Here you see the Maersk Line’s Triple-E (Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller) on her sea trials. All 165 000 tonnes, motoring along at 25kts.
For reference she is four times larger than the RMS Titanic, or about the same size as all of the Iowa class battleships…put together.
Tell that to somebody even 50 years ago, and they’d tell you that you’re crackers. Then tell them that, by the way, it only needs 22 crew
No this is not from Pacific Rim.
The time is 1911.
The man is inventor Chester E Macduffee and he is shown with his experimental Aluminum Alloy Suit.
US Patent 989530, “Submarine Armor “, this German aluminum alloy (Duraluminum) suit weighed over 550-pounds (without the man inside! ) The cylindrical joints mounted on ball bearings allowed movement in one direction only. They do not appear to be watertight due to the fact Macduffee implemented a waterpump in the suit. This pump was able to pump water from the leg section into the sea. The pump operated on compressed air supplied from the surface. The used air from the pump then expanded into the suit and was used by the diver for breathing. The suit was equipped with a 12 section-gripper mounted on one arm and an electric light on the other arm.
This steampunk nightmare actually worked and was tested in 1915 to a depth of 214 feet in Long Island Sound.
After generations of not being able to get their nuclear powered boats to work right, the Chinese have gone and built the world’s largest conventional (diesel) sub. The Type 032 Qing-class test submarine is thought that this big diesel boomer will replace a forty-year old Golf class submarine that has been used since the Nixon era to test Chinese SLBMs.
For reference, it is thought to be over 6628-tons, making it very nearly the largest diesel boat ever made (the Japanese I-400 series boats, profiled on a previous Warship Wednesday, in fact drew 6670-tons at full load). Except where the I400 was capable of carrying 3 seaplanes, a 140mm gun, and 8-torpedo tubes, the Qing is capable of carrying the 4500-nm range the JL-2A submarine-launched ballistic missile, CJ-20A cruise missiles and the YJ-18 anti-ship missile. Oh yeah, plus torpedoes.
Previous Chinese nuclear powered boats were considered the brass bands of the Pacific, being heard from miles away by P-3 crews and 688 boat passive arrays. These new ones may be an interesting move in the quiet direction.
Only time will tell.
Hattip to MP.net for breaking the story even before Janes.
The littoral combat ship USS Independence (LCS 2) demonstrates its maneuvering capabilities in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel M. Young/Released)
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday: Aug 8, 2013
Here we see the river gunboat USS Guam steaming down the Yangtze river in old China. Unlike most of Uncle’s warships, she never once sailed US waters.
Built in China at the Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works, Shanghai specifically for the US Navy, she was one of the first new-built Chinese gunboats for the US. Uncle had for generations maintained a fleet of coastal and river gunboats in Chinese waters. These boats, immortalized in the book and film the Sand Pebbles, were known as the Yangtze Patrol (COMYANGPAT), after the huge river system they commonly haunted. The first modern patrol started in 1901, was with three captured Spanish shallow draft gunboats (USS Elcano, Villalobos, and Callao) that had previously been used in the Philippines. Two more gunboats, USS Palos and Monocacy, were built at Mare Island in California in 1913 and shipped across the Pacific. By 1926 these five boats were all worn out and the navy went shopping for replacements.
With dollars always short in the Navy budget, it just made sense to build these new boats in China, to save construction and shipping costs. These new ships consisted of two large 500-ton, 210-foot gunboats (USS Luzon and Mindanao); two medium-sized 450-ton, 191-foot boats (USS Oahu and Panay) and two small 350-ton, 159-foot boats (USS Guam and Tutuila).
Guam was commissioned 28 December 1927 and carried a designation as a patrol gunboat number 43 (PG-43), then reclassified the next year as patrol-boat, river, number 3 (PR-3) six months later. This change was due to the flat-bottom hulled craft being incapable of at-sea operations. Her 5-foot draft meant she could travel all over the inland river systems and she spent the next 14-years of her US Navy career doing so.
USS TUTUILA (PR-4) or USS GUAM (PR-3) Ship’s officers and crew, photographed at Hankow, China, on 14 July 1930. Note armored covers of bridge windows, awning frames, 3″/23 gun. Description: Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1977 Catalog #: NH 85840
She had a quiet life but it was exotic. Warlords, bandits, White Russian refugees, Communist rebels, and corrupt local governments changed every few miles along the river. By 1931, Japanese interests in the country meant a dangerous future for the Yangtze Patrol.
When Americans in China were in sticky situations from 1901-1941, this is how the brown-water sailors of the US Navy’s YANGPAT came ashore.
In December 1937, 12 Japanese fighter-bombers attacked and sunk the larger USS Panay in Nanking, China as the boat was evacuating Americans from the embattled city.
Ichang, China view taken 18 May 1937, showing USS GUAM (PR-3), moored astern of USS PANAY (PR-5) prior to their inspection by the Commander in Chief Asiatic Fleet. British river gunboat GANNET (1927) is in the background, seen above PANAY. Description: Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Yarnell, 1975 Catalog #: NH 81615
Following this incident tensions grew between the Japanese and US Navy ships in Chinese waters and Guam wandered around, decked in as many US flags as could be found, keeping quiet tabs. Just before Pearl Harbor, the four larger ships were withdrawn to the Philippines but Guam and her sister Tutuila were forced to remain behind, planned to be turned over to the Chinese.
On December 5, 1941, two days before the US entered WWII, COMYANGPAT was disbanded and the USS Guam renamed USS Wake earlier in the year, was the last US Navy ship in Chinese waters. Most of her crew had already left, transferred to the larger boats, and were in the Philippines. Just the captain and 14 crewmen remained aboard, destroyed vital papers, and wired the ship with scuttling charges.
On December 8, 1941, the USS Wake surrendered to the Japanese military as crack marines of the Special Naval Landing Force stormed the ship before news of Pearl Harbor reached the naval vessel. Trapped in a no-win situation at the start of WWII, her captain did what he could to ensure the safety of his sailors who were marched off into five years of Japanese imprisonment.
Capture of USS WAKE (PR-3), 8 December 1941 Japanese special naval landing force personnel celebrate after they captured USS WAKE on the first day of World War II in the Pacific. The Shanghai “Bund” is in the background. Description: Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Catalog #: NH 96568
Japanese naval infantrymen aboard a ship off Shanghai, China, 8 Dec 1941 note captured American flag, 1928 Thompson sub-machine guns, and 12 gauge M1897 Winchester riot guns, all likely from USS Wake
She is the only US Navy ship to surrender in modern times.
It is perhaps this fact that has kept the US Navy from commissioning another USS Wake. As of this date, there has never been another. The captain and two other men escaped confinement in 1944 and walked 700 miles to Allied lines.
The Japanese used her as a gunboat manned by their local Chinese surrogates under the name of Tatara. Surviving multiple US air raids during WWII, she was captured by the US Army in 1945 and given to the Nationalist Chinese who used her as the Tai Yuan.
In a final, and fitting chapter of her life, she was captured by Mao’s Red Chinese in 1949. They kept the old girl poking around until at least the late 1960s.
Her final disposition is unknown.
Specs:
Displacement: 350 long tons (360 t)
Length: 159 ft 5 in (48.59 m)
Beam: 27 ft 1 in (8.26 m)
Draft: 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m)
Installed power: 1,900 ihp (1,400 kW)
Propulsion: 2 × triple expansion steam engines
2 × screws
Speed: 14.5 kn (16.7 mph; 26.9 km/h)
Complement: 59
Armament: 1927: 2 × 3in guns (2×1) 8 × .30-06 Lewis machine guns (8×1), infantry weapons
1942: US-made 3″ guns replaced with Japanese 3″ AA guns.
Jan 1945 several Type 93 13.2mm M.G.s installed
1946 more light machineguns added. Presumably, refit with Soviet weapons in the 1950s.
Specs:
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
I’m a member, so should you be!
War nerd confession: I’ve always thought the Falklands campaign was fascinating. Its one of the few instances where two western militaries have fought each other in all-out combined war in land sea and air in modern times. Found this pretty neat 45-min. documentary on the SAS and SBS in the Falkland Islands War (1982). Includes interesting and such little-known stuff as the Top Malo house fight, the covert SAS/SBS intel teams in Argentina itself, the Pebble Island Raid, and others.
So you are a frogman and, while you are froggin it up, you come snorkel-to-snorkel with another wetsuit-clad combat swimmer. You reach for your dive knife but come up short because you realize that you just brought a knife to a gunfight. Well, that dastardly commie has a SPP-1 pistol, and it works underwater.
Underwater divers have been used by militaries around the world for centuries. As far back as the 1843, the British Royal Navy and others used divers for salvage. However, these early divers were tethered to the surface by lines that fed oxygen. The first ‘frogmen’ who swam independent of support ships had to do so with just a set of fins, a facemask, and a knife. These early combat swimmers reconned beaches in World War 2 as well as planted explosives when the opportunity arose.
It wasn’t until self-contained breathing apparatus including open and closed circuit varieties came about in the late 1940s that military divers could stay below the surface for longer periods. This new technology led to a greater flexibility of operations that included the laying of limpet mines on enemy ships in harbor. Soon most modern navies had specialized teams of frogmen optimized for underwater recon, sabotage, and other dirty deeds done dirt-cheap.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
Here at Guns.com we are well aware of thousands of different types of ‘boomsticks’, but we aren’t talking about those right now. No the ones on the table today are sticks that go bang. Read on and get in touch with that most peculiar and perhaps specialized of firearms: the bangstick.
A bangstick is a simple tool for a not so simple task: the elimination of a dangerous predator in the water on contact. To sketch out the broad strokes, it’s a pole, with a stainless steel chamber attached to it that holds a live round of ammunition over a fixed firing pin. When you hit the dangerous end of this chamber with a good amount of oomph onto a target, it forces the round back onto the pin and out fires a projectile. Most manufacturers use a simple cotter pin, hairpin, or braided wire thread as a physical safety so that the bangstick doesn’t go off until you really want it to. There is no trigger. There are no sights. There is no magazine or action, as we know it on other firearms.
In fact, even though these devices fire modern rimfire and centerfire rounds, the ATF does not consider them to be regulated firearms…but more on that later.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
diver using a bangstick on a 12 foot blue shark that is getting too touchy feely
“According to several sources vetted by DID, “on July 5/13, the Syrian port city of Latakia experienced major explosions at an arms depot. Israel hasn’t taken responsibility for the attack, but many sources attribute it to them. Initial reports suggested that the Israeli air force flew from bases in Turkey to launch the strike, flying over the Mediterranean and staying out of Syrian air space. Now, reports have surfaced that the strike was launched from a Dolphin Class submarine offshore. ”
The Dolphin is a greatly modified class of six Type 209 submarines made by the Germans for the Israeli Defence Forces. The first two, built in the late 90s were donated, and the rest built slowly with the last, a currently unnamed unit, slated for delivery in 2014.
Isnt it cute
These 200-foot 1800-ton boats are smaller than the fleet boats of WWII, but can make patrols of up to 50-days at sea, covering as many as 10,000 nautical miles. They are armed with 6 × 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes for a payload of up to 16 US Mk48 and German Atlas Elektronik DM2A3 fish or sublaunched Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and 4 × 650 mm (26 in) torpedo tubes for launching swimmer vehicles and mines.
Their names are very interesting and resemble those typically chosen by Tsarist Russian subs.
Dolphin
Leviathan (trans. “Whale”)
Tekumah (trans. “Revival”)
Tannin (trans. “Crocodile”)
Rahav (trans. “Demon”}
While the Germans only sent the boats capable of firing 533mm torpedoes, the Israelis about ten years ago converted them to fire the Popeye Turbo SLCM – A suspected stretched version of their locally designed Popeye Turbo air to surface missile, for use as a submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM). It was widely reported in a US Navy observed 2002 test in the Indian Ocean to have hit a target at 1500 km, it can allegedly carry a 200-300 kg conventional or nuclear warhead.
It is suspected that the stretched Popeye Turbo is the primary strategic second strike nuclear deterrent weapon which can be fired from the 650mm secondary torpedo tubes of the Israeli Dolphin class submarines. It is believed that the SLCM version of the Popeye was developed by Israel after the US Clinton administration refused an Israeli request in 2000 to purchase Tomahawk long-range SLCM’s because of international MTCR proliferation rules.
The Israelis, however, are mum on dolphins, popeyes, and other such things….
If you drive a mini-sub to work, learned Russian as your first language and have a closet full of wetsuits, odds are you may have a working knowledge of the Avtomat Podvodnyj Spetsialnyj better known in the west as the APS. It’s the world’s only known underwater assault rifle and its James Bond-style interesting.
First off, it’s important to remember that this weapon wasn’t a prototype that looked revolutionary on paper only to never get used; it was designed in the 1970s, placed into production at the TsNIITochMash plant and issued for use to untold thousands of Russian military types. The Soviets in the 1970s were anxious to build the world’s largest navy and were running a very close second to the US fleet. With more than 300 submarines and up to 50 at sea at any time, the Soviet Red Banner Fleet, led by the iconic Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, felt the secret to a communist victory on the waves was in operating under them.
Of course, you couldn’t have the largest submarine fleet in the world without a huge legion of underwater commandos—who needed guns.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
