Rocket-Carrying Drone Boats? We got that

Posted on by Leave a comment

The ROK Marine Corps ordered the LIG Nex1 Poniard (Bigung) light “fire and forget” surface-to-surface missile in 2016 for coastal defense use, specifically to zap North Korean landing craft and small high-speed boats in the littoral.

Using the same footprint as the 2.75-inch rocket, it can be fired from 18-cell pods, similar to those used on helicopters, and carried by truck. The key to the system is that the target detection, launcher, launch control, and rockets can all be mounted on a single vehicle rather than needing a whole battery of trucks and vans for to sling a few warheads.

South Korea’s Poniard (Bigung) road-mobile guided rocket system seen in two 18-cell launchers on the back of a truck in 2020. The ROK Marine Corps already operates an unknown number of Bigung launchers on the Western island chain garrisons.

A big development on Poniard is that we have seen this week during RIMPAC, its use by a small unmanned surface vessel.

As noted by NAVSEA:

The U.S. Navy achieved a significant milestone at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2024 exercise with the successful launching and testing of Poniard rockets from a 39-foot Textron Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV). The 12 July test is part of the Navy’s mission to continually enhance and expand its maritime capabilities and operational flexibility via security cooperation and innovation with allies and partners.

Multiple Poniard rockets, low-cost guided munitions, were fired from the CUSV during a series of exercises conducted off the coast of Hawaii. The live-fire demonstration was the culminating event of an ongoing Foreign Comparative Test (FCT) project under the auspices of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD R&E). This innovative capability test demonstrates the Navy’s commitment to integrating mature cutting-edge technology into its operations to maintain maritime superiority and readiness.

The rocket-armed CUSV was apparently launched and recovered from a 4,000-ton Korean LSD, ROKS Cheon Ja Bong (LST-687) but obviously could be done from an LCS, which may be a bit of a game changer for that platform.

A Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV), heads out to sea for the Poniard launching test from ROKS Cheon Ja Bong, on 12 July. Multiple Poniard rockets, low-cost guided munitions, were fired from the CUSV during a series of exercises conducted off the coast of Hawaii during RIMPAC 2024.

240712-N-N2201-001 (July 12, 2024) A Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV), heads out to sea for the Poniard launching test from ROKS Cheon Ja Bong as part of the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), 12 July. This innovative capability test demonstrates the Navy’s commitment to integrating mature cutting-edge technology into its operations to maintain maritime superiority and readiness.

A Poniard fired from a Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV) successfully strikes a target vessel during the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), 12 July. This live fire demonstration was part of the RIMPAC exercise, held biennially in and around the Hawaiian Islands, which is the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise hosted by the U.S. Third Fleet.

Lions and Aardvarks living together!

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 40 years ago this month, July 1984: Massive U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat fighters of Fighter Squadron VF-114 “Aardvarks” and VF-213 “Black Lions” nestled snugly aboard the one-of-a-kind supercarrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) as part of Carrier Air Wing 11 (CVW-11), during Big E’s May-to-December 1984 Westpac cruise.

Photo: JOCS Kirby Harrison, 330-CFD-DN-ST-86-02064, via NARA

For the record, the ‘Varks decommissioned on 30 April 1993 while the Lions (re-designated VFA-213) downgraded to AESA-equipped F/A-18F Super Hornets in April 2006 upon the retirement of the Tomcat. Meanwhile, Enterprise, inactivated in 2012, will probably haunt shipyards for another decade as her recycling drags on.

However, fantastically artistic footage of F-14s from VF-213 and VF-114 taking off from Enterprise in 1984 was used in the opening scene of 1986’s Top Gun, with Iceman and Slider later portrayed as Lions, albeit with the wrong squadron number.

In that sense, the ghost of CVN-65’s ’84 Westpac cruise will live forever.

Looking for Summer Reading?

Posted on by Leave a comment

USS MONTEREY (BM-6) crewmen reading on the fore-deck, under awnings, in Philippine waters, circa 1914. Note 12″ guns. NH 88575

The Irregular Warfare Institute curated a list of twelve books on irregular warfare sourced from recommendations within the IWI community. These books cover everything from foundational theories of irregular warfare to gripping historical accounts. They’ve even thrown in a novel as a palate cleanser from some of the more technical or academic selections.

The goal is to appeal to a broad audience, which is in line with IWI’s mission to bridge the gap between scholars studying irregular warfare and practitioners implementing it on the ground. To that end, all the books listed underscore the case that irregular warfare is a persistent and powerful form of conflict that our adversaries are actively leveraging to undermine US national security interests.

Check it out here.

Ingalls Update

Posted on by One comment

Had a chance to swing by my old childhood stomping grounds at “The Point” in Pascagoula and captured some snapshots of the Navy’s newest under construction at HII.

This included the 13th and final Flight I San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, the future USS Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD-29), fitting out post-delivery at the yard’s historic deep-water East Bank, where the old LPHs and the last American-made cruise ships were completed.

The future USS Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD-29). She carries the AN/SPY-6(V)2 EASR rotating radar. Photo by Chris Eger

Note her hangar arrangement with 21-cell Mk 49 RAM GMLS launcher to starboard and 30mm Mk 46 Mod 2 Gun Weapon System (GWS) to port. Photo by Chris Eger

As well as a good shot of her bow, with the ‘Richard McCool” nameplate over her bridge next to her SLQ-32 EW system. Photo by Chris Eger

While the drydock is empty, the future USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128), the 78th Burke, a Flight III vessel, is fitting out. Note her AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) and the Aegis Baseline 10 Combat System, which has a much different look from the old Flight I and II Burkes.

The future USS Ted Stevens (DDG-128). Note the bow of a building Burke to her portside and an LPD behind her. Photo by Chris Eger

Meanwhile, further down the Pascagoula River is the future Flight I America-class big deck gator, USS Bougainville (LHA-8), which was launched last October. The first in her class with a well deck, Bougainville should rightly be classified as LHD-9, but nobody cares what I think.

The future USS Bougainville (LHA-8) fitting out. Photo by Chris Eger

And the ever-troubled 15,000-ton Zumwalt-class “destroyer” PCU Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002), which was awarded 13 years ago and took to the water in 2018 but has not been commissioned as of yet. She has been in Pascagoula now for three years where her 155 mm/62 Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS) will be removed and replaced by planned LRHW hypersonic missile tubes. As you can tell, her guns are still installed, so there is that.

PCU Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002). Photo by Chris Eger

Meanwhile, across the mud lumps over at the old Naval Station Pascagoula on Singing River Island, two new (to them) MSC Ready Reserve Force sealift ships were tied up, M/V Cape Arundel and M/V Cape Cortes, formerly the M/V Honor and M/V Freedom. These 50,000-ton RORO vehicle carriers have been homeported there since last October.

NS Pascagoula was envisioned in the 1980s to base a battleship action group but only ever got to homeport some NRF short hull FFGs and a couple old non-VLS Ticos, so it is nice to see 100,000 tons of Something finally kept there. Photo by Chris Eger

Casques Bleus

Posted on by Leave a comment

20 July 1918 – Corre (Haute-Saône), African-American U.S. Soldiers under French command undergo training in the infirmary, working with a field stretcher.

Gustave Alaux/ECPAD/Defense Ref.: SPA 42 IS 1601

While the Doughboys of the AEF shipped out to go “Over There” to fight the Kaiser, the Blue Helmets (Casques Bleus— due to their blue French Adrian-style helmets) of the segregated 93rd Infantry Division did so under direct French command.

Harlem Hellfighters in the Meuse-Argonne, September 26-October 1, 1918. The 369th Infantry of the 93rd INF DIV fought valiantly in the Allied (Champagne) Offensive as part of the French 161st Division. U.S. Army painting by H Charles McBarron Jr

They suffered 3,167 casualties and earned an amazing 527 Croix de Guerres, many of them posthumously.

Meanwhile, the segregated units still under U.S. control during the Great War– the Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd Infantry– would chiefly be relegated to support roles while three entire regiments of hard-bitten regulars– the 9th and 10th Cavalry as well as the 25th Infantry– were wasted in garrison roles in the Philippines, along the Mexican border, and in Hawaii, respectively.

So Long, Bob

Posted on by Leave a comment

A big part of my life as a kid was watching Bob Newhart and, looking back, developing my own, slightly deadpan, sense of humor largely from those hours of steady Bob-isms.

Drafted into the Army during the tail-end of the Korean War, 5′ 8″ Bob had a business management degree from Loyola under his belt so spent most of his two-year stint in OD Green as an enlisted clerk. This made his first film, Hell is for Heroes, so perfect. At the time doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs around Hollywood and just a few years out of the service, Newhart portrayed a hapless Army clerk who stumbled into the high-action combat and provided comedic relief.

Bob as PFC Driscoll in Hell is for Heroes. SGT Newhart had just left the Army seven years prior

While he didn’t do many other war films, his portrayal of Major Major Major in 1970’s Catch-22 is classic.

And any bubblehead from the Cold War has probably heard his still very funny “USS Codfish” bit. 

An interesting anecdote from when I was a kid that was Bob-adjacent was when the old battlewagon USS Wisconsin was towed to Ingalls for reactivation during the Reagan/Lehman 600-ship Navy build-up, the crew unofficially named her three main 16″/50 turrets “Larry, Darryl, and Darryl” due to the then running gag on the Newhart Show, which was a big hit at the time.

I remember seeing those t-shirts all over Pascagoula for years after Wisconsin left.

Mr. Newhart, you will be missed.

All Hands, Bury the Dead

Posted on by One comment

So this slow-motion funeral happened this week:

Official caption: “Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam residents watch as the decommissioned amphibious assault ship ex-USS Tarawa (LHA 1), is escorted out of Pearl Harbor by the Safeguard-class rescue and salvage ship USNS Grasp (T-ARS 51) during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2024, July 16.”

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Courtney Strahan)

Laid up in Pearl’s Middle Loch since she retired in 2009 after 33 years of hard service, plans fell through to turn Tarawa into the first Navy amphibious ship museum once she was removed from a Category B reserve asset, and she was stricken from the Naval List earlier this year.

Of course, the old Tarawa is only participating in RIMPAC as a target ship for the big upcoming general SINKEX, which for many of the countries taking part is an extremely rare event.

It is rarer still to have a weapons-free bite at something the size of the mighty cold warrior Tarawa.

I mean, it’s not often that a 40,000-ton aircraft carrier-sized warship is expended in a gunnery drill. It has only happened before in the still largely classified USS America (CV-66) tests in 2005– which was used to engineer resiliency in every U.S. flattop ever since– and in Tarawa’s sistership USS Belleau Wood’s sinking in 2006.

It is a bit sad, honestly, as Tarawa, laid down on 15 November 1971 at Pascagoula, was the first big-deck ‘phib that combined the dock of an LPD with the helicopter capability of an LPH and supersized it into a ship that is the same size as a WWII Essex-class fleet carrier.

Artist’s conception of a very preliminary design of the LHA, released by DoD, 15 February 1967. USN 1120262

USS Tarawa as commissioned, with bow 5-inch MK45 guns, which were later removed. At the time she was constructed, she was the largest ship that Ingalls had built. 

Since Tarawa, the Navy built (and retired) four of her sisters, followed by eight updated Wasp-class LHDs, and are now planning 11 America-class LHAs which all show the same lineage.

Roses and Beantown

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 80 years ago this week, a great view of the brand-new U.S. Navy Cleveland-class light cruiser USS Pasadena (CL-65) snapped from a Squadron ZP-11 blimp while underway off Boston at 1400 hrs on 21 July 1944. The ship’s position was 42 45’N, 70 50’W, course 110 degrees. Pasadena is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 24d. Note two Kingfisher floatplanes on her stern and her large surface search radar

The official U.S. Navy photograph is now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-237944

A 15,000-ton “light” cruiser, CL-65 was the second naval vessel to carry the name of the California Rose City and was built by Bethlehem Steel in Quincy, Massachusetts, and was constructed in just 488 days, commissioning on 8 June 1944.

Following her shakedown cruise off the East Coast and in the Caribbean, Pasadena joined TF 38, the fast carrier force, at Ulithi just before Thanksgiving 1944 and was soon neck deep in operations against Luzon and Formosa in support of the Philippine campaign. She would earn five battle stars during World War II and witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay– anchored alongside Missouri– some 451 days after she was commissioned.

Unlike many of her sisters, she was able to take her war paint off and at least spend a few years in peacetime service before she was decommissioned on 12 January 1950, some 1,593 days after VJ Day.

Pasadena (CL-65) entering Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during an NROTC Midshipmen’s cruise in the Summer of 1948. The photograph was released for publication on 9 August 1948. NH 98201.

Pasadena lingered in Pacific Reserve Fleet mothballs at Bremerton for 22 years– somehow skipping the Korean War– and was then sold for scrap, her name freed up for a Los Angeles-class attack submarine (SSN 752) that had her keep laid in 1986.

Last of ‘The Few’ Turns 105

Posted on by Leave a comment

Group Captain (ret’d) John Allman “Paddy” Hemingway, DFC, AE, just turned 105 years young on the 17th.

Joining the RAF at 21, he flew No. 85 Squadron Mk I Hurricanes over the beaches at Dunkirk and in the Battle of Britain. As noted by the RAF, “Paddy is the last verified surviving pilot of the Battle of Britain.”

He was one of just 3,000 Fighter Command pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain. This force included a hodgepodge of 145 Poles, 88 Czechoslovaks, 29 Belgians, 13 Frenchmen, and a single Austrian from Nazi-occupied Europe– as well as 10 Irishmen. Some 544 Fighter Command pilots lost their lives in the three-month campaign.

Speaking to Parliament on 20 August 1940, Churchill famously said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” when characterizing the efforts of those brave young men from throughout Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.S. who held off the Luftwaffe and went a long way to dashing Hitler’s Unternehmen Seelöwe plans.

Good Morning, Guam!

Posted on by Leave a comment

In this great Kodachrome, we see the superdreadnought USS New Mexico (Battleship No. 40) is seen firing her after 14″/50 guns during the Operation Stevedore pre-invasion bombardment of Guam, circa 14-20 July, some 80 years ago this month.

Taken by a Combat Photo Unit Two (CPU-2) photographer, looking aft along the port side from the forward sky lookout position. The official U.S. Navy photograph is now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-K-14233 (Color)

The old battlewagon, between 12 and 30 July, expended some “1,100 tons of high explosive projectiles” on enemy positions in support of the assault on and liberation of the American possession– and that was taking a two-day break on 15-16 July to head to Saipan to get more ordnance!

USS New Mexico (BB-40), with 1,275-pound 14-inch HC projectiles on deck, while the battleship replenished her ammunition supply off Saipan before the invasion of Guam, in July 1944. The photograph looks forward on the starboard side, with triple 14″/50 gun turrets at left. Note floater nets stowed atop the turrets and rangefinders. The official U.S. Navy photograph is now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-K-14228 (Color)

Over 19 days, New Mexico fired:

  • 1,621 14-inch high-capacity shells
  • 964 5″/51 high-capacity shells
  • 475 5″/51 common shells
  • 2,333 5″/25 AA common shells
  • 422 5″/25 star shells
  • As well as “small amounts of 20mm and 40mm ammunition in close-in fire on the landing beaches”

The daily tally– some of it from as close as 2,800 yards (which is point-blank for a battlewagon!)–  is as follows:

With a lot of this fire called in and corrected by her embarked OS2U floatplanes, this included a “believe it or not” hit on a Japanese gun emplacement:

New Mexico, who skipped Pearl Harbor only because she had been shipped to the East Coast for service on the Neutrality Patrol six months before that Day of Infamy, received 6 battle stars for her World War II service, all in the Pacific.

Decommissioned almost immediately post-war after a 26-year career that included serving in both world wars, she was sold for scrapping in 1947.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »