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Warship Wednesday, April 12, 2023: Wind Them Up

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

Warship Wednesday, April 12, 2023: Wind Them Up

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 85018, Courtesy of Donald McPherson, 1976.

Above we see USS Winder (PCS-1376), the leader of her class of 89 very interesting Patrol Craft, Sweepers, seen in a World War II image, likely while on coastal escort out of Miami in 1944-45.

You’ll note that, although she is only 136 feet long overall, she is very well armed with both twin Mousetrap ASW rocket racks and a 3″/50 DP mount forward, four 20mm Oerlikon singles amidships, a 40mm Bofors aft, four depth charge projectors, and two depth charge racks over her stern.

These criminally forgotten little patrol boats went on to serve a myriad of roles in the Cold War.

Meet the 1376s

With the British 105-ft Admiralty-type motor minesweepers (MMS) making a good impression on the U.S. Navy– after all, the Royal Navy ordered more than 300 of those hardy 295-ton wooden coastal mine hunters from 1940 onwards and used them for everything from gunboat to light salvage in addition to their mine warfare roles– the idea of a PCS seemed a good one to the Americans.

With wooden hulls to counter magnetic influence mines, the 105-ft Admiralty-type motor minesweepers were very successful– and easy to make by small commercial shipyards. Here a 105, Motor Minesweeper J 636, is underway in British coastal waters. IWM A 14421

Whereas the Admiralty 105s typically only carried a few Oerlikons in addition to their sweep gear and acoustic hammer, the Americans needed something with longer legs and, they felt, a lot more firepower. As described above, they got it with a mix of 3-inch, 40mm, and 20mm guns as well as the capacity to carry as many as 50 depth charges to feed their racks and K-guns.

Hampton (PCS-1386), 4 November 1944, As completed. Line drawing by A. D. Baker III from U.S. Small Combatants: An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman, Russian version.

Plus, there was Mousetrap.

The Mk 20 Mousetrap anti-submarine rocket system is both loaded/ready to fire and stowed on a similarly sized PC. The projectiles were 7.2 inches in diameter and weighed 65 pounds with an explosive charge of 31 pounds. Unlike the Hedgehog weapon, the Navy classified the projectile as a rocket, as it utilized propellant that burned for 0.2 to 0.7 seconds.

They carried an SF-1 type radar (some later fitted with more advanced SO-1 or SU-1 sets) and a QHA sonar set (later upgraded to the more mine-sensitive FM sonar in some ships).

First fielded in 1942, the SF-1 was a 10cm 150 kW surface search radar good out to 16nm. Here, USS PCS-1389 is seen on 12 December 1944, showing an updated SO-1 radar antenna. NH 64671

Simple and cheap, their engineering suite consisted of a pair of General Motors 8-268A diesel engines, generating 800hp, using Snow and Knobstedt single reduction gear, turning two shafts. This enabled a top speed of 14 knots but meant the cruising speed was still in the 12-13 knot range.

Constructed by firms as diverse as the Burger Boat Co of Manitowoc, Tacoma Boat, Western Boat in Tacoma, Astoria Marine Construction Co., Bellingham Marine Railway & Boatbuilding Co, Wheeler Shipbuilding of Long Island, Robert Jacob Shipyard in the Bronx, Greenport Basin & Construction Co in Connecticut, W.F. Stone & Son Shipyard in Alameda, and the Gibbs Gas Engine Co of Jacksonville, these warships could be made fast and without tying up a lot of precision slipways or using tough-to-source material.

Our class leader was laid down on 13 October 1942 as PC-1376 at Wheeler on Long Island, soon reclassified to PCS-1376 while still under construction, and commissioned on 9 July 1943.

As befitting an overgrown armed yacht built on Long Island, her skipper was LT J. P. Morgan III, USNR, (Harvard 1940), the great-grandson of robber baron J. Pierpont Morgan and son of Junius Spencer Morgan III– the latter at the time an OSS officer. Along with three other officers (two ensigns and an LT jg) and 54 enlisted, they provided PC-1376‘s first crew.

Check out the rates, for those curious, as seen in the ship’s war diary:

Her first ammo draw from Iona Island on the Hudson River included 296 3-inch shells (270 service, 16 target, 2 practice, 8 dummy), 1,784 40mm shells (1760 service, 16 target, 8 dummy), 2,800 rounds of .45 for the Tommy guns and M1911s in her small arms locker; and 1,800 rounds of .30 caliber for her M1903A3 rifles. This did not include depth charges, Mousetrap bombs, and 20mm ammo.

The class leader had a rather boring war career, being ordered for duty as a school ship at the Submarine Chaser School located in Miami after she completed her shakedown. She would spend the rest of the war there, alternating between use as a training bot and in coastwise patrol, riding shotgun on convoys from Miami to Cuba and back.

But our story is about all the 1376s.

The rest of the class…

USS PCS-1421 in San Francisco Bay, 2 March 1944. 19-N-66847

USS PCS-1423. Note her Mousetraps ready to fire. World War II photograph. NH 89237

USS PCS-1424 photographed by her builder, Burger Boat Company, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on 24 November 1943. NH 96491

USS PCS-1424 photographed by her builder, Burger Boat Company, at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on 24 November 1943. Note that she is fitted with Mousetrap anti-submarine rocket launchers forward. NH 97492

A baker’s dozen became Control Submarine Chasers (PCSC) almost as soon as they were completed. This conversion was simple, removing the 40mm mount to allow a radio shack to be built. In this role, they could better control swarms of inshore landing craft headed toward the beach.

A sort of mini amphibious command ship.

This was detailed by the NHHC further in its coverage of the Iwo Jima landings:

The Iwo Jima operation provided the first test of the amphibious forces’ newly formed permanent control organization. This organization was established following the Marianas campaign, where it was realized that proper control of the ship-to-shore movement of the amphibious craft had become a continuing 24-hour-a-day task, requiring specially trained control personnel and specially equipped control vessels.

The control organization for the Iwo Jima operation consisted of the Transport division, Transport Squadron, and Central (Amphibious Group or Force) Control Officers, permanently assigned to the staff of their respective commanders. This organization now parallels the echelons of both the beach party and the shore party. Control officers were embarked in the same ships as their opposite number in the beach and shore party, giving the maximum amount of time for coordination and understanding of each other’s problems prior to the landing.

Each control officer was provided with a control vessel (PCE, PCS, PC, or SC) which had been previously equipped with special communication facilities and provided with a control communication team and advisors from the troops. The control vessels were obtained and equipped, and the personnel were trained in their specialized duties, well in advance of the operation. As a result, for the first time the task of controlling the ship-to-shore movement, both during the assault and unloading phases, was handled by a “professional.” In addition, the control-equipped craft was provided to the different troop staffs for use as floating command posts.

Another 33 became Auxiliary Motor Minesweepers (YMS), renumbered YMS 446-479. This involved landing most of their ASW weapons and loading up on the sweeping gear.

USS YMS-475 (ex PCS-1447) and USS YMS-461 (ex PCS-1448) In San Francisco Bay, California, shortly after the end of World War II, circa late 1945 or early 1946. YMS-475 was disposed of in 1947 and YMS-461 was later transferred to South Korea as Hwaseong (PCS 205). Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1976. NH 84992

USS LST-277 sails in the background while USS PCS-1404, is being refueled while en route to Saipan, by an unidentified vessel, on 15 June 1944. US National Archives Identifier 193832778 US Army Air Corps photo # A63650A.C.

Some managed to get some real trigger time in, for instance, USS PCS-1379 participated in the invasion of Peleliu and Angaur Islands, shelled Japanese targets on Eil Malk and in the Abappaomogan Islands, then saddled up for the Okinawa campaign.

PCS-1391 took part in the Leyte and Lingayen Gulf operations in the Philippines, serving as a landing craft direction vessel. Then at Okinawa, she carried Maj. Gen. Pedro del Valle, the Commanding General of the First Marine Division, to the beach during the initial assault landings.

USS PCS-1391 photographed circa 1945-1946. Courtesy of William H. Davis, 1977. NH 85160

Okinawa Campaign, shipping as seen from the beach in May 1945. Most ships present appear to be amphibious types. USS PCS-1391 is just to the right of the exact center, with USS LCI(L)-77 partially hidden behind her bow. 80-G-K-16204

PCS-1452 participated in operations at the Marianas, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. She had lots of company, as no less than 10 of her class were present at the latter two operations.

YMS-481 (exPCS-1462) was lost to Japanese shore batteries off Tarakan, Borneo, on 2 May 1945.

YMS-478 aground after taking fire from a shore battery at Tarakan, Borneo.

PCS-1396 was damaged off Okinawa by a Japanese Kamikaze but would shrug it off and continued serving until 1949.

PCS-1407, PCSC-1418, PCS-1440, PCS-1454, PCS-1461, and YMS-472 were lost to the September-October 1945 Typhoons Ida and Louise off Japan and Okinawa.

PCS-1435 was present in Tokyo Bay during the Japanese surrender ceremony in September 1945.

PCS-1445 would serve with the 7th Fleet for the last ten months of the war then spend another eight months as the harbor entrance control vessel for the Yangtze River at Shanghai.

Jane’s 1946 listing on the type.

Some would serve in the Korean conflict as mine hunters, with PCS-1416 for instance clearing a channel more than 60 miles inland from the Yellow Sea and up the Taedong River to Chinnampo.

Catching names

Oddly, while many were laid up in the 1950s, they picked up a series of names, typically those of small towns. This non-inclusive list shows some of the variety. Sadly, many of these towns have never had another warship named in their honor.

  • Provincetown (PCS 1378)
  • Rushville (PCS 1380)
  • Attica (PCS 1383)
  • Eufaula (PCS 1384)
  • Hollidaysburg (PCS 1385)
  • Hampton (PCS-1386)
  • Beaufort (PCS 1387)
  • Littlehales (AGSC 7, ex-PCS-1388)
  • Deming (PCS 1392)
  • Sanderling (MHC 49)
  • Dutton (AGSC 8, ex-PCS-1396)
  • Coquille (PCS 1400)
  • McMinnville (PCS 1401)
  • Elsmere (EPCS 1413)
  • Swallow (MSC[O] 36)
  • Prescott (PCS 1423)
  • Verdin (MSC[O] 38)
  • Conneaut (PCS 1444)
  • Waxbill (MHC 50)
  • John Blish (AGSC 10)
  • Medrick (AMc 203)
  • Minah (MHC 14)

Shifting duties and designations

Postwar, besides utility work, many became naval reserve training vessels, with their shallow draft allowing them to be stationed well inland. For example, PCS-1423 was stationed at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and PCS-1431 in Louisville.

Louisville, KY, 1958, U.S.Navy sub chaser USS Grafton (PCS 1431) passing 

Their designations often shifted to Coastal Minesweepers (AMc), or Motor Minesweepers (AMS) in the late 1940s, designations they carried until they were decommissioned and struck.

Another quartet became Coastal Surveying Ships (PCS-1388, PC-1396, PC-1404, and PC-1457 became AGSC 7/8/9/10).

Survey ship USS Littlehales (AGSC 7, ex-PCS-1388) Courtesy of D.M. McPherson. NH 51413

Three of the ships, PCS-1393, PCS-1456, and PC-1465, would be reclassed no less than four times as a YMS, then an AMS, then a Coastal Minesweeper Underwater Locator (AMCU), and finally a Coastal Minehunter (MHC)– carrying five different pennant numbers in 12 years.

PC-1413 and PC-1431 would be reclassified as Experimental Patrol Craft Sweepers (EPCS).

At least three picked up the curious designation of Coastal Minesweeper, Old (MSC(O)).

By this time, their fit had changed significantly, shedding most of their guns and Mousetrap devices in lieu of a large Hedgehog ASW device forward (which it was thought could also prove effective in minefield destruction).

USS PCS-1445 underway off the U.S. west coast. She has been fitted with a Hedgehog mounting forward, in place of her 3/50 gun. NH 96492

USS PCS-1400 off the Puget Sound Navy Yard, 24 January 1947. She was later named USS Coquille. Note her Hedgehog. NH 55385

USS Rushville (PCS-1380), 26 August 1959, showing her postwar fit, which saw all her weapons landed. USN 1043655

USS Eufaula (PCS-1384), late in her career, with Hedgehog. Note she still has DC racks and projectors as well. USN 1043656

USS Deming (PCS-1392), 1959. Note the Hedgehog, depth charge racks, and not much else. USN 1043658

USS PCS-1387 photographed circa the late 1940s, with extensive awnings in place. This ship was renamed Beaufort (PCS-1387) in February 1956 and used as a naval reserve training ship in St. Petersburg, Florida until 1967. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1976. NH 85019

Moving on…

While some were disposed of by scrapping as soon as 1947, the Navy would look to transfer others to allies and other missions.

One, PC-1458, served both as a Navy survey ship (AGS-6), in 1944, then was transferred to the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1948 as USC&GS Derickson, serving until 1954.

USC&GS Derickson, NOAA photo

Two other ships of the class, PC-1405 and PC-1450, were also transferred to the survey and named USC&GS Bowie (CSS 27) and USC&GS Hodgson (CSS 26), respectively. Bowie served until 1967 when she was scrapped, and Hodgson was transferred the following year to South Korea for further service.

USC&GS Bowie (CSS 27) (bow visible at left) and USC&GS Hodgson (CSS 26), circa 1965. NOAA photo

One, PCS-1425, was transferred by the WSA to the Puget Sound Naval Academy in 1947 to serve as a training vessel. At the same time, PCS-1445, formerly of the Yangtze squadron, went to Texas A&M.

As with any WWII-era American warship smaller than a heavy cruiser, several were transferred to the Allies as Lend Lease.

The Russians got a full dozen PCSs in 1945 which were active well into the late 1950s, serving as dive boats, degaussing ships, as well as mine vessels. Unlike most larger vessels, these were never repatriated.

Three were handed over to the Philippines at Subic Bay post-war as military aid (USS PCS-1399, USS PCS-1403, and PC-1404) and served into the late 1960s.

The Japanese got one (PCS-1416) while the South Koreans picked up five (PC-1426, PCS-1428, PCS-1443, PC-1445, and PCS-1448) and continued to use them into the 1970s. Meanwhile, Turkey got PCS-1436.

The end game

January 1958, left to right: ex-Rushville, ex-Deming (PCS 1392), and two unidentified PCS’/YMS’ at Mare Island awaiting transfer to civilian buyers.

The last in Navy inventory was McMinnville (PCS 1401), placed out of service and struck from the Naval Register in August 1962. Sold the next year to a group of treasure hunters in south Florida, she remained in the Keys as a yacht for another 20 years.

Ex-USS Prescott (PCS-1423) ashore after its towing vessel, the fishing craft Sea King, struck a rock jetty at Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey, and sank in February 1963. The Prescott had just been purchased from the Navy at Brooklyn, New York. She was later pulled free and, converted to a trawler, and would remain active into the 1980s. UA 455.12

Others were bought up at auction by fishing companies and converted to that life, bumping around with nets and dredges as late as the 1990s, often under Caribbean nation or Panamanian flags. 

One, ex-PCS-1438/YMS-470/AMS-37/MSC(O)-37, was bought by General Motors in 1959 and used as a corporate yacht in California, then was acquired by Windjammer Cruises to operate as the M/Y Royal Taipan out of Hawaii. She was famously almost lost at sea in 1990.

As for class leader Winder (PCS 1376), she was decommissioned after the war in February 1947, used for a time as a Naval Reserve training vessel at Norfolk, then was laid up in Florida where she was struck in 1957 and sold. Her ultimate fate is unknown. I’d like to think that she is still out there somewhere in some sort of low-pressure use. 

As far as I can tell, there are no surviving PCS-1376s afloat and they left behind few relics to prove they even existed, save for some war diaries in the National Archives.

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

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Coasties Seek More Cutters for the Pacific, Slate a 270 for Transfer

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The USCG has been steadily ramping up in the Central and Western Pacific in the past couple of years, as we’ve covered extensively. In short, you are seeing more racing stripes in more places as part of a soft power counter to China’s little blue men and their own white-hulled coastal types.

The Coast Guard’s Fourteenth District, which stretches from Hawaii to Singapore and Japan (where small cargo inspection units, USCG Activities Far East/Marine Inspection Office Asia, are assigned), currently numbers some 1,800 active reserves all told including about 300 on Guam.

The largest assets currently on hand in Hawaii are the new frigate-sized National Security Cutters USCGC Kimball (WMSL 756) and USCGC Midgett (WMSL 757)— which have frequently bumped into Chinese assets. Added to this are a pair of 225-foot buoy tenders– USCGC Juniper (WLB 201) and USCGC Sequoia (WLB-215)— which are more useful than they sound, especially when it comes to littoral and unorthodox operations.

Meanwhile, CG Air Station Barbers Point, with 200 officers and enlisted personnel, has four new HC-130J Long Range Surveillance Aircraft and three recently rebuilt MH-65E Dolphins.

Three new 158-foot fast-response cutters were sent to the Guam sector in 2021 and another trio of these excellent patrol craft is already in Hawaii.

How about that blended blue and green crew? “The crew of the Sentinel-class fast response cutter USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC 1140) takes a moment for a photo in Cairns, Australia, Sept. 5, 2022. The U.S. Coast Guard is conducting a routine deployment in Oceania as part of Operation Blue Pacific, working alongside Allies, building maritime domain awareness, and sharing best practices with partner nation navies and coast guards. Op Blue Pacific is an overarching multi-mission U.S. Coast Guard endeavor promoting security, safety, sovereignty, and economic prosperity in Oceania while strengthening relationships with our regional partners. (U.S. Coast Guard photo Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean Ray Blas)

Now, the USCG is seeking $400 million in FY2024 for an additional quartet of new-built FRCs for Indo-Pacific Missions. That would give the service a full 10 FRCs based from Hawaii west in addition to its four larger cutters.

In the meantime, the service is transferring a 270-foot Bear-class cutter, USCG Cutter Harriet Lane (WMEC 903) from Portsmouth, Virginia to Hawaii. Designed in the 1980s as ocean escorts in time of Red Storm Rising style convoy runs to Europe in WWIII, the Coast Guard only built 13 and they are all on the East Coast– with nine based at Portsmouth alone.

Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane fired a commemorative shot Thursday to honor the 158th anniversary of its namesake’s action near Fort Sumter

Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane fired a commemorative shot Thursday to honor the 158th anniversary of its namesake’s action near Fort Sumter, 30 May 2019 (USCG Photo)

Until the new Offshore Patrol Cutter joins the fleet in the next few years, the Bears are the most modern and advanced medium endurance cutters in the force with the most modern weapons and sensor suite. They are the last American asset with the Mark 75 OTO Melera and have some M2 .50 cals to back that popgun up, but they also carry an SLQ-32 and SRBOC and can host an HH-60-sized helicopter.

Lane’s arrival early in FY 2024, will give the USCG 11 cutters in the Indo-Pacific, which could grow to 15 if the four extra FRCs are approved.

Swiftships Gets Award for 7 More Patrol Boats for Egyptian Navy

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Morgan City, Louisiana’s Swiftships’ 28 Meter Coastal Patrol Craft (CPC28) is designed for multiple roles, including Coastal Defense, Anti-Surface Operations, Maritime Security Operations, Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO), Surveillance, Search and Rescue, and Intelligence Gathering.

They have been very successful in a program with the Egyptians, with the company supplying kits, in-country production supervision, and SME support for local production near Cairo.

This now stands at 49 hulls built or under contract, with seven more CPCs recently added.

Presser via the company:

In January 2023, Swiftships received notification for an additional seven (7) 28m Coastal Patrol Craft (CPC) award to the existing six (6) FMS contract that was awarded in 2022. The total current order is 23 boats, including those currently under construction. Please watch the video about CPC28 by clicking here.

In March 2022, Swiftships was awarded a new 28m CPC contact to supply a “Kit” as a modification to its original Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) contract. The Mod_004 will deliver ten (10) kits to be co-produced in Egypt at the Egyptian Navy (EN) Alexandria Shipyard and the Egyptian Ship Repair and Building Company (ESRBC). In addition, six (6) additional 28m CPCs were awarded under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract in 2022.

Swiftships will supply a complete Kit of Material (KoM), including Zodiac Rigid Inflatable Boats, Forward-Looking Infrared Systems (FLIRs), personal computer packages, and the associated engineering technical data package (TDP). These 28-meter CPCs reach a top speed of 22-25 knots with a range of 900 NM, powered by two (2) CAT diesel engines, and are equipped with 12.7mm machine guns.

By combining Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) contracts, Swiftships will have co-produced forty-two (42) 28-meter CPCs for EN by the end of 2027. These three new contracts signed in 2022 and 2023 add 23 craft to EN’s total requirement of 50 CPCs by the end of 2027. In addition, Egypt and Swiftships have started co-marketing the 28-meter CPC to North African allied partners of the US.

EN has been co-producing Swiftships’ crafts since 2010 (download case study), and this partnership has allowed both EN and Swiftships to excel on other platforms. The collaboration began in the early 1980s when Swiftships delivered its first set of eight (8) 28m CPCs. Later, in 1990, it delivered two (2) 54-meter Mine-Hunters (MH) under a Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) contract. In 2006, Swiftships further delivered six (6) 26-meter Fast Patrol Craft (FPC), and in 2009, delivered two (2) 28-meter CPCs and co-produced four kits built in Egypt under Swiftships’ guidance.

Swiftships has been discussing with the Egyptian Armaments Authority (EAA) to co-produce 35-meter Fast Patrol Vessels (FPV) in Alexandria to extend their capability from steel co-production to aluminum. These FPVs will be all-aluminum crafts with a 1,000 NM range, three (3) MTU engines to reach a top speed of 32 knots, and a complement. Armament options include 12.7mm Rheinmetall Remote Controlled machineguns with additional armament.

Egypt has an established local defense and security industry that produces a range of products, from small arms to armored vehicles and naval vessels. The country has co-production agreements with several nations, including the United States and France. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in annual military aid from the United States, which is used to acquire U.S.-made defense and security articles through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.

The Egyptian Navy (EN) is the maritime branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces (EAF). It is the largest navy in the Middle East and Africa and the twelfth-largest in the world (measured by the number of vessels). The EN is responsible for protecting over 2,000 kilometers of coastline along the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, as well as defending approaches to the Suez Canal and supporting army operations.

Cyclones almost gone

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Built in the late 1990s, the Navy’s Cyclone-class coastal patrol ships (PC) are almost all gone. Built by Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana, the same yard that has constructed over 170 similar albeit smaller cutters for the Coast Guard over the years, the 170-foot Cyclones were originally to replace the old 65-foot MKIIIs used by Naval Special Warfare and were equipped with two 25mm chain guns and a stern boat ramp for frogman use.

While 16 were planned, only 14 were slowly completed and the Navy by and large didn’t even really want them, loaning five to the Coast Guard in the early 2000s and giving the class leader to the Philippines when she was just 11 years old.

Then, following a series of naval stand-offs between Iranian Revolutionary Guards speedboats and U.S. Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz in December 2007 and January 2008, the Pentagon called up the Coast Guard and pulled their boats back and soon stood up Patrol Coastal Squadron 1 in the Persian Gulf with 10 of the PCs.

The other three boats were stationed at Mayport, left behind as just about the 4th Fleet’s only regular assets.

150317-N-SF508-627 U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (March 17, 2014) The Cyclone-class coastal patrol ship USS Hurricane (PC 3) leads other coastal patrol ships assigned to Patrol Coastal Squadron 1 (PCRON 1) in formation during a divisional tactics exercise. PCRON-1 is deployed supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Charles Oki/Released)

150317-N-SF508-274 U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (March 17, 2014) The Cyclone-class coastal patrol ship USS Hurricane (PC 3) and other coastal patrol ships assigned to Patrol Coastal Squadron 1 (PCRON 1) transit in formation during a divisional tactics exercise.PCRON 1 is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Charles Oki/Released)

They are among the smallest ships in the fleet and get ridden hard.

They were augmented with the MK-60 Patrol Coastal Griffin Missile System to help defend against Iranian swarm attacks if needed. The system uses the AGM-176 Griffin, a 35-pound four-foot-long Frankenstein cobbled together from the Javelin and Sidewinder– but it carries a 13-pound blast fragmentation warhead and has a range of 5 miles, which will scratch the paint job of a Boghammar speedboat pretty good while outraging the RPGs, Dhsk guns and unguided rockets typically carried by those asymmetric crafts by a bit.

ARABIAN GULF (Nov. 05, 2021) The Cyclone-class coastal patrol ship USS Firebolt (PC 10) fires a Griffin missile during a test and proficiency fire in the Arabian Gulf, Nov. 5, 2021. Firebolt, assigned to Commander, Task Force (CTF) 55, is supporting maritime security operations and theatre security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Aleksander Fomin) 211105-A-PX137-0082

Now, that has almost all come to an end. Only USS Monsoon (PC-4) and USS Chinook (PC-9) remain in Bahrain under Task Force 55, and that will soon change.

PCRON-1 was reflagged Naval Surface Squadron (CNSS) 5 in 2017.

USS Zephyr (PC-8), USS Shamal (PC-13), and USS Tornado (PC-14) were decommissioned in Mayport in 2021 and the first two are set to be scrapped with Tornado slated for transfer to an overseas ally.

NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. (Feb. 16, 2021) Sailors conduct a decommissioning ceremony aboard the Cyclone-class patrol ship USS Shamal (PC 13) at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. Shamal is one of three Cyclone-class patrol ships being decommissioned at Naval Station Mayport. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Austin G. Collins)

I happen to know the resting place of Tornado’s sideboard from ger USCG days based at NAVSTA Pascagoula!

As well as Shamals

USS Tempest (PC-2), USS Squall (PC-7), USS Firebolt (PC-10), USS Whirlwind (PC-11), and USS Typhoon (PC-5), were decommissioned and transferred to the Royal Bahrain Naval Forces in March 2022.

This week, USS Hurricane (PC-3), USS Sirocco (PC-6), and USS Thunderbolt (PC-12) were transferred to the Egyptian Navy. This came after sailing from Bahrain to Egypt during a month-long journey around the Arabian Peninsula, January through February.

SUEZ CANAL – SUEZ CANAL (Feb. 10, 2023) Patrol coastal ship USS Sirocco (PC 6) transits the Suez Canal, Feb. 10, 2023, en route to Alexandria, Egypt. 230210-N-NO146-1001

As noted by the Navy, “During the 4,000-mile transit to Alexandria, U.S., and Egyptian crewmembers worked side-by-side safely navigating the three ships on a voyage that included port visits to Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates; Duqm, Oman; Djibouti; and Berenice, Egypt.”

It seems that the Navy is content to let the Coast Guard’s new 158-foot Sentinel (Webber) class Fast Response Cutters be the white-hulled muscle for the 4th and 5th Fleet when it comes to coastal vessels.

Warship Wednesday, March 22, 2023: Herr Ericsson’s Original Tin Can

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

Warship Wednesday, March 22, 2023: Herr Ericsson’s Original Tin Can

Naval History and Heritage Command Photo NH 52307

Above we see the circa 1892 image of John Ericsson’s experimental war vessel, “Destroyer” testing her “submarine artillery” by the firing of an inert shell into the flooded drydock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to be recovered later.

The Swedish-born inventor and mechanical engineer had just passed on to the great drawing board in the sky the previous March, aged 85, and is best known for the U.S. Navy’s first screw-propelled steam-frigate USS Princeton in 1843 and the Civil War-era USS Monitor— the world’s first armored ship with a rotating turret, with his penultimate warship, Destroyer, most often falling through the cracks of history.

John Ericsson (1803-1889). Photographed by the Matthew Brady studios, 1862 & 1863. Naval History and Heritage Command: NH 305 & NH 482

Ericsson spent the last 12 years of his life working on Destroyer, which he envisioned would be the ideal harbor defense vessel, particularly for his beloved New York.

A compact iron-hulled beast of some 130 feet in length with a narrow 17-foot beam and the ability to float in just 11 feet of water, she carried a 70-foot “wrought iron breastwork of great strength near the bow” as a defense to allow for bow-on close-in attacks with a sort of innovative albeit not effective centerline underwater cannon. She could be built for about the cost of a small gunboat and crewed by as few as a dozen men.

Ericsson’s Destroyer. View of this experimental ship showing submarine gun projectiles on deck. Taken at the New York Navy Yard, circa 1890. USS Maine of Spanish-American War fame is fitting out in the left background. Detriot Bain News Service image LOC LC-D4-20348

The Destroyer’s “submarine gun” was a whopper.

With a 16-inch diameter bore and a 30-foot barrel that was eight feet below the waterline, it fired a 26-foot long projectile crafted of spruce and pine timbers and sheathed with thin metal. In all, it weighed 1,500 pounds of which 300 was gun cotton payload. Alternatively, a smaller, 10-foot-long projectile was designed as well.

Ericsson’s Destroyer plan of submarine gun for this experimental ship, dated 7 October 1890. NH 54252

John Ericsson’s “Destroyer” Longitudinal section of the ship’s bow, showing the underwater gun and its projectile torpedo, circa 1881. Note the “inflated air bags” in the bow and original pneumatic feeder tubes for the gun. NH 84476

It was thought by Ericsson that the gun could be fired at a target from some 500 feet away. To keep the projectiles on a level course, they were fitted with “hydrostatic bellows” in the center along with two horizontal rudders.

The method of the launch was originally to be via a piston that would be actuated by a steam line but this was eventually changed to a 40-pound explosive (black powder) charge. The energy produced by such a projectile at damaging speeds was estimated to be something on the order of 2,000,000 foot-pounds.

The idea was Destroyer’s hull would be ballasted down when operational to have as low a freeboard as possible, only exposing the armored plate iron deck house. Voids were to be filled with blocks of cork and inflated rubber airbags to allow for buoyancy even with a penetrated hull.

Ericsson’s Destroyer interior view showing the submarine gun and pneumatic loading mechanism, taken circa 1890. NH 54251

Ericsson’s Destroyer interior view shows the breech mechanism of the submarine gun. Taken about 1890. NH 54248

Ericsson’s Destroyer interior view shows the breech mechanism of the submarine gun. Taken about 1890. NH 54249

Uncrated projectile and body. NH 52494

In an initial low-pressure light load test in April 1886, Ericsson himself declared that “the submarine gun has proved a perfect success” after its inert projectile ran 300 feet into a suspended net in less than three seconds, a speed of about 59 knots. “The effect produced by exploding a loaded projectile remains to be ascertained, but this trial an individual is not permitted to make, hence I now desire to hand the Destroyer over to the Government.”

Built on spec with $150,000 ($5 million in today’s dollars) coughed up by foundry owner and Ericsson friend Cornelius Henry DeLamater (who also died in 1889)– and was the guy who built the steam boilers and machinery for both USS Princeton and USS Monitor— Ericsson proposed in 1886 to sell the vessel and its patents to the Navy for “modest sum” of $220,000. Not much of a profit although there would presumably be royalties involved as well should the patents be utilized on a wide scale. 

In the end, it turned out that Destroyer and her related submarine artillery still needed another $30,000 in funds from the Navy to be made ready for a firing trial after the death of both Ericsson and DeLamater. At the time, that was about the cost of a harbor tug (four were ordered that year at a cost of $35K each).

By this stage, the prototype warship and her gun were the assets of the independent Ericsson Coast Defense Company.

The thing is, other, more proven, locomotive torpedoes had already far surpassed Destroyer’s gun and the world was awash in small, steam-driven, torpedo boats that used Mr. Whitehead’s deadly and economical devices.

They had even been proven in warfare already, with the Ottoman ship Intibah sunk in 1878 by Russian torpedo boats carrying Whiteheads. Even the U.S. Navy had ordered one, USS Cushing (Torpedo Boat No. 1), from Herreshoff in Rhode Island in 1886, and the 140-foot craft was undergoing experiments by 1890 at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport.

USS Cushing torpedo boat experiments, ca. 1890, DeGolyer Library, SMU.

The E.W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn had stood up the same year, and, using Whitehead’s patents under license, had won a 100-unit contract for American-made 18-inch (diameter) torpedoes.

The number of torpedo boats in service or building around the globe topped 1,000 in 1889-90, from a Navy Department report published in the NYT. Of course, many of these were very small coastal steam launches with no overnight/rough weather/blue water capability, but they could still carry a “fish.”

Argentinian sailors with a Whitehead torpedo, Fiume, Austria, 1888. At the time this picture was taken, torpedo boats were in all of the world’s major– and many minor– fleets.

Meanwhile, Ericsson’s body was repatriated to his native Sweden, carried on the deck of a modern new U.S. Navy cruiser that was very much the descendant of his USS Princeton and USS Monitor.

“The White Squadron’s Farewell Salute to the Body of John Ericsson, New York Bay, August 23, 1890”. Oil on canvas, 36″ by 54″, by Edward Moran (1829-1901), signed and dated by the artist, 1898. It depicts USS Baltimore (Cruiser # 3) departing New York Harbor to return the remains of John Ericsson to his native Sweden. Note the Swedish ensign flying from the ship’s foremast. Painting in the U.S. Naval Academy Museum Collection. Gift of Paul E. Sutro, 1940. Official U.S. Navy Photograph. National Archives photograph, KN-10851 (Color).

Subaquatic Shooting

The Government Torpedo Board then embarked on a series of experiments in the Spring and Summer of 1892 with the late Mr. Ericsson’s Destroyer. The board, who watched the trials from the vessels’ deck, consisted of Commander George Albert Converse (USNA 1861, later RADM) and lieutenants T.C. McLean and C.A. Bradbury. Each shot was triggered at the drop of CDR Converse’s handkerchief.

Initial tests were done in March in Brooklyn’s Erie Basin, with a few inert rounds fired into a net with a modest 20-pound charge of black powder.

The May-June 1892 tests at the Brooklyn Navy Yard saw Destroyer moored off the mouth of the Simpson wooden dry dock, which was flooded, and its gates locked opened. Inside the dock was a series of six 40×20-foot nets, at 100-foot intervals. The nets were made of 1/4-inch manila cordage. At each net stood a team of bluejackets who, holding an attached rope to gauge the vibration of the projectile hitting the net, stood ready with a chronograph in hand to be used to help calculate velocity through the docks.

The below images described as “circa 1890” were actually in May-June 1892.

View during tests of her submarine gun at New York Navy Yard circa 1890. The projectile is shown. NH 52495

Projectile body. NH 52496

View during tests of her submarine gun at New York Navy Yard circa 1890. Assembly of warhead and projectile body. NH 52497

Ericsson’s Destroyer interior view shows the breech mechanism of the submarine gun open and the shell ready to load. Note the net slicers on the tip. Taken about 1892. NH 54246

Ericsson’s Destroyer interior view showing shop facilities and a projectile for the submarine gun, taken circa 1890. Note the projectile along the bulkhead. It was thought the vessel could carry up to 15 shells. NH 54250

View during tests of her submarine gun at New York Navy Yard, circa 1890. The firing of a shell. NH 52305

NH 52306

View during tests of her submarine gun at New York Navy Yard, circa 1890. Firing of a shell into the drydock to be recovered later. NH 52311

Ericsson’s Destroyer. View during tests of her submarine gun at New York Navy Yard, circa 1890. The projectile is in a drained drydock. NH 52313

Firing 20 inert cigar-shaped projectiles, with charges not exceeding 25-30 pounds of black powder, tests were conducted from as close as 100 feet off the dock to as far as 600 feet away, with the latter showing a lateral spread of 22 feet on average. The warheads, carrying equivalent ballast rather than guncotton, were topped with four razor-sharp net cutters. It was thought able to penetrate at least one steel mesh net, as in most tests the wooden bolts zipped through at least five of the six of the manila nets.

Muzzle velocity was estimated by the board to be around 300 feet per second, which translates to about 204 mph. At the 1,200-pound test weight, that’s kinetic energy of something like 2,097,963 ft./lbs.– remarkably close to Mr. Ericsson’s estimates.

There were some glaring failures, including projectiles that sank after they filled with water, some that nosedived just after launch, and others that decelerated rapidly and were caught in the first couple of nets, or came too fast and broached over the nets.

As noted by the New York Times, “Of the 20 shots fired, 15, at the maximum range of 600 feet, were sufficiently accurate in flight to have sunk the underwater hull of an average-sized vessel.”

The craft was taken into Naval custody, although not formally purchased, then tugged for more experiments at the Newport Naval Torpedo Station, where CDR Converse’s team would continue to keep Destroyer into late 1893. This involved testing anti-torpedo nets constructed by the Washington Gun Foundry and a series of nine live submarine gun shells fabricated by the Continental Iron Works of Brooklyn.

This came after a public outcry when “the majority of foreign warships present in the World Columbian Naval Review fleet carried torpedo nets” while no American ship was fitted with one.

Sale and overseas service

In October 1893, Flint Co. of New York City bought Destroyer from the Ericsson Coast Defense Company for resale to Brazil, where a civil war/revolution that included a naval aspect was afoot. Converse dutifully handed the vessel back to ECDC president Ericsson F. Bushnell (the son of Cornelius Scranton Bushnell of USS Monitor and Intelligent Whale fame) later that month and she was towed back to NYC by the tug Scandinavia.

Seafaring adventurer Joshua Slocum, soon after to be the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, accepted the job to take Destroyer to Brazil with a scratch crew that included a Royal Marine officer on furlough who was never without his Colt revolver and sword, a Brazilian “count” whose only redeeming quality “was a good judge of a hotel,” and a handful of other hardy souls.

Supported by the freighter Santuit, Slocum was “navigator in command” and set out on 7 December, arriving at Pernambuco on 20 January 1894, with a weeklong layover in Martinique to make repairs following a hairy incident during a storm in which the vessel was nearly lost at sea.

Destroyer never made it into much active service with the Brazilians, and Slocum, recalling in a self-published pamphlet on the trip, would say:

Concerning the last days of my worthy old ship, there is little more to say. The upland navigators at the Arsenal at Bahia, having observed the New York crew put the Destroyer in the basin and out again with dispatch, undertook, like some tropical quadrupeds, to do the “trick” themselves. Whether from pure cussedness or not this time, I can’t say, but they stove a great hole in her bottom, having grounded her on a rock, “accidentally,” they said.

Alas! for all our hardships and perils! The latest account that I heard said that the Destroyer lay undone in the basin. The tide ebbing and flowing through her broken hull–a rendezvous for eels and crawfish–and now those high and dry sailors say they had a “narrow escape.”

In handwritten notes to a copy found in 1997, Slocum would also detail:

When I returned to Brazil, later, in the Spray [the 36-foot sailboat he rounded the globe in] and inquired about a balance of wages due me from the Destroyer some $600 or more: The officer I addressed said “Captain so far as we are concerned we would give you the ship and if you care to accept it we will send an officer to show you where she is – I know very well where she was, as I have already said at the bottom of the sea.”

Epilogue

While Ericsson’s Destroyer was borrowed by the Navy for about 20 months in 1892-93, she was never commissioned as USS Destroyer, nor given a crew. The Navy did, however, name its second torpedo boat (TB-2), USS Ericsson, after the late inventor in 1897. Later, a Great War-era O’Brien-class torpedo boat destroyer (DD-56) and a WWII-era Gleaves-class destroyer (DD-440) would carry the same name.

USS Ericsson, (TB-2) alongside USS Cushing (TB-1), November 1900. Catalog #: 19-N-14-24-10

USS Ericsson (DD-56) circa 1916. NH 77909

The third USS Ericsson (DD-440), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was pretty enough to star on a 1941 Naval Reserve poster by Matt Murphey. UNT World War Poster Collection

Sadly, today the name of this titan of naval technology rides on an MSC-manned Kaiser-class oiler, USNS John Ericsson (T-AO-194), which has been in service since 1991. If ever a destroyer should be named for a man, it is Mr. Ericsson. 

170718-N-OY799-016. CORAL SEA (July 18, 2017) The Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Ericsson (T-AO 194) is underway alongside the Navy’s forward-deployed aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), as part of a replenishment-at-sea during Talisman Saber 2017. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kenneth Abbate/Released)

Since Ericsson’s Destroyer, the Navy has commissioned no less than 1,087 destroyer (DD/DDR/DL/DLG/DDG) series vessels and another 588 destroyer escort (DE) types spanning from USS Bainbridge, laid down on 15 August 1899, by Neafie and Levy Ship and Engine Building Company at their shipyard in Philadelphia, to the next set to come to life, the future guided-missile destroyer USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG 123) accepted from Ingalls shipbuilding last November.

She is scheduled to be commissioned, Saturday, May 13 in Key West Florida.

USS Bainbridge (DD-1) was the first ship commissioned as a destroyer in the United States Navy, authorized on May 4, 1898, three days after the commencement of the Spanish-American War. She served most of her active life in the Asiatic Station. In World War I she was based at Gibraltar, where she served as an escort ship for Allied shipping out of the Mediterranean Sea. Bainbridge was decommissioned at the end of the war in 1919 and sold. Lithograph by C. F. Kenney; C. 1950. NHHC 07-572-A

PCU USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG 123) during sea trials. HII photo

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

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NATO’s From the Sea Option

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NATO recently released a decent little 10-minute sizzle reel highlighting the alliance’s sea soldiers. It includes Dutch Korps Mariniers and the newly-reformed German Seebataillon Marines in Scotland, the Portuguese Corpo de Fuzileiros on the rivers of Lithuania (still keeping it old school with HK G3 battle rifles and Zodiacs), Royal Marine Commandos training in Norway with their interesting 32-foot ORC (Offshore Raiding Craft) jetboats, and the U.S. Marine Corps, which exercises across the European continent.

So whether you call them Devil Dogs, Bootnecks, Schwarzen Teufel, or Fuzos, odds are, some of your favorite guys who operate from 10 fathoms inward are covered.

And, in a companion piece, the USMC themselves just put out a 10-minute hype video on the future Fleet Marine Force.

Enjoy!

 

80 Years Ago: Calvertville Mosquito Station

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The U.S. Navy PT Boat Base at Tulagi (Tulaghi) in the British Florida (Solomon) Islands came about after the island was liberated by Allied forces– primarily the 1st Marine Raiders– in August 1942 following a four-month occupation by the Japanese.

U.S. Marines come ashore on Tulagi Island, probably during the landings there on 7-8 August 1942. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-16485

The impressive prewar concrete wharf there, dubbed Government Wharf as it had been constructed and controlled by the local British administration, while too small for proper warships, was thought ideal for a squadron of PT boats.

As detailed in Close Quarters, by Bulkeley, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Two, in Panama, was reflagged as MTBRon 3 and its brand-new 77-foot Elco-type PTs shipped from the Canal, across the Pacific, in a rather interesting way:

The first division of Squadron 3, PTs 38, 46, 48, and 60, departed Balboa on August 29 aboard the Navy oilers Lackawanna and Tappahannock, two PTs to a ship. They arrived September 19 at Noumea, New Caledonia, were unloaded, and were towed to Espiritu Santo by USS Bellatrix, a cargo ship, and the tender Jamestown, which had sailed from New York early in August to join the PTs in the Solomons. The boats were towed from Espiritu Santo by the fast minesweepers Hovey and Southard, converted four-stack destroyers, to a point 300 miles from Tulagi. There the boats were turned loose to proceed under their own power, arriving at Government Wharf, Tulagi, at daybreak on October 12.

The second division, PTs 37, 39, 45, and 61, was shipped to Noumea on a merchant ship and arrived at Tulagi on October 25.

Soon, Seabees had constructed a 20-bed infirmary, a 1,000-barrel tank farm for 100 Octane mogas with a pipeline to the repaired dock, rudimentary mess and bunk houses, an engine workshop, and a protected torpedo overhaul and storage magazine.

By December, Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla ONE, under command of CDR Allen P. Calvert (USNA 1924)— formerly commander of the destroyer USS Craven— was activated with headquarters at Sesapi, on the northeastern tip of Tulagi.

With that, the base took on the name Calvertville, and continued ongoing operations against the Japanese “Tokyo Express,” being involved not only in the Guadalcanal campaign but also in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.

Over a main street covered with the pierced steel Marston matting, a crude sign read: Calvertville, Through these portals pass the best MTB Flotilla in the World. NH 44492

MTBRon 3 was soon joined by MTBRon 2, MTBRon 6, MTBRon 8, and MTBRon 1 by July 1943. Among these Elco boats was PT-109, whose skipper was a young Lieutenant (jg) John Fitzgerald Kennedy, USNR.

Later, MTBRon 31, 32, and 37 would arrive and spend their war conducting nightly patrols of the Bougainville and Choiseul coasts long after the “big show” had moved to the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

Ultimately, by the end of the war, over 100 PTs at one time or another had been based there.

The below images, captured in March 1943 by LIFE photographer Frank Scherschel, show Calvertville at its prime.

“The Old Man.” Note the Flotilla pennant. Calvert would remain in command at Tulagi into November 1943, earning the Distinguished Service Medal (Army) from the War Department, then be sent back stateside to eventually take command of the new cruiser USS Oakland.

Note the U.S. Navy Shallow Water Miller-Dunn Divinhood

Key West ‘foils

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In my post Monday about the USS Key West‘s pending decommissioning, and the fact that the city island she is named in honor of is set to celebrate the commissioning next month of a new destroyer (whose namesake doesn’t have any ties to Key West as far as I can tell) I stated there hasn’t been an active duty Navy ship homeported there since the sub base closed in 1974.

Long-time reader Big Marcus quickly pointed out that statement was an error.

Somehow, for reasons I cannot explain, I forgot about Patrol Combatant Missile Hydrofoil Squadron (PHMRON) TWO, which called Key West home from 1980 to 1993.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. The insignia for Patrol Combatant Missile Hydrofoil Squadron Two on the hydrofoil USS TAURUS (PHM 3), 1982. Via NARA DN-ST-86-01869

A pet project of ADM Elmo Zumwalt, the U.S. Navy was the point man for a NATO hydrofoil program– spurred by boats such as the Soviet Sarancha type-– in the early 1970s that, between West Germany, Italy, and the U.S., aimed to produce swarms of these potent little fast attack craft that would be particularly useful in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf, Baltic, and Meddeterrian.

Pegasus class PHMs via Jane’s 1973 ed

In 1973, the Soviets were running Project 1240 Uragan (Hurricane), NATO reporting name Sarancha, a 300-ton, 175-foot “rocket cutter” that could make 58 knots on its hydrofoils and carry four SS-N-9 Siren AshMs, an SA-N-4 Gecko Osa-M “Dustbin” SAM system and a 30mm AK-630 mount– a pretty impressive fit for the day! Of course, the Russkis only built one boat in the project, MRK-5, but it did lead to a 12-ship run of follow-on Matka-class (Project 206MR Vikhr) PHMs for use in the Black Sea.

The Pegasus-class PHMs, via the International Hydrofoil Society. Thirty of these could have proved interesting in a conflict where air superiority was assured.

They were crafted with 15 years of lessons learned by the Navy with the one-off hydrofoils USS High Point (PCH-1), USS Plainview (AGEH-1), and USS Tucumcari (PGH-2).

Well, after Zumwalt left the Navy in 1974, the PHM program dropped from a planned 30 vessels to just six, then the Germans dropped out of the program (electing to go with the more traditional S-143 class schnellboot) and the Italians elected instead to go with the smaller (60 ton, 75 foot) Sparviero class boats of which the Japanese also built three copies (the 1-go class).

The new Pegasus class PHMs were built by Boeing, with a big gap between the lead unit’s 1977 commissioning and the follow-on five vessels entering service in 1981-82.

Pegasus on trials

USS Hercules (PHM-2) bow-on. She was a Pegasus-class missile hydrofoil, seen on the cover of a Boeing brochure

Seattle, pegasus class hydrofoil USS Taurus (PHM-3) during her acceptance trials

DN-ST-84-07572 Gas Turbine System Technician Second Class Steve Miller monitors the controls at the engineer’s station board the patrol combatant missile hydrofoil USS Gemini (PHM-6), 1 January 1983

DN-ST-90-09381 The patrol combatant missile hydrofoils USS HERCULES (PHM 2) and USS TAURUS (PHM 3) maneuver off of Key West, Florida.

USS Hercules (PHM-2) and Taurus (PHM-3) 1983

Hydrofoil USS Hercules PHM-2 passes USS Iowa during Northern Wedding 86 DN-ST-87-00313

Hydrofoil USS Hercules, PHM-2 Squadron 2,i n Key West DN-SC-90-09332

Hydrofoil USS Hercules PHM-2 Squadron 2 in Key West DN-SC-87-08290

Hydrofoils USS AQUILA (PHM 4), front, and USS GEMINI (PHM 6), center, lie tied up in port with a third PHM. The Coast Guard surface effect ship (SES) cutter USCGC SHEARWATER (WSES 3) is in the background

Hydrofoil patrol combatant missile ship USS TAURUS (PHM 3) races by. “Navy hydrofoils are regularly used on Joint Task Force 4 drug interdiction missions.”

In 1980, PHM-1 was homeported in Key West where PHMRON 2 would slowly be stood up, to lend their muscle to USNAVSO’s (now Fourth Fleet’s) counterdrug efforts in conjunction with the USCG. Of course, they also did a lot of “orange force” battle group workups for ships in training out of GTMO and Rosey Roads, helped develop the Navy’s fast ship tactics at a time when the Iranians were really sowing their oats, and contributed to Operation Urgent Fury — the 1983 liberation of Grenada– with the latter being the type’s first and last combat use.

They were a core asset of Joint Task Force FOUR (CJTF-4), now JIATF South, when that group was stood up in 1989 at Key West. 

Plus, if things ever got squirrely with the Cubans, the 48 Harpoons and six 75mm guns of PHMRON 2 could likely take out the cream of Castro’s navy in a surface action without having to detail anything more than some F-16s out of Homestead to keep the MiGs away. 

In all, the squadron required just 154 shoreside maintenance and support personnel in addition to the vessels’ crews. All told, about 300 men. 

Although they garnered something like a third of the Navy’s drug busts in the decade they were active, and only cost about a third the cost of an FFG to operate, the entire squadron was sidelined in June 1993 and then shipped to Little Creek for mass decommissioning, with the newer PHMs only having been in service 11 years.

For more on the class, the National Archives has a ton of images, see the presentation by the International Hydrofoil Society, and visit the USS Aries (PHM-5) museum ship in Missouri.

Three Crowns Underway

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This striking circa summer 1944 image shows the Swedish coastal battleship (pansarskeppet) HSwMS Sverige with a bone in her teeth despite her rather old-fashioned Edwardian-era bow form. Note her twin forward 11.1″/45 Bofors guns above white “neutral stripes” over an overall camouflage scheme, the latter very useful when hugging the coastline and hiding out along the country’s craggy coastline. The Tre kronor (Swedish “Three crowns”) is a national emblem of Sweden dating back to the 13th century.

Photo by Ernfrid Bogstedt via the Sjöhistoriska museet. Fo196138

The lead-ship of her class, Sverige was laid down in 1912, completed during the Great War where she helped enforce the country’s brand of heavily-armed neutrality, was modernized in the 1930s and continued to serve both through WWII as seen above and the early days of the Cold War. 

May 1934, the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans at Stockholm (center) with the twin pansarskeppet Gustav V and Sverige in the foreground. Fo39197

The Sverige trio, some 7,700 tons at their heaviest, were just under 400 feet long but were protected akin to a heavy cruiser with up to 8-inches of armor and carried a quartet of Bofors M/1912 11.1-inch/45 caliber guns, the latter capable of landing a 672-pound armor-piercing “arrow nose shell” an impressive 31,000 yards away (the latter a closely-held secret until as late as the 1960s, with most foreign intelligence pointing to a more sedate 20,000-yard range).

Janes’s 1946 entry on the class

She was only decommissioned in 1953, after over 40 years of service, and was scrapped in 1958.

As for her contemporaries, she outlived almost all of them. For the record, the last of the pansarskepp-era mini-battleships, Sverige‘s sister HSvMS Gustav V, was used as a training hulk and pier side until 1970 when she was finally scrapped.

Robo Subchasers?

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Some interesting news from Europe comes from the team-up between the British Kraken Technology Group and Italy’s Leonardo group to use Black Scorpion and Lionfish systems on the K50.

The what?

As noted by Jane’s:

Leonardo’s Black Scorpion is an ultra-lightweight mini-torpedo developed to tackle small submarine threats with short-range engagements in littoral waters. It weighs 4.5 kg and can operate in waters 30–200 m deep.

The cool thing about this tiny “contact classification” torpedo is that it fits in a 5-inch sonobuoy launcher such as the common 25-cell launcher that has been fitted to the SH-60/MH-60 family for the past 40 years. Cheap, it is able to zap midget subs and damage larger interlopers enough to either scare them into doing something stupid or make them a lot noisier and therefore easier to chase down.

As for the K50, Kraken describes it as a “maritime gunship.” A 50-foot converted yacht, it can carry a team of frogman types and just be operated by a crew of two (or uncrewed altogether possibly). As a weapon fit, it could carry Leonardo’s remote-controlled Lionfish mount in .50 cal or 20mm as well as Black Scorpions and small ASuMs such as Martlet, Sea Venom, or Griffin.

Promo images show it fitted with a 20mm Lionfish, twin 7.62 miniguns (!) and Martlet ASuMs

According to KTG: 

Inspired by the efficacy of the heavily-weaponized, swarm-based, planing powerboats of the WW2 era, the K50 KRAKEN is every inch the spiritual successor to the renowned Motor Torpedo Boat, Motor Gun Boat, and PT Boat-type craft. Engineered from the keel up as a fully integrated weapons platform to exceed anything currently available, the K50 KRAKEN simply delivers more performance, more effective strike capability, and more mission-specific customization. This combination of innovative engineering, diligent naval architecture, and technology-enhanced operational capability makes the KRAKEN equally effective in both deterrent and effector roles.

No matter what, I like where this is going…

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