On Deck for 2022: Colt Combat Pythons and S&W Firestorms

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Although they haven’t “officially” announced them, both Colt and Smith & Wesson seem to have new handguns inbound for this year that mines at the tried-and-true vein of gun culture nostalgia.

Smith’s new CSX (Chief’s Special X?), a single-action-only subcompact 9mm that is hammer-fired, has an alloy frame, and a 10+1 or 12+1 magazine capacity, could be a hit with folks that don’t want polymer striker-fired micro 9s and are more familiar with carry-friendly M1911s such as the Colt New Detective or Sig Sauer P938.

The S&W CSX

It also, in my opinion, looks a lot like the old Star Firestar M43, although with a larger magazine capacity.

The Star Firestar was made from 1992-97, and would probably still be in production if the Spanish gunmaker was around as these were well-received little guns

Then there is the Colt Python with a 3-inch barrel.

While Colt produced the original Python in several barrel lengths between 1955 and 1994, including 2.5-inch snubs and commanding 8-inch Python Hunter, Python Silhouette, and Python Stalker models, the big I-frame snake gun rarely came with a factory 3-inch barrel. This was reserved for a short run of “California Combat” guns and a batch of 500 “Combat Pythons” made in 1988 for Lew Horton complete with a special “K” prefix serial number.

This circa 1974 Colt Python with a factory 2.5-inch snub-nosed barrel is sweet, but folks just went ga-ga for the 3-inch version, and Colt could do well to put such a thing back in production

The rebooted Pythons, introduced in 2020, including both a 4.25- and 6-inch model, with nothing shorter. With all that being said, the new 3-incher could prove both a hit with collectors as well as providing a more “carry friendly” Python for a new generation of wheel gun aficionados.

Either way, SHOT Show doesn’t start for another two weeks, so get ready for much more new gun news…I got my bags packed.

Clocking in One Last Time

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Recently retired after 76 years of hard service under three flags in two wars, the Flag Officer in Command, Philippine Navy, VADM Adeluis S Bordado on 28 December approved the recommendation of the Philippine Fleet to reactivate ex-BRP Magat Salamat PS20 to augment current Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response efforts in areas severely affected by super typhoon Odette.

The ship had just been laid up two weeks ago, along with BRP Miguel Malvar (PS19).

Salamat was originally built by the Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding in Washington State as USS Gayety (AM-239, later MSF-239), an Admirable-class minesweeper with a similar hull to the PCE-842-class. Commissioned in time to see service off Okinawa, she suffered a near-miss from a 500-pound bomb and was damaged with several casualties who were buried at Zamami shima. Her postwar career limited largely to a training role, she was mothballed in 1954 then transferred to the South Vietnamese Navy in 1962 as RVNS Chi Lăng II, one of the first such American ships that force acquired.

CHI LANG II (HQ-08) (South Vietnamese patrol ship, ex-USS GAYETY, MSF-239) Photographed during the 1960s. NH 93779

She escaped to Subic Bay after Uncle Ho’s kids took over the south, and was later folded into the PN as a corvette. The vessel maintained her WWII-era armament including 3″/50s, 40mm Bofors, and Oerlikons although her engineering suites and sensors have been upgraded over the years.

She will serve as a temporary Command Post for the duration of the Navy’s HADR operations in the Dinagat Islands at which point she will likely be put back in mothballs, just in case.

Forgotten WWII Sub Vets: The Dutch

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Here we see the Royal Netherlands Nay submarine Hr. Ms. O-12 holding diving demonstrations in the river in front of Willemskade during the Vlootschouw Fleet Review on the afternoon of 29 April 1939. 

In the background is the light cruiser Hr.Ms. Tromp.

Starting WWII with the unprovoked invasion of the country by the Germans in May 1940, the Dutch Navy had 27 active submarines (Onderzeeboot) and three under construction. While the Germans captured three of the active boats (O-8, O-11, and O-12) as well as took over the building units– ultimately commissioning five of these hulls into the Kriegsmarine as UD boats for Underseeboote Dutch– the rest of the Dutch boats escaped and clocked in for hard and heavy work with the Allies. This included 15 submarines, mostly small Great War-era “K” (for “Koloniën” or Colonial) boats based in the Pacific at Surabaya, in the Dutch East Indies, and two in the Caribbean.

Onderzeeboot Hr. Ms. K XVII (c. 1940-1941). She would be lost against the Japanese 13 days into the war in the Pacific.

They gave a good account of themselves, with 10 successful subs credited with sinking 168,813 tons of shipping across 69 Axis vessels including:

*Hr. Ms. O-21 sank U-95 on 28 November 1941 in the Mediterranean.
*Hr. Ms. O-16 hit four out of four Japanese troopships on 12 December 1941, sending three to the bottom.
*Hr. Ms. K XII sank the Japanese tanker Taizan Maru on 13 December 1941.
*Hr. Ms. K XVI torpedoed the destroyer Sagiri on 24 December 1941 off Kuching– the first Allied submarine to sink a Japanese warship.
*Hr. Ms. Dolfijn sank the Italian submarine Malachite in the Med on 9 February 1943.
*Hr. Ms. Zwaardvis (“Swordfish” ex-British HMS Talent) ambushed U-168 on 8 October 1944 in the Java Sea.
*Hr. Ms. Zwaardvis also sent the large Japanese minelayer IJN Itsukushima to the bottom the next week.

Still, they paid the price as shown here from the 1946 Jane’s list of War Losses.

For more on Dutch Submarines in WWII, check out these two excellent sites. 

Flotsam of the Tsar’s 1st Pacific Squadron

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Camp Kanzense. Matsuyama. Japan, Spring 1905: A group of Russian sailors from the assorted warships sunk by Japanese artillery in the mud of Port Arthur during the siege there. Cap bands show they are from the Баян (Bayan), Бобр (Bobr), Варяг (Varyag), Гиляк (Gilyak), Забияка (Zabiyaka), Паллада (Pallada), Пересвет (Peresvet), Победа (Pobeda), Полтава (Poltava), Ретвизан (Retvizan), and Отважный (Otvazhnyy).

Unlike Japanese EPOW camps in WWII, the Meiji era camps of the Russo-Japanese War were reportedly very hospitable, and the “guests” were returned in good health after the peace. It was only after the corruption of the Bushido code by the 1930s Japanese military elite that the treatment of captured enemy troops and sailors was seen as a dim and distasteful burden. 

When the fortress seaport was scandalously surrendered by Baron Anatoly Stoessel to the Japanese on 2 January 1905, despite having another 30-to-60 days worth of shells and supplied on hand, some 8,985 Russian sailors were marched off to captivity along with 878 Army officers and 23,491 of the Tsar’s soldiers.

Happy New Year, Gang

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Offical caption, some 70 years ago this month: Missouri infantrymen with the 19th Infantry Regiment (24th Infantry Division) along the Kumsong front in Korea wish Happy New Year to the stateside folks.

Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-387519. National Archives Identifier: 531422

Here’s to 2022! As the man says, “Maybe this year will be better than the last.”

Italian Submarine Jantina Found on Eternal Patrol

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Greek divers have discovered the wreckage of an Italian submarine 80 years after it was sunk by the Allied Forces in the Aegean Sea during World War Two, Ekathimerini reports. She was discovered last month by Greek wreck hunter diver, Kostas Thoctarides and his team, south of the island of Mykonos at a depth of 337 feet. The stricken sub was located by the ROV Super Achilles.

The view of the deck gun of the Italian submarine Jantina that was sunk during World War II by the British submarine HMS Torbay, south of the island of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea, Greece, November 3, 2021. Kostas Thoctarides/Handout via REUTERS

The Argonauta-class submarine Jantina, which had sailed from the Greek island of Leros under the command of C.C. Vincenzo Politi with 47 crew on board, was sent to the bottom on the night of 5 July 1941, after being hit by a spread of six torpedoes fired by British T-class submarine HMS Torbay (N79). Six Italians survived by swimming to the coast while Politi and 38 ratings perished.

Italian submarine JANTINA, in her wartime camo

The seven Argonauta-class submarines all saw combat in WWII, with five being sunk and a sixth was scuttled at the Italian armistice in 1943. The last surviving boat of the class, Jalea, survived the carnage and was stricken in 1948.

During WWII, some 116 Italian submarines sailed against the Allies or supported those that did, chalking up 130 ships sunk for a total of some 700,000 tons of shipping. In exchange, they lost 96 of their submersibles, many with all hands, their hulls cracked on the seafloor. Some 3,000 submariners of the Regina Marina are still on eternal patrol.

America’s 1966 New Year’s Deck Log

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The tradition of Navy and Coast Guard vessels logging a special New Year’s poem probably reached its peak in the Vietnam era and has been, sadly I feel, declining ever since. The Sextant noted that “In 2016, fewer than 30 ships made a New Year’s Eve mid-watch verse; in 2017 that number dwindled to fewer than 20.”

Here is one from that golden era– from the newly-built Kitty Hawk-class supercarrier USS American (CVA-66), which was in the Med tied up in Italy on New Years 1966, just beginning her first stint with the 6th Fleet– courtesy of the National Archives who has been hard at work saving and digitizing historic deck logs:

A visitor boarding
new from the East!
To the OOP a report
is due at least.

“Reporting for duty
and full of good cheer,
Permission to board sir,
for I’m the new year.”

“Permission granted,
and welcome to the crew.
But be assured, friend,
your name is not new.

“For 66 here,
with numbers of gold
Has had a head start –
almost a year old.

She’s taut and she’s bold;
her performance is true.
Her record stands out
above quite a few.

“From Commissioning thru Shake Down
on into the Fleet,
She’s sailed and she’s flown
a record to meet.

In service of country, far from home this night,
She stands a mighty vanguard
in the half-moon’s shimmering light.

“In 10 fathoms of water
at anchorage XRay-3
America is anchored
at Liverno, Italy.

With 90 fathoms
of chain to her bow
She’s anchored –
secure from the Northwind’s howl

“The Liverno light at 028.8°
shines its silent goria
And America lies 293°
from Torre Della Meloria.

“The quartermaster
is recording the lore.
Her reading tonight
is condition Four.

“The Marines are on guard,
that you may bet
And the engineers provide
us with condition Yoke set.

“In Liverno tonight
your eyes will meet
Various units of the
U.S. Sixth Fleet

“Naturally SOPA has
chosen the best.
Rear Admiral COBB, CCDII,
makes America his nest.

“Under the keen eye
of Polaris to the north
Her lights thier [sic] good will
are sending forth.

“Her reputation with
hard work was won,
For being 66
means being number one.

“I’m proud to be aboard
this brave and true ship.”
Our visitor impressed,
he replied with a tip.

“I offer you hope –
as the spirit of peace.
Together we’ll sail
from Naples to Greece.

“By joining our missions
of peace and of strength,
We’ll make this a year
with happiness in length!”

With all best wishes for the year of the “66”!

 

Per DANFS on America’s first deployment, once the New Year started:

Over the ensuing weeks, the ship visited Cannes, France; Genoa, Italy; Toulon, France; Athens, Greece; Istanbul, Turkey; Beirut, Lebanon; Valletta, Malta; Taranto, Italy; Palma, Majorca, Spain; and Pollensa Bay, Spain. She sailed on 1 July for the United States. Early in the deployment, from 28 February to 10 March, America participated in a joint Franco-American exercise, “Fairgame IV,” which simulated conventional warfare against a country attempting to invade a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Oragnization) ally. She arrived at NOB, Norfolk, on 10 July.

USS America (CV-66) underway in the Indian Ocean on 24 April 1983. Photographer: PH2 Robert D. Bunge. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 106552-KN

As for America, conducted the carrier service certifications for the new A-7A Corsair II in 1966 as well as the F/A-18 Hornet in 1979, made several combat deployments to Vietnam sending aviators out on dangerous sorties from Yankee Station while earning five battle stars, would return often to the Med where she had tense interactions with Soviet surface ships, ride El Dorado Canyon against Libya and helped with the evacuation of Lebanon– later returning there in 1983; then see the swan song of her career in Desert Shield/Desert Storm where her air group conducted 3,008 combat sorties and dropped over 2,000 tons of ordnance while suffering no aircraft losses during the conflict.

Appropriatedly, her 20th and final deployment was to the Med, from 1995-96. She was scuttled in a SINKEX in deep water rather than go through a SLEP that would have seen her serve well into the 2010s.

I Love Old Savage Pistols. New Ones? Well, That’s Another Story

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Savage marketed its moderately successful Model 1907/1915/1917 pistols until 1928. The handy autoloader was one of the first popular American-made semi-auto carry guns, made in .32 ACP, .380 ACP, and .45 ACP. The Savage Model 1907 was even considered by the U.S. Army in the trials which saw the Colt M1911 adopted for nearly a century of service.

Other than occasional runs of bolt-action benchrest guns and the MSR 15 Blackout pistol which was only made for a couple of years, Savage has concentrated in the long game, eschewing handguns as a category since Calvin Coolidge was in the White House.

Company officials say the time is right, now two years after it separated from Vista Outdoors to become a stand-alone operation, for Savage to move back into handguns.

Their new handgun? Polymer-framed striker-fired 9mm micro-compacts intended for carry and self-defense, use a serialized chassis that allows it to easily swap across a range of various grip frames with black, gray, and FDE modules available at launch, all with interchangeable backstraps to adjust grip size.

The “Stance” has a 3.2-inch stainless-steel barrel, making it just slightly shorter than the Glock 43 and more akin in size to the FN 503 and Sig P365 in that metric. The new Savage pistols have 7, 8, and 10-round magazine options.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Coast Guard Doubles Down on 2nd New Heavy Icebreaker (err Polar Security Cutter)

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ST Engineering/Halter in Pascagoula (Moss Point, actually), has been hard at work on the Coast Guard’s new Polar Security Cutter since they received a $745 million contract in 2019. The 460-foot 19,000-ton (launch weight) icebreaker has required significant enhancements to Halter’s yard on the river.

The USCG and USN must be happy with the progress thus far because this came in yesterday’s DOD Contract announcements:

VT Halter Marine Inc., Pascagoula, Mississippi, is awarded a $552,654,757 fixed-price incentive modification to previously awarded contract N00024-16-C-2210 to exercise an option for the detail design and construction of the second Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter. Work will be performed in Pascagoula, Mississippi (61%); Metairie, Louisiana (12%); New Orleans, Louisiana (12%); San Diego, California (4%); Mossville, Illinois (4%); Mobile, Alabama (2%); Boca Raton, Florida (2%); and other locations (3%), and is expected to be completed by September 2026. Fiscal 2021 procurement, construction, and improvement (Coast Guard) funds in the amount of 485,129,919 (80%); fiscal 2020 procurement, construction, and improvement (Coast Guard) funds in the amount of $100,000,000 (17%); and fiscal 2019 procurement, construction, and improvement (Coast Guard) funds in the amount of $20,000,000 (3%) will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

As the USCG only has a single active heavy icebreaker, and it has been limping along for the past couple of years on bubblegum and duct tape, these new vessels can’t come fast enough.

Of NOAA’s Gliders (Not That Kind)

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With the end of the 2021 hurricane season– a busy one that produced 21 named storms (winds of 39 mph or greater), including seven hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater) of which four were major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater)– NOAA released a by the numbers graphic to show the nuts and bolts of their response.

Interestingly, the nation’s seventh uniformed service (in terms of commissioned officers) detailed they had 66 underwater glider (USV/UUV) deployments to study hurricanes, amounting to a serious 2,309 days underway. The agency uses Slocum gliders– the same as the Navy’s O office— among others. 

An ocean glider is an autonomous, unmanned underwater vehicle used for ocean science. Since gliders require little or no human assistance while traveling, these little robots are uniquely suited for collecting data in remote locations, safely and at relatively low cost.

More on the NOAA Glider Project, which has been around since 2014, here.

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