A Pipe & a Novel

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A bearded crewman sitting benignly on some Mark VII depth charges, smoking his pipe and reading a novel on board the K-class destroyer HMS Kelvin (F37) during WWII. As each ash can carries 700 pounds of TNT, the rating is relaxing about a smooth ton of high explosive. 

Royal Navy official photographer, LT Christopher John Ware, RNVR, IWM A 1534

Ware– a skilled press agency portrait photographer who volunteered his services to the RN during the war– captured this rating from two different angles, with the second clearly showing it as a posed shot with other tars looking on amused.

IWM A 1533

Kelvin is perhaps the best photographed British tin can of WWII as Ware was apparently aboard her for most much of 1940 and 1941 and captured no less than 380 images while embedded with her crew, some of them rather hamming it up for the camera.

ON BOARD THE DESTROYER HMS KELVIN. 1941. (A 3855) Seaman gunner carrying two belts of 2 lb pom-pom ammunition. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205138210

THE NAVY SETS AN EXAMPLE IN READINESS FOR GAS ATTACKS. FEBRUARY 1941, ON BOARD THE DESTROYER HMS KELVIN, IN PLYMOUTH SOUND. DURING A GAS DRILL WHICH LASTED THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR. ALL DUTIES WERE CARRIED OUT WITH GAS MASKS. (A 3187) Sailors on the mess deck wearing gas masks while reading and writing letters when off duty. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137601

Commissioned 27 November 1939, Kelvin survived the war– unlike many of her J-, K- and N-class sisters and half-sisters– and earned no less than 8 battle honors: Atlantic (1940), Spartivento (1940), Crete (1941), Mediterranean (1941–43), Sirte (1942), Malta Convoys (1942), Normandy (1944), and Aegean (1944).

HMS Kelvin (F37) Underway in the Clyde. IWM FL 3886

BRITISH FLEET OPERATIONS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. NOVEMBER 1940, ON BOARD THE DESTROYER HMS KELVIN. (A 2463) A depth charge dropped by the destroyer during a submarine attack exploding astern of the ship. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205136839

Post-war, the worn-out tin can was soon laid up and disposed of, sold to the breakers in 1949, just shy of her 10th birthday.

USAF Keeps Making Reefs

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“Rapidus Obruo” = I am overwhelmed by the rapidity

Since debuting its low-cost, air-delivered QuickSink system in late 2021, the Air Force has put it to good use in a series of destructive live ordnance tests.

While the guidance kit is modular and can fit anything from 500 to 2,000-pound bombs, it has been showcased from F-15Es using big GBU-31/B JADAMs, which hit the 2,120-pound mark.

Now JDAMs have been used a lot in SINKEXs over the past couple of decades but never had the same sort of dramatic effect as QuickSink– ex-USS Schenectady (LST-1185) took no less than seven 2,000-pound JDAMs during Resultant Fury in November 2004 and remained defiantly afloat.

The key is that QuickSink seems to aim for below-the-waterline hull hits akin to the old “Diving Shells” of WWII. After testing with B-52s in 2020 and then verifying the “Maritime JDAM” by F-15Es in August 2021, the Air Force started planning bigger exercises.

The first widely published QuickSink strike experiment was in April 2022 when an F-15E out of Eglin splashed the old 189-foot coaster M/V Courageous (ex-M/V Homborsund) off Destin, cracking it neatly in half with a single well-placed piece of ordnance.

Granted, Billy Mitchell probably could have done the same thing with his Martin MB-2 biplanes in 1921, but he didn’t have Go-Pros.

Then, in January 2023, BAE Systems got the $12 million Phase 2 contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to further develop a low-cost, all-weather, multi-mode (radar/infrared) open architecture seeker for the program.

The second big QuickSink test was on the ex-USS Tarawa during RIMPAC ’24– of which no footage has been released. The aircraft involved was reportedly a B-2, again dropping a 2,000-pound QuickSink-enabled GBU-31/B.

It would be neat to know if the RIMPAC QuickSink test took place under the cover of darkness from 40,000 feet, allowing a seriously decent reach. Keep in mind that, while JDAM has a “published range” of 15nm, the JDAM-ER program looks to double that to 72km or more.

Now this week, the Air Force Research Lab has disclosed that it has used QuickSink to break the impounded 360-foot 5726 GRT Ro-Ro M/V Monarch Countess off Destin, sending it to join the Okaloosa County Artificial Reef Program alongside QuickSink alum MV Courageous.

It is not clear what aircraft/ordnance combo was used in the daylight sinking but it was likely another F-15E from Eglin’s 85th Test & Evaluation Squadron.

While Deep Six-ing smallish commercial freighters may look dramatic, the world wonders what QuickSink could do against a good-sized warship built to naval standards, which is likely why no images have been released on Tarawa’s brush with the maritime JDAM.

Billy Mitchell would surely be curious to see that footage.

Green Side Blue Dives

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Always nice to see the “Marines back in Submarines” so to speak.

Check out these recent images of Force Reconnaissance Marines from the 2nd Recon Battalion conducting dive operations near the submarine USS Georgia (SSGN-729), in the Mediterranean Sea.

240727-N-DE439-1001

Of course, the Recon Marines are wearing more basic open-circuit skin diving rigs than cool guy closed-circuit Draegers, but training is training.

Plus, they got a chance to CRRC it up from Georgia’s deck, a task that the Marines are spending more time doing going forward with the whole switch from Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV) to Littoral Craft by units such as the 4th Amtrac Bn.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (July 31, 2024) U.S. Marines from the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company, assigned to Task Force 61/2, conduct dive operations with Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Georgia (SSGN 729) while underway in the Mediterranean Sea July 31, 2024. (U.S. Navy Courtesy Photo)

The old stubborn mule of the SSGN force, Georgia, formerly SSBN-729, is officially homeported in Kings Bay but tends to roam far and wide. For instance, a 100K mile/790-day forward deployment in 2020-22 that included crossing into the Persian Gulf.

Christened back in 1982, she conducted 65 strategic deterrent patrols as a bomber before she was converted to her current cruise missile & commando bus format which she has sported for the past 20 years.

While in the Med as part of the Sixth Fleet, she just got orders for what could be a very busy trip.

Second EPF Flight II inbound

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The Navy christened its 15th Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport operated by Military Sealift Command, the future USNS Point Loma (T-EPF 15), in Mobile over the weekend.

The Spearheads have been quietly getting it done around the world. For instance, sister USNS Yuma (EPF 8) just returned to Norfolk after six years of being forward deployed in the Mediterranean, a tour that included “19 countries, 48 ports of calls visited, over 167,000 nautical miles traveled.”

However, Point Loma will be the second EPF Flight II ship in the series, in short, a theatre mini-hospital ship capable of carrying an embarked Navy (or civilian Public Heath Service) medical unit, two operating rooms, and the ability to support 147 medical patients and 38 MSC civilian crew.

As noted by Austal:

EPF Flight II provides a Role 2E (enhanced) medical capability which includes, among other capabilities, basic secondary health care built around primary surgery; an intensive care unit; ward beds; and limited x-ray, laboratory, and dental support. The EPF’s catamaran design provides inherent stability to allow surgeons to perform underway medical procedures in the ship’s operating suite. Enhanced capabilities to support V-22 flight operations and launch and recover 11-meter Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats complement the ship’s medical facilities. These Flight II upgrades along with EPF’s speed, maneuverability, and shallow water access are key enablers for mission support of future Distributed Maritime Operations and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations around the world. Flight II retains the capability of Flight I to support other missions including core logistics.

The Navy is currently embarking a 35-member Expeditionary Medical Unit (EMU) aboard the first EPF Flight II ship delivered by Austal USA, USNS Cody (T-EPF 14), at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story. The equipment for EMUs is contained within ten 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), which facilitates storing and transporting the authorized medical and dental allowance list items.

Some pics of EMU-1 on Cody:

This is over and above the upcoming USNS Bethesda (EMS-1) which will be one of a planned three more full-time white-hulled expeditionary medical ships based on the Spearheads.

Ball of Fire

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How many stinging Beaus can you count in this image that makes you feel sorry for the German M class minesweepers escorting a convoy off the Dutch coast, north-west of Borkum, seen some 80 years ago today, 12 August 1944?

RNZAF Photo via the IWM (C 5169)

Bristol Beaufighters MkXs from No 455 RAAF Squadron and No 489 RNZAF Squadron (together these two Squadrons formed the ANZAC Strike wing) attack German ships with a mix of RP-3 Rockets, 20mm cannons, and .303 machine gun fire.

Tough Kitty

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By late 1944, the P-40 Warhawk had been largely withdrawn from U.S. frontline service but several Allied squadrons still carried on with their Lend-Leased “Kittyhawks,” especially in the Pacific.

Take this 80-year-old-today image into account:

Official caption: “9 August 1944. Noemfoor Island, Dutch New Guinea. Flying Officer T. R. Jacklin (405738) of Mackay, QLD, and No. 75 Squadron RAAF examines his damaged P-40 Kittyhawk aircraft which he piloted over 200 miles over sea with his port aileron torn completely away and less than 75 percent of the wing surface left intact. Jacklin owes his life to his skill and tenacity in keeping the plane in the air in almost unflyable conditions.”

John Thomas Harris photograph, AWM OG1534

No. 75 Squadron RAAF—aka the Magpies— was formed at Townsville, Queensland, on 4 March 1942 and received their first Kittyhawks on 21 March, spending the next 44 days as the sole fighter defense of Port Moresby. During No 75 Squadron’s epic first six weeks in action, it claimed 35 enemy aircraft destroyed and 58 damaged, for the loss of 12 of its own pilots and all but two of its original batch of P-40s unserviceable or lost.

Later augmented by RAAF Spitfire jocks from Europe and given more P-40s, they shifted to Milne Bay and points New Guinea then to Borneo, covering Australian forces during the Battle of Balikpapan in the war’s last weeks.

“Hep Cat” Curtiss P-40N Kittyhawk (Ex-USAAF 44-7847) of RAAF 75 Sqn over PNG.

In all, the unit lost no less than 42 men during WWII, all the while flying Kittyhawks.

Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea. C. 1944-5. Group portrait of fighter pilots of No. 75 (Kittyhawk) Squadron RAAF, under a damaged Japanese fighter aircraft of the “Oscar” type. The pilots’ alert hut is in an area used by Japanese pilots not long before. These pilots have just returned from bombing raids over Biak. John Thomas Harris photograph, AWM OG1052

Today, after flying P-51s, Vampires, Meteors, Sabres, Mirages, and Hornets, they began transitioning to F-35s in 2022, just in time for its 80th anniversary.

F-35A Lightning II aircraft, A35-041, at the No. 75 Squadron’s 80th anniversary sunset dinner at RAAF Base Tindal, Northern Territory. Photo: Leading Aircraftman Adam Abela

The fighter squadron now resides at RAAF Base Tindal, which defends Australia from the north just as in the old Port Moresby days, and holds nine battle honors for distinguished conduct during war-time operations, and a Meritorious Unit Citation for outstanding service in the Middle East during Operation Falconer.

Eye twitch…

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Folks gave this Navy skipper a hard time for this “Name 10 things wrong with this” image a few weeks back.

Well, the Army just clapped back.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd, go!

EIC training at Fort Jackson…

Increasingly ‘Runway Agnostic’

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A U.S. Air Force MC-130J Commando II, assigned to the 492nd Special Operations Wing, lands on Highway 63 during Emerald Warrior 24 FTX II in Bono, Arkansas, on August 4, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Ty Pilgrim) 240804-F-QE874-1128

In 2022, the USAF conducted a series of highway landings in Michigan with a host of spooky little special ops wing aircraft (U-28A, C-145, C-146, and MC-12W) that are used to flying into tiny strips and strip-like areas in places they have never officially been. The same exercise also saw the first integrated combat turn of an A-10-– refueled and rearmed with the engines still running, pitstop style– on a U.S. highway. The ANG A-10 unit that pulled it off had been practicing highway ops for a minute.

Well, the Air Force just upstaged that this week in Emerald Warrior FTX II.

Using local law enforcement to close off an unusually straight five-lane section of U.S. 63 and a portion of 230 outside of Bono, Arkansas (pop. 2,121) commandos of the 1st Special Operations Wing established and secured a 5,000-foot landing zone on the 3-mile-long strip of closed-down highway.

Soon after a twin-engine C-146, followed by a big hulking MC-130J Commando, touched down just after dawn then, after setting up a forward refueling point, an AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship came in and did a turnaround– a historic first.

A U.S. Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship, assigned to the 1st Special Operations Wing, prepares to land on Highway 63 during Emerald Warrior 24 FTX II in Bono, Arkansas, on August 4, 2024. The objective of the operation was to train aircrews on runway-agnostic operations to enable Air Commandos to effectively work in contested spaces where traditional airfields may be unavailable or under threat. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Saisha Cornett)

To show that not just the cool kids can do this, the Arkansas Air National Guard’s 189th Airlift Wing stepped in to execute takeoffs and landings at the highway site with a more, um, vintage C-130H.

Schrodinger’s Naval Guns

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Self-portraits from an Austrian Army feldpost letter from 28-year-old LT Erwin Schrödinger to his cousin Hugo Hinterberger, dated 23 February 1916.

The Austrian theoretical physicist, who earned his doctorate in 1910 from the University of Vienna, had, as no surprise for a math whiz, trained as a reserve artillery officer before the Great War and was called to rejoin his regiment on 31 July 1914 at a point when the war only contained Serbia and Austro-Hungary.

Assigned to assorted fortress artillery units, by July 1915 he was dispatched to join a scratch battery of naval artillery guns being deployed in the mountains around Gorizia (Görz), a key stronghold during the assorted Battles of the Isonzo in the KuK’s fight against the Italians.

Needing more artillery along the Isonzo front– and suffering losses of hundreds of its precious howitzers and morsers to the Russians in Galicia– the Austrians stripped a series of Krupp/Skoda 15 cm/40 (5.9″) L/40 K94/K96 naval guns from assorted old coastal defense ships, armored cruisers, and pre-dreadnoughts and 12 cm/45 Škoda guns from river monitors and schlepped them to the mountains via tractor, truck, and sled where they would be emplaced in wooden batteries as needed.

Marinebatterie 15 cm kuk ONB 10CACED9

Marinebatterie 15 cm kuk ONB 10CACEE2

Ein schweres Marinegeschütz wird mit Schlitten auf das Nassfeld gefördert kuk ONB 10D3F0FA

Austrian kuk Navy 15 cm L40 Marinegeschütz auf der Straniger Alm, 1916.

Ein schweres Marinegeschütz in Feuerstellung kuk ONB 10D3F110

15cm L.40 naval gun Stpkt.Schwandmgraben adRattendorfer Alpe. kuk ONB 1106A4B9

Marine Batterien 15cm Marine-Geschütz L40 auf der Rattendorfer-Alpe, 02.05.1917 kuk Austran Marines ONB 10EE7FCD

After being decorated for combat with the Marinebatterien, Schrödinger by 1917 was assigned to a battery near Prosecco, a fairly safe village near the city of Trieste, and finished the war in an even quieter post in Vienna, much to his joy, noting it was “a great advantage because I was not affected by the disastrous backflow of that frayed frontline.”

Hanging up his uniform, he was then able to turn to more serious scientific matters post-1918 and soon moved on to a professorship as the chair for theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. By 1933, the whole world knew who he was. 

No word on his cats in Kuk service, however. 

USCG (Quietly) Poking Around All the Corners of the Pacific

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While I have recently pointed out that the USCG’s small force of frigate-sized National Security Cutters has been busy this summer ranging to the East China Sea, participating in RIMPAC ’24, and the bird-dogging the Chinese around the Aleutians, two other ops have been going on as well– and have flown under the radar.

GALAPEX 2024

The USCG cutter USCGC Benjamin Bottoms (WPC-1132) recently participated, with maritime forces from 13 other countries, in GALAPEX 2024.

Put on by the Ecuadorian Navy around the Galapagos Islands, the two-week multinational naval exercise is “designed to improve interoperability and cooperation between the navies of different countries. Through simulations and joint maneuvers, participants practice coordination in maritime security operations, combating common threats such as illegal fishing, and responding to emergencies.”

Participants included the Ecuadorian Esmeraldas class corvette BAE Loja (CM 16), patrol ship BAE Hualcopo, tanker BAE Atahualpa, and fleet tug BAE Imbabura (RA 72); the new Dutch (Damen Stan 5009) built Ecuadoran Guardacostas patrulleras LAE Isla San Cristobal (LG-30) and LAE Isla Isabela (LG-31), Peru’s South Korean (STX) made Guardacostas patrulleras BAP Río Huarmey (209), and the Colombian Navy’s CPV-46 class patrullero costero ARC Punta Ardita (PC-147).

Bottoms, the 32nd Sentinel-class cutter, was commissioned in 2019 and is based out of San Pedro, California– some 3,500 nm north of the Galapagos.

This shows the legs these 154-foot cutters have, with a little bit of help downrange. The class has been ranging around the South Pacific as far as Australia (from Hawaii) and has largely self-deployed from the East Coast to the Persian Gulf. 

As noted by USCG PAO:

Transiting 3,500 miles from homeport to Ecuador and Galapagos Islands, the crew pushed the boundaries of mission sets and downrange operations. The ability to conduct expeditionary operations in support of our Central and South American partners could only be possible with the support of the Coast Guard’s Expeditionary Logisitics Element (LOG-X), providing foreign port contracting services and advanced medical staffing through the deployable independent duty health services technician billet.

Operation Nasse

Speaking to engaging with small maritime forces in the Pacific, one of the Coast Guard’s precious Hawaii-based HC-130J Super Herks is just coming off a tour around the West Pac.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Junior Grade Nick Fuist and Lt. Cmdr. Keith Arnold , two pilots at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point, man the controls of aHC-130 Super Hercules in the skies above Auckland, New Zealand, Jul. 9, 2024. The U.S. Coast Guard completed participation in Operation Nasse, a three-month operation conducted by Australia, France, New Zealand, and the U.S. to safeguard the invaluable marine resources of Pacific Island nations and the Western Central Pacific Ocean (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Nicholas Martino) 240709-G-G0214-1003

USCG PAO:

From July 1-12, an HC-130J Hercules airplane crew from Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point patrolled the South Pacific High Seas in and around the Exclusive Economic Zones of Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, New Zealand, Tonga, Niue, and the Cook Islands to detect, investigate and report any illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activity.

Joint efforts for Operation Nasse covered over 16,000 square miles, with the U.S. Coast Guard contributing:

Over 58 hours of flight time
37 vessels sighted and analyzed
Four potential Conservation and Management Measures (CMM) violations reported
240 hours of analyst-to-analyst collaboration and training

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