Official caption: “Mediterranean Sea. U.S. Marine Corporal J.E. Goldsburg cleans the windshield of an AV-8A Harrier Advanced Vertical Take-Off and Landing Close Support Aircraft on the flight deck of USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV 42).”
Photographed by PH3 Greg Haas, November 9, 1976. U.S. Navy Photograph, 428-GX-USN 116818, now in the collections of the National Archives
The shot was taken during VMA-231’s Bicentennial Med cruise which saw the Ace of Spade’s squadron integrate their brand-new Hawker Siddeley-made early model Harriers with Carrier Air Wing 19 in regular operations.
After stops in Spain, Italy, Sicily, Kenya, and Egypt, the Aces cross-decked to the amphibious assault ship USS Guam (LPH-9), which at the time was the testbed for the ADM Zumwalt’s Sea Control Ship concept. Guam, acting as one of the world’s first “Harrier Carriers,” would pass through the Red Sea and participate in Kenya’s Jamhuri Day Independence celebration.
USS Guam (LPH-9) with AV-8A Harriers, 12.9.76. Note the four airborne Harriers in a diamond formation, flown by VMA-231 “Ace of Spades” squadron Marines, and at least five more on deck. Catalog #: USN 1169189
As for the Aces of VMA-231, they are one of the last Harrier operators in the world.
The more things change…
U.S. Marine Cpl. Blake R. Phillips, a power line mechanic with Marine Attack Squadron 231, maintains an AV-8B Harrier II, Camp Leatherneck, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, March 5, 2013. Phillips maintains aircraft as part of his daily inspections. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Gabriela Garcia/Released)
As we have touched on in past Warship Wednesdays, “America’s tall ship,” the United States Coast Guard Barque Eagle (WIX-327)is a 295-foot, three-masted training vessel assigned to the USCGA to serve as a schoolship for future Coast Guard and NOAA officers (as well as a smattering of cadets from overseas allies).
Built by Blohm and Voss in Hamburg, she entered service in the Gorch Fock-class segelschulschiffHorst Wessel in 1936, training the officers for the rapidly expanding Kriegsmarine.
Horst Wessel
Somehow surviving WWII, she was taken over by a USCG crew at Bremerhaven in 1946 and sailed to this side of the Atlantic where she has been active ever since. Today she is both the oldest Coast Guard vessel and the only one on active duty that participated in WWII, albeit under another flag.
Her original German figurehead is on display at the USCGA Museum
Chase’s 1890s era eagle fitted to Eagle. She carried it from 1952-70.
In 1971, it was decided to upgrade the figurehead and preserve the historic one from the Chase. With that, a copy of Chase’s was made of fiberglass and painted gold.
The fiberglass addler
It proved less than resilient and was severely damaged in heavy seas. I mean, it’s fiberglass.
In time for the Bicentennial in 1976, the damaged figurehead was replaced with a new 12-foot long one, carved of Honduras mahogany and weighing almost a ton. Gilded in gold, it served for 45 years and was just removed at the Coast Guard Yard last month.
The figurehead of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
The new figurehead is being fitted at the USCG Yard and should be ready for sea shortly.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been testing and evaluating Diamondback Firearm’s new .22 rimfire Sidekick revolver. It has a lot of curious things going on.
First, although it looks like a .22 Single Action Army, ala the Ruger Wrangler or Heritage Rough Rider, it is actually a double-action revolver with a swing-out cylinder. Further, it is 9-shot, rather than the more often seen six-shooters. Finally, it comes with both a .22 S/L/LR cylinder and a .22WMR cylinder that can be easily swapped out.
Nice.
Best yet, the price on it looks to be in the $299 area.
Somewhere in Aden, likely the Radfan mountains area, August 1963: “Royal Marines Demonstrate Army’s new anti-tank gun,” an early model Swedish-made FFV Ordnance Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifle.
45 Commando Marine Eric Pearson, of Salford, Manchester, prepares to fire the new anti-tank gun during trials at Little Aden. IWM A 34756.
In such an environment, “Charlie G” was sure to make a dust-up when fired, and you are gonna want some goggles.
Thus:
Marine Chris Pow, of Plymouth, firing the new anti-tank gun during trials at Little Aden. IWM A 34755
The 84s in the above images were the first crop of weapon adopted by the British as the “L14, Gun, 84mm, Infantry Anti Tank Weapon,” and later standardized with the improved M2 (L14A1) model after 1970.
It remained in service– seeing action in the Falklands– with the RM and British Army, especially the Paras, well into the 1990s when they were replaced by the more potent 94mm LAW 80 and subsequently the 150mm NLAW, disposable 84mm L1A1/A2 (AT4), and Javelin.
However, images have been seen of SAS downrange with the updated M3 Carl Gustav, showing that Charlie G still exists in some circles at least.
Raoul Charles Magrin-Vernerey was born in Budapest, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1892 to French parents. Accepted to Saint-Cyr, France’s West Point, in 1912, he was rushed to graduation in August 1914 and joined the 60e régiment d’infanterie (60e RI) the day the Kaiser’s troops entered Belguim, with the rank of sous-lieutenant. Finishing the Great War as a captain, he had been wounded seven times and earned the Légion d’honneur and a whopping 11Croix de Guerre.
Carrying his wounds with him the rest of his life– including having to wear glasses due to mustard gas scarring on his eyes– Magrin-Vernerey spent the interbellum period in North Africa and the Middle East in a series of postings commanding Foreign Legion and colonial troops. Real “Waiting for the Barbarians” stuff.
By the time Hitler sent his stormtroopers into Poland, he was a colonel and was given command of a scratch unit of two light battalions termed the 13e DBLE, the now famous 13th Demi-Brigade. Fighting at Narvik, he joined the Free French after Paris surrendered and headed to Africa, using the assumed nom de Guerre of “Ralph Monclar” where he was involved in the campaign in Eritrea and elsewhere.
Finishing WWII as a Major General with three additional Croix de Guerre, Monclar volunteered to train and lead the French Bataillon de Corée to Korea in 1950, commanding the unit with the U.S. 2nd Infantry Battalion (and adding an Indian Head combat patch to his uniform) after fighting at Wonju, the Twin Tunnels, Chipyong-ni, and Heartbreak Ridge.
Raoul Magrin-Vernerey, AKA Monclar, in his progression from 1916 to 1946 to 1951
Hanging up his uniform in 1951 due to reaching the mandatory retirement age, he died in 1964 in Paris, aged 72, and is entombed at the Église du Val-de-Grâce de Paris.
USS Tucumcari (PGH-2) Makes a high-speed run in May 1971. Note the experimental twin 20mm gun mount fitted aft and the forward 40mm Bofors. USN Photo 1150501
Just 72-foot overall, the 57-ton Tucumcari could make over 40 knots on its Bristol Proteus gas turbine and really looked like a vision of the future when she arrived on the scene as witnessed by this amazing 20-minute period film:
Stricken 7 November 1973– some 48 years ago today– Tucumcari logged over 1500 “flying” hours during her brief service. Subsequently scrapped, her rival, Flagstaff, was loaned to the Coast Guard for a few years then disposed of sometime later.
Jacquinot Bay, New Britain. 1944-11-06. Members of B Company, 1st New Guinea Infantry Battalion aboard the former Hawkesbury River (New South Wales) vehicular ferry, the Frances Peat, which is to transport them to Pomio Village where the unit is to establish its headquarters. Identified personnel is company Sergeant Major Kube (with machete).
Note the machetes, Owen SMGs, No. III Lee-Enfields, dog tags, and British kit– along with not much else. Interestingly, many of the men have bicep dressings, possibly from recent inoculations. AWM Photo 076702 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/076702
One of four battalions raised in New Guinea during WWII, 1 NGIB was formed in March 1944 from a cadre that had been in the ranks as early as 1942 and soon started deploying company-sized elements in support of combat operations on Bougainville and on New Guinea, where their particular skillset was in high-demand in the thick jungle.
The unit was folded into the Royal Pacific Islands Regiment (RPIR) before being disbanded in June 1946.
Reformed in 1951 as part of the Australian Army, the RPIR became part of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) in 1975 and carried the battle honors of the old 1 NGIB on its crest. In an ode to their old task of ranging and scouting, the RPIR’s motto today is “To Find a Path.”
Sadly, I ran across this on a Hungarian military forum of all places, a venue I typically haunt to find great pictures of Central European firearms. It had no source or explanation and reverse image sources come up with nothing so I have it here for our enjoyment.
For comparison, check out this image of USS Greenfish (SS-351):
Reconnaissance scouts of the 1st Provisional Marine Air-Ground Task Force load into a rubber boat from Greenfish, a submarine of the Pacific fleet as they leave on a night mission against “enemy” installations on the island of Maui. The training afforded the Marines of the Task Force, which is based at the Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, is the most versatile offered to Marines anywhere October 7, 1954. Note the classic WWII “duck hunter” camo which had by 1954 been out of use for almost a decade except for special operations units. (Sgt D.E. Reyher DEFENSE DEPT PHOTO (MARINE CORPS) A290040.)
Great stuff, and, as ususal, if anyone has any other feedback or details, please let me know.
The naval combat in the Falklands War of 1982 was hugely influential for today’s fleets as it reinforced just how hard modern ASW is, underlined the relevance of light aircraft carriers (England was set to dispose of them before the conflict), pointed out the danger of aluminum superstructures (although this is now falling on deaf ears it seems), and highlighted the nightmare of fighting even laughable quantities of anti-ship missiles.
Another thing it did was point out that naval gunfire support for ground combat troops operating in the littoral was still very relevant.
With the British deploying two light brigades (3 Commando and 5 Guards including three Royal Marine Commando battalions, two Para battalions, and a battalion of the Scots Guards, another of the Welsh Guards, and a Gurkha battalion) to retake the islands from upwards of 10,000 Argentines, the Brits had very little in the way of organic artillery the task force was able to bring with them 8,000 miles south.
While the Argies had access to modern 155mm guns, the Brits were handicapped with only five batteries of 105mm light howitzers (three from 29 Commando and two from 4th Field Artillery) which, with a precious handful of helicopters on hand, were slow to move forward to support the front line.
For instance, in one operation against Goose Green, where the Argentines had 30 guns emplaced and well-supplied, just 12 RN Sea King sorties were allocated to move artillery forward enabling 28 British artillerymen, three guns, and 1,000 shells to stage for the battle.
Likewise, the 40 or so Harriers flying from two carriers offshore had their hands full with attempting to secure local air superiority and could divert precious few sorties to support the Marines, Paras, and Guards ashore.
That’s where the assorted 4.5-inch Mark 8 and QF Mark VI naval guns of the British task force’s eight gun-armed destroyers and nine gun-armed frigates came in.
Chilean Frigate Almirante Condell (PFG-06) working her 4.5″/45 (11.4 cm) QF Mark VI in 1999. Two Leander frigates were built by Yarrows in Scotland for the Chilean Navy during the 1970s. The twin 4.5 is of the same type mounted on two RN frigates— HMS Yarmouth and HMS Plymouth– during the Falklands, each firing about 1K rounds during the short war. U.S. Navy Photograph No. 990705-N-5862D-001.
4.5″/55 (11.4 cm) Mark 8 Mod 0 on HMS St. Albans F83. Royal Navy Photograph. The Mark 8 was fitted to most of the gun-armed British frigates and destroyers in the Falklands.
Capable of delivering a 55-pound HE shell to targets up to 18,000 yards away (24,000 for the longer Mark 8), they also had a very high rate of fire, with even the older guns capable of 12-14 rounds per minute. With these small warships (most of the frigates hit 2,500-3,250 tons while the destroyers only went about 5,000) often still able to carry 800 to 1,000 shells in their magazines and able to operate in as little as five fathoms of seawater, they were called inshore to deliver the goods.
At Goose Green, HMS Arrow (F173) fired 22 pre-dawn Mk 8 star shells and 135 rounds of 4.5-inch HE in the course of a 90-minute bombardment. She would have fired more had her gun not jammed and put her out of action.
Dubbed Operation Tornado by the Royal Navy, individual frigates and destroyers were soon dispatched on nightly gun runs to plaster Argentine positions with harassment and interdiction fire (H&I) then fall back to the relative safety of deep water during the day. In their mission, they received shot correction from buried and heavily camouflaged commando patrols from SAS and SBS as well as ANGLICO teams from 148 Battery. Slated for disbandment just before the Falklands, the 30 or so gunners and observers of 148 (Meiktila) Battery Royal Artillery proved invaluable, calling very accurate fire down on Argentine bunkers, trenches, and guns.
At first, the “strafe” would only send less than 200 rounds downrange but this would soon double and even triple, with as many as 750 shells being the norm three weeks into the campaign.
One Argentine remembered after the war:
We were very demoralized at that time because we felt so helpless. We couldn’t do anything. The English were firing at us from their frigates and we couldn’t respond.
HMS Yarmouth (F101), an older modified Type 12 frigate laid down in 1957, fired over 1,000 shells from her main guns (twin 4.5s), mostly during shore bombardment that included supporting the Scots Guards during the Battle of Mount Tumbledown.
The Royal Navy Rothesay-class frigate HMS Yarmouth (F101) underway during the Falklands War on 5 June 1982. Yarmouth´s unofficial nickname was “The Crazy Y”. CC via Wikipedia
Her sister ship, the circa-1958 HMS Plymouth (F126) fired 909 4.5 inch shells and was the first British warship to enter liberated Port Stanley harbor.
In one harassment mission of Port Stanley’s airport, the destroyer HMS Cardiff (D108) fired 277 shells.
Besides shore bombardment runs, the frigate HMS Alacrity (F174) used her 4.5-inch gun to engage and sink the 3,000-ton Argentine supply ship ARA Isla de los Estados, which blew up after a hit ignited her cargo of jet fuel and ammunition. Likewise, Yarmouth intercepted and engaged the Argentine coaster ARA Monsunen with her twin 4.5 guns west of Lively Island, driving her aground.
These offshore bombardment missions also enabled the RN to set up Mirage/Skyhawk traps by taking a Type 42 destroyer delivering NGFS ashore and adding a Type 22 frigate to it which stood a further 10-20 miles out to sea. The idea was that the Type 42’s 4.5-incher would bring out an Argentine airstrike the next morning, which would be downed by the combined Sea Dart/Sea Wolf missiles of the two warships. This was known as a Type 64 group and was credited with bagging at least two Argentine Sky Hawks.
The missions, close to shore, proved dangerous. On 12 June 1982, the destroyer HMS Glamorgan (D19) was attacked with an MM38 Exocet missile, fired from an improvised shore-based launcher just after she supported the Royal Marines’ capture of the Two Sisters hill outside of Stanley. The Exocet claimed 14 of Glamorgan’s crew.
Nonetheless, the mission continued.
The frigate HMS Ambuscade (F172), according to her war diary, fired 58 rounds in the area of Port Stanley airfield on 30 May, went back for a second run on the night of 7/8 June during which she fired 104 shells. On the night of 13 June, the frigate fired 228 4.5-inch shells in support of 2 Para’s assault of Wireless Ridge in company with fellow tin cans HMS Active (220 rounds fired) and HMS Avenger (100 rounds fired). Not bad considering Ambuscade suffered from a cracked hull and broken stabilizers throughout the war.
Sadly, the only British civilian casualties of the Falklands War came from naval bombardment, with the frigate HMS Avenger (F185) landing shells on a residence just outside Argentine-occupied Port Stanley, killing three locals and wounding several others. The forward observer had not been aware of their presence in the area and, in post-war analysis, it was found that the ships’ gun beacon MIP radar malfunctioned and was set on the wrong datum.
4.5″/55 (11.4 cm) Mark 8 Mod 0 on HMS Avenger F185 in January 1992. U.S. Navy Photograph No. DN-SC-92-04971.
In all, some 8,000 4.5-inch shells were fired by Royal Navy escorts during the two-month Falklands Islands conflict, compared to some 17,000 105mm shells lit off by the Army’s gunners. In many cases, the larger naval shells, fitted with proximity fuses that detonated them 10 yards off the deck rather than after they were buried in the soggy sub-polar moss of the Falklands landscape, were considered more effective.
Still, the lesson was learned and the Batch 3 Type 22 frigates, constructed after the Falklands, were designed to carry 4.5-inch guns whereas their preceding classmates were missile-only. Further, instead of disbanding, the elite forward observers of 148 Battery are still very much active as part of the Commando Gunners of 29 Commando.
Importantly, the Royal Navy today still mounts 4.5s on all of their frigates and destroyers– a factor the U.S. Navy, with its preference for a 57mm main gun on everything smaller than an Aegis destroyer, could probably learn from.
The Defense Department today released its annual 192-page report on military and security developments involving China, commonly referred to as the China Military Power Report.
The report provides background on China’s national strategy, foreign policy goals, economic plans and military development.
“The report provides a baseline assessment of the department’s top pacing challenge, and it charts the modernization of the PLA throughout 2020,” a defense official said Tuesday. “This includes the PLA developing the capabilities to conduct joint, long-range precision strikes across domains; increasingly sophisticated space, counterspace, and cyber capabilities; as well as the accelerating expansion of the PLA’s nuclear forces.”
A key revelation in the report are China’s advancements in its nuclear capability, including that the accelerated pace of their nuclear expansion may enable China to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027.
“The accelerating pace of the PLA’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to about 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027,” the official said. “And the report states that the PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 — exceeding the pace and the size that we projected in the 2020 China Military Power report.”
The report also reveals that China may have already established a nuclear triad, which includes the ability to launch such missiles from the air, ground and sea.
“The PRC has possibly already established a nascent ‘nuclear triad’ with the development of a nuclear-capable, air-launched ballistic missile and improvement of its ground- and sea-based nuclear capabilities,” the report reads.
New to the report this year is a section on the Chinese military’s chemical and biological research efforts. It says China has engaged in biological activities with potential dual-use applications and that this raises concerns regarding its compliance with the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The report concludes that China continues to be clear in its ambitions to be competitive with world-class military powers, the DOD official said.
“The PLA’s evolving capabilities and concepts continue to strengthen its ability to fight and win wars, to use their own phrase, against what the PRC refers to as a ‘strong enemy’ — again, another phrase that appears in their publications. And a ‘strong enemy,’ of course, is very likely a euphemism for the United States,” he said.
According to the report, a big part of China’s effort to match the strength of a “strong enemy” involves major modernization and reform efforts within China’s army. Those efforts include an ongoing effort to achieve “mechanization,” which the report describes as the Chinese army’s efforts to modernize its weapons and equipment to be networked into a “systems of systems” and to also utilize more advanced technologies suitable for “informatized” and “intelligentized” warfare.
Also of significance are China’s efforts to project military power outside it’s own borders.
“The PRC is seeking to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power at greater distances,” the DOD official said. “We’re talking about not just within the immediate environments, environments in the Indo-Pacific, but throughout the Indo-Pacific region and indeed, around the world.” The official said China’s army has sought to modernize its capabilities and improve its proficiency across all warfare domains, so that, as a joint force, it can conduct the range of land, air, and maritime operations that are envisioned in army publications, as well as in space, counterspace, electronic warfare and cyber operations.
A big takeaway is the number of naval battle force units (355 including more than 145 major surface combatants) which, for those keeping count at home, would make the PLAN the largest naval force on the planet in size although not likely in tonnage as the U.S. Navy still fields a smaller number of much larger units (10 CVNs vs 3 smaller CVs, 9 carrier-sized LHDs, 68 x ~9,000-ton Burkes and more building et. al)
The PLAN is arranged in three primary fleets, all, by nature of geography, very central to the Western Pacific
Then there is the country’s increasingly capable Rocket Force, which is all about area denial out to the Second Island Chain.
Do you see what I see?
Then the growing nuclear arsenal, which can reach all of the U.S. save for South Florida.
