MSO) in the Persian Gulf as part of Commander, Task Force Five Eight CTF-58). U.S. Navy photo by Journalist Seaman Joseph Ebalo (RELEASED)

7/25/2007. NORTH ARABIAN GULF-Petty Officer 3rd Class William J. Burke performs a security sweep aboard a tanker ship in the North Arabian Gulf. Burke, a machinery technician, is part of Law Enforcement Detachment 106, which is deployed in the NAG to help train Iraqi Navy and Marine personnel in boarding procedures and tactics. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Public Affairs Specialist 2nd Class Nathan Henise.

As it had in Operation Desert Storm, the Coast Guard deployed port security units, law enforcement detachments, and patrol boats to the Middle East to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism. Adak captured the first Iraqi maritime prisoners of the war, whose patrol boat had been destroyed upstream by an AC-130 gunship.

USCG small boat team conducting operations in the Gulf – 31 August 2022

In OIF, LEDETs deployed on Coast Guard and Navy patrol craft continued to board and inspect vessels in the Northern Arabian Gulf. As a member of one of these LEDETs, DC3 Nathan B. “Nate” Bruckenthal died when boarding an explosives-laden dhow that detonated near USS Firebolt (PC-10).

Today, PATFORSWA is still very much in business with six new 154-foot Fast Response Cutters (USCGC Charles Moulthrope, Robert Goldman, Glen Harris, Emlen Tunnell, John Scheuerman, and Clarence Sutphin Jr) replacing the old 110s in 2021-22.

220822-A-KS490-1182 STRAIT OF HORMUZ (Aug. 22, 2022) From the left, U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutters USCGC Glen Harris (WPC 1144), USCGC John Scheuerman (WPC 1146), USCGC Emlen Tunnell (WPC 1145) and USCGC Clarence Sutphin Jr. (WPC 1147) transit the Strait of Hormuz, Aug. 22. The cutters are forward-deployed to U.S. 5th Fleet to help ensure maritime security and stability across the Middle East. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Noah Martin)

With some 300 personnel assigned, it is the largest Coast Guard command outside of the U.S.

Army Special Operations, a primer

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FM 3-05, Army Special Operations, was just released.

Nothing is classified in it, and a lot of its 102 pages are “intentionally left blank” or are taken up by notes and indexes, but it is a great primer for anyone interested in how its units are organized. It also has several short backgrounders on past operations.

Thus:

Enjoy!

Warship Wednesday, June 25, 2025: Rozhestvensky’s Pirates

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile 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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, June 25, 2025: Rozhestvensky’s Pirates

Above we see the Imperial Russian Navy’s auxiliary cruiser (vspomogatel’nyy kreyser) Terek, formerly the Royal Spanish Navy’s cruiser Rapido, formerly the Hamburg America Line steamer SS Columbia,

Terek just narrowly avoided combat in 1898 under the yellow and red Pabellon de la Armada, but some 120 years ago this week, she would land the final Tsarist Russian blows against the Empire of Japan at sea.

Kinda

The Tsar’s auxiliary cruisers

When war broke out with Japan in February 1904, the Russian admiralty activated its long-standing plans to cough up a series of armed merchant cruisers. Originally intended in the 1880s and 1890s to chase down British merchantmen should the “Great Game” turn hot, the Russians were able to activate nine large rakish steamers, all capable of making over 18.5 knots. Almost all (six of nine) were three-funnel liners, and all had been built as fine 1st class ships in the best German and British yards. In peacetime, they were operated by Dobroflot, the Russian state-controlled “Volunteer Fleet,” then switched to Navy crews during war.

These nine AMCs activated were generally named after rivers or Cossack hosts that lived along their banks, including: Angara (12,050 tons), Lena (10,675 t), Kuban (12,000 t), Don (10,500 t), Ural (10,500 t), Dnepr (9,500 t), Rion (14,614 t), Rus (8,600 t) and our Terek (10,000 t).

The main batteries typically consisted of a few 120mm/45 (4.7″) Pattern 1892 Canet guns augmented by a secondary of 75mm/50 (2.9″) Pattern 1892 Canet guns and a tertiary of 57mm/6-pdr, 47mm/3-pdr, or 37mm/1-pdr Hotchkiss counter-boat guns. Dedicated magazine space was set aside and rigged for emergency flooding if needed. As their promenade decks didn’t lend well to gun emplacements, most were arranged on the fore and aft well decks, with smaller guns on the poop and forecastle.

4.7-inch guns on auxiliary cruiser Lena

As the cruisers had at least two military masts complete with lookout tops, they would typically carry at least a 1-pounder in each. Two to four large searchlights were fitted as well.

The Illustrated London News on October 8, 1904, details the “Russian Menace to Neutral Shipping” during the Russo-Japanese War, focusing on converted cruisers in neutral waters, including Lena (Kherson), Terek, Peterburg (Dnepr), and Smolensk (Rion).

The presence of these Russian cruisers in neutral ports, particularly the well-armed Lena (35 guns in four diverse batteries), which called at San Francisco in late 1904, caused a huge surge in war risk insurances for vessels of all flags bound for Japan, threatening a general halt in shipments.

Fresno Bee, Sept 14, 1904

Russian auxiliary cruiser Lena in San Francisco, November 1904. Built in 1896 by Hawthorn Leslie, Newcastle– at the time the largest ship built on the Tyne– she sailed with the Volunteer Fleet in peacetime as Kherson. Activated in late 1903 as tensions with Japan grew, she operated out of Vladivostok until she arrived at San Francisco for repairs in September 1904 and was eventually interned for the rest of the war. She later served as Naval Transport N73 in the Black Sea Fleet, then, evacuating Russia with Wrangel’s White navy in 1920, had a short career with the London Steamship & Trading Co, then was broken up in Venice in 1925.

Besides acting as scouts and raiders, a role well-suited to the force due to their large ocean-crossing coal bunkers, they also had lots of spare room in their peacetime passenger cabins to accommodate troops for use as a fast transport, or captured enemy mariners. One, Rus, was used as a balloon aircraft carrier, toting nine Parseval-Sigsfeld kite balloons and making 186 controlled ascents from her deck.

Sailing as a scouting unit with Russian ADM Rozhestvensky’s 2nd Pacific Squadron on its way to its destiny at Tsushima, several also bagged some prizes.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s turn this story back a bit.

Meet Columbia

Ordered in 1888, an express steamer of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) line, the Doppelschrauben-Schnelldampfer Columbia was intended to compete with the fastest liners of the British shipping companies. Built to the same plans as her AG Vulcan-built sister, SS Augusta Victoria, who claimed the fastest maiden voyage across the Atlantic in an east-west direction in May 1889, Columbia was fast.

Some 480 feet overall with a narrow 55-foot beam and knife-like bow, she was HAPAG’s second twin-screw express steamer on the North Atlantic. Equipped with twin VTR engines fed by nine boilers good for 13,300 shp, she made 20.5 knots on trials.

From The Engineer, 8 Nov 1889:

Some 7,300 GRT, she had accommodations for 1,100 passengers (400 first-class, 120 second-class, and 580 third-class).

German maritime artist Alexander Kircher penned several illustrations aboard the Columbia for the publication Die Rudermaschine in 1890.

A series of interior and exterior views upon delivery is in the collection of the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University.

However, she and her sister were ready for war if needed. Following the government subsidy provided by the Imperial Postal Steamer agreement (Reichspostdampfervertrages), the Reich could use these steamers in the event of mobilization, and ships built for the service had to pass a Kaiserliche Marine inspection, including weight and space for deck guns and magazines. We saw how this played out with a host of German auxiliary cruisers in 1914 in past Warship Wednesdays. 

Columbia was delivered to HAPAG in June 1889 and began her maiden voyage from Hamburg via Southampton to New York on 18 July. Importantly, in July 1895, Columbia and Augusta Victoria transported the guests of honor at the opening of the Kiel Canal.

Besides the American runs, the sisters would cruise in winter to the Mediterranean, in midsummer north to Spitsbergen, and from 1896 also to the West Indies.

It was postcard and poster worthy.

War! (under a Spanish banner)

With Madrid in dire need of modern ships for their looming clash with the U.S., three weeks before war was declared, on 8 April 1898, HAPAG sold the proud Columbia and the slightly larger Normannia to Spain. Normannia became the Spanish auxiliary cruiser Patriota, armed with four 12 cm/L40 Skoda rapid-firing guns and ten 47 mm/L44 QF guns, while the speedy Columbia would enter Spanish service as the auxiliary cruiser Rapido. Her skipper was Capt. Federico Campaño y Rosset.

In Spanish service, Columbia/Rapido would carry four 16.2cm/35s, two 14cm/35s, and six 47 mm/L44s. The conversion, no doubt easy due to the weight and space reserved for guns and shells in her design, only took 12 days.

Originally part of Gruppo E of the Reserve Squadron, intended for action against American lines of communication along the Atlantic coast, both Columbia/Rapido and Normannia/Patriota were reassigned to RADM Manuel de la Camara’s relief squadron for the Philippines six weeks after Dewey had destroyed RADM Patricio Montojo’s Spanish Pacific Squadron.

Sailing in line with the strongest Spanish ship in the fleet, the 11,000-ton 12-inch gunned battlewagon Pelayo; the armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V, destroyers Audaz, Osado, and Proserpina; and the troop-packed transports Buenos Aires and Panay, the force left Cadiz on 16 June 1898 and made Egypt ten days later, only to fight for coal with the English there for a week.

RADM Manuel de la Camara’s fleet under steam. Columbia/Rapido, with three masts and three stacks, is to the far left with Normannia/Patriota ahead of her. Original Location: Stanley Cohen, Images of the Spanish-American War (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Pub. Co., 1997). Via NHHC.

Rapido, Spanish auxiliary cruiser, at Port Said, Egypt, 26 June – 4 July 1898, while serving with Rear Admiral Manuel de la Camara’s squadron, which had been sent to relieve the Philippines. Copied from the Office of Naval Intelligence Album of Foreign Warships. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 88730

Camara’s squadron in the Suez Canal in 1898. Pelayo is in the foreground, with the rest of his fleet, Columbia/Rapido (visible between Pelayo’s masts) and Normannia/Patriota included. NHHC WHI.2014.36x

However, with Spanish VADM Pascual Cervera’s squadron’s defeat at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July, and the fear that metropolitan Spain was left defenseless, Camara’s squadron was recalled home just as it made the Red Sea. Spending the rest of the war in European waters, Columbia/Rapido and Normannia/Patriota were later used as troop transport to help bring the defeated Spanish forces home from the lost colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico, shepherding (often towing) eight smaller, often derelict, vessels behind them back to Cadiz with stops in Martinique and the Canary Islands.

The Spanish admiralty having no further use for Columbia/Rapido, she was disarmed and sold back to HAPAG on 6 July 1899 for a nominal fee. Her career in Spanish service spanned just under 15 months and, as far as I can tell, she never fired a shot in anger during this period.

Meanwhile, Normannia/Patriota was given to the French government to resolve war debts. Renamed L’ Aquitaine, the former Normannia entered service with the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) line in December 1899, and, in poor condition, was scrapped in 1906.

Under a Russian flag

Following a refit and a fresh coat of paint, Columbia spent the next four years in a shuffle of commercial runs from Hamburg via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York.

It was while on a run to the Big Apple in May 1904 that HAPAG unceremoniously sold Columbia, along with her sister Auguste Victoria and the liner Furst Bismarck, for 7.5 million rubles to the Russian Navy, in need of hulls to take the fight to the Japanese. At the same time, NDL sold the Russians the fast little (6963 BRT) liner Kaiserin Maria Theresia.

Auguste Victoria became the Russian auxiliary cruiser Kuban, Furst Bismarck became the cruiser Don, and Kaiserin Maria Theresia the cruiser Ural.

Columbia departed New York after discharging her passengers for the Russian naval base at Libau (now Liepaja, Latvia) in the Baltic, joining Auguste Victoria, Furst Bismarck, and Kaiserin Maria Theresia, who had arrived earlier.

Terek in Libau 1904. Note that the other auxiliary cruisers are in dark military livery

At Libau, Columbia’s German civil crew took trains for the frontier while dock workers began the conversion process. Her deck was additionally reinforced, magazines for ammunition and devices for feeding shells to the upper deck were equipped. Some of the rooms in the emigrant class cabins were adapted to accommodate additional supplies of coal, fresh water, and food. Hatches were cut out for coaling at sea, a task rarely performed by ocean liners. To protect the engines and boilers from enemy shells, additional steel sheets were installed. Columbia was also equipped with additional equipment: two combat searchlights, a powerful wireless telegraph station, etc.

Columbia’s armament was lighter than in Spanish service, consisting of just two 12 cm L/45s, four 7.5 cm L/50s, eight 5.7 cm Hotchkiss guns, and two Maxim machine guns. The Russian naval staff had initially intended for each of the three new-to-them German-made auxiliary cruisers to carry fourteen 6-inch guns, but the ordnance just wasn’t available.

Our subject was named Terek after the fierce Cossack host on the river of the same name in the Caucasus region.

Terek Cossacks

Terek’s inaugural Russian skipper was Capt. (2nd rank) Konstantin Aleksandrovich Panferov, a 44-year-old career officer who had joined the fleet as a 14-year-old midshipman and had earned sea legs on everything from schooners to armored cruisers. His father, Aleksandr Konstantinovich, was friends with Nakhimov, took part in the Siege of Sevastopol as a battery commander, and retired as a rear admiral.

The rest of the wardroom was light, just four lieutenants and a dozen or so warrant officers and midshipmen rushed into service. Her sole surgeon was seconded from a teaching position at a Petersburg university. The new (again) cruiser’s crew of just over 400 was drawn from depots all over Russia.

As described by a Russian Tsushima veteran, Capt. Vladimir Ivanovich Semenov, of this force, “The naivety is almost touching…”

While Auguste Victoria/Kuban and Furst Bismarck/Don were repainted from their commercial livery to a heavy grey/green scheme, there wasn’t either enough time or paint left to do the same for Terek, and she sailed as-is.

War (against Japan, kinda)

Sent out from Libau on 12 August 1904 to hunt for Japanese merchant ships (or those of other flags carrying Japan-related contraband), Terek sortied out into the Atlantic before making Las Palmas, Vigo, and Lisbon for resupply then haunted the approaches to Gibraltar before she arrived back in the Baltic on 8 October, covering 9,190nm and inspecting 15 suspect vessels with no prizes. She earned enough attention from harassing ships with Red Dusters to be shadowed by the British cruisers HMS St. George and Brilliant.

Terek overhauling the British merchant ship Derwen off Cape St. Vincent (Cabo de San Vicente) off southern Portugal, August 1904.

As noted by Patrick J. Rollins in the 1994 Naval War College Review: “In August 1904, the three largest shipping firms in England, including the great P&O Line, suspended service to Japan. By the end of August, insurance rates on British ships bound for the Far East stood at 20 shillings per hundred, or four times the rate charged to the French and Germans.”

Terek was selected, along with her sister Auguste Victoria/Kuban and the auxiliary cruiser Kaiserin Maria Theresia/Ural, to join VADM Zinoy Rozhestvensky’s “2nd” Pacific Squadron, which was just the Russian Baltic Fleet, on its ill-fated mission to relieve besieged Port Arthur in the Pacific.

However, due to the nature of Rozhestvensky’s straggling fleet, Terek was not released to join the squadron until 18 November, following Ural, which had left four days earlier, and Kuban, which had sailed a full three weeks prior. Sailing around the Cape of Good Hope via Dakar, Terek only managed to link up with Kuban and Ural off Madagascar in January 1905. Dnepr (ex-Petersburg) and Rion (ex-Smolensk), who had spent the summer harassing British shipping off the East Coast of Africa, joined them. The five ersatz cruisers formed the fleet’s Reconnaissance Detachment.

By that time, Port Arthur had fallen and, much like Camara’s squadron in 1898, you would expect Rozhestvensky to be recalled back home. However, this was not to be, and the force, after weeks in Madagascar, was ordered to attempt to run past the Japanese to Vladivostok.

Another of the nine Russian auxiliary cruisers, Angara, was lost in the fall of Port Arthur, pounded into the mud by Japanese heavy artillery.

Once in the Pacific, Rion and Dnepr were detailed to escort a group of transports to Shanghai, then break off for commerce raiding along Japan’s sea lanes in the southern part of the Yellow Sea.

Ural would accompany the main force and would soon end up on the bottom.

According to Rozhestvensky’s order No. 380 of 21 May, the Kuban and Terek were to sail ahead and feint around the east of Japan and work in the area between the island of Shikoku and Yokohama. The cruisers were ordered to “without hesitation sink” all steamships on which military contraband would be noticed, a plan surely designed to draw Japanese Admiral Togo’s forces away from the Tsushima straits.

As noted by Semenov at the time back with the main fleet on 22 May, five days before the run through Tsushima, “Yesterday, the Kuban, and today the Terek, separated from the squadron to cruise off the eastern shores of Japan. May God grant them more noise.”

Kuban spent three weeks off Japan, in terrible weather, and only managed to close with two freighters, the German steamer Surabaya, carrying a cargo of flour from Hamburg to Vladivostok of all places, and the unladen Austrian freighter Ladroma. Down to her last 1,800 tons of coal, and finding out about the destruction of the 2nd Pacific Squadron from the latest issue of the Singapore Free Press newspaper aboard Ladroma, Kuban’s skipper called it quits and sailed for Saigon for coal, then made it back to Libau alone on 3 August.

Rion was able to break a few eggs, so to speak, after the battle. On 30 May, some 60 miles from Cape Shantung, she detained the German steamship Tetartos (2409 GRT), heading from Otaru to Tianjin with railway sleepers and fish, and sank it the next morning. Four days later, while 80 miles from Wusung, she stopped the English steamship Cilurnum (2123 GRT), heading from Shanghai to Moji. The steamship was released after its cargo of beans and cotton was thrown over the side. Her war over, Rion sailed for home, arriving in Kronstadt on 30 July.

Dnepr came across the British steamer St Kilda (3519 GRT) off Hong Kong on 5 June with a cargo that included rice, sugar, and gunnies bound for Yokohama. She then sent said steamer to Davy Jones and landed the crew back in Hong Kong before heading back home.

This left our Terek to strike the last blows. She did so against the British-flagged Ikhona (5252 GRT) of the Indian Steam Navigation Company on 5 June while north of Hong Kong in the Philippine Sea, during the latter’s voyage from Rangoon to Yokohama with a cargo of rice and mail. Taking off the crew, the shipwrecked mariners were transferred to the passing Dutch steamer Periak at sea two weeks later and eventually landed at Singapore. The ship’s skipper, one Capt. Stone reported that the capture and sinking had taken six long hours, with dynamite charges failing to scuttle the steamer before Terek opened up with “quick-firers.”

Ikhona was the fourth British ship lost to the Russians during the conflict after SS Knight Commander, St. Kilda, and the schooner Hip Sang. His majesty’s government later pursued a claim of £250,000 against Russia for the value of the ships and their cargoes, with Ikhona being the most expensive at £100,000.

Continuing in the South China Sea, on 22 June 1905, Terek came across the unlikely victim that was the Kiel-built Danish East Asiatic Company steamer Prinsesse Marie (5416 tons), bound with cargo for Japan, and sank the same. Another bloodless kill by old school “cruiser rules,” her crew was taken off and brought to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies a week later. With the Dutch refusing Terek coal, the Russian cruiser ended her sortie there and was interned for three months until the Treaty of Portsmouth ended the war. Capt. Panferov dutifully offered his flag and sword to the local Dutch naval commander, who refused them.

Det Østasiatiske Kompagni Prinsesse Marie

Ironically, the Danish EAC protested the sinking of Prinsesse Marie under the pretext that, while her cargo was bound for a Japanese port, it was manifested to go to a European concern. It’s possible the Tsar, his mother being a Danish princess, made that one right in the end.

Returning home to Russia, on 10 December 1905, an order was received to Kuban, Terek, and Don of “all weapons and things related to naval affairs,” and investigate the possibility of selling the ships.

On 18 November 1906, by order of the fleet and the Naval Department No. 300, the Terek and her sister Kuban were excluded from the naval lists and were handed over to the port of Libau pending auction. The following February, Vosidlo and Co. paid 442,150 rubles for both vessels and sent them to Stettin to be cut up for scrap metal.

Epilogue

Terek could arguably be listed as one of the most successful ships on the Tsarist side of the Russo-Japanese War. A huge 1:48 scale model of the ship was crafted for the Russian Naval Museum in St. Petersburg following the campaign. Although damaged by fire during German bombs in WWII, it remains on display.

Terek’s only wartime Russian skipper, Panferov, earned both the Order of St. Anne, 2nd degree, and the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree for his service on the cruiser. Promoted to Capt. 1st Rank in 1908, then, switching to a shoreside non-line duty, by 1913, rose to the rank of major general. During the Great War, as chief quartermaster of Kronstadt, he earned the St. Anne 1st degree in 1916. One of the rare senior officers retained by the Red Navy post-revolution, he retired in 1919.

Russian Navy MG Konstantin Aleksandrovich Panferov. His son, Georgy Konstantinovich Panferov, went on to become a surgeon colonel during WWII and a professor at the Naval Medical Academy (VMMA). His grandson, Yuri Georgievich Panferov, followed in his footsteps and became an officer in the Red Banner fleet.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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SGT Stout gets big nod

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Originally dubbed the Interim Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense, or IM-SHORAD, system when the Army issued an initial $1.219 billion contract to Gen Dyn in September 2020 after three years of prototyping tests– the system became known officially as SGT Stout, in honor of Vietnam War ADA-unit Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Mitchell W. Stout, in June 2024.

Integrating four to eight updated Stinger short-range SAMs, a Northrop Grumman XM914 30mm chain gun, an onboard radar system, and optional Hellfire missiles onto an 8×8 Stryker A1 light armored vehicle, SGT Stout is reportedly able to provide local defense against drones and other threats on the modern battlefield, with enough mobility to support all Army formations. An M240 GPMG is also fitted coaxil.

The platform recently completed an overseas deployment and live fire exercise in Norway and was shown off for the crowds at the 250th Army birthday festival in Washington, D.C.

Stinger missiles are mounted on an SGT Stout during Formidable Shield 25, May 8, 2025, in Andøya, Norway. Formidable Shield 25 is a U.S. Sixth Fleet-led, multinational exercise focused on integrated air and missile defense. The live-fire training brings together naval, air, and ground forces from 10 NATO allies and partners. The 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment is supporting the exercise with short-range air defense capabilities. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Alexander Watkins)

A SGT STOUT Manuever-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) Stryker is on display during the U.S. Army 250th Birthday Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., June 14, 2025. The name “SGT STOUT” honors a fallen soldier, continuing the Army tradition of memorializing heroes through vehicle dedications. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Jose Rolando Garcia)

With that in mind, the below contract announcement on Monday should come as no surprise.

General Dynamics Land Systems Inc., Sterling Heights, Michigan, was awarded a $621,058,065 modification (P00056) to contract W31P4Q-20-D-0039 for SGT Stout systems, parts, services, and support. Bids were solicited via the internet, with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 29, 2028. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

The Army originally planned to field 144 air defense systems to four battalions by fiscal year 2025, with an additional 18 systems for training, operational spares, and testing. This expansion would bring the total number of systems to over 300 vehicles, enough for as many as eight battalions.

A sobering milestone in Ukraine

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One of the biggest shifts in combat in Ukraine for the past 18 months has been tethered fiber-optic-equipped FPV drones. The cable supplies continuous power from the ground, allowing the drone can fly for hours or even days (some spools carry as much as 50km of cable); allows the transfer of real-time high-speed data, such as live video feeds via fiber optics, and, most importantly, is far more jam-resistant than previous generations of radio-controlled UAVs.

Priced as low as $1,200 and used by both sides, with upwards of 10,000 drones lost each month across the battlefront, this has left the countryside bathed in discarded fiber optic cable.

The unnatural spiderwebs of the modern battlefield.

Even the birds are using it

Ukraine now claims that they have dispatched 1 million enemy troops by their own records, a figure that can be taken with a pallet of salt.

Still, even if overestimated by 300 percent, that is a lot of empty chairs at tables in Russia.

And it is estimated that drones accounted for 70 percent of those. 

 

Kentucky Apaches

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(Note: It looks like the AH-64s are running rocket pods.)

Posted last week via Commander, Submarine Group Nine:

“The sun reflected on the ocean’s surface as two MH-60R (Romeo) Sea Hawk helicopters carrying a duo of Navy photographers flew toward a metal behemoth steaming quietly on the horizon. As the helicopters approached the vessel, they were joined by two U.S. Army AH-64 Apaches—their wasp-like appearance befitting the attack helicopter’s mission and armament.

Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ryan Riley, a U.S. Navy Sailor assigned to Submarine Group (SUBGRU) 9, raised the viewfinder of his camera, adjusted the settings, and snapped a photo of the first-of-its-kind armed air escort (AAE) exercise led by U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM).”

250424-N-DK460-1015 PACIFIC OCEAN (April 24, 2025)—U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters, attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter, attached to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 37, and Military Sealift Command submarine support vessel MV Malama escort the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) during a routine armed air escort exercise, April 24, 2025. Commander, Submarine Group (SUBGRU) 9 exercises administrative control authority for assigned submarine commands and units in the Pacific Northwest, providing oversight for shipboard training, personnel, supply, and material readiness of submarines and their crews. SUBGRU-9 is also responsible for nuclear submarines undergoing conversion or overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gwendelyn Ohrazda)

U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters and a submarine support vessel escort the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) during a routine armed air escort (AAE) exercise, April 24, 2025. AAEs are designed to improve interoperability between our services, increasing lethality through multi-domain integration. Commander, Submarine Group (SUBGRU) 9, exercises administrative control authority for assigned submarine commands and units in the Pacific Northwest, providing oversight for shipboard training, personnel, supply, and material readiness of submarines and their crews. SUBGRU-9 is also responsible for nuclear submarines undergoing conversion or overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gwendelyn Ohrazda)

More here.

Warship Wednesday, June 11, 2025: Germans to the front!

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile 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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says, “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, June 11, 2025: Germans to the front!

Naval History and Heritage Command photograph NH 48215

Above we see S.M. kleiner kreuzer Gefion, part of the German Imperial Navy’s East Asia Squadron in 1899, anchored off Hankou (now Wuhan) after her nearly 600-mile voyage up the Yangtze River to protect the Kaiser’s interests in China– with Willy’s brother aboard.

The unique little cruiser would play a gunboat role in Chinese diplomacy some 125 yeas ago this month before shipping back home for the rest of her career.

Meet Gefion

Our subject was the second warship to carry the name of a Nordic sea goddess (the fourth goddess of Æsir following Frigg, the wife of Odin) to serve in the German Navy. The first was a 48-gun sail frigate (segelfregatte) built for the Royal Danish Navy in 1843 and captured during the war with her southern neighbors in 1849.

The former Danish frigate Gefion under German service. The Germans used the trophy ship as a training ship under her original name until 1880 and then as a coal hulk until 1891. Her bell, figurehead, anchors, and many other relics dot Eckernförde and Kiel.

The second Gefion was originally deemed a Kreuzerkorvette (cruiser corvette) J when designed in the early 1890s, an early attempt by the Kaiserliche Marine to create a cruiser suitable for both reconnaissance and fleet duties, as well as an overseas colonial service ship on independent duty.

Some 362 feet overall with a 43-foot beam, she sported a dagger-like 8.4:1 length-to-beam ratio. Lightly built, she had 0.98 inches of nickel-steel armor over her deck and equivalent armor on her conning tower. A second 0.6-inch steel plate cap was over her engine cylinder heads, backed by 5.9 inches of wood. She had a 4-inch cellulose belt at the waterline.

Steel hulled and using both transverse and longitudinal steel frames, she was sheathed below the water line with wood and copper, held with brass fittings, to help with fouling, especially when in colonial service.

Originally to carry six new 15 cm/35 (5.9″) SK L/35 guns in single mounts, with 810 shells in her magazine, this was later changed to 10 equally new but lighter 10.5 cm/40 (4.1″) SK L/40 mounts with as many as 1,500 shells at the ready. They were arranged two forward, two aft, and eight amidships in broadside, all protected by a thin armored shield. Her secondary battery was a half dozen 5 cm/40 (1.97″) SK L/40 rapid-fire (10 rounds per minute) torpedo boat guns with another 1,500 rounds in the magazine.

She also had a pair of 17-inch above-deck torpedo tubes (down from a planned six). Eight Maxim guns were arranged in her two spotting/fighting tops, they could be dismounted for use ashore. Likewise, almost a third of a 300-man crew could be issued small arms carried aboard and sent ashore. A small 6cm boat gun could back them up.

Gefion, Janes 1914

With six cylindrical two-sided boilers exhausting through a trio of stacks, driving two VTE engines, her plant was good for 9,800 shp. Extensively fitted for electric lights and hoists, she carried three 67-volt, 40-kW dynamos. Designed for 19 knots, on trials she made 20.53 knots at full power on forced draft. Loaded with 900 tons of good coal, she could theoretically steam 6,850nm at 11 knots, or 2,730nm at 18 knots on natural draft, the first German cruiser capable of such a range. This could be extended by rigging a cruising canvas from her two masts and rigging. It turned out that her decks vibrated extensively at full power, she struggled in tough seas, and she had insufficient ventilation below decks.

How she stacked up against contemporary cruisers, from the circa 1900 Professional Notes in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings:

Built for a cost of 5.171 million marks, she was ordered from Ferdinand Schichau’s new Danzig yard, as hull No. 486, and laid down on 28 March 1892. Launched 31 May 1893, she commissioned 27 June 1894.

This made her the forerunner of the 41 later kleiner kreuzers of the Gazelle, Bremen, Konigsberg, Dresden, Kolberg, Magdeburg, Karlsruhe, Graudenz, Pillau, Wiesbaden, Brummer, and Coln classes constructed between 1897 and 1918, all of which carried 4.1 inch guns on similar hulls along with torpedo tubes. The first four classes even carried the same model 4.1-inch SK L/40s as Gefion.

Geifon with her glad rags flying about 1895 IWM (Q 22323)

SMS Gefion was photographed sometime early in her career, between her commissioning date, 27 June 1894, and the receipt of this photo by the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence, 28 June 1895. NH 88636

Her first skipper was Korvettenkapitän Hans Oelrichs, an 1860s veteran of the old Norddeutsche Marine. Gefion’s first assignments were to escort the Royal yacht Hohenzollern to Norway in the autumn of 1894 and attend the inauguration ceremony of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal) the following year when the double locks at Brunsbüttel and Holtenau were opened.

A white-liveried SMS Gefion photographed early in her career, possibly during her 1894-1897 service in home waters. The Levensau Bridge over the Kiel Canal appears in the background; the Canal opened in 1895. NH 88634

Gefion spent the next couple of years as a guardship at Wilhelmshaven while the larger second-class cruiser Kaiserin Augusta did the same at Kiel. During the winter and spring, they served as training grounds for the fleet’s new stokers and artificers. During the summer and fall, they clocked in on fleet maneuvers, performing scouting services for the main battle line, taking breaks to escort Hohenzollern.

In April 1897, Gefion escorted the Swedish passenger ship Rex on the inaugural voyage of the mail steamer line from Sassnitz to Trelleborg. She counted among her wardroom Prince Henry (Heinrich) of Prussia, the Kaiser’s younger brother and a career naval officer, who on at least one occasion hosted Willy and his sons aboard.

Sent abroad

With Gefion’s newness wearing off and new light cruisers joining the German fleet, she was put in overhaul in the summer of 1897, made ready for overseas service, upgrading her smaller generators with a trio of 110-volt, 58-kW sets.

Her new skipper was FKpt Max Heinrich Ludwig Rollmann, a career sailor who joined the German Navy in 1873 as a cadet. A skilled officer and torpedo expert, he was part of the so-called “Torpedobande” (torpedo gang) which influenced Tirpitz and others to warm to the weapons.

Originally to be sent to intervene in the ongoing dispute between Haiti and Germany, Gefion was instead selected to strengthen the Ostasiatischen Kreuzerdivision in the Far East.

Gefion, NH 48216

In December 1897, just ahead of the first winter ice, she left in company with the old 7,000-ton armored cruiser Deutschland and Kaiserin Augusta in a squadron commanded by Prince Henry. When Deutschland broke down in Hong Kong in April 1898 while heading to China, Henry switched his flag to Gefion and proceeded to the German fleet’s Pacific treaty homeport at Tsingtao.

It was with the German East Asian Squadron that Gefion kept tabs on Dewey’s squadron as it smashed the Spanish in Manila later that summer, steamed to Samoa to serve as a station ship in early 1899, and then steam nearly 600 miles up the Yangtze to Hankou (now Wuhan) where she landed 130 armed crew on 28 April to guard the new 103-acre German Concession (Deutsche Konzession) in that river city and escort Prince Henry, then head of the squadron.

Henry was received by the Governor-General of Huguang, Zhang Zhidong, along with the assorted foreign expatriates, and even the British and French Concessions in the city flew the German flag.

Zhang Zhidong entertains Prince Heinrich. The VanDyke-clad FKpt Max Rollman, Gefion’s skipper, is to the far left. After the reception, the Germans toured the local military academy and watched the drills of the Hubei New Army, which included several German officers as instructors, notably Lieutenants Carl Fuchs and Albrecht Welzel, a Sergeant A. Seydel, and a Rittmaster (cavalry master) named Behrensdorf.

Henry laid the cornerstone for the new German bund in Hankou on 30 April, flanked by Gefion’s officers and crew.

War!

After a second tour in Samoa in early 1900, Gefion, now reclassified as a Kreuzer III. Klasse, and the rest of the German Far East Squadron, now under VADM Felix von Bendemann, massed at Tsingtao as trouble rumbled with the anti-Western Boxers in China, who were mounting attacks on churches.

The German force at the time, besides Gefion, included two new 6,700-ton Victoria Louise-class protected cruisers (with 477-member crews), SMS Hansa and SMS Hertha, the Kaiserin Augusta, the light cruisers SMS Irene, Geier, Seeadler, Bussard, and Schwalbe, along with the gunboat Itis.

Die Gartenlaube, by Willy Stower, showing the German cruisers in the Far East, circa 1898. These include Arkona. Prinzeß Wilhelm. Kaiserin Augusta, Kaiser, (Flaggschiff der I. Division) along with. Kormoran, Irene, Gefion, and Deutschland, (Flaggschiff der II. Division)

On 30 May, the Chinese government allowed a force of 400 assorted troops from eight Western nations to land at Tientsin and head to Peking to protect the Legation Quarter there. However, the situation continued to deteriorate as the Boxers cut the rail line between the two cities on 5 June, and a week later, a Japanese diplomat was killed by Chinese regulars.

Cruiser SMS Gefion at Tsingtao, circa 1900

Joining an international task force that included British, Russian, French, and Japanese warships, the combined squadron on 17 June moved to seize the five Chinese forts at Taku (Dagukou) at the mouth of the Hai (Pei-Ho) River, which barred the way to Tientsin (Tianjin), some 40 miles downstream, and Peking (Beijing), 110 miles inland.

The combat was sharp but one-sided, with the forts falling after a six-hour bombardment and short action ashore by naval landing parties.

S.M. Kanonenboot ILTIS im Gefecht mit den Takuforts am 17. Juni 1900 Willy Stöwer, DMM 2000-014-001

Ersturmung von taku by Fritz Neumann, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection

The Taku forts would remain garrisoned by the Eight Nations through 1902. Looking down the Peiho River toward North Port and Bay, from Northwest Fort, Taku, China. Underwood & Underwood, Publishers, 1901. LC-DIG-stereo-1s48075

The allied fleet also captured the Chinese government’s Dagu shipyard, complete with a gunboat that went to the Japanese and four new German-built Hai Lung class torpedo boats that were split between the British, Russian, French, and Germans.

Chinese Hai-Lung class torpedo boats captured at Taku, June 1900. Some 193 feet oal, these four German-made boats could make 32 knots and carried six Sk 4.7 cm L/35s while two 17-inch torpedo tubes weren’t fitted. Hai-Lung, yard number 608, became the German SMS Taku and was decommissioned after grounding on 30 December 1913. Hai-Ch’ing, yard number 609, became the French Takou and was written off after being grounded on the coast of Vietnam. Hai-Hoa, hull number 610, became the Russian Таку (Taku), and was sunk on 26 July 1904 off Port Arthur by Japanese forces. Hai-Hsi, yard number 611, became HMS Taku and was sold for scrap on 26 October 1916.

A Chinese second-class cruiser (Hai-Chi?) flying an Admiral’s flag was detained outside Taku by Gefion, who was ordered to release the vessel.

This triggered the start of the outright 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking, with some 900 Western troops and civilians, along with 2,800 Chinese Christians, holding out until relieved. The German minister, Baron von Ketteler, was killed by a Manchu officer escorted by Chinese lancers the same day while on his way to negotiate a solution to the incident, which was rapidly spiraling out of control.

A force that had tried to reinforce Peking before the siege was led by British VADM Sir Edward Hobart Seymour, who took the lead and scratched together a column of some 2,127 men drawn from the assorted ships crowding under the Taku forts, with the idea to force the way to Peking via Tientsin. His chief of staff was the young future admiral, Capt. John Jellicoe.

Seymour was able to muster 915 straw-hatted jack-tars and Royal Marines to spearhead the detachment. The Germans chipped in 511. Smaller contingents from allied fleets included 312 Russians, 158 French, 112 Americans, 54 Japanese, 40 Italians, and 25 Austrians.

Seymour Expedition, 1900, USN 901030

As detailed in Die Kaiserliche Marine während der Wirren in China, 1900-1901. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn, 1903. The German force was seriously ad hoc.

The German contingent, which consisted of 22 officers, two surgeons, and 487 enlisted men, was organized into two companies and two large platoons, armed with Gewehr 88 bolt-action rifles, single-action M1879 Reichsrevolvers, and four Maxim machine guns. Commanded overall by Kapitän zur See Guido von Usedom, the skipper of the Hertha, the four ships that coughed up landing forces contributed the following, each in turn led by the respective ship’s executive officer:

  • Hertha: 7 officers, 175 men under KL (CDR) Hecht
  • Hansa: 7 officers, 153 men, under KKpt (LCDR) Paul Schlieser
  • Kaiserin Augusta: 5 officers, 85 men, 1 doctor under KKpt Oltmann Buchholz
  • Gefion: 3 officers, 74 men, 1 doctor under KKpt Otto Weniger

Of course, Seymour thought he was just opposing a rabble of Boxer bandits, not 30,000 Imperial Qing Army regulars (Kansu Braves) who ultimately came out against him. These units consisted of Muslims from the remote Gansu Province, situated between the Qilian Mountains and the Gobi Desert, men renowned for their discipline and loyalty to the empire.

Flying long scarlet and black banners, the Gansu Army wore traditional uniforms but was well-trained and armed with Mauser M.71 repeater rifles and modern breechloading field artillery.

Chinese soldiers in 1899–1901. Left: three infantrymen of the New Imperial Army. Front: drum major of the regular army. Seated on the trunk: field artilleryman. Right: Boxers. Via Leipziger illustrirte Zeitung 1900

With this, the so-called Seymour Expedition was seriously outnumbered and fighting in a foreign land.

They left out for Peking from Tientsin on 10 June– a week before the Taku forts were seized– via five commandeered trains and by 14 June had suffered their first losses, among the Italian contingent. By the 18th, a pitched battle was fought against a key Western position, held by men largely drawn from Gefion.

As detailed in “The Boxer Rebellion: Bluejackets and Marines in China, 1900–1901” by Emily Abdow (NHHC, 2023):

A German garrison was at a coal depot near Langfang, christened “Fort Gefion” for their ship. Chinese Colonel Yao Wang [of Gen. Dong Fuxiang’s Gansu Army] and Boxer leader Ni Zanqing determined Fort Gefion was the weak point and amassed about 3,000 Qing soldiers and 2,000 Boxers for an attack. On 18 June, Boxers charged at Fort Gefion, teenagers and old men alike barreling into heavy allied fire in never-ending waves. When the Boxers fell, Colonel Yao’s soldiers attacked. Armed with modern weapons, they nearly forced the Germans’ right flank to retreat. British and French sailors reinforced the Germans, driving back the Chinese forces. At the end of the battle, the allied casualties were 10 dead and 50 wounded. The Chinese death toll was 400, over half of the casualties Qing soldiers.

With no hope of reaching Peking, Seymour’s force burned their trains and fought a slow, foot-borne retreat back to Tientsin for the next four days.

Coming upon the Chinese government’s Fort Xigu, the Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal (also seen in Western sources as Fort Hsiku/Osiku), eight miles northwest of Tientsin in the pre-dawn of 22 June, it made sense to occupy the works and wait for relief from the sea.

The problem was that the local Chinese garrison approached 1,500 troops, and the fort, with 16-foot-high mud walls protected by Krupp field guns, was a tough nut to crack.

With the Royal Marines tasked with an attempt to take the complex from the rear, Seymour passed the order, “Germans to the front.”

Leading the German column into the attack was KKpt Oltmann Buchholz, XO of the Kaiserin Augusta, with the men from the Hansa, Hertha, and Gefion behind him. The assault was quick and sharp, with the Germans battering down the front doors, then sweeping through and clearing the complex, turning the good Krupp guns around on their former owners. Inside were found, besides munitions, enough rations and supplies to revitalize the force along with a well-stocked medical clinic.

Buchholz was killed in the effort.

German artist Carl Röchling celebrated the event with his painting “Die Deutschen an der Front” (“The Germans to the front”).

The attack occurred at 0222. Roechling takes a bit of liberty with the amount of sunlight.

Seymour Expedition, 1900, likely at the Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal. USN 901028

A relief column of 2,000 fresh Western troops under Capt. (later RADM of Battle of Coronel fame) Christopher Cradock, RN, and Major (later MG) Littleton Tazewell “Tony” Waller, USMC, relieved Seymour near Fort Hsiku on 25 June, allowing his column to fully withdraw back to Tientsin. Seymour’s international column suffered at least 62 dead and 232 wounded, a casualty rate of about 1:6, during its fortnight in the Chinese countryside.

The German sailors and marines on the Seymour expedition ashore in June 1900 lost 16 killed and 60 wounded, including two young officers from Gefion (LT z. S. Hane v. Krohn from Wilhelmähoven and Frang Bustig from Hanover, both on 22 June in the assault on Fort Hsiku). The bombardment of the Taku forts on 17 June cost the Germans seven killed and 11 wounded, all on the gunboat SMS Itis (including her skipper, who caught 25 shrapnel wounds yet remained on the bridge, earning the Blue Max). Subsequent fighting in and around Tientsin cost the German force another 12 dead and 41 wounded, including three sailors from Gefion’s naval infantry (Wilhelm Wachsmund from Goblenz, on 27 June, along with Heinrich Hamm from Grünendeich and Emil Bonk from Raschang on 13 July). Of note, Hansa’s company suffered the greatest casualties of the German naval contingents during the Boxer rebellion (13 dead and 24 wounded).

Besieged Peking would ultimately be relieved in mid-August by the 20,000-strong force under British Maj. Gen. Alfred Gaselee (although fully half of the force were Japanese troops under Lt. Gen. Yamaguchi Motomi, a general senior in both grade and experience to Gaselee).

The 51 German marines (the fourth largest contingent in the Quarter) of III. Seebataillon under Oberleutnant Graf von Soden, holding out at Peking in the Legation, suffered 12 killed and 14 wounded during the siege, holding their line along the Quarter’s old Tartar Wall shoulder-to-shoulder with the 53 U.S. Marines and bluejackets landed from the USS Oregon and Newark.

German marines Peking 1900, AWM A05904

Peace

Following the arrival of more ships and troops rushed to China from Germany, Gefion was recalled home in September 1901.

Arriving back in German waters in time for Christmas, she was placed in ordinary and sent to Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven for a drawn-out three-year overhaul. This saw her armament retained but relocated for both stability and protection purposes.

Emerging from overhaul in 1905, she was placed in reserve, the German fleet having much better cruisers to choose from at that point.

It was from these mothballs that she was recalled in 1914, but, with no crews available to man her, she was moved to Danzig for use as a barracks ship, her usable equipment and weapons cannibalized for other uses.

At the end of the war, the victorious allies elected not to claim the hulked Gefion as a war trophy, and she was stricken from the German naval list on 5 November 1919.

Ex-Gefion was purchased by the salvage concern of Norddeutsche Tiefbaugesellschaft along with her old Far East buddy Kaiserin Augusta, the cruiser Victoria Louise, several incomplete submarines, and the obsolete (circa 1890) battlewagon Brandenburg. While most of the company’s new assets were soon scrapped in Danzig, Gefion and Victoria Louise were sold to the shipping firm of Danziger Hoch- und Tiefbau GmbH (Behnke & Sieg), along with the four still-crated 1,200 hp MAN four-stroke diesel engines for the unfinished SM U-115 and U-116.

Most of the superstructure and the machinery from Gefion and Victoria Louise were removed, and two cranes and their associated stowage space were installed. Their old coal-fired boilers and VTE engines removed, each picked up a pair of former U-boat diesels. They entered service with DHT in 1920 as the cargo vessels (frachtdampfer) SS Adolf Sommerfeld and Flora Sommerfeld, respectively.

Seen in the 1922 Lloyds Steamers list as SS Adolf Summerfeld (sic). The ex-SMS Victoria Louise is listed in the same volume correctly as Flora Sommerfeld.

However, the Baltic timber route they served had shallow draft harbors, and the thin-waisted former cruisers drew too much water to make the venture successful. By 1923, both were scrapped in Danzig, and their still-young diesels were sold to an electric company.

Epilogue

The German Navy never used the name Gefion again, however, her bell has been spotted a few times since WWII and may be in circulation in private collections.

Several pieces of period maritime art, primarily German postcards, endure.

1902 lithograph of Gefion by Hugo Graf

An exquisite 1:100 scale model of the cruiser in her white overseas livery is on display under glass at the Internationales Maritimes Museum in Hamburg.

Speaking of models, Combrig has a 1:700 scale kit available. 

As for Gefion’s China-era (1898-1901) skipper, FKpt Max Rollmann returned to Germany, became the captain of the battleship SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, and commanded the 1st Squadron of the High Seas Fleet as a commodore, then the III Squadron as a vice admiral in 1910. Retiring in 1913 after 40 years with the colors, he was made a full admiral on the retired list, decorated with both the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle and the Order of the Crown. Eschewing his pension and returning to work in the admiralty as a civilian during the Great War, he passed in 1942 in Berlin, aged 85. His son, KKpt Max Rollmann, had passed the previous year while serving as the duty officer (Rollenoffizier) aboard the Bismarck.

Charakterisierter Admiral Max Rollmann. As part of his service in China, he carried top-level decorations and honors, including the Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus, the Grand Officer’s Cross of the Order of the Crown of Thailand, and the Commander’s Cross of the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure.

Kapitan zur See Guido von Usedom, the skipper of the cruiser Hertha that led the overall German naval infantry battalion under Seymour, was given a Blue Max and made an ADC to the Kaiser following the campaign. Quick with exotic anecdotes from the Orient to entertain Willy’s guests, he was given command of the imperial yacht Hohenzollern for a couple of years, followed by comfortable desk jobs until he retired in 1910 as a vice admiral after 39 years in the service, promoted to full Admiral on the retirement rolls.

Like Rollman, Von Usedom volunteered his services to the Kaiser once again in 1914 and soon found himself wearing a fez as an admiral in the Ottoman Navy in command of Sonderkommando Türkei. He strengthened the Dardanelles Straits until they became virtually impregnable from the sea in 1915, forcing the disastrous land Gallipoli campaign and earning a set of oak leaves for his 1900 Blue Max. He remained in Turkish service until 1918, when he retired a second time on the outbreak of peace.

Charakterisierter Admiral Guido von Usedom passed in 1925, aged 70. And yes, the center image is him showing a Mameluke-carrying Willy around the Dardanelles in 1915.

Albert Wilhelm Heinrich, Prinz von Preußen, was very much seen as the “Sailor Prince” of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Entering the German Navy at the age of 16 in 1878, he was a professional officer and earned his Großadmiral shoulder boards for sure, having spent decades on sea-going duty. During the Great War, he ably commanded the Imperial German Baltic Sea Fleet (Oberbefehlshaber der Ostseestreitkräfte) in operations against the Russians. He passed in 1929, aged 66.

The German treaty port at Tsingtao fell to an Anglo-Japanese force in 1914, and the Hankou Concession was retrograded by the Chinese in 1917, with the remaining German merchants closing up shop altogether in 1945. The old baroque German consulate in the Hankou Bund, where Prince Henry laid the cornerstone after a trip on Gefion in 1899, survives today on Yanjing Avenue as a Wuhan municipal office building, a red banner flying from its mast.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

***

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