Category Archives: military history

Missouri, redux

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Missouri, meet Missouri:

180126-N-LY160-0243 PEARL HARBOR (Jan. 26, 2018) The crew of the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Missouri (SSN 780) renders honors to the Battleship Missouri Memorial following a homeport change from Groton, Conn. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael H. Lee/Released)

The Iowa-class battlewagon USS Missouri (BB-63) was the third U.S. Navy ship to carry the name, which she picked up at her christening 29 Jan 1944, sponsored by Ms. Mary Margaret Truman. The Mighty Mo, some 887-feet of floating firepower, received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II (where she hosted the Japanese surrender), Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992 after serving just 16 of those years on active service and the rest in mothballs. Her name was stricken from the Navy List in January 1995 and she has been a museum vessel, the final battleship to be moored at Pearl’s Battleship Row, since 1998. There, she watches over the remains of the USS Arizona.

The current Missouri, now also stationed in Hawaii, was commissioned in 2010.

The previous namesakes are BB-10, a Maine-class battleship commissioned in 1902 and scrapped in 1922 as a result of the looming Washington Naval Treaty; and the first Missouri, a short-lived 10-gun sidewheel frigate commissioned in in 1842 and destroyed in an accidental fire at Gibraltar the next year.

The accidental Burning of the USS Missouri in Gibraltar – pub by Ackerman in 1843 pic by Duncan, Edward, 1803-1882 (artist) and TG Mends, Anne S.K Brown Military Collection https://library.brown.edu/cds/catalog/catalog.php?verb=render&id=1194650832375000

Rifleman, attention!

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Observe the following recruiting poster found in Maine in the summer and fall of 1861, during the early months of the War Between the States.

Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.02703700/. (Accessed January 09, 2018.)

Riflemen, ATTENTION!

A COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED MEN to be selected from the BEST RIFLE SHOTS, In the State, is to be raised to act as a COMPANY OF SHARP SHOOTERS through the War. Each man will be entitled to A BOUNTY OF $22,00, When mustered into the service of the United States, and 100,00 DOLLARS at the close of the War, in addition to his regular pay.

No man will be accepted or mustered into service who is not an active and able-bodied man, and who cannot when firing at a rest at a distance of two hundred yards, put ten consecutive shots into a target the average distance not to exceed five inches from the centre of the bull’s eye to the centre of the ball; and all candidates will have to pass such an examination as to satisfy the recruiting officer of their fitness for enlistment in this corps.

Recruits having Rifles to which they are accustomed are requested to bring them to the place of rendezvous.

Recruits will be received by JAMES D. FESSENDEN, Adams Block, No. 23, Market Square, PORTLAND, Maine.

Sept. 16, 1861. Bridgton Reporter Press,—S. H. Noyes, Printer.

The above broadside, is, of course for Col. Hiram Berdan’s U.S. Sharpshooters.  Tasked in 1861 with recruiting of 18 companies of marksmen, from 8 states, which were formed into two regiments (1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters) later year. Company “D” of the 2nd USSS was raised in Maine on November 2, 1861.

Their distinctive green uniforms served them well until they were replaced with more standard Union blue by 1863.

1st USSS Rgt early in the war, by Woodbridge

When the Sharpshooter brigade was disbanded altogether in late 1864, the remaining Mainers of the company were rolled into the 17th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment and ultimately mustered out on June 10, 1865, after the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomatix Campaign.

 

Humint, 1978

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(U.S. Navy Museum Number: 428-GX-USN 1172664) Soviet strike bomber Tupolev Tu-22M (Russian: Туполев Ту-22М; NATO reporting name: Backfire) Photograph received by U.S. Naval Intellegence, July 1978.

Though the type first flew in 1969 and was operational by 1972, it’s existance was not widely known in the West until it popped up over the Baltic on an excercise in 1980 during the international heartburn over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the footage appeared on state-run TV.

 

They always have you throw your shit on the ground in the parking lot before deployment

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I give you the London Scottish Regiment, Kit inspection, Dorking. London, 1916:

The London Scottish were part-time territorials formed as the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers as part of the old Volunteer Force in 1859, sponsored by The Highland Society and The Caledonian Society of London, then later reformed after the Boer War as the London Regiment’s 14th Battalion.

1/14 was called up when the balloon went up in August 1914 which would make the above unit, 2/14, which embarked for France in June 1916. They later served in Salonika and Palestine.

During WWII, the unit raised three full battalions which saw extensive service.

Since 1992, they have formed A (London Scottish) Company of the London Regiment and serve to augment the Foot Guards on public duty, still wearing their kilts for special occasions.

What a strange bird, 78 years ago today

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A Tommy with 2nd Battalion, the Warwickshire Regiment is perched in a tree taking aim with his rifle. The photograph was taken during an exercise at Rumegies near the Belgian border, on the 22nd January 1940, during the eight-month “Phoney War” or “Sitzkrieg” period between the fall of Poland and the invasion of France.

His rifle is the Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield Rifle No.1 MkIII.

The Warwickshires were originally formed in 1685 in the Netherlands by James II as the 6th Regiment of Foot, changing their name to the 1st Warwickshire in 1782. They fought in the Napoleonic wars, both World Wars, the Boer War and other assorted conflicts around the globe for 283 years when amalgamated finally as a single battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers, they lost their name and were folded into the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968 with their current RHQ in the Tower of London. Today they field an active duty armored infantry battalion (1st) equipped with Warriors while a TA unit, (5th bn) is equipped as light infantry.

FM 1-1

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“Manual Exercise of the Musketeers”

Click to big up 1200×1800

Plate from a 17th-Century manual of arms step-by-step procedure in the “handling of the musket by ranked men was essential to avoid fatal accidents.”

Pretty important with lit matches around firelocks…

Warshot! 27 years ago today

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As seen through the submarine’s periscope, a BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) targeted on an Iraqi position leaves the water after being fired from a vertical launch tube aboard the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Pittsburgh (SSN-720) during Operation Desert Storm, January 19,1991. She was the first U.S. submarine to launch wartime Tomahawk Cruise missiles as part of the First Gulf War.

(OPA-NARA II-8/8/2015).

Pittsburgh, whose motto is Heart of Steel, was commissioned on 23 November 1985, and let her TLAMs fly into Iraq once again in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Groton-based sub, still very much in active service at age 32, recently passed her 1000th dive milestone.

Welcome home, WisKy

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John L. Hemmer | The Virginian Pilot Caption information courtesy of The Sargeant Memorial Collection

John L. Hemmer | The Virginian-Pilot Caption information courtesy of The Sargeant Memorial Collection

71 years ago today–January 18, 1947– A photograph of the return of the Iowa-class battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) to the Norfolk Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia. The battleship had been on a 12-day cruise in the Caribbean with 565 Naval Reservists. Wisconsin was built at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania and launched on December 7, 1943– the above being her original bow. She would only later be referred to as WisKy, after she picked up the bow of her uncompleted sister ship, USS Kentucky, following a collision with the destroyer Ellison in 1956.

A real deal Rhodie

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Though there are tons of homage builds floating around, few actual Rhodie FAL’s are in circulation outside of Zimbabwe, and here is one up close and personal.

Larry Vickers of Vickers Tactical and Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons team up in a join table top discussion of a real deal Rhodesian 7.62x51mm NATO battle rifle from the Bush War period to include a rarely-seen Halbeck Device.

While Rhodesia, a Crown Commonwealth country, had started replacing their WWII-era .303 Enfields in the early 1960s with British-made L1A1 rifles– a semi-auto version of the FN FAL– they were cut off from arms shipments from the UK and the rest of the world by a UN Security Council embargo after 1966. The only countries that provided the regime with rifles were those who were also fighting their own insurgencies in Africa at the time: Portugal, who provided HK G3s, and South Africa, who coughed up some “sanitized” Belgian-made FALs (R1s) from their own stores.

Both baby-poop camo’d G3s (via Portugal) and assorted FAL patterns via South Africa on patrol in the veldt, late 1970s. Note most of the FAL’s have deleted carrying handles and at least two look to be carrying 30-rounders. Also, note the FN MAG on the left-hand side. 

In the above clip, Vickers points out the modifications made both by Pretoria and the Rhodesians themselves to include the removal of the South African crest– leaving a hole in the magazine well– the deletion of the carrying handle and the addition of the grenade launcher sights and garish green “baby poop” camo scheme.

But you want to see it go boom, yes? Yes.

That will get your attention

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A relatively quiet day during the Battle of the Bulge: Posed U.S. Army Signal Corps photo of an 82nd Airborne Div machine gun nest “somewhere in the Ardennes.”

Note the big M2 .50-caliber Browning heavy machine gun in a ground defense role with a spare barrel literally chilling out to the left. “Ma Deuce” still fills this same role today, and will likely for generations to come. Turns out you just can’t beat 100~ rounds of 671-grain APIT headed out per minute as long as the ammo holds up.

Also, note the M1919 .30-06 light Browning to the right for close-in work. Together with the above set-up, this one post can own that field out to 2,000m against advancing infantry– until the StuGs and panzers show up anyway, at which point it becomes time to rapidly displace to the rear.

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