Category Archives: mine warfare

Simon Lake’s Defender found?

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Simon Lake, the famed mechanical engineer and naval architect, who held hundreds of patents relating to submarine vessels, engines, and other concepts, built his first operational submersible in 1894 at age 28.

Simon Lake and his “Argonaut” submarine in dry dock. Note that it had wheels and was intended to crawl the ocean floor. Via Popular Science 1901

Later, his more mature designs were built for service to the Tsar of Russia, the Kaisers of both Austria and Germany as well as Uncle Sam.

Simon Lake’s O-12 (SS-73) retained his trademark stern and amidships planes (shown folded down in the outboard view). Note the separate flooding ports in the watertight superstructure. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

One of his more peculiar designs was the Newport-built commercial submarine Simon Lake XV, which was later renamed Defender.

Defender at Bridgeport Connecticut. Photo courtesy Submarine Force Museum & Library

Just 92 feet overall, she displaced but 200 tons. Fitted with three torpedo tubes, Lake modified the small boat for diver operations while submerged, a concept he thought would be useful for both mine clearance and salvage work.

The experimental submarine was built in 1902 by Simon Lake, and refitted as a salvage craft, on the ways before launching at Bridgeport, Connecticut, on 1 January 1929. It was taken to New London, Connecticut, to undergo tests of safety and rescue devices with the salvaged submarine S-4. The new escape hatch, slightly open, can be seen in the bow, directly beneath the eye bolt. Description: Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, San Francisco, California, 1969. Catalog #: NH 69034

Although the inventor tried several times to interest the navy and others with public experiments with Defender, and a failed attempt to salvage gold from the lost British frigate HMS Hussar— which had rested at the bottom of New York City’s East River since the Revolutionary War– with the boat, he never managed to sell it or the design.

Amelia Earhart dressed for deep sea diving off the submarine Defender, off Block Island, Rhode Island, July 1929

Illustration of Defender, with a possible conversion to a Sightseeing Submarine

After Lake passed in 1945, Defender was hauled out to sea and scuttled by the Army Corps of Engineers in Long Island Sound.

Now, a group of divers led by Richard Simon of Shoreline Diving are pretty confident they have found the old boat.

The wreckage was first imaged as part of a bathymetric survey conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a sonar survey of the Long Island Sound conducted by Eastern Search and Survey. Both surveys marked the wreckage as “unidentified.” Simon, who had been researching Defender for years, noticed that the unidentified wreckage was consistent with that of submarine and of Defender’s dimensions. The team conducted further research before diving the target aboard Simon’s vessel R/V Integrity. The dive, research, and surface support team consisted of: Richard Simon, Bob Foster, Jeff Goodreau, Wayne Gordon, Austin Leese, Joe Mazraani, Kurt Mintell, Harold Moyers, Kevin Ridarelli, Jennifer Sellitti, and Eric Simon.
 
Members of the team attempted to dive the wreck on April 14, 2023, but poor tidal conditions prevented them from diving. The team revisited the site two days later, on April 16, 2023. Simon oversaw deck operations while divers Steve Abbate and Joe Mazraani descended to the wreckage. The pair found an intact submarine. The length, the size, and shape of protrusions on the submarine’s distinct keel, and the shape and location of diving planes characteristic of Lake-built vessels helped identify Defender.
 
Additionally, the proximity of the wreckage to the mud flats where Defender was beached prior to being scuttled further confirmed the identification.
 
“It is such a thrill to finally put our hands on this important piece of maritime history,” said Abbate. Abbate, who made the dive the day before his sixtieth birthday, added, “It’s also an incredible birthday present!”

 

Forward hatch on Defender/Diver Steve Abbate inspects one of Defender’s propellers | Photos courtesy Joe Mazraani 

More here.

Modular Mine Laying Cube

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The Baltic probably has more sea mines along its bottom than any other body of water in the world. It is estimated that there are 80,000 live mines left over from the two World Wars in the ancient sea, a legacy that has kept NATO MCM flotillas regularly employed every summer.

But of course, going beyond minesweeping and hunting, the narrow seas, craggy coastline, and shallow depths of the Baltic make it ideal for the employment of such weapons and most of the countries that border it or operate upon its waves have some sort of plan for their own use of mines in a future conflict.

With that, it should come as no surprise that this little piece of bolt-on kit is being advertised and developed by a Baltic consortium based in Denmark and Finland, to both store and very rapidly deploy (when needed) modern sea mines.

Via Danish SH Defence, in cooperation with the Finnish DA-Group and FORCIT Defence companies:

SH Defence, Denmark; DA-Group and FORCIT DefenceOY AB, both located in Finland, have signed a multiparty Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to corporate and jointly explore the potential in the development of launching, laying, and storing sea mines designed by and manufactured by DA-Group and FORCIT, such as but not limited to the BLOCKER and TURSO sea mines, into the Containerized Multi-Mission Module system called The Cube™ System.

The cooperation will be based on SH Defence’s modular mission concept, The Cube™ System with associated handling equipment, and will include design and conception; supported with DA-Group patented modular SUMICO naval minelaying concept. 

Lars Gullaksen, Area Sales Director, SH Defence, said: “The Cube™ System from SH Defence is rapidly becoming the standard within modularization of maritime mission capabilities for naval, coastguard, and SAR vessels around the world, especially within NATO and around the Baltic Sea. Hence our motto The Cube – changing the game at sea.

Modern naval vessels must be capable of carrying out different missions and roles both in peacetime and wartime. Therefore, the easy and rapid exchange of capabilities is an increasing requirement for new buildings and the retrofit of naval vessels.” 

He continued: “The Cube™ System, currently available with more than 300 different payloads from approximately 160 vendors, offers a flexible and cost-efficient solution that enables reconfiguration of a vessel in only a few hours. 

This partnership with DA-Group and FORCIT allows us to jointly develop the multi-mission capabilities and expand the portfolio of payloads to include the most modern sea mines for the adaptability of both Scandinavian, NATO, and other foreign navies.” 

Kristian Tornivaara, Chief Business Officer at DA-Group Defence and Aerospace, said: “We are excited to start the collaboration with SH Defence. They are now taking real action and provide world navies the future-proof modular solution for naval minelaying. We have been working with sea mines and mission modularity for years and we have seen the need for such a system. This is also the reason for SUMICO patent, which now can be utilized in Cube System to enhance navies’ operational capabilities and flexibility.”

Hannu Hytti, Executive Vice President, Forcit Defence, said: “Forcit Defence has been developing and manufacturing modern naval mines since 1988. Recent developments in the security environment have emphasized the importance of sea denial and naval mine capabilities. With this partnership with SH Defence and DA Group we are able to provide world class full spectrum naval capabilities for maritime defence.

Mines: Still a Thing Even as USN’s MCM Force Fades

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Deployed to the Baltic, Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 (SNMCMG1) just found a cluster of old Russian M/12 moored pendulum contact mines laid in 1917 along Parnu Bay on the Estonian coast. Latvian Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams rendered them safe. It is estimated that there are 80,000 sea mines left over from the two World Wars in the Baltic.

Currently, SNMG1 comprises flagship Royal Netherlands Navy HNLMS Tromp (F803), Royal Norwegian Navy HNoMS Maud (A530), and Royal Danish Navy HDMS Esbern Snare (F342).

Mine warfare has been a task that the U.S. Navy has been fine with increasingly outsourcing to NATO and overseas allies over the past generation, as its own capabilities in this specialty have declined.

Cold War Force fading

Probably the peak of post-Vietnam mine warfare in the Navy was reached in about 1996 when the old amphibious assault ship USS Inchon (LPH-12) was converted and reclassified as a mine countermeasures ship (MCS-12) following a 15-month conversion at Ingalls. Based at the U.S. Navy’s Mine Warfare Center of Excellence at Naval Station Ingleside, it could host a squadron of the Navy’s huge (then brand new) Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragon mine-sweeping helicopters.

Going small, the Navy had just commissioned 14 new 224-foot/1,300-ton Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships by 1994 and another full dozen 188-foot/880-ton Osprey-class coastal minehunter (modified Italian Lerici-class design) with fiberglass hulls by 1999.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (1 March 1999). USS Inchon (MCS-12) underway for a scheduled five-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. US Navy photo # 990301-N-0000J-001 by PH1 Sean P. Jordon.

Ingleside, Texas (Sept. 23, 2005) A cluster of Avenger and Osprey class mine warfare ships at NS Ingleside. The base’s first homeported warship was the new Avenger-class sweeper USS Scout (MCM-8) in 1992. U.S. Navy photo 050923-N-4913K-006 by Fifi Kieschnick

This force, of an MCS mine-sweeping flattop/flagship, 26 new MCM/MHCs, and 30 giant MH-53E Sea Dragons– the only aircraft in the world rated to tow the Mk105 magnetic minesweeping sled, the AQS-24A side-scan sonar and the Mk103 mechanical minesweeping system on four-hour missions– in three Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadrons (HM)s, was only to last for a couple of years.

As part of the slash in minesweeper money during the Global War on Terror, the increasingly NRF mission dwindled in assets with Inchon decommissioned in June 2002 following an engineering plant fire.

In 2006, USS Osprey (MHC-51), just 13 years old, was the first of her class decommissioned with all of her still very capable sisters gone by 2007.

Naval Station Ingleside, hit by BRAC in 2005, transferred all its hulls to other stations and closed its doors in 2010, its property was turned over to the Port of Corpus Christi.

The first Avenger-class sweeper, USS Guardian (MCM-5), was decommissioned in 2013 and so far she has been joined in mothballs by USS Avenger, Defender, and Ardent, with the eight remaining members of her class scheduled for deactivation by 2027, meaning that within five years, the Navy will have no dedicated mine warfare vessels for the first time since the Great War.

Speaking of shrinking assets, the Navy’s three Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadrons (HM 12, HM 14, and HM 15) are soon to become just two, with the disestablishment ceremony of HM 14 to be held on March 30th, 2023. HM-15 will absorb “102 full-time and 48 reserve enlisted personnel and four full-time and eight reserve officers” from her sister squadron and keep on rolling for now at least with a mission to “maintain a worldwide 72-hour Airborne Mine Countermeasures (AMCM) rapid deployment posture and a four aircraft forward-deployed AMCM and VOD capability in the Arabian Gulf,” in Manama, Bahrain in support of the U.S. 5th Fleet.

HM-12, on the other hand, serves as a fleet replacement squadron for the declining Sea Dragons in service, making HM-15 the sole deployable MH-53E squadron. After 2025, when the big Sikorsky is planned to be retired, the Sea Dragons will be gone altogether without a replacement fully fleshed out yet.

HM-14 currently has a four-aircraft forward-deployed detachment in Pohang, South Korea, in support of the U.S. 7th Fleet, and they recently had a great Multinational Mine Warfare Exercise (MN-MIWEX) with ROKN and Royal Navy assets last month, giving a nice photo opportunity.

The future

The Navy’s Mine Warfare Training Center (MWTC), located at Naval Base Point Loma, looks to have graduated about 18 Mineman “A” School classes so far this year, each with a single-digit number of students. These 150 or so Minemen will join their brethren and be eventually relegated to a few Littoral Combat Ships that plan to have a secondary mine mission with embarked UUVs and supported by MH-60S Airborne Mine Countermeasures (AMCM) helicopters that are closer to being a reality.

Let’s hope so.

The planned future is deployable Expeditionary Mine Countermeasures (ExMCM) teams, using UUVs off LCS platforms: 
 

PHILIPPINE SEA (Dec. 28, 2021) – Sailors assigned to Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Charleston (LCS 18) and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 5, transport a simulated Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) during a mine countermeasures exercise. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan M. Breeden) 211228-N-PH222-1507

SEA OF JAPAN (May 15, 2022) – A Mark 18 MOD 2 Kingfish is lowered out Independence-class littoral combat ship USS Charleston (LCS 18) during Exercise Noble Vanguard. Kingfish is an unmanned underwater vehicle with the sonar capabilities to scan the ocean floor for potential mines. (U.S. Navy photo by Ensign James French) 220515-O-NR876-104

A standard ExMCM company is comprised of a 27-person unit with four elements: the command-and-control element (C2), an unmanned systems (UMS) platoon, an EOD MCM platoon, and a post-mission analysis (PMA) cell, all working in tandem, just as they would in a mine warfare environment.
 
The mission begins with and hinges on the UMS platoon providing mine detection, classification, and identification. The platoon, composed of Sailors from mixed pay grades and ratings, is led by a senior enlisted Sailor and employs the Mk 18 UUV family of systems.
 
The UMS platoon deploys the MK 18 Mod 2 UUVs to locate potential mine shapes. Upon completion of their detection mission, the data from the vehicles is analyzed by the five-person PMA cell using sonar data and produces a mine-like contact listing to the C2 element for review.
 

Romanian Minesweeper Survives Detonation

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According to a release from the Romanian Navy, the minesweeper Lt. Dimitrie Nicolescu (DM-29) sortied from Constanţa, last Thursday, 8 September, to respond to a flash from the diving support platform GSP Falcon of a floating mine some 25 miles NE from the port.

Minesweeper Lt. Dimitrie Nicolescu (DM-29) of the Romanian Navy. She is 200-feet oal with a displacement of 790 tons and has been in service since 1987, dating back to the Cold War. She is a variant of the old Soviet Project 266M Akvamarin “Natya” type design. Note the ubiquitous AK-230 30mm mounts. (Romanian Navy photo)

However, high winds and sea state (Beaufort 7, near gale) interfered with the recovery as it kept the MCM from launching her EOD team boat. One thing apparently led to another and the mine impacted against the hull overnight and produced a small hole. The Romanians report that Nicolescu is stable and suffered no casualties and the support tug Grozavul went to the minesweeper’s assistance to shepherd her back to port.

Since most of the 28 mines recovered/destroyed in the Western Black Sea since the start of the Russo-Ukraine war have been small riverbed/coastal types, this slight damage tracks.

Most of the devices encountered so far have been Soviet M1943 MyaM-type shallow water (inshore/river) contact mines of the type licensed to both Iran (SADAF-01 type) and Iraq (Al Mara type) back in the 1980s, typically seen with very fresh Ukrainian naval markings and contact horns covered. (Romanian Navy photo)

RIMPAC Review (and Coasties, too)

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The 28th biennial RIMPAC, the world’s largest maritime warfare exercise, wrapped up last Friday. In all, some 26 nations sent 38 ships, four submarines, more than 170 aircraft, more than 30 unmanned systems, and 25,000 personnel to take part in the six-week exercise that stretched across the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.

We’ve detailed some of the interesting ships already, but be sure to check out this great PHOTOEX of the combined fleet steaming in perfect formation in bright daylight.

Batteries released

There were two SINKEXs, the first of which was the recently-retired OHP-class frigate ex-USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) sent to the bottom in waters more than 15,000 feet deep and over 50 nautical miles North of Kauai. From the sea, U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Chaffee (DDG 90) shot her Mark 45 5-inch gun. Units from Australia, Canada, Malaysia, and the U.S. participated in the sinking exercise “to gain proficiency in tactics, targeting, and live firing against a surface target at sea.”

The second of which was the old gator ex-USS Denver (LPD 9), sent down almost on top of Davis. From the land, the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force and U.S. Army shot Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles and practice rockets. From the air, U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets assigned to Fighter Attack Squadron 41 shot a long-range anti-ship missile. U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters shot air-to-ground Hellfire missiles, rockets, and 30mm guns. U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C/D Hornets assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232, Marine Air-Ground Task Force 7, fired an air-launched cruise missile, air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles, an air-to-ground anti-radiation missile, and joint direct attack munitions.

Coasties for the layup

Of note, the Coast Guard, stretching its legs via the service’s new and long-ranging frigate-sized (4,600t, 418-feet oal) Ingalls-built Legend-class national security cutters, contributing to the largest Coast Guard participation in the history of RIMPAC. This included the NSC cutter Midgett (WMSL-757) and the new 154-foot Fast Response Cutter William Hart (WPC 1134), the Pacific Dive Locker (who took part in port clearance operations with members of the ROK Navy), and Maritime Safety and Security Team Honolulu (who did survey work in the port in support of clearing).

Importantly, although her largest currently embarked weapon is a 57mm Bofors, Midgett has long-range sensors (a 3D TRS-16 AN/SPS-75 air search radar with an instrumented range of up to 250 km plus a AN/SPS-79 surface search set) and logged “at least nine constructive kills” during RIMPAC’s war at sea phase of RIMPAC, feeding targeting information to other assets via Link 16, an underrated force multiplier.

Midgett also embarked Navy MH-60Rs off and on during the exercise, something you can be sure of seeing during a real live shooting war. This is reportedly the first time the platform has operated from a cutter during RIMPAC

The Marines at Schofield Barracks have used FRCs in the past to set up commo nodes afloat, a task that it is super easy to imagine these shallow draft littoral vessels performing in time of crisis around scattered West Pac atolls. This worked with a mesh between the USCG’s Rescue 21 C4ISR system and an embarked Marine SATCOM team.
 
Marines and the @U.S. Coast Guard establish communications aboard USCGC William Hart (WPC 1134) during Large Scale Exercise 2021, at U.S. Coast Guard Base Honolulu. LSE 2021 is a live, virtual, and constructive exercise employing integrated command and control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and sensors across the joint force to expand battlefield awareness, share targeting data, and conduct long-range precision strikes in support of naval operations in a contested and distributed maritime environment. 

Museum ship adding to real-world training

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In the Western Pacific, both Australia and Japan could see an increase in American flattops crowding their ports in a time of heightened tensions. The thing is, likely opponents in the region who carriers and LHD/LHAs would be arrayed against field well-trained and likely very dedicated frogman forces who can use some decidedly old-school methods to keep such vessels sidelined.

So how do you train for that?

Well, Clearance Divers from the Royal Australian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force recently conducted a combined training activity, involving the clearance and removal of limpet mines, on the USS Midway Museum Ship in San Diego, California during the current Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 exercises. Ex-USS Midway (CVB/CVA/CV-41) provides a great static training installation as the 1,000-foot long, 65,000-ton warship is the only supercarrier in the world that is preserved as a museum. 

Now that makes a lot of sense.

Mineman Salute

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The Royal Navy and some of its Commonwealth spin-offs have long had a habit of commissioning “stone frigates” as shore establishments located on existing bases. One of these, founded in 1923, was HMS Vernon, so-called due to the fact that the torpedo and mining training schools in Portsmouth were on a series of hulks that included the old (circa 1832) 50-gun fourth-rate of the same name.

HMS Vernon remained a shore establishment into 1996, specializing in mine warfare in various forms, then was sold for the development of its commercial real estate potential.

HMS Vernon with a series of Ton-class Mine warfare vessels– HMS Crofton Lewiston and Hubberston– berthed in 1974.

Two years ago, the so-called Vernon Monument at today’s Gunwharf Quays, a shopping and housing development formed from the old HMS Vernon establishment, was quietly installed.

Designed by sculptor Mark Richards, the £250,000 statue depicts a one-and-a-quarter scale British Mk XVII moored contact sea mine, armed with 11 “Hertz horn” contacts – chemical fuses – which two divers wearing equally-iconic Clearance Diving Breathing Apparatus are attempting to deal with.

However, as 2021 was the year of COVID, the monument was only just dedicated this week, at an event that saw guests from around the world as well as personnel from the Royal Navy’s Mine Warfare community in attendance.

The statue is the only national memorial in Britain to mine warfare.

93 Meters Down

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The wreck of a British warship has been found off the west coast of Scotland, almost 105 years to the day she sank

Commissioned in 1893, the 800-ton Alarm-class torpedo gunboat HMS Jason was the 11th warship to carry that name for the Royal Navy going back to 1673. Capable of just 18 knots when new and outclassed by later destroyer classes, the Alarms were paid off or converted to other purposes in the 1900s. As such, this saw Jason turn into a minesweeper in 1909. It was in such a role that, on 3 April 1917, Jason struck a mine laid by the German submarine U-78 off the Island of Coll in the Inner Hebrides, sending the little vessel and 30 of her crew to the bottom.

Now, reports the Admiralty, Jason has been located, 93 meters down:

They found the warship in surprisingly good condition – but minus her bow, blown off when she struck the mine… ironically during a minesweeping operation in company with HMS Circe.

The depth, weather and water conditions, the undulating seabed, and the fact that dives are only possible at certain times of year have meant the wreck had not been found – despite Jason’s loss being accurately documented, even photographed, at the time.

The discovery is the work of historians Wendy Sadler and Kevin Heath from Lost in Waters Deep, who research contemporary records and the personal history of crew, and a team from Orkney-based SULA Diving led by Steve Mortimer and their support boat MV Clasina, skippered by Bob Anderson.

A sonar scan earlier this year suggested HMS Jason had been found – no other wrecks were known in the area – but it needed visual confirmation.

At 93 meters down, divers had just 20 minutes to inspect the wreck before returning to the surface.

They found tell-tale features of a warship: a pointed stern, a distinctive propeller, two 4.7in guns, and Admiralty crockery.

Mines of Curious Origin Popping Up Around the Black Sea

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Besides reports of assorted recent mine warfare in the Ukraine littoral— a pastime that goes back to 1877 in the region– random floating sea mines are being found by NATO navies in their home waters. Russian state media says 420 Ukrainian sea mines had somehow gone adrift in a recent storm and were loose in the Black Sea, meanwhile, the Ukrainians have denied this, thus leaving the origin a bit hazier.

On Saturday, the Turkish Navy discovered an “old type” Russian-made mine that had been found by fishermen in the upper Bosphorus strait and their EOD types from the Aydin-class mine-hunting vessel TCG Akcay blew it in place off the coastal village of Rumelifeneri.

On Monday the Turks intercepted a second mine detected off Igneada near the Bulgarian border. 

Romanian sweeps

Between Istanbul and Odessa, the Romanians have also picked up a mine of their own. On Monday, the Cosar-class minelayer Viceamiral Constantin Bălescu (F274) put divers in the water to tackle a mine 39 miles off Capu Midia.

The device, according to the interwebs, is a small Soviet M1943 MyaM-type shallow water (inshore/river) contact mine of the type licensed to both Iran and Iraq back in the 1980s with very fresh Ukrainian naval markings.

Mine marked to the 4th brigade of underwater mine enclosures of the Ukrainian Navy, based in Koblevo.

As the horns are still covered, it would seem the mine was unarmed, pointing to the fact it could have A) been in storage and accidentally hit the water somehow, or B) is a little false flag bluster to make the Ukrainians look bad while shutting down commercial traffic in the Black Sea.

Warship Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2022: Mines, Yes, but also U-Boats!

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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, Mar. 23, 2022: Mines, Yes, but also U-Boats!

Photograph FL 18955 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

Here we see the Royal Navy Halcyon-class “sloop minesweeper” HMS Sharpshooter (N68/J68) in September 1938, at around the time Hitler sent troops into the Sudetenland and a year before he was to send them into Poland, sparking WWII. Not a very imposing ship, some 80 years ago this week she would single-handedly send a Jerry U-boat to the bottom of the Barents Sea.

Based on the Grimsby-class sloops-of-war– a baker’s dozen 1,500-ton, 266-foot slow-moving (16 knots) sub chasers built in the early 1930s and capable of hauling almost 100 depth charges along with some light guns– the 21-unit Halcyon-class were slightly smaller, running 245-feet overall, and logically lighter at 1,400-tons. Outfitted with two QF MK V 4″/45 singles and a smattering of machine guns (both .50 cal Vickers and .303 Lewis guns), they shipped with manual sweep gear rather than ASW equipment.

The first five Halcyons (ordered 1933-35) were fitted with forced lubricating compound engines, and the next two with reciprocating steam (VTE) engines, while the latter 14 (ordered 1936-37 as Europe was ramping up for war) used Parsons steam turbines, with all versions being able to hit at least 16.5 knot-ish while the latter upgrades able to touch 17. All were named for Great War-era destroyers or minesweepers. 

Our little sweeper, Sharpshooter, was of the latter “turbine” type and was laid down at HM Dockyard Devonport on 8 June 1936, the fifth (and as of 2022, the last) RN warship to carry the name dating back to a 12-gun Archer-class gunbrig of the Napoleonic era. Commissioned 17 December 1937 with pennant N68, this later shifted to J68.

Assigned to the 1st Minesweeping Flotilla based at Portland (soon shifting to Scapa) her pre-war service included searching for the lost T-class submarine HMS Thetis (N25), which sank during sea trials in Liverpool Bay in the summer of 1939.

War!

Once the war began (see U-boat.net and Halcyon-class.co.uk for an extensive chronicle of her WWII service) Sharpshooter worked mine sweeping assignments in the North Sea and off Scotland, then in November transferred to Stornoway for Atlantic convoy escort duties with her Flotilla, then transferred to the 6th MS Flotilla in April 1940.

The seven sweepers of the 6th MSF, Sharpshooter included, moved to the Dover area in May, where, in response to the Blitzkrieg of the Lowlands, conducted sweeps of the coastal shipping routes off Holland. Often under German air attack on this detail, two units of the Flotilla (sisterships Hussar and Harrier) were damaged by Luftwaffe bombs before the month was up.

Called close to the beaches of Dunkirk on 28 May to help pull off members of the BEF desperate to escape the Fall of France, Sharpshooter arrived off the beaches at 0115 on 29 May and began putting boats in the water to fight the inshore surf and remove men directly from the sand—after all, she and her sisters could float in just 9-feet of water.

Dunkirk 26-29 May 1940 British troops line up on the beach at Dunkirk to await evacuation IWM

By noon on the 29th, she landed 100 soggy but safe soldiers at Dover.

On the 30th, she disembarked 273 troops at Dover, then, headed back to the beaches late that night, had a collision with the French steamer St. Helier which was pulling off French troops. This forced her to be towed back to Dover sans any more Tommys, facing a repair that would put her out of the war until mid-September.

Sharpshooter finished 1940 based at Scapa conducting fleet minesweeping/route clearance duties.

In January 1941, she was part of the sweeping screen to the north of Rockall for the battleship HMS King George V, which was taking Lord Halifax across the Atlantic to his post as the new British Ambassador at Washington.

LORD HALIFAX LEAVES FOR THE USA IN HMS KING GEORGE V TO TAKE UP HIS POST AS AMBASSADOR. JANUARY 1941. (A 2702) Two Minesweepers at a northern base. HMS SHARPSHOOTER is on the left. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137059

Following that, Sharpshooter became a facet on North Atlantic convoy work, clocking on with HX 125, OB 334, PQ 8, PQ 9/10, PQ 12, PQ 13, QP 8, QP 9, PQ 18, QP 14, and QP 15 across 1941 and 1942, alternating with minesweeping operations in North Russian waters and off Allied-occupied Iceland. This duty usually consisted of riding shotgun on slow-moving Russia-bound convoys from Reykjavik to Murmansk/Archangel and back, being targets in the massive Barents Sea shooting gallery off German-occupied Norway which meant deadly threats from shore-based bombers, U-boats, and the bulk of the Kriegsmarine’s surface assets.

This brings us to Sharpshooter’s encounter with the Type VIIC submarine U-655 (KrvKpt. Adolf Dumrese) of Wolfpack Ziethen. Our minesweeper, part of Convoy QP 9 on a return run from Murmansk to Reykjavik, spotted Dumrese’s surfaced U-boat at very close range on the morning of 24 March 1942 south-east of Bear Island– and promptly rammed it.

U-655 turned over and sank without survivors while the minesweeper suffered no losses.

This required Sharpshooter to return to the dockyard for 10 weeks of repairs to her bow and post refit trials. Meanwhile, her skipper, LCDR David Lampen received the DSO on 25 August “awarded for skill and coolness in successful actions against enemy submarines while serving in HMS Sharpshooter.”

By April 1943, Sharpshooter was dispatched to the Mediterranean for minesweeping off the North African coast then, as summer went on, for the Operation Husky Sicily landings. She remained in the Med through most of 1944, where she reportedly suffered a partial (?) torpedo hit in April.

Arriving back in the UK in September 1944, she conducted sweeping off the coast of France and Belgium before switching to North Sea operations into early 1945.

A second career

With no shortage of minesweepers and proper sloops, and the war in Europe over, the Admiralty in April 1945 made the call to disarm Sharpshooter (along with her sister ships HMS Seagull, Franklin, and Scott) then convert them to survey ships. 

The 1946 Jane’s listing for the Halcyon class survey ship conversions, including HMS Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter emerged with a white scheme in May 1946 and was soon dispatched for hydrographic duties in the shipwreck-plagued South Pacific, based in Singapore, later picking up the auxiliary pennant A310.

Returning to the UK in December 1948, she spent the next several years on surveys of the Home Islands’ West coast and, just in time for the 1953 Coronation Review, was renamed HMS Shackleton after the famed British explorer. She and her two sisters located and logged many war-time wrecks while re-surveying coastal Great Britain.

A familiar sight from Portsmouth to the Irish Sea, Sharpshooter/Shackleton was reduced to reserve status in 1961 and laid up at Devonport.

On the disposal list in 1965, she was sold to BISCO on 3 November for breaking up at Troon by the West of Scotland Shipbreaking Co. Ltd.

Epilogue

The Halcyons suffered terribly during WWII. Sphinx, Skipjack, Gossamer, Niger, Leda, Bramble, Hebe, Hussar, and Britomart were all sunk in enemy (or blue-on-blue) action off Iceland, Dunkirk, Normandy, the Barents Sea, and in Russia’s Kola Bay– all the same waters where Sharpshooter narrowly avoided destruction herself.

As peace settled into a frigid Cold War, these slow and well-worn sweeper sloops were not needed, and most were immediately laid up.

Just four Halcyons were listed as active in the 1946 edition of Jane’s, the rest lost during the war or converted to survey ships.

The Royal Navy sold almost all of Sharpshooter/Shackleton’s remaining sisters by the mid-1950s. The only outlier to this was HMS Scott, which had likewise been tasked with survey work, and was sold for scrap in 1965 along with Sharpshooter.

Sharpshooter, her name not since reused by the Admiralty, is at least remembered by a Displate.

While Shackleton, his name recently very much in the news, gets much more attention and maritime art exists of Sharpshooter in this post-war survey guise.

Specs: 

Displacement: 815 long tons std; 1,394 tons, full load
Length 245 ft 3 in
Beam 33 ft 6 in
Draught 9 ft
Propulsion: Two Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers, two Parsons steam turbines, 1770 shp, two shafts
Speed 17 knots
Range 7,200 nmi at 10 knots on 264 tons oil
Sensors (1944): Type 123 ASDIC, Type 271 RDF
Complement: 80
Armament:


(1938)
2 x QF 4 in Mk. V guns, single mounts HA Mk.III
One quad QF 0.5 in Mk.III Vickers machine gun, HA Mk. I
Assorted .303 Lewis guns


(1944)
1 x QF 4 in Mk.V guns, single mounts HA Mk.III
2 x 2 and 2 x 1 20mm/80 Oerlikon AAA cannons
Depth charges– two double depth charge chutes with two depth charges each, two single chutes with one depth charge each, and two throwers with 40 depth charges.

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