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CBP takes delivery of first of 52 Coastal Interceptor Vessels

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Last year Safe Boats International announced the award of a contract for a fleet of 52 boats to replace the agency’s aging 42-foot Invincible-class Miami Vice style cigarette boat style interceptors.

SBI’s 41 Center Console-Offshore craft design, which uses a 41 ft (12.5 m) deep-V aluminum monohull and was already in use with the Colombian Navy and Royal Bahamas Police Force, uses four outboards to hit 54+ knots in open ocean (though not likely that fast in anything but the calmest of sea states). These craft will carry a up-to four armed AMO agents in shock-absorbing seats and are capable, like slightly smaller USCG 45-footers, of 12~ hour patrols.

Photo: CBI

Photo: CBI

Now, CBP announced they have taken possession of the first of these $923,000-a-pop coastal gunboats, which will be named the Alexandria, after of one of the first maritime law enforcement “collectorships” used by the Department of Treasury in 1789.

Photo: CBP

Photo: CBP

Portrait Goals

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Lieutenant General Hugo MacNeill Hugo McNeill irish army uniform

Here we see the very dour Maj. General Hugo MacNeill of the Irish Army about 1923. Note the red staff pips on his collar and the Irish national harp insignia on his jacket buttons.

MacNeill was reportedly a bit of a scrapper and was the Irish Army’s cloak and dagger man.

As a teen he was a member of the Fianna Éireann, a sort of pre-IRA boy scouts before the IRA existed. This of course led to his service in the the Irish Volunteers (Óglaigh na hÉireann) which naturally morphed into the IRA proper after 1919. However, upon independence from the UK in 1922, he cast his lot with Michael Collins and the pro-Treaty National Army of the Irish Free State, becoming a Colonel in the regulars tasked with intelligence missions. He was then assistant Chief of Staff (as a Maj. Gen) after the Civil War, when this image was likely taken.

He remained at that grade through WWII, during which he commanded a division of the Irish Army during the island’s tense neutrality against all comers, founding an indigenous commando school and apparently was very chummy with both the Germans and the Brits during the conflict, as befitting a neutral.

He retired in the 1950s as a Lt. General and helped form the Irish equivalent of the American Legion for former servicemen.

More excellent photos of MacNeill here.

11B gets to know Charlie G

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Men of War was a forgettable 1994 action film in which Swede tough guy Dolph Lundgren plays an American mercenary by the name of Nick Gunar who gets paid to lean on some local South Pac indig types for the rights to sell bat guano. Well one reoccurring theme in that film is Nick/Dolph’s Bofors/Saab-made Carl Gustav M2 – 84x246mm recoil-less rifle which he uses off and on between his SWD/Cobray Street Sweeper against hordes of 2nd line mercs who get called in when Nick’s guys go native. Dolph even drops, “Spring, era jävlar!” which is Swedish for: “Run, you bastards!” and has become a catch phrase in Sweden these days.

The 84mm tank buster has been around since 1948 (not a misprint), first adopted by the Swedes as the Grg m/48 (Granatgevär – “grenade rifle”, model 48) and is commonly just called the Carl G, Charlie G, Charlie Golf, et.al in the West.

Well, U.S. anti-tank/anti-bunker weaps are the AT-4, the Javelin (which is heavy and requires a dedicated crew) and the M72 66mm LAWS which the Army has been trying off and on to get rid of since Vietnam. Other, much less successful rockets such as the Dragon have come and gone.

Now, Big Green is going Swedish and adding a Carl G to each infantry platoon, which they have been flirting with since 2013.

Here is some footage of the updated M3 in U.S. service, which is dubbed the Multi-Role Anti-Armor Anti-Personnel Weapon System (‎MAAWS).

Real world castaways found by the Mad Foxes

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News From 7th Fleet:

Two men wave life jackets and look on as a U.S. Navy P-8A maritime surveillance aircraft

That’s pretty good resolution from a P-8…(U.S. Navy photo by Ensign John Knight/Released)

Two men wave life jackets and look on as a U.S. Navy P-8A maritime surveillance aircraft, Madfox 807, discovers them on the uninhabited island of Fanadik. Three days earlier, the three’s 19-foot skiff capsized after setting out to sea from Pulap, FSM. The P-8A, attached to Patrol Squadron (VP) 5, and operating from Misawa, Japan, responded to a call for assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard and located the men as they waved life jackets and stood next to a large “help” sign made of palm leaves.

The men reported their vessel was capsized by a large wave a few hours after their departure on April 4, and spent the night swimming until they arrived at Fanadik Island, approximately four nautical miles from Pulap. A small boat from Pulap recovered the men from the island with no reported injuries.

(U.S. Navy photo by Ensign John Knight/Released)

(U.S. Navy photo by Ensign John Knight/Released)

It’s far from VP-5s first far-off rescue. The Navy’s second oldest VP squadron, the Mad Foxes were stood up in 1937 and made fame in the “Kiska Blitz” during which their aviators nursed PM-1s through thick Alaskan fog to plaster the Japanese in the Aleutians while keeping an eye peeled for lost P-40 and B-17 crews.

Switching to PV-2 Harpoons the PV-2 Neptunes after the war, they helped pluck one of America’s first astronauts, Commander Alan Shepard, Jr, from the drink, then helped quarantine Cuba. Switching to the P-3 Orion they provided night radar coverage of the Gulf of Tonkin in defense of USN aircraft carriers and went back to the Atlantic to finish the Cold War, even babysitting a stricken Soviet Yankee class sub in 1986.

They switched to the P-8A Poseidon in 2013.

VP-5-photo_logo

SCCY drops no questions asked replacement warranty for theft, because of sketch

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sccy

Well it looks like budget gun maker SCCY has dropped their long standing and unique for the industry replacement program for stolen guns because, well, they think they are getting gamed on it.

In an open letter posted to their site last week.

“Recently we were contacted by the BATFE in regard to an unusual amount of SCCY pistols becoming traced pistols as the result of being used in criminal activity. The unusual part of the traces is not based on sheer numbers but, rather, in the ‘time to crime”.  That is, the amount of time it took a firearm to move from its’ sale/transfer to a crime scene. Further research indicated that this phenomena may be an unintended consequence of our theft warranty.

Therefore, although we regret it, the above has led SCCY, as a responsible corporate citizen, to the decision that this program must be drawn to a close. We realize that the majority of people who have contacted SCCY in regard to stolen firearms are honest law abiding firearms owners and this is another instance where a few bad apples have spoiled it for honest citizens. However, in the interest of the public’s safety and welfare we have no choice but to abolish this program.”

Doh.

SS United States could be saved

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A conservancy group will announce on Feb. 4 details of the plan currently underway to preserve the aging SS United States, darling of the 1950s liner trade, as a museum.

More here.

FILE - This July 1, 2010, file photo shows the SS United States, a luxury ocean liner removed from service in 1969 and moored for nearly two decades in Philadelphia. The SS United States, a historic and record-breaking ocean liner that once hosted royalty and presidents, has escaped the scrap heap and will undergo a rebirth, supporters announced Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE – This July 1, 2010, file photo shows the SS United States, a luxury ocean liner removed from service in 1969 and moored for nearly two decades in Philadelphia. The SS United States, a historic and record-breaking ocean liner that once hosted royalty and presidents, has escaped the scrap heap and will undergo a rebirth, supporters announced Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Marlin’s Long Tom 120 scatter-gun

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For well over a century JM Marlin’s firearms company made a line of pump action shotguns that got little attention when compared to their much more popular rifle line that both began the company and endure today. Among this flock of rare birds included the super groovy Model 120 with its optional forty-inch (40 inch) goose barrel.

That is not a misprint.

marlin long tom
Read the rest in my column at Marlin Forum

Those pesky Mandalorians

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Via Weapon Outfitters "Maressa Fox got the distinction of doing the first photo shoot of 2015 with us! Here with a Geissele SMR Mk8 rail build, and a patrial Mandalorian armor getup fabricated by DIY Super car" http://weaponoutfitters.tumblr.com/post/107183995872/maressa-fox-got-the-distinction-of-doing-the-first

Via Weapon Outfitters “Maressa Fox got the distinction of doing the first photo shoot of 2015 with us! Here with a Geissele SMR Mk8 rail build, and a partial Mandalorian armor getup fabricated by DIY Super car”  Other gear includes Hodge Defense Systems AU Mod 1 with a Geissele SMR rail, MagPod upgraded magazine, Eotech EXPS3-0 in FDE with a G33 magnifier. (Click to big up)

It seemed fitting to drop this Mandalore quote here:

Here’s why you can’t exterminate us, aruetii. We’re not huddled in one place—we span the galaxy. We need no lords or leaders—so you can’t destroy our command. We can live without technology—so we can fight with our bare hands. We have no species or bloodline—so we can rebuild our ranks with others who want to join us. We’re more than just a people or an army, aruetii. We’re a culture. We’re an idea. And you can’t kill ideas—but we can certainly kill you.- Mandalore the Destroyer

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