Saluting 150 Years on Two Hulls

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Last Friday, the Philippine Navy decommissioned the patrol craft BRP Miguel Malvar (PS19) and BRP Magat Salamat (PS20) on 10 December 2021 at Captain Salvo Pier, Naval Base Heracleo Alano.

While “Miguel Malvar’ and “Magat Salamat” may not ring a bell with naval history buffs on this side of the globe, the ships have a very long and interesting history.

Malvar was born in the Windy City of all places, originally built by the Pullman-Standard Car Company of Chicago during WWII as USS PCE(R)-852, a PCE(R)-848-class rescue patrol craft escort for the Navy. Commissioned in 1944, she has another Chicago connection as she was an ancillary part of USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60)‘s hunter-killer group that captured U-505, the German U-boat that has been preserved at that city’s Museum of Science and Industry since 1954. PCE(R)-852 carried 26 captured German POWs to Norfolk.

4 June 1944 Tug USS Abnaki (ATF-96) tows U-505 photo from USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) Note the large U.S. Ensign flying from U-505’s periscope. 80-G-324351

Postwar, she was named USS Brattleboro and, redesignated E-PCER-852, she worked as a test vessel assigned to the Naval Underwater Sound Laboratory at New London, Connecticut until 1965 when she was laid up at Philly.

U.S. Navy photo of USS PCER-852 from the April 1958 edition of All Hands magazine

In 1966 she was transferred to South Vietnam for service in the Republic of Vietnam Navy as RVNS Ngọc Hồi (HQ-12) and served that doomed country for a decade, escaping with the fall of Saigon along with other South Vietnamese naval assets to the Philippines where she was part of the exiled fleet for a year before turned over to the PN, who renamed her Malvar and kept her on active duty under her third flag for 44 years.

As for Salamat, she was originally built by the Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding in Washington State as USS Gayety (AM-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

Like Brattleboro/Ngọc Hồi, she escaped to Subic Bay after Uncle Ho’s kids took over the south, and was later folded into the PN as a corvette.

Notably, both ships maintained their WWII-era armament including 3″/50s, 40mm Bofors, and Oerlikons although their engineering suites and sensors have been upgraded over the years.

In all, these two vessels clocked in over 150 years of active duty, fighting in at least two armed conflicts, which is really not bad for being “war babies.”

Guam Shoot-ex, with feeling

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The 23,000-ton submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS-39), ordered under the Nixon Administration and now just 42 years young, has been termed the worst cruise ship to ever call sail the Pacific. For the last half of her career, she has been forward deployed, first in the Med, then at Diego Garcia, and, since 2016, to Guam, with breaks for stateside maintenance. 

APRA HARBOR, Guam (May 20, 2021) Sailors assigned to the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) man the rails while transiting Apra Harbor, May 20. Land returned home to Guam following an eight-month scheduled maintenance period at Mare Island Dry Dock in Vallejo, California. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jason Behnke)

The partially MSC-crewed vessel is still a “USS” rather than a “USNS” and carries topside weapons, which her Bluejackets qualified on last week in conjunction with the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Guam.

Photos: MCSN Arauz, MCSA Leary

Grumman F-16?

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In celebration of the South Dakota Air National Guard’s 75th anniversary this year, one of the 114th Fighter Wing’s 175th Fighter Squadron (FS) “Lobos” F-16s has been given a somewhat confusing special livery– that of a Marine WWII F4F Wildcat.

A blue and white F-16 from the 114th Fighter Wing, painted at the Air National Guard Paint Facility in Sioux City, Iowa was painted for the South Dakota Air Guard in commemoration of their 75th anniversary. U.S. Air National Guard photo: Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot

The heritage scheme represents the WWII F4F Wildcat flown by South Dakota native, Medal of Honor recipient, and Marine Corps ace Joseph J. “Joe” Foss, who was instrumental in founding the SDANG post-war and establishing its 175th FS, which received federal recognition 20 September 1946.

Foss (fourth from left) joins members of Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-121 on a Wildcat wing at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. (U.S. Marine Corps)

Foss, immediately after the war, was made a colonel in the USAAF and appointed to form an Air National Guard fighter squadron in Sioux Falls, equipped with P-51 Mustangs. In a little-known fact, he had begun his military service in 1939 as an enlisted man with a field artillery unit of the South Dakota guard, then hitchhiked to Minneapolis to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserves in 1940 in order to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program, making him ultimately a veteran of the Army, Marines, and Air Force, retiring from the latter in 1955 as a one-star general.

Either way, the cigar-chomping Foss, would have likely approved of the coyote tail flash. 

U.S. Air National Guard photo: Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot

Of Long Barreled Broomhandles

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The Mauser Construktion 96, or C96, entered service in 1896 and was made– barring Chinese and Spanish unlicenced copies– into the late 1930s for both the consumer market and military contracts. While the standard barrel length of the “Broomhandle” was 5.5-inches, and shortened “Bolo” length guns ran 3.9-inchers, there are a few that went significantly longer.

And of course, any of these could have been fitted with a stock to make them more “carbine” regardless of barrel length

The M1896 Kavallerie Karabiner, made for just three years, ran a 15-inch barrel with a permanently affixed wooden stock and forend. This was later repeated briefly in the M1917 Mauser trench carbine proposal during the Great War that never reached production.

Then came the 12-inch Karabiner pistols, with detachable stocks.

During the 1980s and 90s, Navy Arms custom made a few batches of faux Karabiners in rifle format, complete with fixed stocks and 16.25-inch barrels to keep them NFA legal.

They were produced from a pile of C96 parts Navy Arms had imported from overseas. (Photo: Morphy)

Morphy’s Auction House has been specializing in these long boys for a minute, having sold several over the years.

Morphy also in 2019 auctioned a one-of-a-kind engraved C96, complete with a 12 inch, slightly heavier custom barrel that was made by the Bohler steel company of Austria.

It went for $3700.

Then there is this, in the current Morphy Collectible Firearms & Militaria auction, running this week.

Chambered in .30 Mauser– the Lord’s caliber for Broomhandles– it is made from an Oberndorf-marked C96 and carries a 16-inch barrel, but is still a pistol.

Bidding is within my range, currently, so maybe we’ll get to bring this one home.

Prince of Wales, Repulse Remembered

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The preserved bells of the backbone of Force Z, the battlewagons HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse – sunk on 10 December 1941 – have been put side-by-side on display at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth to mark the 80th anniversary of the tragedy.

The bells had spent six decades at the bottom of the Pacific.

(MoD Crown Copyright)

At least 842 men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines died when the two capital ships were lost to the Japanese air attack off Malaysia – just three days after the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some 330 men went down with Prince of Wales, 512 with the Repulse.

The bells were recovered 20 years ago by Royal Navy divers – with the full support of survivors – as the wrecks were being plundered by unscrupulous salvagers and souvenir hunters.

“We hope our visitors take a moment to reflect on the enormity of the loss,” said Victoria Ingles, senior curator at the National Museum of the Royal Navy. “Ship’s bells are held in great affection by the crew and it was so important that both were retrieved, with permission, from the wreck sites in 2002. Their display is a fitting tribute to the many lives lost.”

Little Groups of Marines with Switchblades

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One of the most inspiring, and telling in my opinion, modern battles was the morning-long scrap between LT Keith Mills and 22 of his Royal Marines against an Argentine force on remote South Georgia Island. Ordered to give the Argies a “bloody nose,” on 3rd April 1982 his sub-platoon-sized unit did better than that.

Mills’ Marauders

Outfitted only with small arms and man-portable anti-tank weapons (an 84mm Carl G recoilless rifle and 66mm LAWs), they downed an Argentine helicopter and mauled ARA Guerrico, a corvette that came in to the harbor to support the invasion of the British territory.

ARA Guerrico, showing one of her two 84mm holes at her waterline. The other destroyed her Exocet launcher whilst a 66mm round wrecked the elevation mechanism on her main gun. She also had been raked by over 1,200 rounds of 7.62mm. Only the Carl Gustav misfiring prevented more hits.

A great, and lengthy, interview with Mills was filmed earlier this year, as we approach the 40th anniversary of the Falklands Islands War. :

Let’s talk about Loitering Munitions

U.S. Marines with 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO), I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, launch a [AeroVironment Switchblade] lethal miniature aerial missile system during an exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Sept. 2, 2020. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Tyler Forti)

Rapidly deployable loitering missile systems, designed as a “kamikaze” being able to crash into its target with an explosive warhead, are the “hot new thing.” However, as witnessed in the recent five-week Nagorno-Karabakh war, between Azerbaijan– supported by Syrian mercenaries and Turkey — and the so-called Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia (who had the low-key support of Moscow), they are a 21st Century game changer. In a nutshell, the Azerbaijanis claim to have smoked almost 400 high-value military vehicles– ranging from main battle tanks to SAM batteries– with such munitions, for zero lives traded.

The U.S. Army, Marines, and Naval Special Warfare Command have been experimenting with such systems over the past decade, such as the Switchblade shown above. The small (6-pound) Switchblade 300 and the larger 50-pound Switchblade 600 both use the same Ground Control Station (GCS) as other small UAVs in the military’s arsenal such as the Wasp, RQ-11 Raven, and RQ-20 Puma. Quiet, due to their electric motors, and capable of hitting a target with extreme accuracy out to 50 nm with a 100-knot closing speed in the case of the larger munition, they could easily target ship’s bridges or soft points with lots of flammable things such as hangars and small boat decks.

So where is this going?

As perfectly described by a panel consisting of CAPT Walker D. Mills, USMC, along with U.S. Navy LT Lieutenant Joseph Hanacek and LCDR Dylan Phillips-Levine in this month’s USNI Proceedings, possibly to a Pacific atoll near you. In short, while it is nice that the Marines are looking at long-range NMESIS coastal defense cruise missile (CDCM) systems, smaller munitions like Switchblade could prove an important tool when it comes to area denial in a littoral.

Introducing loitering munitions that the Marine Corps can use to strike warships creates combined-arms opportunities—a flight of loitering munitions autonomously launched from a small rocky outcropping could knock some of an enemy ship’s self-defense weapons offline, sending that ship home for repairs or setting conditions for a strike by larger CDCMs that deliver the coup de grace. Loitering munitions also can strike ships at close range—inside the minimum-engagement range for larger missiles. With smaller, cheaper, and more mobile loitering munitions, small units and teams operating as “stand-in forces” can contribute to sea denial and expand the threats the Marines pose to an enemy. The case for employing these weapons goes beyond speculation—loitering munitions have already been used with great effect in recent history and have proved their worth on the future battlefield.

More here.

Springer goes… SL8?

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The all-new SAINT Edge Accurized Tactical Chassis, or ATC, from Springfield Armory, uses a monolithic lower chassis and is guaranteed to deliver sub-MOA accuracy.

The rifles, offered in a standard black model as well as an Elite Coyote Brown model with a better trigger and stock, are both built on a one-piece monolithic lower that is machined from 6061 T6 aluminum. Working towards precision use, they both use 18-inch 1:7-twist Ballistic Advantage barrels with .223 Wylde chambers in a truly free-floated design that ensures the barrel and gas system are not in contact with the lower. An Accu-Tite tensioning system eliminates play between the upper and lower.

The rifles use a direct impingement mid-length gas system and M16 bolt carrier groups along with a GI-style charging handle and a carbine “H” heavy tungsten buffer. The receiver extension is mil-spec and has a QD receiver endplate. The upper is made of 7075 T6 aluminum and has M4 feed ramps while the handguard has M-LOK accessory slots. The guns ship with 20-round Magpul PMAGs.

Looks like a combination of an HK91/PSG-1 and an old-school AR15/ M16 handguard, or, taking it a step further, an HK SL8 with a bit more Stoner.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Diving the Forgotten Battlewagon

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While everyone is quick to point out that there were eight American battleships in and around Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor, there was actually a ninth– past Warship Wednesday alumni, USS Utah.

Battleship Number 31, USS Utah, at rest in Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, January 1920.

Built as a 22,000-ton Florida-class dreadnought, Battleship # 31 was disarmed of her impressive battery of ten 12-inch guns in accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty in 1931, converted to a radio-controlled target ship, and redesignated AG-16.

Although it was unlikely she would have gotten her teeth back in WWII had she not rolled over and sank following hits by Japanese aerial torpedos, the old Utah was, like Arizona, never fully salvaged. A few years after the attack her hull was partially righted and moved closer to Ford Island, where she remains today. Some 58 members of her crew died during the attack, and a memorial is in place, but it is not open to the public.

A birds-eye view of the USS Utah Memorial with the flag at half-mast. NPS photo

Utah is often described as “The Forgotten Ship of Pearl Harbor.” 

However, the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in partnership with the National Park Service – Submerged Resource Center, recently conducted the first-ever virtual interactive live-dive of the USS Utah. The dive included NPS divers and U.S. Navy divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One (MDSU 1), including a 1940s vintage Mark V hard hat rig that is often used to inter remains on Arizona.

Sig Sauer Salutes Battleship Row

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New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer, which these days is far more an American company than a Swiss-German venture, produced three custom 1911s to mark the passage this week of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Now calm down, the guns aren’t for sale, and won’t be, at least by Sig, who made no money on them.

They were crafted with the purpose of donating them to the Best Defense Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on helping military veterans and their families. BDF and Sig recently partnered to take 65 World War II Veterans to Hawaii for a week of events surrounding the 80th Anniversary of the Japanese attack that occurred on Dec. 7, 1941.

The three commemorative 1911s include a Pearl Harbor model and one each for the lost battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, the only ones (notwithstanding the old battleship Utah) to never sail again and provided 1,177 and 429 names, respectively, to the butcher’s bill for that day.

The guns all feature grip panels crafted from wood salvaged from the decks of the battlewagon USS North Carolina and carry a special “Battleship Gray” cerakote finish. They also have some pretty decent engravings that really do the ships they salute justice.

The only gripe I have is that, while Sig chose a line drawing of Oklahoma with her post-1930s tripod masts, which she had at Pearl Harbor, they used an old Great War period drawing of Arizona with early lattice masts, a profile the ship had long ago morphed from by the time the Japanese cleared Diamondhead.

Still, overall, Bravo Zulu, Sig.

Of old Hornets and Frenchies

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The Royal Australian Air Force this week bade farewell to the F-18A/B, early Hornet models they have flown since the mid-1980s.

Via the RAAF:

After more than 30 years, and nearly 408,000 total fleet flying hours, the F/A-18A/B Classic Hornet flew over Australia for the last time. Up to 12 aircraft departed RAAF Base Tindal on a final sortie over Darwin and the Northern Territory; before proceeding to Queensland.

The remaining aircraft arrived at RAAF Base Williamtown, their final destination, where Air Force held an end of era event on November 29. Since 1985, Air Force operated 71 F/A-18A/B Hornets at RAAF Base Williamtown and RAAF Base Tindal with the fleet now being retired and replaced with the F-35A Lightning II aircraft.

The RAAF also released an excellent “jet only” raw footage reel of the Hornet at work, sans any overdub or background music, which is great!

In other “F-35 as Hornet replacement” news

The Finnish Defense Force seems to have downselected the F-35 over the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Aviation Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, and the Saab Gripen E to replace their early generation C/D model Hornets.

Switzerland made a similar choice earlier this year.

In the past, Finnish Hornet drivers on exchange tours with the U.S. Navy have even pulled down carrier quals.

180317-N-FK070-0120 ATLANTIC OCEAN (March 17, 2018) Finnish Air Force Capt. Juha Jarvinen lands an F/A-18C Hornet assigned to the Sharpshooters of Marine Strike Fighter Training Squadron (VMFAT) 101 on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). This marks the first time a Finnish pilot has performed an arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brian M. Wilbur/Released)

 

Rafale finally gets some love

Meanwhile, the French Navy is celebrating 20 years of operating the only nuclear-powered CATOBAR carrier in history that wasn’t on the U.S. Naval List. The 45,000-ton Charles de Gaulle (R91) is the flagship of the Marine Nationale and, while ordered in 1986 to replace the smaller, conventionally-powered Clemenceau and Foch, was not commissioned until 2001, with her first deployment being to Afghanistan as part of Operation Heracles in December.

Originally intended to fly F-8E (FN) Crusaders– the only other country to use the American “gunfighter” from a flattop- and Falklands-proven Super Étendards, De Gaulle soon switched to an all-Rafale M airwing augmented by E-2C Hawkeye AEWs and a few Panther/Caiman helicopters for CSAR/ASW work. The French Navy currently runs four squadrons of Rafale M F3-Rs, totaling around 40 active airframes. The Royal Navy cries over that one, for sure, as they will likely never operate that many British F-35s at any one time from their carriers.

Interestingly, De Gaulle can also accommodate F-18s, as the U.S. Navy has often done cross-decking with both Hornets and C-2 Greyhounds, the COD version of the Hawkeyes sans frisbee. In goose and gander terms, both USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS George H.W. Bush have embarked Rafale dets in 2008 and 2018, respectively, and the French strike fighter is the only foreign type currently cleared to operate on U.S. cats and traps.

Speaking of Rafales

In related news, the United Arab Emirates Air Force just placed a big $18 billion order for 80 Rafale F4 fighters, making them the largest non-French customer. Smaller orders have been placed by Croatia, Egypt, Greece, India, and Qatar in the past decade, but the UAE tender is the biggest to date. Canada, Indonesia, Iraq, Ukraine, and Spain, among others, are still looking at the plane.

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