Category Archives: weapons

SIG to make more SURGS for SOCOM

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The U.S. Special Operations Command this week announced it intends to extend the contract for suppressed uppers from SIG Sauer, used to upgrade M4A1 rifles.

The notice, published July 13, named SIG as the sole source for the Suppressed Upper Receiver Group that SOCOM has been acquiring since 2018. The extension is for two additional years. 

“This system will continue to be fielded and supported solely by SOCOM and the extension with provide numbers to Full Operational Capability and spares support for the projected life of the system,” noted the command.  

The SURG was adopted to produce a weapon system able to be continuously suppressed while offering better thermal characteristics and less blowback than simply adding a suppressor and threaded barrel to a standard upper. The original contract award saw most of the big names in tactical ARs toss an entry into the ring, but SIG came out with the win. 

The winner was a drop-in 5.56 NATO caliber upgrade that essentially converted the standard Mil-Spec AR platform into an adjustable gas system SIG MCX, complete with a side-folding stock.

Using an 11.5-inch barrel capped with a direct thread Inconel suppressor, the latter is shielded by a distinctive titanium cage to help prevent burns by hot suppressors to operators moving through dynamic situations that, for instance, may require rapid transport to and from an objective in a cramped vehicle or helicopter.  

The SURG’s distinctive titanium cage and Coyote finish sets it apart. We came across these while touring SIG’s New Hampshire plant last October. When the initial SURG contract was announced five years ago, SIG said that the platform “withstood the stringent stress and torture requirements set by DoD for firing specifications, vibration, sound, and temperature requirements to ensure soldier safety.” (Photo and banner image: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

SIG’s SURG includes a complete MCX upper receiver group, direct thread Inconel suppressor, removable titanium cage, SD handguard, low profile handguard, folding stock with adapter kit, and is chambered in 5.56 NATO. (Graphic: SIG)

While the original SOCOM SURG contract was listed at a top value of $48 million, the amount of the extension has not been released. 

For those looking for a SURG of their own, SIG intends on offering a limited run of the uppers (798681675456), complete with a can and titanium cage, for commercial sale. Price starts somewhere in the $4K range on preorder, not including the NFA taxes, and when they are gone, they are gone.

Danish keeping it flexible

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The Royal Danish Navy has, for the past few decades, really been hitting it out of the park in terms of low-cost, flexible, and multi-function patrol frigates. One that allowed ASW, AShM, and MCM modules that could be added or swapped out as needed. You know, what the LCS was supposed to be.

The Flyvefisken and Thetis classes are to the left, and the newer Knud Rasmussen class offshore patrol vessels and Absalon and Iver Huitfeldt-class frigates are to the right. Via Breaking Defense

Besides the small 400-ton Flyvefisken-class patrol vessels with their innovative containerized weapon systems (again, what the LCS was supposed to be), the Danes also produced the excellent follow-on Thetis-class ocean patrol vessels, small 3,500-ton 368-foot surveillance frigates that were good for an 8,700nm cruising rang on an economic diesel plant while carrying a light gun-only armament (although ASMs could be fitted) while being able to carry a Marine platoon and an MH-60 sized helicopter. Plus, they did this with just a 40-50 man complement.

A good recent primer on how the Thetis class is used is in the below 11-minute video from NATO, showcasing the HDMS Triton (F358).

This comes as the Danes are looking towards the new OMT MPV80 program to develop a replacement for these arctic patrol frigates.

These are about as modular and multifunctional as it gets, as befitting the third generation of Danish LCS. 

Warship Wednesday, July 19, 2023: Red Sub Circumnavigator

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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, July 19, 2023: Red Sub Circumnavigator

Above we see the type IX-bis S (Stalinets) class “medium” Guards Red Banner submarine S-56 returning to Polyarni in early 1944 from a patrol off the coast of German-occupied Norway. The most celebrated of her class, she claimed one of her biggest “kills” some 80 years ago today.

The S-class

It is a little-known fact that the Tsarist Imperial Navy entered the Great War in 1914 with more submarines in its inventory than anyone else. Following the national disaster that was the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the reformed Red Navy inherited a few of these old boats and even managed to keep some of them in operation into the 1950s!

When it came to new designs, by the late 1920s the Soviets built a half dozen modest 1,300-ton Dekabrist-class (Series I) submarines constructed with Italian expertise, followed by 25 minelaying Leninets-class (L class, or Series II) submarines of the same size which were essentially reverse engineered from the lost British L-class submarine HMS L55 which was recovered by the Soviets, and a staggering 88 Shchuka-class (Series III, V, V-bis, V-bis-2, X, X-1938) “medium” submarines that went some 700 tons and were ideal for use in the cramped Baltic and Black seas.

Then, the Stalinets class in IX, IX-bis, IX-bis-II, and XVI series, began to appear in 1936.

Besides the lessons learned in making the Italian-based Dekabrist-class and English-based Leninets-class boats, the Russians, who were very close to a quietly rearming Weimar Germany in the early 1930s, worked with the Dutch front company Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (IvS), which was, in fact, a dummy funded by the German Weimar-era Reichsmarine using design assets from German shipyards AG Vulcan, Krupp-Germaniawerft, and AG Weser to keep Berlin in the sub-making biz while skirting the ban on such activity by the Versailles treaty.

IvS had previously built boats and shared technology with Finland and Spain and it was with the latter’s planned Submarino E-1 that the Soviet S-series was based.

Spanish submarine E-1 at the shipyard in Cádiz. Built in Spain from 1929-30, Soviet engineers participated in her construction and trails. Although her design would go on to be used as the basis for both the German Type IA submarine and the Russian Stalinets class, ironically, the Spanish Navy never operated E-1, as she was sold to Turkey in 1935 just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. She went on to fly the star and crescent until 1947 as TCG Gür.

Some 255 feet long and with an 840/1070 ton displacement, the basic Stalinets design was good for 19.5 knots on the surface and a cruising range of 4,000nm. Carrying four forward torpedo tubes and two sterns, they also mounted a 100mm deck gun and a 45mm backup as well as machine guns that could be set up for AAA use. Besides the six 533mm torpedoes in the tubes, they could carry another six spare fish.

Stalinets class

The first flight of three boats used German diesels, something that was corrected in follow-on ships that evolved slightly across their construction, hence the four different flights. In all, some 41 Stalinets would be completed. The first, C-1, was laid down on Christmas Day 1934 (because who needs religion in the worker’s paradise) and delivered on 23 September 1936 while a final eight whose construction began at around the same time languished on the builder’s ways during WWII, and were only finished post-war.

The subject of our tale is the most successful of the class. Of the 33 Stalinets class boats completed in time for WWII, 16 were lost. Of the 30 that saw combat patrols, 19 claimed tonnages. This would include the infamous S-13, which sank five ships including two large transports Wilhelm Gustloff and General Steuben, regarded as among the worst maritime disasters in history.

1946 Janes entry on what was left of the class at that time

Two submarines of the class were awarded the rank of Guards, and seven boats earned the Red Banner, only S-56 was awarded both distinctions.

Meet S-56

A 2nd series (IX-bis) Stalinets, S-56 was intended for service in the Pacific Fleet and therefore was assembled at the Dalzavod works at Vladivostok from a kit sent across Siberia from Leningrad starting on 24 November 1936. Launched Christmas 1939, she was commissioned on 20 October 1941, as the Germans were on the outskirts of Moscow.

With the Soviets eschewing combat against the Japanese until after Berlin was licked, on 6 October 1942, S-56, along with sisters S-51, S-54, and S-55, departed Vladivostok ahead of the ice to join the Red Navy’s Northern Fleet at Murmansk. They would be joined by the Leninists-class minelaying subs L-15 and L-16 sailing from Petropavlovsk on a 17,000-mile transoceanic voyage across both Pacific and Atlantic, maneuvering the seas of Japan, Okhotsk, Bering, Caribbean, Sargasso, Northern, Greenland, Norwegian and Barents with stops in Dutch Harbor, San Francisco, the Panama Canal, Guantanamo Bay, Halifax, and Rosyth.

At least that was the plan.

L-16 was lost en route with all hands, believed torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese submarine I-25 on 11 October 1942 approximately 500 miles west of Seattle. This was even though the Soviet Union and Japan were officially at peace. Fog of war, after all.

Via Combined Fleets on I-25:

While returning to Japan on the surface, I-25 spots two ships, apparently en route to San Francisco. The seas are rough. LCDR Tagami first identifies the ships as two battleships. Later, he identifies them as two “American” submarines. At 1100, he dives and fires his last remaining torpedo. It hits 30 seconds later. Several heavy explosions follow. One of the explosions wrecks a head aboard I-25.

The leading submarine starts to sink rapidly stern first with its bow up 45 degrees. A second explosion follows. When the smoke clears there is only an oil slick on the water. The submarine sinks with all 56 hands (a Russian crew of 55, a naturalized American and American interpreter/liaison officer Sergey A. V. Mikhailoff (USNR) who boarded the submarine at Dutch Harbor) at 45-41N, 138-56E. (Postwar, it is learned that the submarine was Soviet Cdr Dmitri F. Gussarov’s 1,039-ton minelayer L-16 en route from Petropavlovsk, Siberia via Dutch Harbor, Alaska to San Francisco.)

The accompanying Soviet L-15 reports seeing one more wake, fires five 45-mm rounds at I-25 and mistakenly claims a hit on I-25’s periscopes.

The five remaining Russian boats were captured several times by American and Canadian cameras while en route to Murmansk.

Russian S-type submarine probably photographed about 1942. 80-G-636837

The Russian submarine S-54 is seen departing Mare Island on 11 November 1942. USN photo # 6697-42

Russian submarine SS-55 is seen departing Mare Island on 11 November 1942. USN photo # 7001-42

The skippers had a chance to meet and pose for a snapshot in Panama, where they rested from 25 November 25 to 2 December 1942.

From left to right: S-54 skipper, LCDR Dmitry Kondratievich Bratishko, S-51 skipper Captain 3rd rank Ivan Fomich Kucherenko, submarine group commander, Captain 1st Rank Alexander Vladimirovich Tripolsky, commander of S-56 LCDR Grigory Ivanovich Shchedrin, commander L-15 Captain 3rd Rank Vasily Isakovich Komarov, Commander S-55 Captain 3rd Rank Lev Mikhailovich Sushkin. Unfortunately, the names of the American officers are not noted.

Soviet “L” Class submarine (L-15) in Halifax harbor. Date: January 1943. Reference: H.B. Jefferson Nova Scotia Archives 1992-304 / 43.1.4 180.

In March 1943, S-56 became part of the 2nd division of the submarine brigade of the Northern Fleet, after a voyage of 153 days.

Her combat career would encompass 125 days underway on eight patrols against the Germans in which she was declared overdue and likely destroyed no less than 19 times, more an issue of poor radio communications than anything else.

S-56 in the Northern Fleet

She logged 13 attacks and fired 30 torpedoes. This included several runs on German convoys, escaping a surface duel with a pair of escorts, surviving a glancing torpedo strike from the German U-711, and reportedly hitting at least one large freighter with a dud torpedo.

Although she would claim 14 enemy transports and warships sunk with a total displacement of 85,000 tons, her post-war validated tally is a good bit smaller (as are most subs from all sides).

Her successes detailed by U-boat.net, included:

  • 17 May 1943 sank the German tanker Eurostadt (1118 GRT) off the Kongsfjord.
  • 17 July 1943 sank the German minesweeper M 346 (551 tons) west of the Tanafjord.
  • 19 July 1943: Torpedoed and sank the German auxiliary patrol vessel NKi 09 / Alane (466 GRT, former British ASW trawler HMS Warwickshire) off the Tanafjord near Gamvik.
  • 31 July 1943 sank the German merchant Heinrich Schulte (5056 GRT) west of the Tanafjord.

C56 Victory Parade July 1945

Epilogue

In 1954, the now famed S-56 was sent back to her birthplace at Vladivostok via the then very perilous Northern Sea Route through the Arctic, thus becoming the first Russian submarine to circumnavigate the globe.

Decommissioned in 1955, she was retained in the Pacific Fleet as a floating charging station and damage control training hulk, renamed ZAS-8 and then UTS-14.

In 1975, on the 30th anniversary of VE Day, she was installed as a museum ship on the Korabelnaya Embankment, where she remains well preserved today, the last of her class.

She is also celebrated in several heroic Soviet maritime art pieces.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Moving a battleship turret for the first time since 1992

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The Iowa class battleships’ three dozen installed 16-inch 50 caliber Mk 7 guns, the largest, most destructive naval gun ever mounted on an American warship, have been quiet sentinels in pierside museum service for the past quarter century. Last fired in 1991, the big 16s have sat preserved since then.

Recently, the USS Iowa Musem made a bit of history when they turned one of the ship’s gun houses– Turret 3– to allow for some below-deck maintenance. It was the first time this was done on a BB-61-class battleship since 1992.

“Turning the turret was the result of months of hard work and research by our team, as well as input from Iowa class battleship veterans. We make it look easy, but it’s most definitely not,” notes the Museum.

The Museum staff had six cameras running on different decks within the turret when they rotated it on June 30, 2023. You’ll see four of those angles in the below video.

Somewhere under a camo net in the Bay area…

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80 years ago, July 1943: Riveter at work on an aircraft, possibly a PB2Y-3 Coronado patrol bomber hull, at Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) Aircraft Plant, San Diego, California.

Original color photo by Jacobs via the National Archives. 80-G-K-15117

The female war worker is “dressed right for safety.”

Of the Consolidated plant, Mr. Jacobs captured several great Kodachromes during the same visit that are so crisp and clear they look like they were taken yesterday.

PB2Y and PB4Y Construction at Consolidated Vultee Plant in San Diego, California. 80-GK-15708

Women workers rivet wing section of PB2Y at Consolidated-Vultee Plant, San Diego, Calif. 80-GK-15704

Original Caption: “Women workers sort electrical wiring for PB2Y’s at Consolidated Vultee Plant, Downey, Calif. 80-GK-15702

Construction of PB2Y-3s shown at Consolidated-Vultee plant, San Diego, Calif. Lunchtime under camouflage netting at the plant. 80-GK-15144

Construction of PB2Y-3 is shown at Consolidated Vultee plant, San Diego, Calif. Interior of the plane is checked under camouflage netting. Note the Arco gun turret. 80-GK-15122

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Factory, San Diego, California. Caption: Women workers lunching under the plant’s camouflage netting, July 1943. Planes in the background are PB2Ys. Photo by Jacobs. 80-G-K-15143

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Plant, San Diego, California. Caption: Parts stockyard under the camouflage netting at the Consolidated Aircraft Factory, July 1943. Assemblies in the foreground are waist gun turrets for PBY patrol bombers. Note the “Work to Win” sign on the loading dock in the distance. Photograph by Jacobs. 80-G-K-15146

The commercial camouflage industry in the 1942-45 era was on point!

In all, Consolidated would produce no less than 739 PB4Y-2 Privateers (navalised B-25s), 977 PB4Y-1s, and 217 PB2Y Coronados during the war, as well as 1,871 PBY Catalinas, providing the backbone of the WWII Allied patrol bomber force.

By 1945, the company employed 45,000 around the Bay Area– under cover.

Old School and the New Class

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80 Years Ago Today, 14 July 1943, while steaming from San Diego to Norfolk: The mighty dreadnought USS Nevada (Battleship No. 36), seen after her extensive repairs due to the pummeling she took at Pearl Harbor 19 months prior, returning from Alaska, where she had provided naval gunfire support from 11 to 18 May 1943 for the liberation of Attu (Operation Landcrab).

Photo # 80-G-74411 now in the collection of the US National Archives

Nevada, in the above, was bound for the Norfolk Navy Yard to undergo another several months of further modernization in preparation for service in the Atlantic Ocean and to support amphibious landings in the European Theater of Operations.

As noted by DANFS

After her time in the yard, she shifted to Boston and for several months, she engaged in convoy duty calling at New York, Maine, Massachusetts, and Ireland. On 18 April 1944, Nevada sailed from Casco Bay, Maine, bound for British waters in order to prepare for Operation Neptune, the landing component of Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.

Trailing astern Nevada is the newly commissioned Bogue-class escort carrier USS Croatan (CVE-25), one of just 11 who served in the U.S. Navy. Just finished at Tacoma in time to sail with the battleship for the East Coast, Croatan would eventually lead her own hunter-killer ASW group that would account for six German U-boats by the end of the war. She would outlast Nevada in the fleet, lingering until 1970 when she concluded her final use as the MSTS-manned aircraft ferry, USNS Croatan (AKV-43) carrying hundreds of Army helicopters to Vietnam.

Swatting drones, any which way you can…

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Footage from “somewhere in Ukraine” shows an improvised drone-buster made from six Kalashnikovs. 

The system, first seen in early July, is made from a half-dozen AK74s assembled in a rough circle along a hexagonal brace with the tops of the receivers facing inward. It includes a central charging handle and trigger solenoid as well as a simple circle-T anti-aircraft style iron reticle fitted to the top centerline. 

The initial design included guns still with their canvas slings.

Another short clip, posted last week, shows the gun in action against two low-flying target drones alongside a WWII-vintage DP28. 

The testing prototype was a little better arranged

The Armorer’s Bench, calling the device the “Ukrainian Minigun,” dives more into it in the below video, including some video of the mount being constructed in a shop. 

The primary source of counter-drone, counter-missile, and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine since 2021 has been the U.S. In addition to undefined “Equipment to sustain Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities” as well as “Anti-aircraft guns and ammunition,” the $41.3 billion in counter-air weapons transferred from Pentagon stockpiles to the country include: 

  • One Patriot air defense battery and munitions
  • Eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions
  • HAWK air defense systems and munitions
  • RIM-7 missiles for air defense
  • 20 Avenger air defense systems
  • Nine c-UAS gun trucks and ammunition
  • 10 mobile c-UAS laser-guided rocket systems
  • Over 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems

Plus, NATO allies have given the Ukrainians Cold War-era RBS-70s, Mistrals, Gephards, Orelikons, et. al. by the trainloads.

However, it should be noted that in 2023 with Iranian-made Shahed 136 “kamikaze drones” only costing the Russians about $20K a pop, systems like the “Ukrainian Minigun” may be a low-cost solution. 

Via the very interesting 94-page Defense Sitters Transforming European Militaries in Times of War report that debuted last week at Munich:

This dovetails with reports that Ukraine is running short of AAA ammo and SAMs:

I’d recommend bringing back the old M45 Maxson “Meat Chopper,” which used a four-pack of M2 .50-cals on a battery-powered chassis. 

We checked out one back in 2020 and such a concept, updated with better mechanics and the addition of an EW jammer for countering small drones (CUAS) should be something that could be CAD’ed up overnight and built from off-the-shelf components. 

Meanwhile, in Britain, the Army just took possession of the first of a planned 225 Smartshooter SMASH fire control systems, an add-on see-through optics with a lock and track system that can recognize a target and maintain a lock even if it or the user moves. It has a dedicated “drone hard kill mode” and will be employed in such a role.

If spread across the 33 active duty combat battalions of the Regular army, this gives about six SMASH-equipped rifles per battalion, or two per company, which seems about right, and could point towards Designated C-sUAS Marksmen being a thing. (Photo: British Army)

It is no wonder that companies such as Rheinmetall are now marketing SPAAGs like the Oerlikon Skyranger 30, platforms that look very 1980s but with a new twist.

“This highly mobile air defence system with integrated active and passive search and tracking sensors is a powerful, autonomous shooter with both gun and missiles. It is capable of engaging modern battlefield threats with a special focus on small unmanned aerial targets. It combines superior firepower with the dynamics and elevation needed to successfully engage highly agile single or swarming targets performing loiter, pop up or dive attacks.”

Everything feels very Red Storm Rising lately.

Are Zastava Imports to the U.S. on ice?

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My NFA-registered Zastava M85 NP SBR in 5.56. The definition of a sweet shooter that is still very effective with 77-grain loads out to 200 yards. However, it is a flame thrower, especially at night. The stock is a USMG Galil style side folder, grip by Hogue, mag by Magpul (customized by moi), and sling by an old CCCP contractor. With the stock folded, the whole thing stows in a 21-inch space while still having a 10-inch barrel. 

A thunderclap went through the AK community this week as rumors spread that the Serbian government was planning to halt exports of firearms and ammunition from the Balkan country. 

To be sure, there is some smoke to that fire, with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic reacting to the ongoing crisis with neighboring Kosovo and Metohija in a 30-minute public address on July 6 by calling for an emergency session of the UN Security Council and for all sides to consider de-escalation. As reported by English-language local news sites, Vucic further stressed that a potential decision to suspend overseas exports of arms and ammunition will soon be made, citing vital national interest.

“Serbia is not preparing for waging a war, but has done everything to de-escalate conflicts,” said Vucic, as reported by Belgrade-based Radio B92. “Everything must be prepared in case of aggression against the Republic of Serbia.” 

According to the most recent statistics by federal regulators, American importers brought in 46,799 firearms from Serbia in 2020, including 24,096 handguns and 22,703 rifles.

This represents the 14th highest country in terms of total firearms imported, falling just behind Israel (56,893 firearms) and Spain (58,981). 

Chief among Serbia’s firearms manufacturers is Zastava Arms, the historic government-owned gun and field artillery concern located in Kragujevac, about 90 miles from Belgrade. 

Zastava specializes in PAP series Kalashnikov variants and is one of the chief makers of European-made AKs on the American market. For reference, Romanian-made ROMARM/CUGIR AKs imported by Century under the Draco banner and Bulgarian-made Arsenal brands trail Zastava significantly in terms of quantity imported. Total firearm imports from Romania in 2020 amounted to 38,056 firearms, while those from Bulgaria numbered 20,671.

Long tied to importers such as Century Arms to bring their products into the U.S., Zastava formed an Illinois-based American subsidiary in 2019 and I was there to report on it.

Zastava USA issued a statement via social media this week regarding the reports of a looming export ban, stressing that everything was still undecided, and it was still business as usual for the time being. 

“Please be assured that as of now, we are continuing to receive shipments as usual,” Zastava USA said on July 10. “While we understand the concerns surrounding this situation, we sincerely hope that the security situation in the region will be resolved peacefully. We believe that peace is in the best interest of all people in the Balkans, and we remain committed to supporting our customers and the community in any way we can.”

So, as of 0700 CST on 13 July 2023, the Serbian president hasn’t yet banned weapons export. Things still need to go through a legal process to make it happen. Further, as chances are that Zastava USA has a stockpile of guns and parts already waiting here in the States to clear Customs impound that are unlikely unable to be retrograded back “home,” even if Belgrade lowers the boom, what is currently in the pipeline will probably last for another year or so, which will (possibly) outlast the crisis, so don’t go panic buying.

With that being said, don’t go selling either…an AK in the hand is worth two in the bush so to speak.

Warship Wednesday, July 12, 2023: Mr. Gallatin’s Shallow Water Angel

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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, July 12, 2023: Mr. Gallatin’s Shallow Water Angel

Halftone photo from “War in Cuba,” 1898. Official U.S. Navy Photograph. NH 191

Above we see the fine Harlan & Hollingsworth-built schooner-rigged steam yacht Almy, with her summer of 1898 warpaint on, as the gunboat USS Eagle during the Spanish-American War. Late of the New York Yacht Club and rushed into naval service, she won what would turn out to be an unexpected victory over the much larger and better-armed Compañía Trasatlántica Española (CTE) steamer Santo Domingo some 125 years ago today.

Fine lines and good bones

In addition to making steam engines and railcars, Wilmington’s Harlan & Hollingsworth were one of the earliest iron shipbuilders. Constructing 347 hulls between 1844 and 1904 when they were acquired by Bethlehem Steel, besides their bread and butter fare like barges, ferries, and tugs, they also won a few Navy contracts (the monitors USS Patapsco, Napa, Saugus, and Amphitrite; the sloop USS Ranger, destroyers USS Hopkins and Hull, and torpedo boat USS Stringham).

Starting in the 1870s, they began a string of more than 30 fine hermaphrodite steam yachts including Dr. William Seward Webb’s Elfrida, William Astor’s Nourmahal, H W Putnam’s Ariadne, W. K. Vanderbilt’s Alva, Cass Canfield’s magnificent Sea Fox, Florida shipping magnate H. M. Flagler’s Alicia, and William DuPont’s Au Revoir.

Another of these yachts was contracted from H&H by New York attorney Frederick Gallatin. A resident of 650 Fifth Avenue (now a 36-story office tower adjacent to Rockefeller Center), he was a grandson of early Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin and from old Hamptons money. Married to Almy Goelet Gerry (daughter of Tammany Hall “Commodore” Elbridge Thomas Gerry, with the title coming as head of the NYC Yacht Club) it was only logical that Gallatin would order a yacht from H&H named for Almy.

Hull No. 256 was 177 feet long overall with a 24-foot beam, she had a nice stiletto-like 7.5:1 length-to-beam ratio and had a draft of just 7 feet with a 14-foot depth of hold. Powered by a single-ended cylindrical boiler pushing a T.3 Cy (18″,23″ & 42-33″) steam engine with a nominal 101 NHP (850ihp) venting through a single stack, she had an auxiliary two-mast sail rig and was good for a stately 12 knots although on her trials she made 15.5 knots. Coal stowage was 85 tons.

View of the engine room, of USS Eagle, built as yacht Almy, at Portsmouth Navy Yard, N.H. 31 August 1916. Note the builder’s plaque on the bulkhead and disassembled engine parts on the deck. NH 54333

Steel-hulled with a 364 GRT displacement, she carried electrical lighting in every compartment as well as topside and was reportedly very well-appointed. Her normal crew, as a yacht, was four officers and 20 mariners.

Delivered to Gallatin in August 1890– just in time to catch the end of “the season”– the New York Times mentioned Almy in its yachting news columns more than a dozen times in the next eight years including one mention in 1895 of an epic blue fishing trip to Plum Gut where “he landed some of the finest fish captured this season.”

Typically, Gallatin would ply her during the summer and, every October, send her back down to winter at the builder’s yard where she would be drydocked and freshly painted every spring, ready to do it all again.

Then came war

As part of the general rush to avenge the lost USS Maine on 15 February, the scions of the NY Yacht Club soon offered up their yachts to be converted to fast dispatch boats and scouts. Ultimately, the Navy bought no less than 28 large yachts, including 13 that topped 400 tons, in addition to almost 70 other auxiliaries for support duties to the fleet.

Several yachts took part in fights with Spanish forces including three, USS Gloucester, Hist, and Vixen, which were present during the Battle of Santiago. Among the former NYYC H&H-built yachts that went to the Navy for the war with Spain were Flagler’s Alicia (renamed USS Hornet after purchase for $117,500) and Dr. Webb’s Elfrida (which was taken in service as USS Elfrida for $50,000).

The 28 yachts converted to armed auxiliaries in 1898. Via The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Vol. VI, 1898, click to big up.

While negotiations continued with a Navy purchasing agent, Gallatin allowed Almy to go to the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 26 March to begin her conversion to an armed picket ship. Eventually, he let Almy go for $110,000 on 2 April 1898 and the Navy renamed her USS Eagle, the fourth such vessel to carry that name.

Given a coat of dark paint and armed with a quartet of 6-pounder 57mm deck guns (two forward, two aft) and two Colt machine guns forward of the deck house, her early admission to BNY allowed her to be commissioned three days later under the command of LT William Henry Hudson Southerland (USNA 1872).

Other changes from her civilian life, as detailed by The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Vol. VI, 1898, included:

  • Magazines for supplying ammunition to the above battery were built under berth deck, just forward of the fireroom bulkhead, with ammunition cranes to the hatches, directly over.
  • Steel plating 7/8 inch thick and 8 feet wide was worked on outside of the vessel for the length of the engine and boiler space.
  • Her foremast was cut down and made a signal mast, while the mainmast and fittings were entirely removed.
  • The ornate dining room was cleaned out and fitted up as crew space while extensive wood and brass works were removed.
  • The vessel was drydocked, cleaned, and painted throughout. All plumbing, drainage system, and auxiliaries were overhauled and put in order. The entire exterior of the vessel, including spars and metal deck fittings, was thickly painted a “lead color.”

She carried 75 men to war, drawn largely from the Naval Militia, when she left New York on 17 April headed for duty with the North Atlantic Squadron on blockade and dispatch duty in Cuban waters. She was at sea when war was declared on 25 April.

By 28 April, Eagle, along with the gunboat USS Nashville and the Montgomery-class unprotected cruiser USS Marblehead, established a blockade off Cienfuegos. The next morning, Nashville seized the Spanish steamer Argonauta which had Col. Corijo of the Third Cavalry Regiment (Regimiento de Caballería “Montesa” N.º 3) and 19 men of its headquarters troop aboard. This sparked a 25-minute naval gunfire duel between Eagle and Montgomery versus three Spanish torpedo boats coming out of the river to contest the affair under cover from a shore battery.

Southerland reported to RADM William T. Sampson that Eagle fired 59 rounds of No.4 shell in the engagement and suffered no casualties, although, ” Two of the enemies shot passed close over this vessel, another close astern, and another within a few feet of the bowsprit.”

On 29 June, Eagle shelled the Spanish battery at Rio Honda, showing that, while her little six-pounders were small, they could still breathe fire.

On 5 July, while Eagle was on the blockading route in the vicinity of the Isle of Pines, she sighted the provision-laden Spanish schooner Gallito five miles to the South and immediately gave chase.

As detailed by James Otis in “The Boys of ’98”:

The schooner ran in until about a quarter of a mile from the shore, when she dropped her anchor, and those aboard slipped over her side and swam ashore. Ensign J. H. Roys and a crew of eight men from the Eagle were sent in a small boat to board the schooner. They found her deserted, and while examining her were fired upon by her crew from the beach. Several rifle shots went through the schooner’s sails, but no one was injured. The Eagle drew closer in and sent half a dozen shots toward the beach from her 6-pounders, whereupon the Spaniards disappeared. The Gallito was taken into Key West.

A week later, on 12 July, Eagle came across her biggest prize yet. The Govan-built iron-hulled CTE screw steamer Santo Domingo, some 344 feet in length. Formerly the D. Currie & Co’s Dublin Castle (which carried British troops during the Zulu War), she had been sold in 1883 to Spanish interests and by 1886 was sailing for CTE on a regular Havana to New York service.

Santo Domingo

Otis describes the event:

The auxiliary gunboat Eagle sighted the Spanish steamer Santo Domingo, fifty-five hundred tons, aground near the Cuban coast, off Cape Francis, and opened fire with her 6-pounders, sending seventy shots at her, nearly all of which took effect.

While this was going on, another steamer came out of the bay and took off the officers and crew of the Santo Domingo. When the men from the Eagle boarded the latter, they found that she carried two 5-inch and two 12-pounder guns, the latter being loaded and her magazines open. The steamer had been drawing twenty-four feet of water and had gone aground in twenty feet.

The men from the Eagle decided that the steamer could not be floated, and she was set on fire after fifty head of cattle, which were on board, had been shot.

The Santo Domingo carried a large cargo of grain, corn, etc. While the steamer was burning, the vessel which had previously taken off the crew emerged from the bay and tried to get off some of the cargo, but failed. The Spanish steamer burned for three days and was totally destroyed.

It made big news back home.

On 30 July, Eagle supported the gunboat USS Bancroft with the seizure (twice) of a small Spanish schooner in Sigunea Bay. I say twice because, once taken by two rifle-armed sailors from Bancroft’s steam launch and tied near the wreckage of Santo Domingo devoid of crew, the Spanish promptly sailed out in two small boats to reclaim her, an event that ended with Eagle and Bancroft, by this time joined by the gunboat USS Maple, in a chase and possession of all three small enemy vessels.

Hostilities ceased on 13 August, capping the 16-week conflict. 

Continued peacetime service

Post-war, Eagle was painted white, two of her four 6-pounders landed, and she was retained for survey work, a role she was suited for with her extremely shallow 7-foot draft. She then spent much of the next two decades working to compile new charts and corrected existing ones for the waters surrounding Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti– all central to American interests. In this task, she typically had a team of civilian engineers and surveyors aboard.

USS Eagle (1898) at anchor off Norfolk, VA. Jan. 19, 1899. UA 461.33 Henry Bundy Collection

As detailed by DANFS:

Troubled conditions throughout the Caribbean often interrupted Eagle’s surveying duty and she gave varied service in protecting American interests.

She patrolled off Haiti in January and February 1908 and again in November and December and off Nicaragua in December 1909.

In June 1912 she transported Marines to Santiago de Cuba and Siboney to protect American lives and property during a rebellion in Cuba and continued to investigate conditions and serve as base ship for the Marines until 1914.

She also had gunboat duty with a cruiser squadron during the Haiti operation of July 1915 to March 1916 and was commended by the Secretary of the Navy for her creditable performance of widely varied duty. 

She then headed back home for a much-needed dry docking and overhaul.

In dry dock at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, N.H. in September 1916. Note bt this time she had her second mast reinstalled. NH 54334

Then came another war

Eagle as she appeared in early 1917. NH 64949

Once America entered the Great War, Eagle returned to Cuban waters as part of the American Patrol Detachment, Atlantic Fleet, and throughout 1917 and 1918 was continually on patrol off Cuba and the southern coast of the U.S. This was while the Ford-built “Eagle boats” were being cranked out in Detroit.

Eagle in Havana Harbor, Cuba, October 1917 NH 54335

At one point, Eagle was detailed to protect an American-owned sugar mill at Manati, Cuba, in early 1917, and did so by putting ashore a modest landing force including hauling one of the ship’s 6-pounders and machine guns ashore– half her armament. It was thought the mill would be an easy target for a German U-boat. A machinist’s mate among the crew, John G. Krieger, had a small portable camera and captured a great array of snapshots during this period.

Men from the Eagle with a mail bag and flag, at Manati, Cuba, in 1917, when the ship’s crew was protecting a local sugar mill. Note the sailors’ crackerjacks are whites that have been “tanned” via the use of coffee grounds. The officer is Ensign Hubert Esterly Paddock, who was with Eagle as Surveying Officer. The donor comments that Paddock surveyed with a motorboat and took regular watches at sea. Of note, Paddock would go on to command the destroyer tender USS Dobbin (AD 3) in WWII and retire post-war, passing in 1980, one of the last U.S. Navy officers left from the Great War. Photographed by John G. Krieger. NH 64955

Mounted Guard furnished by USS Eagle to protect a sugar mill at Manati, Cuba in 1917, shortly after the U.S. entered World War I. Note the motley uniforms and M1903 Springfields. The officer is the ship’s XO, LT (JG) Jerome A. Lee, a skilled electrician who had served on Arctic expeditions before his time on Eagle and would continue to serve through WWII. Photographed by Mr. John G. Krieger. NH 64957

Ford Automobile armed with a Colt M1895 “potato digger” machine gun complete with AAA shoulder rests, staffed by members of the Eagle’s crew, who were guarding a sugar mill at Manati, Cuba, shortly after the U.S. entered World War I. Photographed by Mr. John G. Krieger. NH 64958

Eagle crew members with machine gun-equipped “Gas Car” railway work wagon, assigned to the protection of a sugar mill at Manati, Cuba, in 1917. Photographed by Mr. John G. Krieger and donated by him in 1966-67. NH 64959

A six-pounder gun mounted in a tower at Manati, Cuba, in 1917 by Eagle’s crew. Photographed by Mr. John G. Krieger. NH 64960

Her 1916-17 skipper, LT Henry Kent Hewitt (USNA 1906), seen ashore on service in Cuba with Eagle’s landing party and on the bridge of his gunboat. He would go on to earn a Navy Cross commanding the destroyer USS Cummings escorting Atlantic convoys in 1918 and command the amphibious landing forces for the Torch, Husky, and Dragoon Landings in WWII. After chairing a post-war Pearl Harbor investigation, he would retire as a full admiral. The Spruance class destroyer USS Hewitt (DD-966) was named in his honor, christened at Pascagoula by his daughters. Photographed by Mr. John G. Krieger. NH 64953/64952

The entire landing party, about 40 strong– half the crew– posed for Krieger. NH 64956

Eagle in the Ozama River, Santo Domingo, in July 1917. U.S. Navy Coal Barges Nos. 300 and 301 are in the foreground. NH 64948

Post-war, with that Navy no longer needing a 30-year-old converted yacht with a pair of 6-pounders, Eagle was detached from her southern climes and ordered to Portsmouth Navy Yard in April 1919 to pay off, being decommissioned there on 23 May 1919.

Epilogue

Disarmed and sold by the Navy on 3 January 1920, the former pride of the NYC Yacht Club soon appeared as the tramp coaster Reina Victoria owned by one M.F. Kafailovich, sailing out of Santiago de Cuba.

She was listed in Lloyds as such from 1921 to 1927 and then disappeared.

Her final fate is not known.

As far as relics from Eagle, I can’t find any that exist other than the pennant and ensign of the Santo Domingo which were installed among the 600 banners installed in the United States Navy Trophy Flag Collection in 1913.

Gallatin? His dear Almy passed in 1917 and their $7 million estate was subsequently divided among their six adult children. After this, he withdrew to the Hotel Plaza where he passed in 1927, aged 86. His NYT obit memorialized him by saying “he was well known as a yachtsman.”

Eagle’s Span-Am War skipper, LT William Henry Hudson Southerland, would go on to serve as hydrographer of the Navy from 1901 to 1904, commanding the gunboat USS Yankee as well as the battleship New Jersey (BB-16), taking part in the Great White Fleet’s circumnavigation. Appointed rear admiral in 1910, he later became commander of the Pacific Fleet and was the final Civil War naval veteran (he was a 12-year-old powder monkey in 1865 before becoming a naval apprentice and attending Annapolis) still in active service.

Captain William H. H. Southerland, USN. A circa 1907 photograph was taken at the time he served as Commanding Officer of New Jersey (BB-16). NH 45029

RADM Southerland retired in early 1914 after 49 years of service, just missing the Great War, and passed in 1933. The Allen M. Sumner– class destroyer USS Southerland (DD-743) was named in his honor.

Curiously, other than a WWII Q-ship, USS Eagle (AM-132), which was quickly renamed USS Captor during her construction, the Navy has not elected to use further use the name USS Eagle.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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500 Rounds with the Reflex (x2)

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FN over the past few years has been trying to shrink down its 9mm carry offerings as an answer to market demands sparked by guns like the SIG P365 and Springfield Armory Hellcat. While the 6+1-shot FN 503 was small and dependable, people seem to have that double-stack micro 9 itch and, to scratch it, FN has debuted the Reflex.

With a 3.3-inch barrel that gives it a 6.2-inch overall length, the FN Reflex falls into the increasingly familiar micro 9 subcompact category blazed by some rivals in the past few years. (All Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Hitting the scales at just 18.4 ounces right out of the box, it runs a flush-fit 11+1 round mag with a pinky extension for better grip support and ships with an extended 15+1 round mag.

FN sent me a pair of the guns– one a plain black standard model, the second an optics-ready MRD in FDE– and I’ve put 500 rounds through each.

More in my column at Guns.com.

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