The picture above shows soldiers of the 64th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division of the US Army Expeditionary Force in France celebrate at the stroke of the 11th Hour, of the 11th Day of November 1918. This is when the ceasefire armistice went into effect between all of the Allies and the Germans in what was then known as the Great War. They are happy because the survived. For them, the war, with its mustard gas, machine-guns, artillery, and trench warfare was over and it did not claim their mortal vessel.
Today we think of this day as Veterans Day but in 1918 it was Armistice Day. In no less than 70 countries around the world, this day is remembered with somber introspection. Over 37-million lost their lives in that war, including no less than 117,465 Americans.
Overseas, today is Remembrance Day, with the same roots and same meaning…entire generations of Britons, Frenchmen, Russians, Germans, Austrians, Rumanians, Poles, Italians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, Bulgars, Turks, Czechs, and Greeks were forever lost in the great chasm that was marked by the reapers as the years 1914-1918.
In fact, the war was so bitter, so ghastly, so abominable, that it led to the Kellogg-Briand Pact ten years later in which in effect, bans all wars. This led, in turn, to the Great War being then known as the “War to End all Wars”.
Although we have lost our last Great War veteran of what we call now World War One, we will still have to mourn new warriors lost in war every year for a foreseeable future.
To them, those hardy Doughboys in 1918, and all those who have fallen and served before and since, we remember.
To the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Coastguardsmen, and Marines of today, we toast.
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Back in the early 1970s, the US Navy needed a replacement for the old FRAM’d WWII-era Sumner and Gearing leftovers from the 1940s and 50s in the fleet. These were small, 3,500-4,000-ton ships that carried an 8-cell ASROC launcher, 4 5-inch/58 guns in twin mounts, and two triple Mk32 ASW torpedo launchers. They were sitting ducks to anti-ship missiles, could not carry helicopters, and packed almost 400 sailors into a tin can made to all the best specs of 1942.
The USS Orleck, shown here in 1964, a WWII veteran still going strong, by the 1970s, needed to be replaced. Ironically, while all of the Spruances are gone, Orleck endures as a floating museum ship in Lake Charles, La., and is slated to go to Jacksonville in the coming months.
To replace these old boats, the Spruance class, a mighty 31 destroyers, were built between 1972 and 1983, all at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.
Sketch in the 1973-4 Jane’s Fighting Ships on the planned Spruance class
Artist’s conception of the Navy’s DD-963-class destroyer. The ship, designed by Litton Industries’ Ingalls West Division at El Secondo, California, will be mass-produced at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation, Pascagoula, Mississippi. Catalog #: USN 1144349 Copyright Owner: National Archives. Original Creator: Artist, Russ Vickers
Six Spruance-class destroyers fitting out, circa May 1975. Ships are, from left, Paul F. Foster (DD-964); Spruance (DD-963), then running trials; Arthur W. Radford (DD-968); Elliot (DD-967); Hewitt (DD-966), and Kinkaid (DD-965). Ingalls East Bank, Pascagoula
Six Spruance-class destroyers are being built at Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi. 24 June 1975. From top to bottom: USS Peterson (DD-969), USS Arthur W. Radford (DD-968), USS Elliot (DD-967), USS Hewitt (DD-966), Kinkaid (DD-965), USS Caron (DD-970). PCUs are visible
At least five Spruance-class destroyers were being built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi, with the two closest being USS Conolly (DD-979) and USS Moosbrugger (DD-980), 25 May 1977
No less than 16 Spruance-class destroyers are on the way. DD Module Erection Area 24 June 1976. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi.
An expanded version of the same picture, showing a Tarawa-class LHA in the rear
As a kid, I used to sit at the old Point on Beach Boulevard and watch these sleek 563-foot-long greyhounds born for Poseidon’s fox hunts.
The USS Ingersoll, DD-990, was a good example of how the “Spru-cans” came out of Pascagoula in the 1980s. She is armed here with just her guns, torpedoes, ASROC, and a Sea Sparrow. Bring on the Red Banner Fleet!
They were called the “Love Boats” back then since they were the size of WWII light cruisers (8,000 tons), yet only carried a pair of 5-inch guns (Mk45 rapid-fire jobs that provided more firepower than twice as many of the old Sumners’ 5-inch/58s), twin triple ASW tubes, and an 8-cell ASROC launcher.
Bow of the destroyer USS O’Bannon (DD-987), a Spruance-class destroyer, showing the ship’s Mark 16 8-cell ASROC anti-submarine rocket launcher, foreground, and a Mark 45 5-inch/54-caliber gun
Still, they made a good backdrop for 1984 recruiting commercials– set in British-controlled Hong Kong!
In their defense, most were funded by the bankrupt Carter military, and their armament suite was superior to the destroyers they were supposed to replace. Also, they had a twin helicopter hangar that could support a pair of sub-busting choppers, a battle implement WWII destroyers never dreamed of.
This changed over time,e and by the late 1980s, they were pretty capable ships.
Over the 1980s and 90s, they were increasingly armed with other weapons systems. Some 24 ships of the class swapped out their ASROC launcher for a 61-cell Mk41 VLS system like on the Ticonderoga class cruisers (which were based on the Spruance hull). All ships also gained an 8-pack of Harpoon SSMs, an 8-cell NATO Sea Sparrow SAM launcher (also capable of being used against surface ships), and a pair of 20mm CIWS R2D2 guns for swatting away incoming missiles.
U.S. Navy Spruance-class Destroyers USS Hewitt (DD-966), Kinkaid (DD-965), and John Young (DD-973) at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in March 1980, after participating in exercise RIMPAC 80. Photo by JOCS John D. Burlage, U.S. Navy. All Hands Archives.
Ten more of these had a 21-cell RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launcher mounted on the starboard fantail to further protect these ships from more modern anti-ship missiles. Several of those that weren’t converted to VLS were given quadruple ABL Mark 43 Tomahawk missile launchers like on the recommissioned Iowa-class battleships.
USS Deyo after her ASROC was removed and replaced with the 61-cell VLS. Also, note the Phalanx CIWS mounts port and starboard.
They proved the backbone of fleet operations throughout the last decade of the Cold War, the sordid engagements in the Persian Gulf, and the Navy’s part in the war on drugs.
Spruance-class destroyer USS Peterson (DD-969) with Soviet Moma AGS class survey vessel Nakhodka in the Sargasso Sea 1983, on the rescue op for Victor III-class SSN K-324. On Halloween 1983, K-324 snagged the frigate USS McCloy’s towed sonar array cable about 300 miles west of Bermuda, causing damage to the submarine’s propeller. The Soviet attack boat was towed to Cienfuegos, Cuba, for repairs, and Red Fleet technicians recovered some parts of McCloy’s array.
USS Peterson (DD-969) is keeping tabs on YAK-38 Forger, most likely landing on a Soviet Kiev-class carrier
Speaking of carriers, there was even some thought of making an “aviation destroyer” variant.
The “through deck destroyer” variant would place a ski jump on a Spruance hull and be able to carry as many as 10 VTOL aircraft.
Their long legs (6,000+ nm at 20 knots on two turbines) allowed them to self-deploy away from the battle group, and a lot of the flag-waving done in foreign ports during the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years was done by Spruances operating alone. Gone were the days of boilers and steam plants.
USS Spruance (DD-963) ship’s propulsion control center, during her trials period, May 1975. Official U.S. USN 1162172
USS Cushing late in her career. Note the RAM missile launcher on her stern.
Then, starting in 1998, these hardy destroyers that were at the top of their game began to retire.
When the Spruances left the Navy, they took with them 1,494 Mk41 VLS cells, which carried mainly Tomahawk cruise missiles along with a smattering of ASROC sub-busters. They also faded away with 62 5-inch guns, 62 CIWS guns, 249 Harpoon anti-ship missile launch spots, 62 LAMPS helicopter hangar spots, 249 Sea Sparrow missile launcher cells, 210 RAM missile cells, and 186 Mk32 ASW Torpedo tubes. Those 7 hulls that were not equipped with VLS retained armored box launchers, which gave the fleet another 56 of those weapons.
In 1989, the US Navy had 63 Knox/Brooke/Garcia-class frigates, 51 OHP-type guided-missile frigates, 31 Spruances, 4 Kidd-Class DDGs (Mk-26/SM-2 armed Spruances), 27 Ticonderoga class CGs, 23 older Charles Adams-class DDGs, 10 Farragut-class DDGs, six nuclear CGNs, 19 Belknap/Truxtun/Leheay-class CGs, four huge Iowa-class Battleships, and the 15,000-ton cruiser Long Beach as large surface combatants. This is a total of 239 surface warships capable of blue-water operations.
As of 2013, they have in commission: 22 remaining Ticos, 12 OHPs (that are largely disarmed and rapidly retiring), 4 (unproven) LCSs, and 62 Burke-class destroyers, the first of which was laid down on 16 September 1989. That’s even 100 ships, or a reduction of about 58% from the late 1980s. Granted, the US Navy doesn’t have to go to war with the Soviets anymore, ala Red Storm Rising, but there is still a global need for surface combatants from the South China Sea to the HOA to the Med and the Persian Gulf. A hundred surface ships can’t be everywhere at once.
All good things come to an end: last Spruance-class destroyer (DD-997) in hard starboard turn during her Acceptance Trials, circa late February 1983.
You can argue that the 96-cell VLS-equipped DDG-51 class destroyers replaced the Spru-cans, DDGs, and retired CGs on a 2:3 basis, but the DDG-51 lacked the extra 5-inch mount, and, in early models, the aircraft capability. Instead of being crammed full of TLAMs, these new DDGs have to allocate most of their space to carrying surface-to-air missiles. Further, the ’51s are tasked increasingly with fleet air defense and (now) with ABM missions. All the while, their ASW, ASuW, and NGFS capabilities are being marginalized. Yes, the 51s replaced the Spurances and the 1970s vintage CGNs of the South Carolina and Virginia classes in so much as AAW is concerned, but they did not fully replace their capability in ASW and NGFS. The Spruances, unlike the Burkes, were dedicated to ASW, ASuW, and land strike with both naval gunfire and cruise missiles. With the Burkes, it’s a side job.
Iowa is bracketed by Spruance-class destroyers Deyo and Comte de Grasse.
Surely the Spurances would now be long in the teeth, ranging from the 1975-commissioned DD-963 to the 1983-dated DD-997; they would all be over thirty years old. However, the Ticonderoga-class cruisers are roughly the same age. They use the same hull and below-deck machinery. In 2003, the newer 22 of the 27 ships (CG-52 to CG-73) in that class were upgraded to keep them combat-relevant, giving the ships a service life of at least 35 years each. Had a similar mechanical upgrade been given to the 24 VLS-equipped Spurances, they would all still be in service. In fact, given that timeline, DD-997 would only be expected to decommission in 2018. More on this ship below.
Instead, all 31 Spruances were rapidly decommissioned and mothballed between 1998 and 2005, when the ships were all in their 20s. Instead of being refitted to serve another decade or two, they were stricken from the Navy List. No sooner were they stricken than they were systematically sunk in a series of fleet training exercises, dismantled, or otherwise scrapped.
Like Megatron and Osama Bin Laden, most of the Spruances were sunk in deep water. Here, the USS Hayler, DD-997, commissioned in 1983, is being sunk as a target on 13 November 2004. Most 21-year-old ships are still in service, with another 10-15 years left on their hulls. Her story is typical of her class. Not even her 127mm guns, standard issue on US Navy destroyers, were salvaged.
It can be guessed that since they were too close in design to the still very active Tico-class cruisers, they were too sensitive to give away as military aid to the likes of Pakistan, Mexico, or Colombia. Just one of their number, the former USS Paul Foster, remains. She has been in use since 2004 as an unnamed and non-commissioned test ship for the US Navy as the Self Defense Test Ship (SDTS).
In this role, she is a remote-controlled drone boat, used as a hard target for new weapons systems.
Ex USS Paul F Foster DD-964, SDTS Self Defense Test Ship EDD-964, the last Spruance class Destroyer, decommissioned in 2003, still working, departing San Diego after refueling, December 3rd, 2021, as captured on San Diego Webcam.
Coast Guard Medevacs Injured Navy Sailor from Submarine. Courtesy Video | U.S. Coast Guard District 11 PADET San Diego | Date: 10.11.2013. SAN DIEGO – An aircrew from U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Diego approaches a submarine to medevac an injured Navy sailor 160 miles west of San Diego, Oct. 11, 2013. The 22-year-old man was transported to San Diego and transferred to emergency medical personnel for further care. U.S. Coast Guard video by Sector San Diego.
The Navy has gone through a lot of growth spurts for its Fire Scout Program. The program was born ten years ago to provide a remote control (unmanned) vertical takeoff & landing (VTOL) aircraft, with a payload capacity of 200 pounds, a range of 125 miles , an endurance on station of three hours at an altitude of 20,000 ft, and the ability to land on a ship in a 20-knot wind. The UAV was to fly 190 hours before planned maintenance.
They started off in 2002 with the RQ-8A, based on the Schweizer/Sikorsky 330, a 31-foot long, 1200-pound three person light helicopter. Then came the MQ-8B, based on the Sikorsky 333, and upgraded 330.
Now they have moved past that to the four-bladed, 41-foot long Bell Jet Ranger 407 (HH-57/OH-58) type helicopter. The much larger MQ-8C weighs 3 tons at max payload, has a 1,000 lb useful payload (Max hook capacity 2645 lbs), and has an endurance of up to 24 hours. It can be armed with AGM-175 Griffin missiles and APKWS II guided 70 mm rockets that the MQ-8B can carry, as well as heavier AGM-114 Hellfire missile. The Navy will buy a total of 96 Fire Scouts to deploy on both ships at sea and with expeditionary forces ashore.
And they have tested it in the air this week:
Point MUGU, Calif. (Oct. 31, 2013) An MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle takes off from Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu. The Navy’s newest variant of the Fire Scout unmanned helicopter completed its first day of flying Oct. 31 with two flights reaching 500 feet altitude. The MQ-8C air vehicle upgrade will provide longer endurance, range and greater payload capability than the MQ-8B. Initial operating capability for the MQ-8C is planned for 2016, with the potential for an early deployment in 2014. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman/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, November 6th Farragut’s G Ride
Here we see the 225-foot long 40-gun screw sloop of war USS Hartford as she appeared in 1862 when leading the US fleet under the command of Flag Officer (Admiral) David G Farragut up the Mississippi River. The Hartford is the tall ship in the center, mixing it up with a rag-tag group of rebel ships in the night as she steams upriver past Forts Jackson and St Phillips at the far left and right. The ship alongside is the Confederate ironclad CSS Manassas that was too slow to keep up with the swift Hartford. This is a photograph of the classic painting by Julian Oliver Davidson entitled “Capture of New Orleans by Union Flag Officer David G Farragut“.
Here we see a 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore naval gun and crew in the stern pivot position of USS Miami, 1864. The Hartford carried 20 of these bad boys, each of which could fire a 75-pounds shell over 3400-yards, which was devastating for the time.
Built at Boston Naval Yard, Hartford was commissioned on 27 May 1859. A powerful ship, she carried 20 impressive 9-inch Dahlgren guns another twenty 20-pdr rifles, and a few 12-pounders that could be landed ashore. Her 300 man crew could fight, land up to 100 person naval party ashore for raids, and steam the sloop with her combined coal-fired boiler-driven screw powered by two horizontal double piston-rod engines coupled with a sail rig at speeds over 13-knots. With her range virtually unlimited due to her hybrid propulsion, she spent the first two years of her life sailing the Orient and Africa, showing the flag.
Hartford leading the Gulf Squadron up the Mississippi
When the Civil War broke out, Hartford was recalled home and arrived in Philadelphia by the end of 1861. After a short refit, she was placed under the command of Farragut who used her as the flag-ship for his West Gulf Blockading Squadron. On April 24, 1862, Hartford hung a red lantern on her mast in the darkness of predawn and led the ships of the squadron up the heavily defended Mississippi River, deep into Confederate history. Forcing the river mouth as seen in the painting above, the Hartford arrived in New Orleans the next day and started the task of cutting the Confederacy in two. This was finally accomplished in July 1863 after the Vicksburg campaign, in which Hartford remained as flagship. During the campaign the ship suffered much damage from shore batteries, snipers, and fire-barges, even having about a quarter of her above-water hull charred black.
Then on 5 August 1864, the ship again led the fleet into the hell that was Mobile Bay. Secured by Fort Gaines at Dauphin Island to the East and Fort Morgan on Gulf Shores to the West, the Bay itself was strewn with submarines, naval mines (called torpedoes), the ironclad warship CSS Tennessee, and other fears. With the fleet at risk, Farragut lashed himself to the masts of Hartford and directed the fleet from the rigging with his force of will and a megaphone.
The deck plate that Farragut stood on before ascending the rigging of the Hartford, preserved at the Fort Gaines museum.
When the monitor USS Tecumseh blew up, rolled over, and sank in the muck of Mobile Bay, the fleet began to falter. It was believed that the new warship had struck and been holed by a rebel torpedo. Then came Farragut’s cry of “Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead.”. At that, the Bay entrance was passed, leaving the Forts to fall from infantry assaults from their landward sides, and Mobile closed for business to blockade runners.
Admiral Farragut and the USS Hartford’s Captain Percival Deayton, USN, aboard the ship in 1864. Deayton was Hartford’s 6th captain. Her last, CPT Earl Peck Finney Sr in 1923 was her 23rd. No less than a dozen of the men who walked the decks of Hartford at the Battle of Mobile Bay that year would become recipients of the Medal of Honor.
After the Civil War, Hartford was sent to the Pacific, becoming the head of the new Asiatic Squadron. She would spend the next 34 years on the West Coast between China and California, with stops at virtually every port in between. In 1880, she was given the barely used twin non-condensing back-acting steam engines of the scrapped Milwaukee-class river monitor USS Keywadin, which doubled her power plant. Her original bronze screw was replaced by a new one, but the Navy did not throw this old prop away. We’ll get to that later.
The Hartford at sea in 1905, nearly 50 years young
The Hartford was one of the few Civil War-era ships that the Navy maintained into the 20th Century. Remember, by 1865 the US fleet had swollen to where it was arguably the largest and most modern in the world, with more than 671 ships including the most up-to-date collection of all-gun, all-armored, steamships. However, the nation soon divested itself of more than 90% of its naval list within a decade. Even though she was not the most modern in the fleet, Hartford, famous for her time with Farragut and capable of miserly travels on her sail suite, was retained not only on the list but in active service while her would-be replacements were broken up for scrap.
Gun drill, 1905. Note the long-barreled flap holsters for Colt 38 revolvers and the two 57mm Hotchkiss guns trained out to sea.
By the dawn of the 20th Century, the old screw frigate was over forty years at sea but was still a service. Rebuilt and sent to the East Coast, she spent twelve years from 1899-1912 as the unarmed seagoing training ship for Naval Academy midshipmen as well as new bluejackets and goats. Although the ship was almost all original above deck, her Civil War-era engines had been replaced by a pair of modern 1000-hp compound engines coupled to their own boilers. They did still turn the same single screw installed in 1880 however and would for another half-century.
Ships inspection 1905
With the Navy moving from sail and coal to oil, she found herself a solid anachronism and by 1913 was reduced to a dockside receiving and barracks ship in Charleston South Carolina, moored just a mile from Fort Sumter, like two bookends to Civil War that had happened more than fifty years before. There she endured World War One, still in commission and serving as a floating headquarters for the local Naval District. In 1928 she was decommissioned, having given 69 years of famous service. The Navy held on to her as floating equipment without either masts or engines, giving her the official hull number of IX13. She was towed first to Washington Naval Yard in 1938, then to Norfolk in 1945, with the ultimate goal of turning her into a floating and restored museum alongside the old USS Olympia, Dewey’s flagship during the Battle of Manila Bay. During this time she was largely gutted and her hull repaired in preparation.
After her decommissioning in 1928, she became a barracks and receiving ship for another decade. Basically a floating hotel (BQ) for sailors between berths. Note her decks built up to accommodate another row of berths and how high she sits in the water, not needing cannon, coal, or rigging anymore.
This was not to be and the mighty old warship eventually filled slowly with water over time and settled on the harbor in 1956. She was raised and scrapped the next year, not feasible of being repaired. Still, a marked piece of naval history, hundreds of relics from the old girl were salvaged. This puts her as one of the most visitable ships that do not exist in the country as parts of her are scattered from coast to coast to coast.
During WWII she sat first at Charleston, then at Norfolk, her transition to a museum ship put off indefinitely by the war. Note that her masts have been stepped at the deck level.
Forgotten and neglected, the Hartford settled in the muck along the Virginia coast and sank in 1956, right at 100 years after her keel was laid.
Her bow figurehead is at her namesake city of Hartford Connecticut at the State Capitol while her ship’s bell is in the clock tower there. One of her anchors is across town at the University of Hartford while two of her Dahlgren guns are at Trinity College in town.
At Mobile, where Farragut damned the torpedoes, one of her anchors is on display in the central parade ground of Fort Gaines, which had fired shots at her in the Battle of Mobile Bay. Inside the museum, there is a brass deck plate that the Admiral walked upon.
One of Hartford’s anchors on the parade ground at Fort Gaines. During the Battle of Mobile Bay, the sloop fired her guns into where her anchor now lay.
The ship’s capstan is in a place of honor at the Farragut Naval Academy at St Petersburg Florida while a hatch-cover is used as a coffee table in the Superintendent’s Office at Annapolis.
Her Civil War-era cannon were removed in a refit in 1887 and sold to Bannerman’s in New York for their value as scrap. Instead of torching them, Bannerman sold them for a slight profit to veterans groups and villages who wanted a tie to the past. A few of these guns were still listed in that company’s catalog as late as the 1940s. Several of these guns, at least 14, are preserved on city greens, town halls, and museums across the country from New York to Maryland to Michigan to California. It is believed that some of these were used to build a breakwater on Bannerman’s Island, where they can still be seen today.
Her wheel and fife rail is at the Museum of the Navy in Washington DC and other relics are found all around the Washington Naval Yard while her billethead is in nearby Newport News as the Mariner’s Museum. Finally, the bronze used to create the statue of Farragut in downtown Washington DC was drawn from the ship’s screw that was removed in 1880.
In effect, Farragut will be a part of Hartford forever.
Specs:
Displacement: 2,900 long tons (2,947 t)
Length: 225 ft (69 m)
Beam: 44 ft (13 m)
Draft: 17 ft 2 in (5.23 m)
Propulsion: Steam engine and Sails, changed several times from 1859 to 1899.
Speed: 13.5 knots (25.0 km/h; 15.5 mph)
Complement: 310 officers and enlisted
Armament:
(Commissioned to 1863)
twenty 9″ Dahlgren smoothbores
twenty 20-pdr muzzleloading rifles
one or two 12-pdr (June 1863)
twenty-four 9″ Dahlgren smoothbores
one 45-pdr muzzle loading rifle
two 30-pdr muzzleloading rifles (June 1864)
one 100-pdr muzzle loading rifle
eighteen 9″ Dahlgren smoothbores
one 30-pdr muzzle loading rifle
three 13-pdr howitzers (after 1887)
ship’s small arms locker and a few small deck-mounted guns (57mm 6-pdrs) for training until 1912.
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The PCU USS Gerald R. Ford is now in the water, having had her immense dry dock filled this week at the builder’s yard. CVN-78 is to be the lead ship of its class of United States Navy super-carriers. When finished in 2016 she will be 112,000 tons and over 1100 feet long, making her the largest warship ever completed.
She will fill the hole left in the fleet when USS Enterprise (CVN-65) decommissioned without replacement last year.
Congratulations US Navy, you have the first new floating tumblehome hull battleship since the Battle of Tsushima in 1905!
October 28th, 2013, — The 87% complete Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer PCU USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is floated out of dry dock at the General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard. The ship, the first of three Zumwalt-class destroyers, will provide independent forward presence and deterrence, support special operations forces and operate as part of joint and combined expeditionary forces. The lead ship and class are named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt Jr., who served as chief of naval operations from 1970-1974. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of General Dynamics/Released)
Above is not the Zumwalt but the 12,300-ton (only 700-tons lighter than the Mighty Z-boat!) French battleship Charles Martel with her tumblehome hull. Construction date: 1891. Incidentally, the great graveyard of tumblehome battleships is in the waters between Japan and China. There in May of 1905, an upstart Asian naval force with borrowed technology sank a modern European one and made it look simple.
Now if the the US Navy can just get the magic guns to work on their new 13,000 ton ‘destroyer’ that has 20% fewer VLS cells than the current 1980s technology Burke class destroyers, and 40% fewer cells than the 1970s technology Ticonderoga-class cruisers in a larger hull, things will start to look a lot better and less like 1905.
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, October 30 Mr. Holland’s toy
Here we see what started off originally as the Holland VI, a small submersible invented by Mr. John Philip Holland in 1896. The ship was built at Lewis Nixon’s Crescent Shipyard of Elizabeth, New Jersey for Mr. Holland as his sixth personal submarine (as the name implies).
Mr. Holland showing off his boat for the media. Nothing says 1900 submarines like bowler hats…
Just 53-feet long, she was the forerunner of every submarine today. Yes, there had been dozens of earlier experimental boats that had been produced in the US and Europe from the 1700s on, but the Holland VI had several unique features that are now standard on underwater boats. These included both an internal combustion engine (in Hollands case a 45hp Otto gas engine) for running on the surface, and a 56kW electric motor for submerged operation. She had a re-loadable torpedo tube and a topside deck gun (a pneumatic dynamite gun!). There was a conning tower from which the boat and her weapons could be directed. Finally, she had all the necessary ballast and trim tanks to make precise changes in-depth and attitude underwater.
What more could you ask for?
After running around the US coast and several interested (and very international ) parties popping in to take a look at it, the US Navy bought the little boat for $150-grand in 1900. This was about $3.5-million today. She was placed in commissioned six months later as USS Holland (SS-1) on 12 OCT 1900. The US promptly ordered six larger boats from Holland’s Electric Boat Company as did the Tsar. It was Holland boats sold to the Russians that saw limited use in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, itself a dress-rehearsal for most of the technology used in the First World War.
Holland (SS-01), at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD., summer of 1905. The crew on deck are, L to R: Harry Wahab, chief gunner’s mate; Kane; Richard O. Williams, chief electrician; Chief Gunner Owen Hill, commanding; Igoe; Michael Malone; Barnett Bowie, Simpson, chief machinist mate, and Rhinelander. The two vessels on the right are monitors. The inboard vessel has only one turret and is probably one of 3 monitors: Arkansas (M-7), Nevada(M-8) or Florida (M-9). The outboard 2 turreted monitor is also one of 3 probables: Amphitrite (BM-2), Terror (M-4) or Miantonomah (BM-5).
Made quickly obsolete by very rapid developments in submarine design not only in the US but in Russia, Germany, the UK, and France, she was decommissioned in 1905.
The Navy kept her for eight years in mothballs then sold her as scrap to Henry A. Hitner & Sons, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 18 June 1913 for $100. Within just a few months of her being sold as scrap, British shipping was being sunk at amazing rates by German U-boats in WWI.
The breaker, with that in mind, held onto the ex-Holland through WWI, then passed her onto a local museum who held onto her for 15 years, only cutting her up in 1932 when the Depression dictated it was worth more in scrap iron regardless of sentimental attachment.
A small chunk of her is still in the National Museum of the Navy in Washington.
Nameplate of submarine Holland Exhibited in the “Dive, Dive, Dive!” display area in Bldg. 76
Today the Electric Boat Company still makes boats as part of GenDyn but Holland is largely forgotten.
Specs:
Displacement: 64 long tons (65 t) surfaced
74 long tons (75 t) submerged
Length: 53 ft 10 in (16.41 m) LOA
Beam: 10 ft 4 in (3.15 m) extreme
Draft: 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Installed power: 45 bhp (34 kW) (gasoline engine), later upgraded to 160hp
75 bhp (56 kW) (electric motor)
66 Exide batteries
1 × screw
Speed: First 3knots then later 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) surfaced
5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph) submerged
Complement: 6
Armament: 1 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tube forward
1 ‘Aerial torpedo tube’ (experimental)
1 × 8.4 in (210 mm) dynamite gun (removed in US Naval service)
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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.
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051010-N-5088T-001 Persian Gulf (Oct. 10, 2005) A specially painted F-14D Tomcat, assigned to the Blacklions of Fighter Squadron Two One Three (VF-213), conducts a mission over the Persian Gulf. VF-213 is assigned to Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8), currently embarked aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). U.S. Navy photo by Lt.j.g. Scott Timmester (RELEASED). The Tomcat was retired from US Naval service on 22 September 2006, just 11 months after this picture was taken.
Since World War 2, the United States Navy has owned the oceans and will likely continue to do so for the near future. Although the Navy has thousands of missiles, modern jet attack aircraft, nuclear powered submarines, and advanced torpedoes, most surface combatants still carry a big gun up front as a hood ornament.
Ever since 1363, when cannon fired from a ship at sea killed a Danish king on another; naval ships have carried large caliber guns. The United States only became a world power in 1898 after the proper application of the US Navy’s big guns on its battleships and cruisers against Spanish fleets in the Caribbean and Pacific during the Spanish American War. The First World War started after a naval arms race over building large-gunned battleships increased tensions to a point of no return. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at the start of World War 2, they did so to target Battleship Row, to take America’s big guns out of the fight.
Although the number of battleships at sea has dropped to zero from then to now, the US Navy is one of the few forces in the world that still has cruisers and destroyers. Moreover, all of these ships still carry 5-inch (127mm) Mk 45 naval rifles. Moreover, these guns are far from obsolete.
