Some 80 years ago today, the curious shot of the mighty (Free) French battleship Richelieu, sailing as part of the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, slewing her pointing her over-bored 380 mm/45 (14.96″) Model 1936 guns at Japanese-occupied Sabang (Sumatra) in the Dutch East Indies during Operation Crimson, 25 July 1944.
The Crimson operation, Task Force 62, had a three-hit punch that day:
Meanwhile, a bombardment group— battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS Valiant, Richelieu, battlecruiser HMS Renown, heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland, light cruisers HMS Nigeria, HMS Kenya, HMS Ceylon, HMNZS Gambia and the destroyers HMS Rotherham, HMS Relentless, HMS Racehorse, HMS Rocket and HMS Rapid, lit of some 1,300 shells (294 – 15″, 134 – 8″, 324 – 6″, ca. 500 – 4.7″ and 123 – 4″).
Finally, a daring little surface action group made up of the destroyer-sized Free Dutch cruiser HrMs Tromp and the destroyers HMS Quilliam, HMS Quality, and HMAS Quickmatch, entered Sabang harbor for a high-speed shoot-up.
In all, Crimson cost just two Allied lives: a war correspondent killed on Quality and a petty officer on Quilliam, both due to hits from Japanese coastal batteries.
Richelieu, who escaped German capture or British destruction immediately after the fall of the Second Republic in June 1940 with only 296 shells to her name (and 198 quarter charges), served the Vichy French in colonial African ports– ruining three of her guns in the Battle of Dakar against the British in November 1940– until November 1942 when said ports went over o the Allies.
Her sister, the incomplete Jean Bart, famously lost an artillery duel with the USS Massachusetts at Casablanca and, using her guns, American shipyards were able to (sort of) get Richelieu back in the fight, specially making some 900 shells and providing Navy multi-tube SPD charges.
Richelieu, after she arrived in New York Harbor for repairs and refitting, on February 11, 1943, note her wrecked turret. 80-G-40855
The refurbished Richelieu aerial port, off New York Harbor, New York, August 26, 1943. 80-G-78789
During Richelieu’s refit in the USA in 1943, her three ruined guns were replaced by guns removed from Jean Bart’s Turret I. It is apparently untrue that Richelieu’s guns were bored out to 15.0″ (38.1 cm) during this time, as French records indicate that they remained at 380 mm (14.96″). Sometime after this refit, new APC projectiles designed to meet French specifications were specially built for her by the Crucible Steel Company of America.
“The US designed-and-manufactured APC projectiles were externally identical to the French design and weighed the same, with the exact same cavity shape and percentage. The base fuze was the US Mark 21 BDF. The filler was Explosive “D”, not TNT. The base plug was the standard US Navy design, as was its threaded sides and other details. The biggest visual difference in the blueprints between the US and original French APC projectiles was that the AP cap and nose shape was that of the US Navy 14″ Mark 16 Mod 8 AP projectile: Oval nose under the cap and a flat-tipped-cone-faced, moderately thick, moderately hard (circa 555 Brinell maximum) AP cap with the windscreen threaded to near its softened (circa 225 Brinell) lower skirt edge just above the forward bourrelet, not at the maximum-hardness upper-face edge as with most foreign and later US Navy AP shells (even the 14″ Mark 16 MOD 10 AP shells had the new-model, short-windscreen AP caps late in World War II). This odd-ball late-1930’s US Navy standard cap and windscreen design allowed the windscreen-holding threads to be cut into softer metal — less expensive — and made the windscreen several inches longer than later designs (also slightly heavier, of course); there was a narrow gap between the inside of the lower windscreen and the slightly-narrowed AP cap side above the threaded area. The caps were soldered on with a ring of 8 (I think) shallow pits in the nose at the bottom edge of the cap having the cap edge bent into them (forming “dimples”), reinforcing the solder; identical to the US AP cap attachment method. The windscreen might have had the plugged cut-outs for an internal dye bag used in US World War II large-caliber AP projectile to allow water to ram though the windscreen on water impact and dye the splash, but I am not certain; it most certainly did not use the French “K” dye-bag design.”
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Warship Wednesday, July 24, 2024: To the Sea, to the World
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Naval History and Heritage Command collections. Catalog #: NH 97002
Above we see khaki-clad officers of the newly-formed Republic of Korean Navy standing by as their country’s first large warship, the PC-461-class subchaser Baekdusan (also seen as Bak Dusan, Bak Du San, Pak Tu San, and Paktusan) (PC-701) has her teeth installed– a 3″/50 DP gun– at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, March 1950.
Bought via subscription and a tax on the service’s sailors (!) she would soon sail into harm’s way and the history books.
The PC-461 Class
Designed to provide a beefy little sub-buster– similar to Britain’s corvettes and sloops– that could float in shallow enough water (10-foot draft) to perform coastal operations but still have enough sea-keeping abilities and range (4,800 nm at 12 knots) to escort cross-ocean convoys without needing the same anti-ship capabilities as found on patrol frigates and destroyer escorts, the Navy ordered some 400 small submarine chasers based on a modified design of one of the pre-war Experimental Small Craft program’s “X-boats” the diesel-powered USS PC-451.
USS PC-451 was designed in 1938 and commissioned on 12 August 1940. Some 173 feet long, the 270-ton steel hulled diesel-powered subchaser could carry two 3″/50 DP guns, six 20mm guns, two Mk 20 Mousetrap projectors, two depth charge racks, and two K-gun depth charge throwers, all while making nearly 19 knots and just requiring a 65-man crew.
The follow-on PC-461 went a bit heavier and, carrying twin 1,440 bhp diesel engines, could break 22 knots (when clean) and tote essentially the same armament, and ship out with QHA sonar (as well as small set SF or SO or SCR-517A radars after 1942).
PC-461 was laid down in July 1941– just five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor– and eventually, some 343 of her class would be constructed by March 1945 across 13 small shipyards, all non-traditional to the Navy.
Camouflage Measure 32, Design 12P drawing prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for application to 173-foot submarine chasers (labeled on the drawing as PC-578 class). This plan, approved by Captain Torvald A. Solberg, USN, is dated 19 July 1944. It shows the ship’s starboard side, exposed decks, and the superstructure ends. 19-N-73643
USS PC-483 is underway in a Navy Kodachrome. Note the ship’s camouflage pattern. 80-GK-00428_001
USS PC-546 underway off the U.S. East Coast, circa 1942. Interestingly, these ships carried a false stack, as the diesel exhaust was routed through the hull sides. 80-G-K-13278
USS PC-546 from the stern.
Another stern shot of the 546 boat, note her thin 23-foot beam, welded hull, and already thinning hull black applied in a rush, sloppy fashion.
USS PC-472 underway near Hampton Roads, Virginia, 31 August 1942. Note her armament layout including a 3″/50 forward, another aft, two 20mm Oerlikons on the bridge wings, two stern DC racks, and two K guns. NH 96481
The PC-461s were some of the smallest U.S. Navy ships to carry a legit sonar listening set.
Undergoing a course of instruction with Naval sonar equipment aboard the USS PC 592 are two Naval Reservists, Seaman First Class F.C. Semkin and Apprentice Seaman G.S. Jackson, Naval Base, SC. Accession #: L55-03
Depth Charges (probably Mk. 6 type) mounted on a “K-gun” projector, and on ready service holders, on the stern of a 173-foot submarine chaser (pc). Taken at the sub-chaser training center, Miami, Florida, 11 May 1942. Note depth charge racks in the background. 80-G-16048
Depth Charge explodes in the wake of a U.S. Navy submarine chaser (PC) during World War II. The photo was taken before April 1944. The 173s could carry as many as 30 depth charges, with a cumulative “throw” of some 5 tons of high explosives. 80-G-K-13753
Submarine chasers and crew. (PC-483, 461, 466), Key West. As the number of AAA guns expanded, crews would grow to as many as 80 officers and enlisted, against a planned complement of 65. 80-GK-00427_001
A motor whaleboat was carried amidships along with a small crane to launch and recover it.
USS PC-620 is seen in Key West in this LIFE Kodachrome. Note her whaleboat, crane, after 3″/50, and depth charges galore.
“Easy Does It!” Crewmen of A 173-foot submarine Chaser (PC) stowing their craft’s dory, after hoisting it from the water, circa 1942. Note Camouflage paint on the boat. The photo was received from the Third Naval District on 17 May 1943. 80-G-K-16426
The PC-461s ranged far and wide, seeing service in every theatre. Four (PC 566, PC 565, PC 624, and PC 619) claimed kills on German U-boats, two (PC 487 and PC 1135) with sinking Japanese fleet boats, three (PC 558, PC 626, and PC 477) with scratching German and Japanese midget subs, two (PC 545 and PC 627) with killing Italian torpedo boats, and two (PC 1129 and PC 1123) with stopping Japanese suicide boats.
“USS PC 565 shown a short time after sinking German U-boat, U-521, with a depth charge, only the Commanding Officer escaped. The vessel fell away from his feet as he climbed out of the conning tower, June 2, 1943.” 80-G-78408
When it comes to the butcher’s bill, six PC-461 class sisters were lost to a combination of enemy action and accidents during WWII while another 24 were seriously damaged.
Meet PC-823
Laid down by the Leathern D. Smith Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, on 8 November 1943, USS PC-823 was launched the following January and commissioned on 24 July 1944. The yard was very busy, cranking out Type N3 and Type C1 Liberty ships, Tacoma-class patrol frigates, and net layers besides 42 PC-461s.
Smith Shipbuilding in 1944, with at least eight PCs under varying stages of construction. Today the yard is run by the Fincantieri Marine Group and builds LCSs and the Navy’s new Constellation-class frigates. (Photo: Andy Laurent, Greenbay Route)
PC-843, early after her commissioning, likely still on the Great Lakes in the summer of 1944. via the Historical Collections of the Great Lakes.
War!
Assigned to the western Atlantic during the tale-end of World War II, apparently assigned to air-sea rescue duties, PC-823 doesn’t have a page in DANFS nor any war diaries/history on file with the NARA, but it is known that she was in Bermuda on VJ Day.
She did not earn any battle stars and was decommissioned on 11 February 1946, custody transferred to the Maritime Commission for further use, while retained on the Navy List.
Rather than pick up the now-traditional name of TS Kings Pointer, she was instead re-named Ensign Whitehead, in honor of one of the alumni of the USMMA who had been lost during the war while serving with the Navy.
Via the King’s Point Alumni Association:
The Wall of Honor includes the name of Fredrick Cowper Whitehead, Jr., a Kings Pointer who graduated on December 24, 1943. Soon after graduation, he was sworn in as an Ensign, USNR. On January 27, 1944, he was assigned to the USS Lansdale (DD 426), currently operating in the Mediterranean. Whitehead reported aboard the Lansdale on March 26 in Oran. The ship was serving as a convoy escort with radio jamming equipment intended to thwart German radio-guided bombs.
On April 20, about two dozen German bombers attacked the convoy. The bombs and torpedoes hit the SS Paul Hamilton. Silhouetted by the explosion of the SS Paul Hamilton, the Lansdale became the target of the second and third wave of bombers. The torpedoes struck the Lansdale in the starboard engine room, where Whitehead was on watch. The ship ultimately foundered and the Captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. A count of the survivors showed 47 men, including Fredrick Whitehead Jr., as missing and presumed dead.
Ensign Whitehead, USNR was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the European-African-Middle East Area Campaign Medal. Based on his service as a Cadet/Midshipman, he was also awarded the Atlantic War Zone Bar, the Mediterranean-Middle East War Zone Bar, the Victory Medal, and a Presidential Testimonial Letter.
However, the USMMA soon found better ships available for use and by the end of 1949, she was laid up at the Academy, pending disposal.
Meanwhile, in Korea…
The South Korean Navy (Daehan-minguk Haegun) was formed on 11 November 1945 as the “Maritime Affairs Association” (Haebangbyeongdan) in the American-occupied zone of the formerly Japanese-occupied Korea. As such, it is the senior service of the Republic, with the ROK Army not formed until 1948 and the ROKAF in 1949. Numbering just 70 members led by former merchant mariner Sohn Won Yil, it inherited a series of small coastal craft at the former IJN yard at Jinhae and served in a brown water coast guard role with a modicum of American support until South Korea became independent in August 1948. It was then that it morphed into the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN), with now-Admiral Sohn becoming its first CNO.
By early 1950, the force had grown to 7,500– including 1,200 ROK Marines. Its naval list counted 11 former Japanese Cha-1 class 85-foot wooden-hulled auxiliary submarine chasers (the Daejeon class in Korean service), two slow 13-knot 140-foot Japanese-designed gunboats (Chungmugong I & II) left incomplete on the ways at Jinhae that were finished in 1947, as well as 17 YMS-type small minesweepers (dubbed the Kang jim or Geumgangsan class in Korean service, with MSC pennant numbers) from the U.S. Navy. The largest weapons were single-barreled 40mm Bofors fitted on the YMSs in place of their original 3″/50s.
Between 1947 and 1950, the backbone of the nascent ROKN was 17 136-foot wooden-hulled coastal minesweepers transferred from the U.S. Navy. The first two are seen here, Geumgangsan (MSC 501) ex-YMS354; and Gyeongju (MSC-502) ex-YMS358. Of the 17 transferred, two defected to the DPRK in the late 1940s, two were lost at sea, and two were lost to mines in 1950. Those left would remain in service into the 1970s.
In short, it was still firmly a near-shore operation. Their primary concern was to clear the thousands of sea mines left over in their local waters dating as far back as 1904, police against Chinese pirates, and keep roaming Japanese fishing boats away.
By late 1949 the five-year-old ROKN felt it was ready for some blue water, or at least some green water, ships.
Headed Home
The solution for the cash-strapped force was to hit everyone’s paycheck for seed money which would be augmented by selling scrap metal left over from the war, officer’s wives tending laundry, and donations from lawmakers including President Syngman Rhee himself.
A year ago a group of Korean enlisted men at Navy headquarters in Seoul got the idea of chipping in each month to buy a man-o’-war. They sounded out Commander in Chief Admiral Sohn Won Yil, who promptly queried his base commanders to see what their enlisted men thought of the idea. They liked it.
Soon afterward 5% of each enlisted man’s $10 a month and 10% of each officer’s pay was deducted to fill the purchase kitty. Meanwhile, Korea’s ambassador to Washington was told to start looking for a ship. Last September Korea’s government plunked down $18,000 of hard-won cash to buy a sturdy little 175-ft. patrol craft, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s training ship Ensign Whitehead.
Some 16 hand-picked officers, led by Captain (future CNO) Park Ok-gyu, were flown to New York and then spent two weeks at King’s Point getting the gist of how to run their new sub-chaser. With their ship moored at Harbor Boat Building Company’s yard, the officers invested sweat equity into a new coat of haze gray and a new hull number, PC-701. Shifted to the USCG’s Pier 8 (Rector Street) in New York on Christmas Eve, custody was transferred on 26 December 1949 in a small ceremony that included the South Korean Ambassador (and future prime minister) Chang Myon.
The ROKS Baekdusan, named for the highly revered Baekdu (Paektusan) or “white-head mountain,” was Korean.
Fantail of the Baekdusan the day the ship transferred from the USN to the RoK Navy in 1949, with ROKN officer raising the Taegeukgi. (RDML Lauren McReady, USMS – Lauren McReady Collection, American Merchant Marine Museum, Kings Point, NY.)
Spending New Year in Miami and transiting the Panama Canal, the little ship put into Hawaii on 24 January where one 3 anti-aircraft gun and six .50 caliber machine guns, authorized for transfer by the Secretary of Defense, were installed at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
Leaving Pearl for Korea on 20 March 1950, she stopped briefly at Guam to purchase a whopping 100 3-inch shells and fuel from the U.S. Navy base there before heading to South Korea. When she arrived at Jinhae Bay on 10 April, she was the first significant warship under Korean control since the country’s Joseon-era navy was disbanded in 1905.
Note the Taegeukgi stenciled on her wheelhouse
Photo of the 60-strong crew of the Baekdusan ship taken at Jinhae Pier 2 on 20 May 1950. Note the mix of American-style officer’s khakis and blues balanced by Japanese-style jumpers and flat caps for the ratings.
And just in time, too, because then came…
Another War!
When the North Koreans unleashed their military against their neighbors to the South, Baekdusanearned the distinction of sinking a 1,000-ton Soviet-supplied transport ship that was trying to destroy the Pusan Port wharf facilities in the Korean Strait.
Vectored to the mystery ship in the late hours of 25 June, she chased it down between the Oryukdo Lighthouse and the Tsushima Lighthouse and began hailing it repeatedly to stop. Closing to within 90 meters of the interloper, the two ships soon began exchanging fire, swapping 3-inch shells for incoming 85mm shells and heavy machine gun fire from the Nork vessel. After a four-hour running fight, in which Baekdusan fired 50 shells before her main gun seized up, the black smoke-belching mystery ship sank at 0:30 a.m. on 26 June, reportedly carrying some 600 highly-trained North Korean commandos of the 766th Independent Infantry Regiment with it to the bottom.
Baekdusan, riddled with shrapnel and machine gun hits, suffered four wounded and two– Private First Class Kim Chang-hak and Private First Class Jeon Byeong-ik– killed.
Battle of the Korea Strait (Photo source: War Memorial of Korea, Korean Cultural Information Service)
Has Pusan been wrecked by a battalion-sized assault on the first day of the war, the 400,000 shells and 2.5 million rounds of ammo landed there by USAT Sgt. George D. Keathley and USNS Cardinal O’Connell on 28 June, followed by the 24th Infantry Division starting on 3 July, probably wouldn’t have happened. Had that not occurred, the war may have been lost in the first month.
The “Battle of the Korea Strait,” as the ROKN would call it, had major strategic importance. At the time, the port of Pusan was very poorly defended. Had the North Korean surprise operation succeeded, the outcome of the war might have been very different, because by the beginning of August, Pusan was the last remaining port in South Korea that had not fallen to the North Koreans. It would be the only initial entry point for the U.S. forces that prevented the North Koreans from overrunning the entire Korean Peninsula.
She would go on to perform yeoman work for the rest of the war, including at the pivotal Inchon Landings (Operation Chromite) in September.
Inchon Invasion, September 1950. The first wave of U.S. Marines headed for the landing beach in LCVPs, on 15 September 1950. This landing is probably on Red Beach, on the northern side of the Inchon invasion area. PC at the far right is a unit of the Republic of Korea Navy. NH 96877
Ultimately, the U.S. Navy transferred another five PC-461s to the ROKN during the war– no cash required! These included ex-PC 799 (Geumgangsan), ex-PC 802 (Samgaksan), ex-PC 810 (Jirisan), ex-PC 485 (Hanlasan), and ex-PC 600 (Myohyangsan), added to the South Korean naval list as PC-702 through 705. Of these, Jirisan was sunk by a mine off Wonsan in 1951 while Hanlasan was later lost in a typhoon.
Kum Kang San/Geumgangsan (South Korean submarine chaser, formerly USS PC-799) At the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, on 16 June 1950, following transfer to the South Korean Navy. She is flanked by her sister ships Chiri San/Jirisan (Korean PC-704) to the left and Sam Kak San/Samgaksan (Korean PC-703) to the right. USS Polaris (AF-11) is in the right background. Note men working on a 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mounted on Kum Kang San’s foredeck as well as American ensigns from the mainmast and small Taegeukgi on the bridge wings. NH 85494
Kum Kang San/Geumgangsan P-702 (South Korean submarine chaser, formerly USS PC-799) with her Taegeukgi flying off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 17 June 1950, following transfer to the South Korean Navy. NH 85482
Chiri San/Jirisan P-704 (South Korean submarine chaser, formerly USS PC-810) underway off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, 17 June 1950, with her Taegeukgi in the wind following transfer to the South Korean Navy. NH 85490
Sam Kak San/Samgaksan (Korean Submarine Chaser, # 703, formerly USS PC-802). The crew fires the ship’s 3″/50 gun “at the Communist-led North Koreans along the west coast of Korea” (quoted from the original caption). The photograph is dated 18 December 1951. Note the American kapok life jackets, Army OD fatigues, and M1 helmets. NH 97332
Baekdusan along with sisters Geumgangsan and Samgaksan, were decommissioned on 1 July 1959, due to corrosion and the general aging of the ships. Myohyangsan, found to be in better condition, was retained.
The ROK Navy’s 173s via the 1960 edition of Janes
The three stricken subchasers were soon stripped of usable equipment and scrapped, their place on the ROKN naval list taken by three newly transferred sisterships: ex-USS Winnemucca (PC 1145), ex-USS Grosse Pointe (PC 1546), and ex-USS Chadron (PC 564) giving the South Koreans a four-pack of PC-461s on patrol into 1975, by which time they were replaced by a six-pack of larger (1500-ton, 306-foot) Rudderow-class destroyer escorts.
Epilogue
The “disposable” PC-461 class, besides the U.S. and ROK navies, served under the flags of more than 20 other countries. They remained in service around the globe until the late 1980s when the last two in active, ex-USS Susanville (PC 1149) and ex-USS Hanford (PC 1142), were retired by Taiwan.
Some 40,000 bluejackets sailed on the PCs during the “Big Show” and immediately after. The chronicle of their war is the 400-page PC Patrol Craft of World War II: A History of the Ships and Their Crews by William J. Veigele, a former PC sailor, first published in 1998.
The two ROKN bluejackets killed on Baekdusan that night in June 1950 had their names given to new Yoon Youngha class missile boats, ROKS Kim Changhak (PKG-727) and ROKS Jeon Byeongik (PKG-732).
ROKS Kim Changhak (PKG-727)
The ROKN very much remembers their story and that of their ship.
Today, the ROKN has grown to over 70,000 personnel and operates 160 vessels, putting it squarely as one of the largest and most modern naval forces on the planet.
The country’s first flat-top, the 45,000-ton Kyunghyang CVX-class lightning carrier, is planned to be named after the humble Baekdusan and her fearless crew.
The motto of the ROK Navy is 바다로, 세계로 (badalo, segyelo= To the sea, to the world).
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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A force of 37 U.S. and Canadian Soldiers was tactically inserted in 50 below F weather by a ski-equipped LC-130H Hercules onto Arctic Ocean ice just east of Little Cornwallis Island in Nunavut, Canada, during exercise Guerrier Nordique 23 on March 15, 2023. Notably, almost all involved were reservists with the LC-130 coming from the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing– the only ski-equipped airlift squadron in U.S. service– while the soldiers were largely from the Vermont and Utah National Guard and Canadian 35th Brigade Group, 34th Canadian Brigade Group, and the Canadian Rangers. 230315-A-FN054-945
The Pentagon this week released its 2024 DOD Arctic Strategy, which is the first update to DOD’s approach to the region since 2019. A lot has changed in the region in the past half-decade, with Russia and China getting more active in the Arctic while Sweden and Finland are now NATO allies.
Note that Thule Air Base is now Pituffik Space Base, under Space Force command since 2020, and still operates the POGO station under the aegis of the 821st Space Base Group. Also note the old Shemya Air Force Base in the Aleutians is Eareckson Air Station and is primarily just a 10,000-foot emergency strip with a small group of about 100 contractors, similar to the facility at Wake Island.
“The Arctic region of the United States is critical to the defense of our homeland, the protection of U.S. national sovereignty, and the preservation of our defense treaty commitments,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. “Our Arctic strategy will guide the Department’s efforts to ensure that the Arctic remains a secure and stable region.
An ancient 2-inch Konstantinov unguided rocket set up before Russian trenches, likely on the Caucus Front, circa 1915-1916.
Designed in the early 1850s by Lt. Gen. Konstantin Konstantinovich Konstantinov– an illegitimate son of the younger brother of Russian Emperor Alexander I– the Konstantinov rocket was considered more advanced in terms of performance and payload to the British Congreve rockets of the day.
By the Crimean War, the Russian Imperial Army adopted 2-inch, 2.5-inch, and 4-inch rockets of his design in fragmentation and incendiary variants which far outclassed field artillery of the day. For reference, the 4-inch rocket, loaded with a 10-pound frag grenade, had a maximum firing range of 4,150 m. By comparison, a 10-pounder Parrott rifle only had an effective range of about 1,700 m. Further, they could be ripple-fired as many as 36 rockets in a single salvo, forming a kill box.
The Russians had some 23.000 Konstantinov rockets on hand by the Crimean War and used them during the siege of Sevastopol– fired from the roofs and upper floors of buildings to strike British lines– and at Revel in the Baltic against ships of the Royal Navy,
By 1898, advances in field artillery had eclipsed their niche usefulness. They were withdrawn from service, and the last rocket batteries disbanded.
However, we all know the Russians never throw anything away when it comes to ordnance and, as seen above, Konstantinovs popped up again in the Great War.
Further, there is some anecdotal evidence the Finns still had a few of them in inventory during WWII, no doubt inherited from Tsarist stocks left behind in the former Grand Duchy in 1917.
Raketti vie 1300 valistusta ja uutisia sis�lt�vi� lentolehtisi� naapurin puolelle.
Classified by the Finns as fortress rockets (Linnoitusraketti) there are pictures of them being used to harass Soviet lines in 1941 near Hanko (Hango), some 90 years after they were introduced.
Linnoitusraketti valmiina lentämään. Hangon rintama 1941.09.20
The rocket takes off (night view) from the rock of the island over the back to the neighbor’s island across the border of the rental area. Hanko front 1941.09.20
The rocket has launched. Hanko front 1941.01.01
The Finns liked them so much that they went on to make an even more rudimentary version to carry propaganda leaflets (Propagandalehtisiä Lähetetään Raketin).
“Sending propaganda rockets: Situational information with local news is delivered to the neighbor’s side by rockets. According to the prisoners, the news delivered in this way is read carefully, because this news through us arrives much faster than the prisoners’ own situational information about the day’s events. Valkeajärvi (Uhtua direction) 1941.10.28”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
