Category Archives: littoral

Train Wreckers at Work

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Some 75 years ago today.

Official caption: “Commandoes of the 41st Royal British Marines plant demolition charges along railroad tracks of enemy supply line, which they demolished during a commando raid, 8 miles south of Songjin, Korea. 10 April 1951.”

NARA FILE #: 080-G-428242

If you are curious as to why the RMs of 41 (Independent) Commando are equipped with U.S. arms (the M1 Garands slung), its because the scratch unit was assembled from 219 men sent to Japan in civilian clothes in September 1950, then later married up with their green berets, battle dress, and boots, but had to rely on winter uniforms, weapons, and kit drawn from American stocks.

The above raid, which “involved transporting quantities of limpet mines and explosives ashore in rubber dinghies through the surf and currents” from the submarine USS Perch (ASSP-313), was highly successful in disrupting enemy rail lines and soon gave rise to the nickname the Royal Marines proudly adopted as a trademark of their mission in Korea, “the train wreckers.”

British Commando Unit on Deck of the USS Perch, at Japan, en route to Korea, 1 November 1950. NARA 80-G-421629

The RMs lost 31 very brave men in Korea, with 17 captured as POWs.

For more on the operation of 41 Cdo, check out “Train Wreckers and Ghost Killers,” by Leo J. Daugherty III (free PDF).

Innovative Portuguese Drone Carrier takes to the water

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Damen Shipyards Galati in Romania this week launched the future NRP Dom João II, a Multi-Purpose Vessel (MPV) 10720 series ship for the Portuguese Navy.

The 353-foot, 7,000-ton vessel is designed for minimal manning (48 full-time crew) and can conduct everything from scientific research and drone experimentation to humanitarian relief and disaster support.

With a 308×36 foot flight deck and 650m² of hangar space, the vessel can transport and launch unmanned underwater, surface, and aerial vehicles, as well as carry up to 12 TEU containers housing mission-specific modular systems like a Role 2 NATO hospital or ROV equipment.

Dom João can carry a light battalion (300~ men) for brief periods and 10-12 RIBs to land them in a maritime raid force situation, backed up by at least two Agusta-Westland AW101 helicopters and assorted UAVs. The regiment-sized Portuguese Marines are certainly capable of providing such a force. 

Alternatively, Dom João can embark a force of light armor, provided a port is available, with her decks able to stow 18 vehicles, landed on a pier via an onboard 30-ton crane. The country’s army operates a decent quantity of Pandur 8x8s, 90mm-armed Commando V-150s, etc., and could make that happen.

In terms of UAVs, Dom João can also operate as a drone carrier with as many of the bad boys as you can stuff aboard her.

The fixed-wing UAVs are launched via a ski jump. Portuguese Navy image.

The mothership is shown with two notional fixed-wing UAVs on deck (they look like MQ-1C Grey Eagle, but the new MQ-9B STOL may be a better fit) as well as 6 quad-copter UAVs and one NH90 helicopter. The design seems to lack an aviation hangar. Below decks is a modular area to launch and recover AUV, UUV, and USV. Portuguese Navy image.

As noted recently by Jane’s:

The Portuguese Navy has acquired a wide range of unmanned systems in recent years, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as UAVision Aeronautics’ Spyro 4N and OGS42N/VN, Beyond Vision’s VTOne and HEIFU Pro, and Autel Robotics’ EVO II Dual 640T Enterprise V2 and EVO Nano; the LSTS’ Seacon-3 unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV); and a shelter-based deployable ground control station.

The €132 million tender for Dom João was signed in 2023 and laid down in October 2024.

She will carry the name of the 15th-century Portuguese King who championed maritime exploration, broadening the work of his great-uncle, Henry the Navigator, and is scheduled for sea trials later this year.

While Dom João has no armament fitted, the MPV could be escorted in operations by the Damen-built former Dutch Karel Doorman-class frigates NRP Bartolomeu Dias (F333, ex-Van Nes) and NRP D. Francisco de Almeida (F334, ex-Van Galen) or the three newer Vasco da Gama (German MEKO 200) class frigates, which do.

Warship Wednesday 18 March 2026: A Lake by any Other Name

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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

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 18 March 2026:  A Lake by any Other Name

Via the New Zealand Navy Museum, Torpedo Bay, photo AAT 0005

Above we see the very Commonwealth-oriented Loch-class frigate HMNZS Tutira (F 571) with a bone in her teeth off Korea between August 1950 and April 1951.

Built in Tyneside, she served with a Canadian crew under a different name during WWII before shipping to her new home a world away with a Kiwi crew– and a much different war against a new enemy.

The Lochs

The 151 frigates of the River class, built in 29 yards across three continents between May 1941 and May 1946, were a baseline for anti-submarine escorts in the British Royal and Commonwealth nations. While built in five slightly different groups, the Rivers were all generally 1,500 tons light/2,000 tons full load displacement, 301 feet overall length, and with a 36-foot beam. Using twin reciprocating steam engines that could generate about 5,500 shp, they could make 20 knots and steam for 7,000 at an economical 12.

Manned by a ~100-man crew, they carried a couple of 4″/40s augmented by an AAA suite but were primarily outfitted as sub-busters with a Hedgehog projector, up to eight depth charge throwers, two depth charge rails, and allowance for as many as 150 “ash cans.”

River-class frigates fitting out at Vickers Canada, 1944

Where the Lochs were an incremental improvement over the Rivers was that they were gently larger (307 feet oal), were simplified in construction, used mercantile engineering machinery, and had an allowance for a single 4″/40 mount, then ditching the Hedgehog for a pair of triple-barreled Mark IV Squid ASW mortars. Each Squid could project three 440-pound depth bombs to 275 yards abeam.

The overall layout of the Loch class frigates. Note the single 4″/40 mount forward, followed by two Squids on the forecastle. Her quad 40mm Mark VII QF 2-pounder Pom Pom gun was aft, while two 40mm singles and as many as eight 20mm Oerlikons were arrayed abeam.

Installed on only some 70 RN and Commonwealth frigates and corvettes during the war, Squid’s first successful use was by the Loch-class frigate HMS Loch Killin on 31 July 1944, when she sank U-333.

HMCS Iroquois and Swansea at Halifax with two Squid ASW mortars shown forward. The system was credited with sinking 17 submarines in 50 attacks over the course of the war – a success ratio of 2.9 to 1. MIKAN SWN0284

Anti-Submarine Weapons: Anti-submarine Mortar Mark IV Squid launchers and loading apparatus on the forecastle of Loch class corvette, HMS Loch Fada, in Gladstone Dock, Liverpool. 27 October 1944 IWM (A 26153)

Royal Navy sailors loading a Squid anti-submarine mortar.

Battle class destroyer HMS Barrosa steams through the wake of her Squid anti-submarine mortar system, showing the usefulness of its triple-barreled format. IWM (A 33111)

The Loch design catered to small yards with limited infrastructure through the miracle of prefabricated modular construction techniques. No subassembly of the ship would be larger than 29 feet long, 8.5 feet wide, and 8.5 feet tall, with a maximum weight of 2.5 tons to allow for easy lift by even the most modest of crane and rail systems. As much as 80 percent of the ship could be prefabbed and then sent for assembly in the graving dock, with great effort meant to eliminate curves in favor of straight-line construction.

The late-war sensor fit was advanced compared to what RN escorts were working with just a few years earlier, with the Lochs carrying Type 277 radars (good for detecting high flying aircraft out to 40 miles and surface contacts at 20) and Type 144 ASDIC with Type 147B depth finding sonars.

Using a pair of  VT4cyl (18.5, 31 & 38.5, 38.5 x 30ins) engines and two Admiralty 3-drum boilers, they could gen up 5,500 hp and push it out on twin screws. With 724 tons of fuel oil carried, these ships were slightly slower than the 20-knot Rivers, typically hitting 19.5 knots on trials and 18 or so when dirty and fully loaded at 2,200 tons displacement, but had a higher cruising speed (15 knots vs 12) for a 7,000nm range.

Loch class frigate HMS Loch Insh, October 1944 IWM (FL 14742)

With class leader HMS Loch Achanalt (K424) ordered from Henry Robb Limited, Leith in July 1942, the first completed Lochs only started arriving in the fleet in early 1944.

While 110 hulls were planned and 82 ordered from at least 10 yards, peace intervened, and only 28 were completed, the rest being canceled or, in the case of 26, converted to Bay class AAA frigates for Pacific service with a much reduced depth charge capacity and no Squid mortars to allow room for a roughly doubled gun battery.

Meet Loch Morlich

Our subject is the only warship named for the peaceful 5,000-foot freshwater loch (Mhor Thalamic in Gaelic) in the Badenoch and Strathspey area of Highland, Scotland, near Aviemore. Ordered 13 February 1943 as Yard No. 1784 from the fine Tyneside firm of Swan Hunter, Wallsend, for construction at the Neptune Yard in Low Walker, the future HMCS Loch Morlich (K 517) was laid down five months later on 15 July 1943.

Loch Morlich was one of eight Loch class frigates ordered from Swan Hunter, with sister Loch Shin (K 421) ordered five months prior. Sister Loch Cree was instead completed by Swan as the South African Navy’s SAS Natal (K 10). Meanwhile, two other Swan-built sisters, the planned Loch Assynt and Loch Torridon, were instead completed post-war as the unarmed depot ships Derby Haven and Woodbridge Haven. Of the rest, Swan was told to cancel the planned Loch Griam, Loch Kirbister, and Loch Lyon as the war ended.

Morlich’s sister, HMSAS Natal (K 10), a South African Loch class frigate fitting out, 5 March 1945. One of three Lochs completed for the South African Navy, she would go on to sink the German submarine U-714 on 14 March, only four hours after having left Swan! IWM A 28216

Launched 25 January 1944, Loch Morlich was bound for Canadian service and fully Canadian manned with her first skipper, T/A/LCDR Leslie Lewendon Foxall, RCNVR, assuming command while she was fitting out on 6 March 1944. Foxall had commanded the smaller Flower-class corvette HMCS Chilliwack (K 131) for two years on Atlantic convoy runs, so he knew his trade.

War!

With WWII well into its sixth year, Loch Morlich broke out her colors on 17 July 1944 and was assigned to the 8th Canadian Escort Group. Two other Lochs likewise went to the Canadians, Loch Achanalt (to the 6th CEG) and Loch Alvie (9th CEG), in July and August, respectively.

Morlich’s workups in the Western Approaches were delayed due to accidents while training, but she eventually made ready and sailed with her first convoys, MKS 067G and SL 176MK, on 17-18 November.

Loch Morlich CTB016772

HMS Loch Morlic (K 517) secured to a buoy on the Tyne. IWM FL 6042

She would clock in on at least six other convoys over the next five months, most of them under the command of Lt. George Frederick Crosby, RCNVR, who took over from Foxall in December 1944.

The Lochs were on hand to corral the last of Donitz’s steel sharks at sea in May 1945.

Loch class frigate HMCS Loch Alvie (K 428), and a surrendered U-boat, May 1945. (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950920, color)

The class is credited with assisting in the sinking of at least 17 U-boats as vetted by post-war examination boards.

After VE-Day, it was decided that the three Canadian-manned Lochs should return to England to prep for possible Pacific service under RN control. Morlich returned to Sheerness, and her Canadian crew was released on 20 June 1945, apparently returning home with the ship’s HMCS-marked bell. Paid off, the frigate was reduced to Reserve status.

Her RN crew never came, preempted by VJ Day.

No Lochs were lost in combat.

Meet Tutira

While some had thought the post-WWII New Zealand Squadron should be built around one of the RN’s many surplus aircraft carriers–after all, Canada and Australia had gotten into the flattop game as well– and, indeed, the Colossus-class carrier HMS Glory had operated from New Zealand as part of J Force in 1946, taking RNZAF Squadron No. 14 to Japan for occupation duties, RADM George Walter Gillow Simpson CB, CBE, head of the New Zealand Navy Staff in the late 1940s, instead championed for a smaller, more anti-submarine, force.

A series of non-violent mutinies among the ships of the NZ fleet in April 1947 over poor living and working conditions, coupled with outrageously low pay, further emphasized the downshift from such lofty carrier goals, and J Force returned home from occupation duties by September 1948, its mission complete.

While over 10,000 men served in the RNZN and RNZNVR during WWII on 60 commissioned ships, by the late 1940s, the peacetime New Zealand fleet shrank to just 2,900 officers and men, enough to man two 5,900-ton light (5.25-inch gunned) Dido class cruisers (HMNZS Black Prince and Bellona, later Royalist), six surplus ASW frigates, four 1,000-ton Bathurst-class escort minesweepers, eight minesweeping trawlers (including the famous Kiwi and Tui), the disarmed River-class frigate Lachlan used as a survey ship, a dozen 72-foot MLs, as well as miscellaneous tenders and tugs.

The half-dozen above-mentioned “surplus ASW frigates” were laid up Lochs that were sold to NZ for the princely sum of £1,500,000 for the lot, weapons included, transferred between 13 September 1948 and 11 April 1949 after refits. Loch Morlich in particular went for £228,250.

Taking a page from their original loch names, in NZ service they earned names of lakes from their new home country, with Loch Eck becoming HMNZ Hawea, Loch Achray – Kaniere, Loch Achanalt – Pukaki, Loch Katrine – Rotoiti, Loch Shin – Taupo, and our Loch Morlich now HMNZS Tutira. They kept their old pennant numbers, just changing the K to an F, with Loch Morlich (K 517), for example, becoming Tutira (F 517) in New Zealand service.

HMNZS Pukaki (formerly Loch Achanalt) and two other Loch class frigates of the Royal New Zealand Navy

HMNZS Taupo, a Loch class frigate of the Royal New Zealand Navy, Auckland Anniversary Regatta, 29 January 1951

Loch-class frigate HMNZS Hawea (F422), formerly HMS Loch Eck (K422), photographed in 1955

HMNZS Tutira F 517

The NZ Lochs were soon frolicking in their home waters in exercises with the British East Indies Fleet and RAN.

15 March 1950. Ships of the Australian and New Zealand naval fleets are arriving at Auckland for combined naval exercises. HMNZS Tutira (left) and Pukaki (middle). Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-U045-08.

March 1950. HMNZS Pukaki (F424) and other frigates in Akaroa Harbour during combined naval exercises of the Royal New Zealand and Australian Navies. The exercises included the British submarine HMS Telemachus, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney, four New Zealand frigates-HMNZS Taupo, Rotoiti, Tutira, and Pukaki-the Australian frigate HMAS Murchison, the destroyers HMAS Bataan and Warramunga, and the cruisers HMNZS Bellona and HMAS Australia. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-313-15.

March 1950. The cruiser HMAS Australia (D84) in the foreground with other ships in Akaroa Harbour during combined naval exercises of the Royal New Zealand and Australian Navies. The exercises included the British submarine HMS Telemachus, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney, four New Zealand frigates-HMNZS Taupo, Rotoiti, Tutira, and Pukaki-the Australian frigate HMAS Murchison, the destroyers HMAS Bataan and Warramunga, and the cruisers HMNZS Bellona and HMAS Australia. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-313-12

March 1950.Aircraft and crew on the deck of HMAS Sydney (note her 805 Squadron Hawker Sea Furies and 816 Squadron Fairey Fireflies) with an unidentified frigate behind during combined naval exercises of the Royal New Zealand and Australian navies in Akaroa Harbour. The exercises included the British submarine HMS Telemachus, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney, four New Zealand frigates-HMNZS Taupo, Rotoiti, Tutira, and Pukaki-the Australian frigate HMAS Murchison, the destroyers HMAS Bataan and Warramunga, and the cruisers HMNZS Bellona and HMAS Australia. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-313-18

On 12 May 1950, LCDR Peter James Hill Hoare, RN, assumed command of Tutira. Born just months before Jutland, the 34-year-old Hoare had graduated from the Nautical College at Pangbourne and earned his lieutenant’s stripe in 1938, going on to command the sloop HMS Bridgewater (L 01) and frigate HMS Hoste (K 566) on Atlantic convoy duties during WWII. He would soon be in his and Tutira’s second war.

Korea

Just three days after North Korea invaded its democratic neighbor to the South, New Zealand answered the call of the United Nations and said it would be dispatching two warships.

Those ships were our Loch Morlich/Tutira and Loch Achanalt/Pukaki, which ironically were two-thirds of the Lochs that had served with the Canadians during WWII.

As noted by the NZ Navy Museum, Torpedo Bay:

On the 3rd of July, HMNZS Tutira and Pukaki left Auckland. The ships arrived in Korea on the 27th of July and were given an escort role with up to four convoys a week. The assigned task of the frigates was described as the most thankless of the sea war – ‘dull, daily routine patrol’. However, this work was of vital importance to the United Nations cause in Korea. The commander of the U.S. Naval Forces, Vice Admiral Joy, noted ‘The unspectacular role of carrying personnel and supplies to Korea was perhaps the Navy’s greatest contribution’.

Skipped over in that description is the fact that the two NZ frigates were on hand for the famed amphibious landings at Inchon on 15 September 1950 as part of TG 90.7 (the screening and protective group) and patrolled the waters just off the bridgehead to guard the Marines ashore from potential seaborne attack.

Then came use with the U.S. Navy task group off Wonson in October. It was there that one of Loch Morlich’s crew, Petty Officer Henry Matthew Blizzard, was killed by shrapnel from an exploding mine, one of just three RNZN personnel killed during the war.

The NZ frigates remained in Korean waters until early November, when they were sent to Sasebo, Japan, for quick refit.

An RN photographer caught up to Tutira in Japan in November 1950 and captured some great images of her crew, which included several English lads and at least one Scot.

November 1950. The Asdic team of the Tutira kept constant watch for 42 days. In the harbor, they are engaged in depth charge equipment. A/B M Anderson, Tekuiti, North Island, New Zealand; A/B M M Clark, Wellington, New Zealand; L/S J Belcher, Torbay; A/B M W Bailey, Waitara, N Island, New Zealand; A/B R Allister, Liverpool; A/B M R Lewis, Christchurch, New Zealand. IWM 31760.

AB J Teaika, Christchurch, New Zealand, Tutira’s Quartermaster. IWM A 31759.

HMNZS Tutira’s port Oerlikon crew at action stations. Note the old tin plate helmets, certainly quaint in 1950. Leading Seaman B J Mason, Taihape, N Island, New Zealand; and Able Seaman A B Tripp, Wembley, England. IWM A 31754.

HMNZS Tutira. On the signal platform, left to right: Signalman R H (Curly) Richardson, Masterson, North Island, New Zealand; Signalman R P Davies, Morden, Surrey, England; Signalman C J Pitcher, Ringwood, Hants, England; Leading Signalman P J Stewart, Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand. IWM A 31755.

Tutira Galley staff, right to left: P/O Cook R Lowndes, Worthing, Sussex; Cook D Hornsby, Sheffield; Cook D W Jackman, Guildford, Surrey; Cook (O) A Davidson, New Plymouth, New Zealand; Cook M Pickard, Christchurch; Cook T Goddard, Southampton. IWM A 31757

Some of Tutira’s engine room company. Stoker Mech V G Brightwell, Auckland; Stoker Mech W Coppins, Ashford, Kent; Stoker Mech J O’Grady, Manchester; Stoker R A Blann, Epsom, Surrey; Stoker P/O J V Murray, Hythe, Kent; Stoker P/O A C Cameron, Auckland; Stoker Mech B A Gabb, Larkworth, New Zealand; Stoker Mech K D Bickham, Auckland, New Zealand; Stoker Mech W A Page, Deptford; ERA W S Watson, Christchurch, New Zealand; Stoker P/O J Adams, Aberdeen, Scotland; ERA C J de Larue, Auckland, New Zealand. IWM A 31758

Early 1951 saw Tutira and Pukaki patrolling Korea’s coast, supporting the evacuations from Inchon and Chinampo, and later supporting ROKN mine-clearing operations. In particular, they took turns operating with the South Korean Navy minesweepers YMS 502 and YMS 503 between 15 March and 7 April.

RNZN frigate crews in Korea often went ashore in several “Nelsonian” night raids against coastal targets and took several prisoners for intelligence gathering. One of Tutira’s former sailors, Able Seaman Robert Marchioni, who joined the crew of her sister Rotoiti, was killed ashore on 26 August 1951 on one such nocturnal raid near Sogon-ni while trying to do a prisoner grab on a Chinese gun emplacement. Marchioni’s body was never recovered.

While Pukaki was relieved by sister Rotoiti in February 1951, Tutira remained on station for three more months until relieved by sister Hawea, only arriving back home in Devonport on 30 May, having steamed 35,400 miles and having been away from New Zealand for nearly 11 months. LCDR Hoare and two ratings were awarded a Mention in Despatches, and the ship earned her only battle honor (Korea 1950-51).

New Zealand’s naval involvement in the Korean War lasted three years and involved all six of its Lochs, with the last, Kaniere, returning home on 2 March 1954. Almost half the manpower of the RNZN– approximately 1,350 officers and ratings-  shipped out for Korean waters over those nearly four years. In their eight tours (Rotoiti and Hawea both went twice), the New Zealand Lochs steamed 339,584 nautical miles and fired 71,625 rounds of ammunition in action.

Kayforce, a New Zealand Army artillery and engineer detachment that served in Korea from December 1950 onward with the 27th British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade, saw 4,600 men rotate through its ranks before it was finally brought home in July 1957, suffering 42 deaths and 79 wounded.

New Zealand’s 16 Field Regiment fired 800,000 rounds in the Korean War- far more than any Kiwi regiment fired in World War II- and the conflict was described as an “artilleryman’s paradise.” National Library PA1-f-113-1861

End time

After service with the 11th Flotilla and fleet exercises with the Australians, in August 1953, the well-traveled Tutira was put into reserve at Auckland, then partially refitted and given limited sea trials in late June 1954. Following these trials, she was partially cocooned and not modernized as her sister vessels had been. Placed in extended reserve, she was slowly and extensively cannibalized for parts to keep her active duty sisters on the job.

In February 1957, with the realization that, under SEATO, a future Pacific War would likely see combat against roaming Soviet submarines, the NZ government ordered a pair of Type 12 (Rothesay) class ASW frigates to be built eight months apart in Britain at Thornycroft and White, respectively. Named HMNZS Otago (F 111) and Taranaki (F 148), the 2,500-ton frigates were modern with a Seacat missile system, Limbo depth charge mortars, and a twin 4.5-inch turret. They were followed by a third, improved Type 12 (Leander) class, HMNZS Waikato (F 55) in 1966, while a fourth Type 12, HMS Blackpool (F 77) was leased from the RN.

These new vessels meant the New Zealand admiralty could divest itself of its obsolete WWII-era cruisers and frigates. Black Prince reverted to RN control and was scrapped in Japan in 1962, while Royalist was decommissioned in 1966, likewise reverting to the RN for disposal.

New Zealand Lochs, Jane’s, 1960

Of the Lochs in NZ service, Taupo and Tutira were sold for scrap to a Hong Kong-based broker on 15 December 1961, with Hawea and Pukaki following in September 1965. The final pair, Rotolti and Kanire, by then classed as 2nd Rate Escorts, served until they were disposed of in 1966.

October 1961. The frigates HMNZS Tutira F517 (right) and HMNZS Taupo (left) off Cape Reinga en route to Hong Kong, where they were sold for scrap. In the center, the Otapiri tows the tug Atlas to Whangaparāoa Harbor for repairs after its towline fouled the seabed five miles north of Cape Reigna. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-029-22-02

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-029-22-03

HMNZS Rotoiti paying off, 1965, Loch class frigate. Image AAR 0032 

As far as her Loch class sisters still afloat elsewhere, the RN kept a couple in service as F-pennant frigates (Loch Lomond and Loch Killisport) until as late as 1965, while Loch Fada served as a missile test bed until 1970– vetting Sea Wolf. One interesting sister who began life as Loch Eil was converted to a Bay class AAA frigate (Herne Bay), finally became the survey ship HMS Dampier, and was kept until 1968.

Of interest, Dampier, limping along with a broken shaft from Freetown to Chatham in December 1967, hoisted three lug sails and a set of square sails made from awning canvas to gain an extra knot or two to make England just in time for Christmas– thus is the pluck of frigatemen.

HMS Dampier (A303) – ex Loch-class frigate, survey ship. 1967 under sail

The South Africans kept their trio of Lochs active well into the 1970s, with the last, SAS Good Hope (ex-Loch Boisdale) scuttling in December 1978, the final member of the class. She remains part of an artificial reef some 101 feet under False Bay near Cape Town.

Epilogue

One of the Loch Morlich’s/Tutira’s 3-pounder guns has been preserved ashore at the stone frigate HMNZS Philomel, the RNZN base at Devonport, Auckland.

Her 1944-marked HMCS Loch Morlich bell, presumably removed before she went to New Zealand, has long been in private hands and was sold at auction in Boston last year for less than $3,000.

A For Posterity’s Sake page exists for Loch Morlich’s RCN veterans.

She and her sister Pukaki are also remembered in maritime art, immortalized on their Korean deployment.

Painting of HMNZS Pukaki and HMNZS Tutira at Inchon by Colin Wynn.

CDR Peter James Hill Hoare, OBE, Tutira’s Korean War skipper, retired from the RN on 29 January 1966, capping 28 years in uniform. He passed away in 1984, aged 68.

The Loch Class Frigates Association was formed in 1993 but held its last reunion in 2019 and disappeared from the internet in 2023. Before they faded away, they established a memorial cairn at Alrewas in 2005, finished with stones from each of the 28 Lochs completed.

Colin Sweett via IWM

Likewise, a Loch class frigate is featured on the Korean War memorial plaque at Devonport, New Zealand, dedicated by the New Zealand Korea Veterans’ Association in 2000. It rests upon a stone donated by the city of Pusan.

As you may remember, Devonport Naval Base is where Tutira and Pukaki sortied from for Korea on 3 July 1950.

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 3003-0217

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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USCG Update: Deep Freeze, An Old Vet with a New flag, Cutters Everywhere, New Waterways vessels

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Lots of Coast Guard news in the past couple of weeks.

Polar Star completes Deep Freeze ’26

The country’s only polar-rated heavy icebreaker, the 13,500-ton USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), some 50 years young, recently departed McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, on 1 March after operating for 55 days below the Antarctic Circle and traveling 14,000 miles in support of Operation Deep Freeze 2026– her 29th such participation in the annual resupply mission.

USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10) crew members pose for a group photo while the cutter sits hove-to in the Ross Sea during Operation Deep Freeze 2026, Jan. 12, 2026. The cutter turns 50 years old on Jan. 17, 2026, amid Operation Deep Freeze, which is a joint service, inter-agency support operation for the National Science Foundation that manages the United States Antarctic Program. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Bokum)

Besides saving the iced-in cruise ship Scenic Eclipse III, she busted a seven-mile channel through fast ice to allow the 600-foot fuel tanker Stena Polaris into and out of Winter Quarter’s Bay to deliver more than 6 million gallons of fuel to McMurdo. She later escorted the chartered SS Plantijngracht in with the Army’s Modular Causeway System, as well as the tug Rachel, which carried the new NSF Discovery Pier to McMurdo Station to be installed by Seabees.

Bollinger gets funds for Polar Security Cutter

From DoW contracts:

Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, is awarded a $14,922,120 cost reimbursable contract modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-19-C-2210) for long lead time material for the Polar Security Cutter land-based test facility and production integration facility. Work will be performed in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and is expected to be completed by September 2027. Fiscal 2025 procurement, construction, and improvement (Coast Guard) funds in the amount of $7,494,138 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

Decisive to Sri Lanka

The old 210-foot Reliance-class cutter Decisive will celebrate her 58th birthday in her new home as pennant number P 628 with the Sri Lankan Navy. Decommissioned 1 March 2023, she has spent the past three years at the USCG Yard outside of Baltimore, where she was refirbed and converted for further use. An 86-man  (14 officers and 72 sailors) Sri Lankan crew moved last December aboard and have been getting used to their new patrol vessel.

She left Baltimore on 21 February for an estimated 77-day, 14,775-nm cruise to her new home across the Pacific via the Panama Canal with numerous strategically important port calls, ultimately joining four other former U.S. Coast Guard cutters on the Sri Lankan naval list.

The Sri Lankan Embassy in D.C. noted that this cruise will be the “longest single sea voyage ever undertaken by a Sri Lankan naval vessel and will be the first Sri Lankan ship to navigate through the Panama Canal.”

Forward bags Narco Sub, Tampa, a go-fast

The 270-foot Famous (Bear)-class USCGC Forward (WMEC 911) intercepted a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) vessel during a routine patrol on 24 February in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The 70-foot “narco sub” was filled with an estimated 17,600 lbs. of cocaine, and her four-man crew was taken into custody before the smuggler was deep-sixed.

As usual for JITF South/Fourth Fleet tasking in the region, Forward carried a well-armed HITRON MH-65 Dolphin, which was used to help bag the boat. A P-3C Orion (the Navy still has a couple!) helped with the ISR.

A U.S. Navy P-3 Orion oversees a HITRON MH-65 Dolphin and Coast Guard Cutter Forward Over-the-Horizon boat on scene with a Self-Propelled Semi-Submersible in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, February 24, 2026. (U.S. Navy courtesy photo)

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Forward’s Over-the-Horizon cutter boat approaches a Self-Propelled Semi-Submersible in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, February 24, 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard courtesy photo)

Forward’s sistership, USCGC Tampa (WMEC 902), similarly just interdicted more than $31.9M in cocaine off a vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean as well.

A Coast Guard Cutter Tampa (WMEC 902) small boat crew operates near a go-fast vessel that is sunk following interdiction in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Feb. 27, 2026, resulting in the apprehension of two suspected narco-terrorists and seizure of approximately 4,244 pounds of cocaine worth more than $31.9 million. The vessel was burned and sunk as a hazard to navigation following the interdiction. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)

Munro back after 26,000-mile cruise spanning Atlantic and Pacific

The Alameda-based 418-foot National Security Cutter Munro returned home last week after 119 days deployed on an Eastern Pacific Patrol that saw her pinch hit in the Atlantic. Leaving home last November with two embarked cutter pursuit boats, Scan Eagle short-range UAV, and a HITRON MH-65 Dolphin, she clocked in on the DoW’s Resolute Hunter exercise offshore San Diego, then Operation Pacific Viper.  It was while on Pacific Viper that she interdicted a smuggler with six suspects and 22,052 pounds of cocaine aboard.

The Coast Guard cutter Munro pulls into its home port of Alameda, Calif., after a 119-day patrol, March 1, 2026. The cutter is named in honor of Petty Officer First Class Douglas A. Munro, the only Coast Guardsman awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroic actions on Sept. 27, 1942, when he sacrificed himself during the defense, rescue and evacuation of 500 stranded Marines from Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands. 260301-G-BB085-1253N

Ordered through the Panama Canal to take part in the asset-poor Operation Southern Spear, Munro located and identified the dark fleet oil tanker Bella 1, a U.S.-sanctioned vessel, determined to be without nationality and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and pursued the 333-foot crude oil carrier for 18 days and 4,900 miles until the order came to seize her in the North Atlantic.

A crew member assigned to the Coast Guard cutter Munro observes the oil tanker Bella 1 in the North Atlantic Ocean, Jan. 6, 2026. 260106-G-G0100-1002M

Seven Weeks on 154 feet of sovereign U.S. territory

The 154-foot Sentinel (Webber) class fast response cutter William Hart (WPC 1134) returned to Honolulu on 15 March following a 48-day patrol in support of Coast Guard Oceania District’s Operation Blue Pacific. The long-legged patrol boat roamed more than 7,000 nautical miles, making port calls in Apia, Samoa; Rarotonga, Cook Islands; Pago Pago, American Samoa; Nuku’alofa, Tonga; and Kiritimati, Kiribati, showing the flag across the increasingly strategic islands.

U.S. Coast Guardsmen assigned to the fast response cutter USCGC William Hart (WPC 1134) prepare to moor up on Coast Guard Base Honolulu, March 15, 2026. The crew returned from a 48-day patrol in Oceania during which they exercised partnerships with Samoa and the Cook Islands through bilateral maritime law enforcement agreements, professional exchanges, and community engagements. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer Corinne Zilnicki)

Importantly, she hosted the signing by a U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Tonga’s Prime Minister of the new annex to the 2009 bilateral maritime law enforcement agreement between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Tonga.

First three WCCs

The U.S. Coast Guard simultaneously authenticated the keels for future 120-foot Chief Petty Officer class Coast Guard Waterways Commerce cutters: Allen Thiele, Fred Permenter, and Samuel Wilson (WLIC-1601, 1602, and 1603) on Friday at Birdon in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Unlike many USNS auxiliaries, which carry outrageously political names, the WCCs will all be named for past USCG heroes who were, or later became, Chiefs.

A rendering of the future U.S. Coast Guard Waterways Commerce Cutters Allen Thiele, Fred Permenter, and Samuel Wilson. The new Chief Petty Officer class cutters will honor the legacy of senior enlisted leaders and strengthen the Coast Guard’s inland fleet capabilities. (U.S. Coast Guard courtesy rendering Birdon Group)

The cutters are the first three of 30 future WCCs that will replace the Coast Guard’s elderly inland tender fleet (some up to 81 years old) that maintains and protects the 28,200 navigational aids along the country’s 12,000-mile inshore/river marine transportation system.

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 19 February 2026: Plywood Warrior

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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

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 (on a Thursday) 19 February 2026: Plywood Warrior

Photo by Camera Operator JO1 Joe Gawlowicz, National Archives Identifier 6465113, Agency-Assigned Identifier DNSC9108119, Local Identifier, 330-CFD-DN-SC-91-08119

Above we see the plucky Korean War-era 173-foot Acme-class ocean-going minesweeper leader USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway during mine-clearing operations in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, flag flying, with Zodiacs, Otters, and paravanes ready, as Bluejackets man the .50s.

Some 35 years ago this week, the little 34-year-old Adroit would come to the urgent assistance of the top-of-the-line Aeigis cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59), which found herself in the midst of an Iraqi minefield in the worst way imaginable.

Adroit came to work– as she always had.

The Agiles & Acmes

With the Navy’s hard-earned lessons in mine warfare in WWII (more than 70 USN ships sunk by mines) and Korea (five sunk: USS Magpie, Pirate, Pledge, Sarsi and Partridge), the brass in the early 1950s decided to design and build a new class of advanced ocean-going but shallow draft minesweepers to augment and eventually replace the flotillas of 1940s-built steel-hulled 221-foot Auk-class and 184-foot Admirable class minebusters.

The new design, a handy 850-tonner, was shorter than either previous classes, running just 172 feet overall. Beamy at 35 feet, they could operate in as little as 10 feet of seawater.

Their shallow draft (10 feet in seawater) made them ideal for getting around littorals as well as going to some out-of-the-way locales that rarely see Naval vessels. USS Leader (MSO-490) and Excel (MSO 439) became the first U.S. warships ever to visit the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh when they completed the 180-mile transit up the Mekong River on 27 August 1961, a feat not repeated until 2007. USS Vital (MSO-474) ascended the Mississippi River in May 1967 to participate in the Cotton Carnival at Memphis, Tennessee.

Whereas the Auks and Admiralbles were outfitted as PCs or DEs, complete with 3″/50s, a decent AAA battery, and lots of depth charges and even Hedgehog ASW devices, the Agiles and Acmes were almost unarmed. Their design allowed for a single 40mm L60 Bofors forward and four .50 cals with a small arms locker accessible via the captain’s stateroom. Less steel and all that. Plus, it was thought that the Navy had enough DEs and DDs to not need minesweepers to clock in to bust subs, escort convoys, and shoot down planes.

A very clean Luders-built USS Agile (MSO-421) likely soon after her 1956 commissioning. Note the black canvas-topped flying bridge, which gave it a greenhouse effect, and was soon changed to white/tan. L45-02.05.02

A close-up of the above, showing her original 40mm. Most of the MSOs landed these by the 1970s.

Plans for the USS Lucid (MSO-458), Agile class, post 1969 moderization, with a piggyback .50 cal/81mm mortar replacing the 40mm mount due to the larger size of the SQQ-14 sonar, which we’ll get into later.

As one would expect, due to their role, these new minesweepers, the Agiles, were to be wooden-hulled (not steel like Auk and Admirable), with even non-ferrous steel used in their four (often cranky) Packard 760shp V-16 ID1700 diesel engines– a type also used in the new coastal sweepers (MSCs). Some of the class were later given nonmagnetic General Motors engines to replace especially troublesome Packards. Electrical power for the ship came from a Packard V-8 240kw ship’s service generator, while the mine hammers and winches used two GM 6-71s (one 100kw, the other 60kw).

To differentiate them from the AM-hull numbered Auks and Admirable, the new class was reclassified to the new MSO (Minesweeper, Ocean, Non-Magnetic) in 1955. Bronze and stainless (non-magnetic) steel fittings, with automatic degaussing, were fitted, as well as electrical insulators in internal piping, lifelines, and stays.

Their construction at the time was novel, with 90 percent of the completed ship– including the keel, frame, decking, and rudder– being made from laminated oak and fir “sandwiches” with the biggest piece of continuous wood being 16-foot long 7/8-inch thick oak planks.

The future U.S. Navy minesweeper Agile (MSO-421) under construction at Luders Marine Construction Co., Stamford, Connecticut, on 13 September 1954. National Archives Identifier: 6932482.

From a July 1953 Popular Mechanics article on the subject:

They were very maneuverable, due to controllable pitch propellers– one of the earliest CRP installations in the Navy– and the class leader would be appropriately named USS Agile.

They were made to carry the new AN/UQS-1 mine-locating sonar, developed and evaluated in the early 1950s by the Navy’s Mine Defense Laboratory in Panama City. This 100 kHz short-range high-definition mine location sonar featured a 1.0 ms pulse and 2.0º horizontal resolution, allowing it to detect bottom mines (most of the time) at ranges up to a few hundred yards during tests. While that sounds primitive now, it was cutting-edge for the time and would be the primary sonar of these boats throughout the 1950s and well into the 1960s (some for longer than that). A SPS-53 surface search radar was on her mast.

UQS-1 mine-locating sonar panel is currently at the Museum of Man in the Sea in Panama City. Designed to locate mines, the type showed “poor resolution and could not classify mines in most waters.” Photo by Chris Eger

Thus equipped, they could mechanically sweep moored mines with Oropesa (“O” Type) gear, magnetic mines with a magnetic “Tail” supplied by three 2500 ampere mine sweeping generators, and acoustic mines by using Mk4 (V) and Mk 5 magnetic as well as Mk6 (B) acoustic hammers. Two giant new XMAP pressure sweeping caissons could be towed, a funky array that was only in use for eight years.

The 53 Agiles, at $3.5 million a pop, were built out rapidly by 1958 at 14 yards around the country (Luders, Bellingham, Boward, Burger, Martinac, Higgins, Hiltebrant, etc.) that specialized in wooden vessels– although two were built at Newport Naval Shipyard. In addition to this, 15 were built for France, four for Portugal, six for Belgium, two for Norway, one for Uruguay, four for Italy, and six for the Netherlands. The design was truly an international best-seller, and in some cases, the last hurrah for several of these small wooden boat yards.

In 1954, the U.S. still had 57 Admirables and 59 Auks on the Navy List– even after giving away dozens to allies and reclassing others to roles such as survey and torpedo research. This soon changed as the Agiles entered the fleet. By 1967, only 28 Auks and 11 Admirable remained– and they were all in the Reserve Fleet.

But what of the Acme class?

The secret to these four follow-on vessels (Acme, Adroit, Advance, and Affray) was that they were very close copies of the Agiles, listed officially as being a foot longer and 30 tons heavier. They were also fitted with (austere) flagship facilities to operate as minesweeper flotilla leaders with a commodore aboard if needed, controlling a four-ship Mine Division of 300~ men. They also had slightly longer legs, capable of carrying 50 tons of fuel rather than the 46 on the Agiles, which gave them a nominal range of 3,000nm rather than 2,400 in the earlier ships.

The four-pack was built side-by-side at Boothbay Harbor, Maine, by Frank L. Sample, Jr., Inc., between November 1954 and December 1958.

USS Affray, being built at Boothbay by Frank L. Sample, Jr., Inc. Ship was launched in 1956

The Sample yard had previously built a dozen 278-ton YMS coastal minesweepers for the Navy during WWII, as well as three 390-ton MSCs for the French in 1953, so at least they had experience.

Acme class, 1967 Janes

Furthering the wooden-hulled MSO flotilla leader concept, after the Acmes, the Navy also ordered three larger (191-foot, 963-ton) Ability class sweepers from Petersen in Wisconsin as part of the 1955 Program.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Adroit

Our subject is at least the third such warship in U.S. Navy service, with the first being a 147-foot steam yacht taken up from service in 1917. Added to the Naval List as USS Adroit (SP-248), but never seeing active service as she was “found to be highly unseaworthy and of extremely short cruising range,” she was returned to her owner with a “thanks, anyway” in April 1918.

The second Adroit, and first commissioned by the Navy, was the class leader of a group of 18 173-foot PC-461-class submarine chasers that were completed, with minor modifications, as minesweepers. As such, USS Adroit (AM-82) entered service in 1942 and began operations late that year with Destroyer Squadron 12 on antisubmarine patrols off Noumea.

USS Adroit (AM-82), August 1942, at builder’s yard: Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon. 19-N-36133

This WWII-era Adroit escorted convoys to Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo and Efate, New Hebrides; Noumea, New Caledonia; Auckland, New Zealand; Tarawa, Gilbert Islands; and Manus, Admiralty Islands before her name was canceled and she was designated a sub-chaser proper, dubbed simply, PC-1586. She earned a single battle star, was decommissioned three months after VJ-Day, and was sold for scrap in 1948.

Our subject, the third USS Adroit, was laid down at Frank Sample’s on 18 November 1954, launched 20 August 1955, and commissioned 4 March 1957, one of the last of the Navy’s “plywood warriors.”

Her first skipper was LCDR Joseph G. Nemetz, USN, a WWII veteran and career officer.

18 June 1961. USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway during task force exercises. You wouldn’t know to look at her that she could only make 14 knots in a calm sea with all four diesels wide open and a clean hull! USN 1056262

Cold War service

Post shakedown and availibilty, Adroit spent nearly two decades in the active Atlantic Fleet Mine Force (MINELANT), operating in a series of excercises and training evolutions based out of Charleston while also spending stints at the disposal of the Naval School of Mine Warfare (co-located in Charleston) and the Mine Lab in Pensacola to both train eager new officers and ratings and test experimental new gear.

She likewise frequently served as the flagship for MineDiv 44 (and, after 1971, MineDiv 121) with an embarked commodore aboard.

On the small MSOs, life was different, as noted in ‘Damn the Torpedoes, Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777-1991.”

For young officers and enlisted men in the late 1950s and early 1960s, assignment to the new MCM force provided an unusual experience in both seamanship and leadership. Command came early, and the career advancement possible with MCM ship command enticed some of the most promising graduates of the destroyer force schools into the new mine force for at least one command tour. Young lieutenants obtained command of MSCs; lieutenants and lieutenant commanders captained MSOs; ensigns served early tours as department heads; and lieutenants (junior grade) served as executive officers. Senior enlisted men who commanded MSBs and smaller vessels often advanced into the MCM officer community through such experience.

Because the establishment of minesweeping divisions, squadrons, and flotillas provided MCM billets for commanders and captains, and because of the variety of MCM vessels, shore station assignments, and missions, it was actually possible for a brief time for an officer or an enlisted man to rise within the mine force to the rank of captain.

Everything that had to be done on a big ship also had to be done on a small one, and the expanded MCM force became a hands-on training school for a whole generation of naval officers who exercised command at an early age. Officers assigned to the MSCs and MSOs from the active duty destroyer force sometimes arrived with little or no training in mine warfare and began operating immediately. Junior officers, many of them ensigns right out of school, often had good technical training from the mine warfare school but lacked basic shipboard experience. Well-trained enlisted men, both active duty and reserves, made up the core of the MCM force and usually taught their officers the essentials of minesweeping and hunting on the spot.

There were, of course, lots of exceptions to Adroit’s peacetime minework.

She made a trio of tense Sixth Fleet deployments to the Mediterranean: May-October 1958, 27 September 1961–March 1962, and 15 June–8 November 1965, often calling at some out-of-the-way ports due to her small size.

Adroit loaded ammo and helped guard ports in the Norfolk and Hampton Roads area during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

She clocked in to support the space program in 1963 (Mercury-Atlas 9 “Faith 7”) and 1972 (Apollo 17 “America/Challenger”).

Adroit’s advanced sonar proved key while searching for “lost USAF equipment” off the Bahamas in 1963, a missing general aviation aircraft off the Florida Keys in 1969, a lost LCU near Onslow Beach in 1970, a USN Kaman S2F Seasprite (BuNo. 149745) with lost aircrew aboard off Norfolk in 1975, worked with Naval Underwater Systems Command to locate and retrieve a valuable piece of underwater equipment” off the East Coast in 1976; recovered from 110 feet, a brand-new USN F-14A Tomcat (BuNo 160674) ditched off Shinnecock, New York in 1981 (without loss) and discovered thouroughly wrecked by Adroit in 160 feet, and an uncessceful search for a lost Marine CH-46 Sea Knight in the vicinity of Chesapeake Light in 1983. She made up for the latter by finding downed aircraft off the North Carolina coast in 1985. Hey, 4:5 on missing aircraft isn’t bad.

She was also involved in attempts to rescue those at peril on the sea, including roaming the Florida Strait after the mysterious disappearance of the tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen, lost between  Beaumont, Texas, and Norfolk in 1963. That ship and the 39 souls aboard are still unaccounted for. She made a similarly fruitless search for the six men aboard the motor towing vessel Marjorie McCallister, which was lost battling heavy seas approximately off Cape Lookout in 1969.

A modernization overhaul at Detyens (14 March–26 August 1969) saw her first-generation mine sonar swapped out for the new AN/SQQ-14 variable depth sonar on a hull-retractable rod. As additional space on the foc’sle was needed for installation of the SQQ-14 cabling and the sonar lift, the WWII-era 40mm Bofors bow gun was landed for good, although a gun tub was installed, allowing a M68 20mm cannon if needed, but usually just used for an extra .50 cal.

Adroit transitioned from active duty to working naval reserve training duty in 1973, shifting homeport from Charleston to the NETC in Newport, Rhode Island, and downgrading to a half (active) crew. This brought a transfer to MineRon 121, and a five-month refit at Munro in Chelsea that added a new aqueous foam (light water) firefighting system, replaced both shafts, remodeled the mess decks, and recaulked the decks. After that, she got busy running reservists to sea for their annual active duty training and other ancillary duties alternating with assorted mine countermeasures exercises with divers and EOD dets.

Sister Affray pulled a similar downshift to become an NRF minesweeper based in Portland, Maine, at the time, leaving just Acme and Advance from the class on active duty in the Pacific.

The active ships are slightly undermanned by crews of 72 to 76 officers and enlisted men, whereas the NRF reserve training ships generally had a crew of 3 officers and 36 enlisted active Navy personnel, plus 2 officers and 29 enlisted reservists. Wartime mobilisation complement was 6 officers and 80 enlisted men for the modernized MSOs.

Acme class, 1974 Janes

Meanwhile, in the Western Pacific, 10 MSOs were part of the Seventh Fleet’s Mine Countermeasures Force (Task Force 78), led by RADM Brian McCauley, during Operation End Sweep– removing mines and airdropped Mark 36 Destructors laid by the U.S. in Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam and other waterways in the first part of 1973. Speaking of Vietnam, Adroit’s sister Acme made three tours off Southeast Asia during the conflict, earning two battle stars while Advance earned five stars.

By 1974, as the U.S. pulled back from Vietnam, the Navy had the four Acmes (two in NRF duty), had disposed of the larger Ability class MCM flotilla leaders as well as the older Admirables and Auks (the final 29 stricken in 1972 and quickly given away), and was down to just 40 Agiles, which were approaching mid-life. Of the surviving Agiles, 10 were in active commission (MSO 433, 437, 442, 443, 445, 446, 448, 449, 456, and 490), 14 were NRF’d  (MSO 427-431, 438-441, 455, 464, 488, 489, 492), and 16 were decommissioned to the reserve fleet. For those keeping count, that is just 12 MSOs left active, 16 NRF’d, and 16 mothballed– 44 in all. The count continued to be whittled down, with Acme and Advance disposed of in 1977.

The only other seagoing MCM assets owned by the Navy at the time were 13 138-foot wooden-hulled Bluebird-class MSCs in the NRF program, the 5,800-ton mine launch-carrying USS Ozark (MCS-2), which had been laid up in 1970, the 15,000-ton Styrofoam-filled converted Liberty ship MSS-1 (“minesweeper, special”), which was also laid up, and two Cove-class 105-foot inshore minsweepers used for research. Five WWII landing ships, the USS Osage (LSV-3),  Saugus (LSV-4), Monitor (LSV-5), Orleans Parish (LST-1069), and Epping Forest (LSD-4), which were given similar conversions as Ozark to mine countermeasures support ships and designated MCS-3 through MCS-7, respectively, were all stricken and disposed of by 1974. Plans for an improved, wooden hull MSO-523-class were shelved. MCM in the Navy once again became a backwater.

Anywho, back to our ship:

In 1980, she had a great 360-degree photoshoot, likely via helicopter off Virginia while on a summer reservist cruise.

“Atlantic Ocean…An aerial port bow quarter view of the ocean nonmagnetic minesweeper USS Adroit, MSO-509.” Note her extensive use of canvas and flash white. Photographer: PH1 T.L. Alexander, USNR-TAR. 428-GX-156-KN-29890

What a great profile! “Atlantic Ocean…A starboard side view of the ocean nonmagnetic minesweeper USS Adroit, MSO-509.” Photographer: PH1 T.L. Alexander, USNR-TAR. 428-GX-156-KN-29892

“Atlantic Ocean…A starboard stern quarter view of the ocean nonmagnetic minesweeper USS Adroit, MSO-509.” 1980. Note at least three white paravanes on her stern. Photographer: PH1 T.L. Alexander, USNR-TAR. 428-GX-156-KN-29893

21 July 1983 A port beam view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO 509) underway in the Anacostia River after a port visit to Washington Navy Yard. Note she has what looks like a deck gun on her fore, but it is actually the SQQ-14 sonar hoist. Don S. Montgomery, USN. DN-SC-83-11900

From the same port visit to the Washington Navy Yard, moored at Pier #3 next to the fleet tug USNS Mohawk (T-ATF-170)– just a great picture for the cars alone! Don S. Montgomery, USN (Ret.). DN-ST-83-11255

During a year-long $5.5 million overhaul at Brambleton Shipyard (21 September 1987–29 August 1988), the old Packard engines were removed and replaced with new aluminum block Waukesha diesels. New sweep gear to include a pair of PAP-104 cable-guided undersea tools was added, as was accommodation for clearance divers and two Zodiac inflatables powered by 40hp outboards. She also lost her 20mm gun tub installation. She also received a Precise Integrated Shipboard System (PINS) nav system, early GPS, and began using early remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), notably Super Sea Rover.

23 July 1988. A starboard bow view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO 509) undergoing overhaul at the Norfolk Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Corporation’s Brambleton branch. Don S. Montgomery, USN (Ret.) DN-ST-88-08273

By this time, the Lehman/Reagan 600 Ship Navy ™ had included two new classes of mine warfare ships, the 14 224-foot fiberglass-encased wood-laminate Avenger-class MCMs featuring the advanced third-gen AN/SQQ-32 mine sonar (tied to AN/UYK-44 computers to classify and detect mines), augmented by a dozen all-fiberglass 188-foot Osprey-class coastal mine hunters (MHCs). However, the Navy had to make do with the old MSOs for a bit longer until the new ships arrived in force.

By this time, the entire Navy MCM force only had 20 modernized Korean War-era MSOs (18 Agiles, 2 Acmes) spread across both the active and the reserve fleet, 21 RH-53D helicopters, and 7 57-foot MSBs.

The first MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters began arriving in late 1986, and USS Avenger— the first new oceangoing American minesweeper since 1958– was commissioned in 1987. Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 14 (HM-14), founded in 1978, only received its first MH-53 Sea Dragon E-model on 9 April 1989.

We finally got real mines to sweep (kinda)

The Gulf Tanker War between Saddam’s Iraq and fundamentalist Iran led to Operation Earnest Will, the first overseas deployment of U.S. mine countermeasures forces since the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Shipping out for the Persian Gulf MCMGRUCO between November 1987 and March 1989 were six Agiles: USS Conquest (MSO-488), Enhance (MSO-437), Esteem (MSO-438), Fearless (MSO-442), Inflict (MSO-456), and Illusive (MSO-448).

While Adroit remained stateside– still in her modernization and post-delivery workup period– she was used to train Silver and Gold Crews replacement crews for duty in the Persian Gulf. While a caretaker crew remained on board, the Silver crew departed in February 1988 to take over the forward-deployed near-sister Fortify (MSO-446), while that ship’s Blue Crew returned from their deployment on board Inflict (MSO-456). 

Within the first 18 months of Persian Gulf minesweeping operations, the MSOs accounted for over 50 Iranian-laid Great War-designed Russian M08 moored mines, cleared three major minefields, and checked swept convoy racks throughout the Gulf. Iranian minelaying was also given a setback in the adjacent and very kinetic Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988 after the mining of the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, paving the way for the MSOs to head back home.

War, for real

When Saddam ran over the Kuwaiti border and claimed the country as a lost province in August 1990, the resulting Desert Shield operation kicked off in overdrive, and the Navy knew it would need some serious MCM muscle.

While the Iranians had used elderly Russian contact mines during the Tanker War which were easily tracked and defeated, the Iraqis had some very modern mines including the potbellied LUGM-145 contact mine, the new Soviet-designed UDM magnetic influence mine, the Sigeel-400, the Korean War-era Soviet KMD500 magnetic influence bottom mine with its keel-breaking 700-pound warhead, and the sneaky little Italian Manta MN-103 acoustic bottom mine.

Whereas the Earnest Will MSOs had taken months to get to the theatre back in 1987-88 (three MSOs were towed 10,000 miles by the salvage ship USS Grapple for eight weeks!), the newly commissoned USS Avenger (MCM-1) and three MSOs, our Adroit along with Agile half-sisters Impervious (MSO-449), and Leader (MSO-490), were immediately sealifted to the Persian Gulf aboad the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III.

More than 20 Navy EOD teams were also deployed along with the MH-53E Sea Dragons of HM-14, forming USMCMG, joining Allied minesweepers from Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, and Kuwait.

14 August 1990. “A tug positions the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) over the submerged deck of the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III. The SS Super Servant III will transport Adroit and other minesweepers to the Persian Gulf in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.” JO2 Oscar Sosa. DN-ST-90-11501

5 October 1990. Baharain. “The mine countermeasures ship USS Avenger (MCM-1), the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509), and other vessels are positioned on the partially submerged deck of the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III before offloading in support of Operation Desert Shield.” Photo by CDR  John Charles Roach. DN-SC-91-02584

“Inflation of Zodiac. USS Adroit and USS Avenger wait on the deck of the Dutch ship Superservant to be floated off and begin minesweeping operations. The crew in the lightweight zodiac will knock out bilge blocks and props supporting the minesweepers as they are refloated.” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by CDR John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 30H X 39W. NHHC Accession #: 91-049-O.

December 1990. Deployed to the Gulf. Note her Zodiac and blacked out hull numbers. “A starboard beam view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway. The Adroit and three other U.S. Navy minesweepers have been deployed to the Gulf in support of Operation Desert Shield.” PH2 Burge. DN-ST-91-03129

In January 1991, Adroit’s initial Blue crew was rotated stateside, replaced by a Silver crew from the Exploit, led by LCDR William Flemming Barns (NROTC ’75).

Beginning its task of sweeping five lines of mines east of the Kuwaiti coastline– containing some 1,270 of the devices– when Desert Storm kicked off, it was slow going for all involved. Some 35 years ago this week, the USMCMG flag, the old USS Tripoli (LPH-10), struck a LUGM, blowing a 16-by-25-foot hole in her hull and losing a third of her fuel in the process. Just three hours later, the cruiser Princeton hit another mine, this time a dreaded Manta, which almost ripped her fantail from her hull.

Impervious, Leader, and Avenger searched for additional mines in the area while Adroit carefully led the salvage tug USS Beaufort (ATS-2) through the uncharted mines toward Princeton, which took her in tow, Adroit steaming at the “Point” marking mines with flares in the dark.

As detailed by Captain E. B. Hontz, Princeton’s skipper, in a July 1991 Proceedings piece:

As the day wore on, I was concerned about drifting around in the minefield. So I made the decision to have Beaufort take us in tow since our maneuverability with one shaft at three, four, five, or even six knots was not good. Once underway, we moved slowly west with Adroit leading, searching for mines.”

The crew remained at general quarters as a precaution should we take another mine strike. [The] Beaufort continued to twist and turn, pulling us around the mines located by the Naval Re­serve ship Adroit and marked by flares. Throughout the night, Adroit continued to lay flares. Near early morning, having run out of flares, she began marking the mines with chem-lights tied together. The teamwork of the Adroit and Beaufort was superb.

I felt the life of my ship and my men were in the hands of this small minesweeper’s commanding officer and his crew. I di­rected the Adroit to stay with us. I trusted him, and I didn’t want to let him go until I was clear of the danger area. [The] Princeton was … out of the war.

“Adroit Marks the Way for Princeton,” With the use of hand flares, USS Adroit (MSO-509) marks possible mines in an effort to extract the already damaged USS Princeton (GG-59) from a minefield.  USS Beaufort (ATS-2) stands by to assist. Painting, Oil on Canvas Board; by CDR John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 26H X 34W NHHC Accession #: 92-007-X

“The Little Heroes. The mine sweepers Impervious (MSO-449) and Adroit (MSO-509) make all preparations for getting underway.  Shortly, these little ships will play a very important role in the northern Gulf by leading out Princeton (CG-59) and Tripoli (LPH-10), badly damaged by exploding mines.” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by CDR John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 30H X 39W. NHHC Accession #: 92-007-S.

1 April 1991. Crewmen on the deck of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) stand by during mine-clearing operations following the cease-fire that ended Operation Desert Storm. Note the extensive mine stencils around her pilot house. and .50 cals at the ready. PH2 Rudy D. Pahoyo. DN-SN-93-01468

1 April 1991. A port view of the ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) conducting mine-clearing operations following the cease-fire that ended Operation Desert Storm. The USS Leader (MSO-490) and an MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter are in the background. PH2 Rudy D. Pahoyo. DN-SN-93-01466

The Americans, joined by allies from around the world, continued to sweep mines and UXO across the Gulf and five Kuwaiti ports through the end of May 1991.

Their mission accomplished, Adroit, Impervious, and Leader returned on board SS Super Servant IV to Norfolk on 14 November 1991.

14 November 1991. Norfolk. The ocean minesweepers USS Impervious (MSO-449), foreground, and USS Adroit (MSO-509) and USS Leader (MSO-490), right, sit aboard the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant IV as its deck is submerged to permit minesweepers to be unloaded. The minesweepers have returned to Norfolk after being deployed for 14 months in the Persian Gulf region in support of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. PHAN Christopher L. Ryan. DN-ST-92-04869

14 November 1991. Norfolk. The ocean minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509) ties up at the pier after being unloaded from the Dutch heavy lift Super Servant 4, which carried the Adroit and two other ocean minesweepers, the USS Impervious (MSO-449) and USS Leader (MSO-490), to Norfolk from the Persian Gulf region, where the minesweepers were deployed for 14 months in support of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Note the more than 50 mine stencils on her wheelhouse, a Manta ray mine stencil further aft, and at least three visible machine gun mounts and shields (sans guns). PHAN Christopher L. Ryan. DN-ST-92-04871

Decommissioned 12 December 1991– just months after guiding Princeton— Adroit was laid up at Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth, and struck from the Navy Register on 8 May 1992. Affray held on for another year. The last four Agiles in U.S. service were decommissioned three years later.

Sold for scrap on 15 August 1994 by DRMO to Wilmington Resources, Inc. of Wilmington, North Carolina, for $44,950, she was removed from the Reserve Fleet three days later, and her scrapping was completed by the following May. By 2000, her last remaining sister, Affray, had been scrapped as well.

Adroit had an amazing 26 skippers during her storied 34 years on active duty.

Epilogue

Adroit’s deck logs from the 1950s-70s are largely digitized and available online via the NARA. 

The Navy MSO Association (“Wooden Ships, Iron Men”) was once very vibrant, but it seems their website went offline circa 2020. The Association of Minemen (AOM) is likewise dormant. The Mine Warfare Association (MINWARA), formed in 1995, continues its legacy. albeit with fewer and fewer MSO-era mine warriors these days.

The only MSO preserved in the U.S., the Agile-class USS Lucid (MSO-458) at the Stockton Maritime Museum, also has parts salvaged from ex-USS Implicit, and ex-Pluck (MSO-464). Please visit her if you get the chance.

Lucid today

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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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

Modern Problems Require a Modern Surface Action Group

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How about these images of a three-pack of American maritime assets steaming into the Bay of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, this week under Operation Southern Spear. They include the 509-foot grey-hulled Flight IIA Burke, USS Stockdale (DDG 106), the 418-foot Berthoff-class National Security Cutter USCGC Stone (WMSL 758), and the old-school all-diesel 210-foot Reliance-class medium endurance cutter USCGC Diligence (WMEC 616).

Talk about a high-low-low mix.

Note that Stockton has an ODIN laser system in place of her forward CIWS

Of course, all the heavy lifting in the little SAG falls on the shoulders of Stockdale, while Stone and Diligence (the latter with a 10.5-foot draught) are more (wait for it) more littoral constabulary assets that can operate closer in-shore while still under the DDG’s protective umbrella.

Still, this can point to the detached SAG of the future.

Pacific Slug Fest Limitations: It all comes down to VLS

The Navy currently has around 8,700 VLS cells across 81 surface ships (7 x CGs, 74 DDGs) and 28 submarines (24 x SSNs, 4 SSGNs), but at least 1,470 of those cells will vanish in the next four years as the final seven Ticos and the only four SSGNs are removed from the fleet after 30-40 years of service.

That’s bad.

New incoming DDGs and SSNs in those four years will make good about half of those lost cells (in the best-case scenario), meaning that, no matter how you slice it, the Navy is facing a drop of something like 600-800 VLS cells by the end of the decade.

The first of 12 building 10,000-ton Block V Virginias, carrying 40 VLS cells up from the standard 12 cells (an idea to counter the loss of the long-in-the-teeth SSGNs), will start to arrive in 2028-29 and hopefully will help address some of the shortfall but even with that the Navy is still going to be light on cells at a time in which it should be growing the number, not struggling to (almost) maintain it.

Plus, there is the problem of reloading a VLS cell with more munitions as soon as possible, preferably without having to return to, say, 1,700nm to Guam or 5,000nm Pearl from an event off Taiwan. After all, once a DDG fires off its 96 cells, it is just a gunboat. A $2.5 billion LCS.

The Navy is aware of that and, in the past couple of years, has been advancing at-sea VLS replenishment, recently testing the Transferable Rearming Mechanism (TRAM) to reload Mk 41 VLS cells from supply vessels (e.g., USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE 11) and USNS Gopher State (TACS-4)). t but it is far from standard.

This could lead to a new class of VLS-rearming destroyer tenders, a concept that should have been fielded in the 1980s along with the first Burkes and Flight I Ticos.

Sailors from Navy Cargo Handling Battalion One (NCHB-1) onboard USS Chosin (CG-65) work with the ship’s force to complete a demonstration of the Transferrable Rearming Mechanism VLS Reloading At-Sea with the USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE 11) on Oct. 11, 2024, in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy Photo.)

Another option is MODEP, which is proposed by Leidos to repurpose surplus oil rigs into mobile missile defense and resupply bases that can be moved forward. Concepts have them carrying as many as 512 VLS loads.

MODEP:

The bad news on this is that swapping out empty VLS canisters for full ones can be time-consuming, meaning it could take as long as four days to refill an empty DDG. And that is if the weather and seas permit.

New frigates to the rescue

Another bite at closing the VLS gap, while putting more hulls in more places, is to add a 30-40 foot plug to Flight II of the Navy’s new fast frigate, which is based on the Coast Guard’s 418-foot NSC, as exemplified by the USCGC Stone above. The plug would only transform the length-to-beam ratio from its currently tubby 8:1 closer to a more svelte 9:1, but would add enough room to wedge a 64-cell strike-length VLS into the cutter/frigate and its ancillary wiring/support/venting space.

Plus, Ingalls has been spitballing such concepts for years, so you can bet they have guys already doing the math on this.

Ingalls Shipbuilding VLS-equipped Sea Control Patrol Frigate based on National Security Cutter. This was a concept as far back as 2017. It has the same length as the current NSC, but just add a 30-foot plug (maybe not even that long), and you could make a 64-cell VLS a thing

Yes, the ship doesn’t carry the sensors to wring the capability out of SM-2/3 anti-air missiles, but, pairing one of these Flight II NSC/FFs with a DDG could be the ticket, running cooperative engagement to bring many more missiles to the fight– akin to how 24 of the 31 Spruance-class destroyers were converted to feature a 61-cell Mark 41 in place of their original forward Mk 16 ASROC launchers during the 1980s and 90s. That upgrade allowed the VLS Sprucans to fire (lots) of Tomahawks and carry vertical-launch ASROCs instead of their old Matchbox launchers, which were limited to just eight ready rounds plus eight reloads.

The Sprucan USS Deyo, after her ASROC Matchbox launcher was removed and replaced with the 61-cell VLS. Also note the Phalanx CIWS mounts port and starboard.

A run of 20 of these theoretical Flight II NSC/FFs, built in 4-5 ship batches, awarded all-up to 2-3 yards, could backfill 1,280 VLS cells to the fleet. Fast.

Further, as these new frigates, just good for 27-28 knots (and only in bursts) likely won’t travel with the carrier battle groups all the time, by taking two Flight II NSC/FFs with their combined 128 VLS cells, and adding them to a DDG, then you have a task group capable of independent operation as a SAG that can count 228 VLS slots as well as four MH-60 airframes, assorted UAVs, 1 5-inch Mark 45, two 57mm guns, two (or three) 21-cell RAM launchers, 32 NSM anti-ship missiles, and assorted 25mm/.50 cal mounts.

In short, they could control a lot of sea and air space while only tying down three “little boys” and about 600 bluejackets. Plus, they could call at a lot more ports than a CVBG or ARG.

Nine such SAGs, operating on the periphery of the nine active carrier battle groups and nine active amphibious ready groups, could really add a wild card to naval tactics, especially in any sort of 2030s peer clash in the Western Pacific.

Warship Wednesday 4 February 2026: Big Guns, Shallow Waters

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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

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 4 February 2026: Big Guns, Shallow Waters

Above, we see the immaculate 15-inch gunned Erebus-class monitor HMS Terror (I03) leaving Malta’s Grand Harbor in October 1933 on her way to serve as the station ship in Singapore for the rest of the decade. Note the Revenge-class battlewagon HMS Resolution (09) in the background.

A Great War vet with the battle honors to prove it, Terror would return to the Med and fight her last battle some 85 years ago this month.

A 101 on British Great War monitors

A relic of the mid-19th Century, the shallow draft monitor unexpectedly popped back into service with the Royal Navy in 1914 when the Admiralty acquired a trio of 1,500-ton Brazilian ships (the future HMS Humber, Mersey and Severn) being built at Vickers which carried 6- and 4.7-inch guns while being able to float in just six feet of water, having been designed for use on the Amazon. The idea was these would be crackers for use off the coast of France and Belgium, as well as against Johnny Turk in the Dardanelles, and in steaming up African rivers to sink hiding German cruisers– all missions the Humbers accomplished.

A similar class of monitors taken up from Armstrong, intended for the Norwegians (the future HMS Gorgon and Glatton), were a bit larger, at 5,700 tons, and carried a mix of 9.2-inch and 6-inch guns while having a 16-foot draft.

Then came a flurry of new construction monitors after it was seen how useful the Humbers and Gorgons were, and the RN ordered, under the Emergency War Programme:

  • Fourteen M15 class (540 ton, armed with a single surplus 9.2 inch gun)
  • Eight Lord Clive-class (6,100 tons, armed with a twin 12-inch turret taken from decommissioned Majestic-class battleships).
  • Four Abercrombie class (6,300 tons, armed with embargoed Bethlehem-made 14″/45s)
  • Five M29 class (540 tons, armed with two 6″/45s taken from the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships’ nearly unusable rear casemate mounts)
  • Two Marshal Ney class (6,900 tons, 2 x modern 15″/42s, which were surplus from lightening up the new battlecruisers Renown and Repulse).

All of which began arriving in the fleet in mid-1915. In all, some 38 new monitors of all types entered RN service between August 1914 and the end of 1915. Talk about meeting a demand!

Royal Navy monitor HMS Marshal Ney underway during trials, 28 August 1915, contrasted with a scale model of her sister, HMS Marshal Soult. They carried a twin 15″/42s turret left over from lightening up the new battlecruisers Renown and Repulse.

With this scratch monitor building initiative in the rear view, the Admiralty ordered what would be the pinnacle of their Great War monitors, the twin ships of the Erebus class.

Ordered from Harland & Wolff, the renowned ocean liner builder, with one built in Govan and the other in Belfast, Erebrus and Terror were similar to the Palmers-built Marshal Ney class but larger (at 8,500 tons and 405-feet loa vs 6,900 tons, 355-feet) with better protection and speed.

What was amazing was the size of their beam, some 88 feet across, giving them a very tubby length-to-beam ratio of 5:1. Still, these cruiser-sized vessels could float in just 11 feet of water, their massive pancake anti-torpedo bulge, some 15 feet deep, subdivided into 50 watertight compartments.

Powered by four Babcock boilers, which drove two 4-cyl VTE engines on two screws, they had a 6,000shp powerplant capable of pushing them to 12 knots or greater, roughly twice the speed of the smaller Marshals, which only carried a 1,500 shp plant. On speed trials, Erebus was able to generate 7,244 hp and hit 14.1 knots, while Terror was able to generate 6,235 knots to hit a still respectable 13.1 knots. Jane’s noted later that “Their speed, considering their great beam, is remarkable.”

Like the Marshals, they were designed to carry guns large enough to outrange the 11- 12- and even 15-inchers inchers mounted by the Germans on the Belgian coast.

During the Great War, the Germans established extensive coastal artillery, managed by the Marinekorps Flandern under Admiral Ludwig von Schröder, to defend occupied Belgium and its submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. These defenses included massive 15 inch SK L/45 “Lang Max” (the most powerful German naval gun of World War I) and 12 inch SK L/50 guns, such as the Batterie Pommern and Kaiser Wilhelm II, respectively, capable of firing 37 km out to sea, with many positions (e.g., Battery Aachen) built in concrete. The Germans constructed no less than 34 batteries along the coast in the 20 miles between Knokke-Heist and Middelkerke alone.

A German 15-inch SK L/45 “Lang Max” as Coastal Artillery. The Pommern battery, located at Leugenboom in Belgium, is perhaps best known for firing about 500 rounds between June 1917 and October 1918 at ranges of up to about 48,000 yards, including many at Allied positions in and around Dunkirk (Dunkerque).  IWM photograph Q 23973.

Their main armament for Erebus and Terror was a pair of Heavy BL 15-inch/42 cal Mark Is, a gun described by Tony DiGiulian over at Navweaps as “quite possibly the best large-caliber naval gun ever developed by Britain, and it was certainly one of the longest-lived of any nation, with the first shipboard firing taking place in 1915 and the last in 1954.” Capable of firing a 1,900-pound HE or Shrapnel shell to 40,000 yards at maximum charge and elevation (as contended by Jane’s), the monitors carried 100 rounds per gun.

A tall five-level conning tower was sandwiched just behind the casemate of the main guns, topped by a large range finder, while a tripod mast and pagoda with a 360-degree view towered above both gunhouse and CT.

Modified Mark I* Turret on HMS Terror in 1915. Note the armor plates covering the gunports under the barrels and the armor cowls under the bloomers above the barrels. These were the result of changing the range of elevation from -5 / +20 degrees to +2 / +30 degrees. Also note the smoke generator apparatus on the direct control spotting tower, useful in “shooting and scooting” in the Belgian littoral against German coastal artillery. IWM photograph SP 1612.

The Guns, “HMS ‘Terror’ by John Lavery, H 61.2 x W 63.8 cm, circa 1918, Imperial War Museums art collection IWM ART 1379. Note: This artwork was relocated in August 1939 to a less vulnerable site outside London when the museum activated its evacuation plan.

There were 184 such 15-inch guns manufactured by six different works across England, and they equipped the Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign battleship classes, the Glorious, Repulse, and Hood (“Admiral”) battlecruiser classes, and the monitors of not only the Erebus but also the preceding Marshal Ney class, and later WWII-era Roberts class. The Brits even used them ashore, fitted as giant coastal artillery pieces at Dover and Singapore. These superb guns allowed one of the longest hits ever scored by a naval gun on an enemy ship when, in July 1940, HMS Warspite struck the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare at approximately 26,000 yards.

HMS Erebus and HMS Repulse, both mounting 15-inch guns, at John Brown shipyard at Clydebank.

To keep in the fight against German coastal batteries, the Erebus class was extensively armored with up to 13 inches of plate over the main gun house, 8 inches on the barbette, 6 inches on the large conning tower, 4-inch bulkheads, a 4-inch box citadel over the magazines, and an armored deck sloping from 4 to 1.25 inches. Due to the design and low freeboard transitioning into the huge anti-torpedo blisters, there was no traditional side belt as known by period battleships and cruisers.

A varied secondary armament repurposed from old cruisers was arrayed around the main deck, including two (later four) 6″/40 QF Mark IIs, two 3″/50 12pdr 18cwt QF Mk Is, a 3″/45 20cwt QF Mk I anti-balloon gun, and four Vickers machine guns. This was later expanded to eight 4-inch/44 BL Mk IXs in place of the four 6″/40s, 2 12 pounders, two 3-inch AAA, and two 40mm 2-pounder pom-pom AAAs by the end of the war.

Erebus and Terror surely lived up to British Admiral George Alexander Ballard’s notions of monitors as being like “full-armored knights riding on donkeys, easy to avoid but bad to close with.”

Meet Terror

Our subject is the ninth such warship to carry the name in Royal Navy service, going back to a 4-gun bomb vessel launched in 1696. Most famously, a past HMS Terror, a 102-foot Vesuvius-class bomb vessel, had bombarded Fort McHenry in 1814, which resulted in the Star Spangled Banner, and then was lost with the bomb vessel HMS Erebus on Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition in 1848.

Sir John Franklin’s men dying by their boat during the North-West Passage expedition: H.M.S. Erebus and Terror, 1849–1850: Illustrated London News. July 25, 1896 ,by W. Thomas Smith.

Terror was laid down as Yard No. 493 at Harland and Wolff’s Belfast site (the same yard that had just three years before completed RMS Titanic) on 12 October 1915 and launched on 18 May 1916.

Terror immediately after her launch on 18 May 1916, with Workman, Clark’s North Yard in the background. The 12-sided barbette armor and the armored conning tower have already been fitted.

She completed fitting out and entered service on 6 August 1916.

Captain (later Admiral Sir) Hugh Justin Tweedie, RN, was her first of 15 skippers. A 39-year-old regular, Tweedie had joined the Navy as a 13-year-old cadet, commanded the armored cruiser HMS Essex before the war, and the monitor Marshal Ney during the war. Nonetheless, he soon passed command to Capt. (later RADM) Charles William Bruton, late of the first-class protected cruiser HMS Edgar. Bruton would command Terror through 31 January, 1919.

Honors attached to the seven previous Terrors allowed her to commission with the two past honors, “Velez Malaga 1704” and “Copenhagen 1801”, carried forward.

War!

Joining the Dover Patrol, after a short shakedown, Erebus and Terror were soon engaged in bombarding German positions, batteries, and harbors along the Belgian coast, alternating with guard ship roles in The Downs.

Erebus class monitor HMS Terror as photographed by E. Hopkins, Southsea photographer. IWM Q 75504

Some of the more interesting sorties across the channel were a May 1917 attempt to knock out the lock gates of the Bruges Canal at Zeebrugge while acting as flag of the Dover Patrol under VADM Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon, famous for being the first skipper of HMS Dreadnought, and two bombardments of Ostend in June and September, respectively.

British monitor HMS Terror off Belgium, 1917-1918

Incredibly, Terror and her sister showed their construction made them almost impervious to attempts to sink them.

On 19 October 1917, Terror shrugged off three direct torpedo hits from German CTBs A59, A60, and A61,  off Dunkirk, which blew off and caved in large chunks of her anti-torpedo bulge. Bruton brought his ship into shallow water and beached her with “commendable promptness under the difficult circumstances.” She suffered no casualties and, after a yard period, was back in action by January 1918.

Sister Erebus was, on 28 October 1917, hit by German distance-controlled explosive boat FL12. which carried a massive 1,500-pound charge that, while blowing a 50-foot hole in the torpedo bulge, did very little damage to the hull itself. The monitor was back in service by 21 November of the same year.

Not all RN monitors were that lucky. The Abercrombie-class monitor HMS Raglan was sunk during the Battle of Imbros in January 1918 by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex-SMS Goeben). The Gorgon-class monitor HMS Glatton was wrecked by an internal explosion in September 1918. Three of the M15-class coastal monitors were lost: one to a mine, one to a U-boat, and one to Yavuz at Imbros. The M29-class coastal monitor HMS M30 was sunk by an Austrian howitzer battery in the Gulf of Smyrna in May 1916.

Back in service in early 1918, Terror helped spoil a German destroyer raid on Dunkirk in March, riddled German-occupied Ostend (where said destroyers sortied from) in retribution, and provided long-range bombardment support for the April 1918 Zeebrugge raid.

Her 15-inchers were replaced in September after 340 rounds. Terror and Erebus plastered German positions around Zeebrugge and Ostend to divert Jerry’s to other fronts during the Fifth Battle of Ypres, a five-day offensive that let the British take possession of a decent chunk of liberated Belgium, at least by Western Front standards.

And with that, the war to end all wars came to an end just weeks later.

Terror’s Great War service brought her two honors of her own: “Belgian Coast 1916-18,” and “Zeebrugge 1918,” upping her tally to four.

Interbellum

Terror, June 1919

While some coastal monitors saw extended post-1918 service aboard, such as on the Dvina Flotilla in Northern Russia fighting the Reds, Terror and Erebus were given more auxiliary tasks in home waters.

It was during this period that Erebus was fitted out as a cadet’s training ship, and a large extra cabin accommodation was erected on her upper deck, the roof coming just under the 15 inch guns.

Comparison of profiles for Erebus and Terror, 1929 Jane’s.

Between January 1919 and the end of 1933, Terror was assigned to the RN gunnery school at Portsmouth (aka the “stone frigate” HMS Excellent), tasked with armor-piercing shell trials against the retired Jutland veteran Bellerophon-class dreadnought HMS Superb, and the trophy German Bayern-class dreadnought SMS Baden, which had been saved from scuttling at Scapa Flow.

On 2 February 1921, the ex-SMS Baden was sunk in shallow water by 17 hits from the monitor Terror at point-blank (500-yard) range, but again refloated and, on 10 August, badly damaged by 14 hits from the monitor Erebus off the Isle of Wight. She was then towed away and scuttled in deep water off the Casquet Rocks in the Channel Islands on 16 August 1921. Painting by William Lionel Wyllie, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection. PW1872

Terror also tested new guns, and served as a general Director & Fire Control, and Turret drill ship (keep in mind that her 15″/42s were in use across the fleet) during her gunnery school days.

HMS Terror, Sept 1930

HMS Terror

Terror, Navy Week, 1929. Note the numerous small gun houses for her eight 4-inch/44 BL Mk IXs

Jane’s 1929 listing of Erebus and Terror. Note Erebus’s large deck house

In early 1933, with Japan’s walkout from the League of Nations and war drums in the Pacific, Terror was made ready for war, to a degree, and sent to Singapore to add her big guns to the defense of that strategic colonial outpost and just generally serve as a station ship.

It was a slow three-month slog via the Suez and Aden, but she made it before Christmas.

HMS Terror underway in Plymouth Sound, October 1933, IWM (FL 3724)

Terror, leaving Malta for Singapore, Oct 1933

Terror in Singapore dry dock, 1937

In October 1938, CDR Henry John Haynes, DSC, RN, became Terror’s final skipper, a distinction that he, of course, was not aware of at the time.

A career officer, he signed up as an 11-year-old Boy in 1906 and, picking up his first stripe in 1914, earned his DSC in March 1918 during the Great War “for services in Destroyer and Torpedo Boat Flotillas.” A regular salt, he achieved his first command in 1924, the destroyer HMS Sylph, then would inhabit a series of seven further captain’s cabins prior to moving into Terror’s, most recently the minelaying destroyer HMS Walker.

War (Again)

When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September 1939, and the world again devolved into a global war, Terror was still at rest in Singapore.

Word came to make her ready for European service and she put into dry dock for a fresh coat of paint and an update in her armament, landing her secondary battery for six 4″/45 QF Mk Vs (with a 15 rounds per minute rate of fire and 50-degree elevation allowing an AA ceiling of 21,000 feet), and two quad Vickers .50 cal mounts.

She said goodbye to Singapore in December 1939, her home for six years, and headed for the Mediterranean via the Suez, arriving at Malta on 4 April 1940 to strengthen the defences against a foreseen Italian entry into the war.

On 10 June 1940, her gunners fired at the first (of many) Axis air raid over Malta.

Terror, in the distance, under air attack, 1940 AWM 306675

She spent the next several months on the periphery of several operations in the Mediterranean, including the Operation MB 8 convoy, Operation Coat (transferring of reinforcements from Gibraltar to the Eastern Mediterranean), Operation Crack (escorting carriers for an air attack on Cagliari, Sardinia), and Operation Judgment (the carrier raid on Taranto). Then, after serving in Suda Bay as a guardship, rode slow shotgun on Convoy ME-3 from Malta to Alexandria, then remained in Egypt for local defense.

Then came a very active six-week period supporting the operations of the British 8th Army across Egypt into Libya, starting with a bombardment of Italian-held Bardia on 14 December 1940, a port she would repeatedly haunt.

It was off Bardia during Operation MC 5 that, on 2 January 1940, Terror, operating in conjunction with several small Insect-class river gunboats as part of the Inshore Squadron, was attacked by Italian torpedo bombers around 1820 hours, but no damage was done to her. Another four air raids the next day were also shrugged off.

British monitor Terror under Italian air attack, 2 January 1941, off Bardia AWM 12793

17 January to 22 January saw Terror on Operation IS 1, the nightly bombardment of Italian positions around Tobruk to support the 8th Army’s efforts to capture the port.

On 12 February, she was attached to Operation Shelford, the clearance of Benghazi harbor, arriving at the Libyan port on Valentine’s Day.

She was still there through an increasingly stout series of Axis air raids, which concluded as far as Terror is concerned, at 0630 on 22 February, when a trio of Junkers Ju-88 bombers of the III/LG.1 from Catania, along with a trio of He.111 torpedo bombers of 6/KG.26 flying out of Comiso, made runs on the harbor with our monitor sustaining flooding from three near-misses. In rough shape, she was ordered to sail for Tobruk, where the anti-aircraft defense was better, but hit two German magnetic mines on the way out of the harbor, flooding her engineering spaces.

Persevering on her way to Tobruk, Terror eventually began settling in 120 feet of water about 15 nautical miles north-west of Derna, and, abandoned at 2200 on the 22nd with the intention of scuttling, sank at 0415 on 23 February 1941, capping a career of just under 25 years.

True to form, she suffered no casualties, and her 300-strong crew was taken off in toto by the escorting minesweeper HMS Fareham and corvette HMS Salvia.

She earned two further RN honors, “Libya 1941” and “Mediterranean 1941.”

She also picked up the dubious distinction of being the largest warship, by displacement, sunk in the Med by Ju-88s during the war.

Photograph of painting titled, “Terror’s last fight,” depicting the aerial bombardment of HMS Terror by German bombers in February 1941, shortly before her sinking. Pictures For Illustrating Ritchie II Book. November and December 1942, Alexandria, Pictures of Paintings by Lieutenant Commander R Langmaid, Rn, Official Fleet Artist. These Pictures Are For Illustrating a Naval War Book by Paymaster Captain L. A. Da C Ritchie, RN, IWM A 13648.

As for Erebus, she finished the war, receiving damage in covering the Husky Landings in Sicily and only narrowly avoiding being sunk by the Japanese at Trincomalee in 1942. She later clocked in as a gunfire support ship off Utah Beach for U.S. troops during the Neptune/Overlord operations on D-Day with Bombardment Force A, lending her 15-inchers to the cacophony raised by the “puny” 14-inchers on the old battlewagon USS Nevada (BB-36), and the 8-,7.25-, 6-, and 5.25-inchers of USS Tuscaloosa and Quincy, and HM’s cruisers Hawkins, Enterprise, and Black Prince.

British monitor HMS Erebus at a buoy in Plymouth Sound. IWM

HMS Erebus, camo

HMS Erebus monitor at a buoy in Plymouth Bay, 4 February 1944, IWM (FL 693)

Erebus then roamed up the French coast and, with HMS Warspite, dueled with German coastal artillery in the Le Havre area and Seine Bay in August and September 1944, supporting the British Army as it moved into the Lowlands. In November 1944, she supported Operation Infatuate, the amphibious assault on Walcheren, Netherlands.

HMS Erebus in Action off Walcheren by Stephen Bone, Nov 2nd 1944 IWM ART LD 4706

Erebus was scrapped in 1946, but it is believed that one of her 15-inch guns was, along with surplus guns from a half-dozen battleships and battlecruisers, used to equip HMS Vanguard, the Royal Navy’s final dreadnought.

Epilogue

Terror’s final skipper, CDR Haynes, added a DSO to his DSC “For courage, skill and devotion to duty in operations off the Libyan Coast,” and went on to command, in turn, the cruisers HMS Caledon and Argonaut, then the escort carriers HMS Asbury and Khedive, then the RN Air Station Wingfield near Capetown before moving to the Retired List. Capt. Haynes passed away in 1973, aged 80.

In recognition of her role in Singapore’s pre-WWII history, the new accommodation barracks adjacent to the base became known as HMS Terror from 1945 to 1971, and today the Terror Club remains in Singapore as part of the U.S. Navy’s MWR system.

The military of Singapore borrowed the name and legacy for “Terror Camp,” a training center in the Sembawang area of the old base in the 1970s and 1980s, and today the Republic of Singapore Navy’s elite Naval Diving Unit (NDU) frogman school has graced its four-story high Hull Mock-up System dive chamber as HMS Terror.

Combrig, among others, has offered detailed scale models of the Erebus class.

As for monitors, the RN kept the WWII-era HMS Roberts around as an accommodation ship at Devonport until 1965, and one of her 15″/42 guns (formerly in HMS Resolution) is mounted outside the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, South London, together with one from the battleship Ramillies.

HMS Roberts/Resolution’s 15″/42 guns on permanent display at the Imperial War Museum, London, preserved alongside one from her sistership HMS Ramillies (07).

The 1915 Programme M29-class coastal monitor HMS M33, converted to a fueling hulk and boom defense workshop in 1939, is one of only three surviving First World War Royal Navy warships and the sole survivor of the Gallipoli Campaign. Now located at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, close to HMS Victory, she opened to the public in 2015, preserving the memory of the RN’s World War monitor era.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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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

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