Mighty Mo and O’Ryan’s Roughnecks: Hail, Hail, the Gang’s all here

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The original caption of this Underwood and Underwood news service photo received 3 May 1919:

U.S.S. Missouri steaming into her berth at Hoboken with last of 27th Division, namely the 106th Machine Gun Battalion. Red Cross women at left nearest the river’s bank are waiting for the ship to dock so as to distribute delicacies to the men, a regimental band playing, “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s all here,” and shows the men getting their first eyeful at the rail of the ship, of New York and the skyline of the city with the Metropolitan tower in bold relief against the eastern sky.”

War Department Archives, LOC 165-WW-138A-119

USS Missouri (BB-11), was the middle child in the three-ship Maine-class of pre-dreadnoughts ordered during the Spanish-American War. Commissioned 1 December 1903, she was obsolete just three years after she joined the fleet. A veteran of the circumnavigating Great White Fleet, she would spend most of her career alternating between ordinary and training cruises. Speaking of which, her Great War experience was spent in the Chesapeake, schooling new gunners and firemen. Once the war ended, she transitioned to what would have been termed “Magic Carpet” duty in the next World War, shuttling back and forth to Europe to bring 3,278 Doughboys back from “Over There” across four runs.

She would decommission 8 September 1919, at the ripe old age of 16 years old, and be sold for scrap three years later to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. Her name would be recycled in the 1940s for a “fast battleship” that you may have heard of.

As for the 27th ID, the Division was formed from NY Army National Guard units in 1917 and put under the command of Maj. Gen. John F. O’Ryan, an NYC attorney and politician who later went on to be Fiorello LaGuardia’s Police Commissioner. “O’Ryan’s Roughnecks” arrived at Brest, France, 10 May 1918 and by July were in action, seeing heavy losses along the St. Quentin Canal before going on to break the Hindenburg Line.

After WWII service in the Pacific from Makin Atoll to Okinawa, the 27th was later downgraded to an infantry brigade in 1986, the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (“Empire”) of the NYANG, and has recently seen action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dobrat’sya do Berlina!

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On 2 May 1945, Red Army photographer Yevgeny Khaldei snapped the famous image of a Soviet frontovik raising the Red flag over the ruins of the German Reichstag in Berlin.

The Victory Banner over Reichstag, Berlin. May 1, 1945.  

At 0832 that morning, the commander of Berlin’s garrison, Gen. Helmuth Weidling, signed the city’s formal surrender order at the headquarters of Gen. Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army.

To the West of Berlin on the same day, Gen. von Manteuffel, commander of the III Panzer Army along with Gen. von Tippelskirch, commander of the XXI Army, surrendered to the U.S. Army.

While there would be holdouts for the next several weeks, especially against the Soviets advancing in Czechoslovakia and in Yugoslavia, VE-Day would come just five days later and the opening moves of the Cold War would begin by default.

But on 2 May 1945, the Soviets, and the rest of the Allies, were ecstatic.

Which brings us to this propaganda poster, “All hail the Red Army” by Leonid Golovanov, issued in the Spring of 1945.

If you note, the Ivan featured is highly decorated and has a poster behind him on the scarred wall.

Golovanov had crafted that earlier image as well, in the dark days of the Axis advance into Russia in 1942.

The caption, showing the younger soldier stepping into his boots, reads, (Dobrat’sya do Berlina) Reach Berlin!

Welcome (back), M16A4

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The humble original M16 was originally Armalite’s AR-15, and was first ordered for military service with a contract issued to Colt Firearms in May 1962 for the purchase of early Model 01 rifles to be used by Air Force Security Police.

Note, these guns had waffle-pattern 20-round mags, no forward assist, a thin 1:14 twist barrel, and the early three-prong flash hider.

Fast forward to the XM16E1, which became the M16A1 in 1967, and you started to come closer to the standard Army/Marine rifle used in Vietnam and throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. It used a forward assist and a 1:12 twist barrel.

By 1983, the M16A2 came about, it had a thicker barrel in front of the front sight, a modified flash suppressor (closed on bottom), a new polymer buttstock (lighter and stronger), faster barrel twist (from 1:12 to 1:7), and a spent case deflector for left-hand users. Considered downright vintage by the Army and Marines, the Navy still sports them these days.

M16A2- check
M9 in drop leg holster- check
Body armor- um, about that……

By 1998, the M16A4 was in play, primarily for the Marines, which had a removable carry handle, a Picatinny top rail to allow for optics, short rails on the handguard for accessories, and a 20-inch barrel with a 1:7 RH twist rate.

Note the size difference between the compact M4 Carbine, top, and the full-length M16A4 rifle, bottom. (Photos: Department of Defense)

Since the GWOT kicked off in 2002, the big shift over the years has been to move from the full-length M16 family to the more compact M4/M4A1 carbine, with its collapsible rear stock and stubby 14-inch barrel, leaving the increasingly old-school style rifle as something of a relic today. Heck, the Army for the past couple years has been very actively working on replacing their 5.56 NATO rifles and SAWs with a new 6.8mm weapon. 

Now jump to 2020, and the M16A4 is now apparently the Army’s designated rifle for Foreign Military Sales to equip overseas allies in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Nepal.

Colt and FN are competing in a contract to supply as much as $383 million smackers worth of M16A4s by 2025.

More in my column at Guns.com. 

Navy goes FREMM for FF(X), or, Why FFG-62 Smells Like Spaghetti-Os

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The great FF(X) competition is over and the assorted conglomerates have been weighed and measured.

The losers: Austal USA, GDBIW/Navantia, and Huntington Ingalls.

The winner: Fincantieri Marinette Marine with a version of their popular FREMM (Fregata Europea Multi-Missione) frigate, already in service with Italy, France, Morocco, and Egypt. That alone should help pave the way to a fully-fleshed out warship with few teething problems while having the bonus ability to more easily interact with those overseas allies while underway.

200430-N-NO101-150. WASHINGTON (April 30, 2020) An artist rendering of the guided-missile frigate FFG(X). The new small surface combatant will have the multi-mission capability to conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare, and information operations. (U.S. Navy graphic/Released)

The lead ship will cost $1.281 billion, with $795 million of that covering the shipbuilder’s detail design and construction costs and the rest covering the GFE, including the combat systems, radar, launchers, command and control systems, decoys and more. For the rest of the class, the total ship cost pegged at $781 million. The Navy plans to build 20 ships as part of the future frigate program.

For comparison, the Oliver Hazard Perry-class FFGs cost $122 million a pop in 1977, a figure that adjusts to something like $520 million today.

Fincantieri will build the new frigate in Wisconsin at its Marinette shipyard, which in the past has had good luck with the Coast Guard’s freshwater icebreaker, the service’s Juniper-class 225-foot ocean-going buoy tenders, a few fleet tugs, and Avenger-class minesweepers as well as (grrr) all of the Freedom-class littoral combat ships. Going further back, they used to be part of Manitowoc, which built submarines back in WWII.

The cool thing about the FREMM frigates is that they are super flexible, with Fincantieri having pitched a variety of hulls specialized towards ASW, another that was a land-attack variant, and a third general-purpose variant. The U.S. Navy’s version seems to be focused on the latter, with enough of a combat suite to survive in a warzone– something the LCS just can’t do.

Notably, FFG-62 will be the smallest U.S. Navy hull with AEGIS. Ever.

FFG(X) will include an Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) radar, Baseline Ten (BL10) AEGIS Combat System, a 32-cell Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS), communications systems, MK 57 Gun Weapon System, a battery of 16 Naval Strike missiles and a RAM system for point defense. The CODLAG plant will supposedly produce the same amount of electrical power as a Flight III DDG, which is good for future systems.

Personally, I’d like to see a 5-inch gun rather than the 57mm piece, which is apparently the Navy/Coast Guard answer to anything smaller than a destroyer, and a sharper focus on ASW, because it seems no one is doing that these days. but then again the Navy isn’t building them for me. The Italian and French models have both a Thales bow and towed sonar as well as a mine-avoidance sonar by Leonardo while it looks like the FFG-62 will only have a towed array (if that).

Maybe the Navy will be successful in turning the LCS into a subchaser at some point.

Anyway, the award announcement, for the record:

Marinette Marine Corp., Marinette, Wisconsin, is awarded a $795,116,483 fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract for detail design and construction (DD&C) of the FFG(X) class of guided-missile frigates, with additional firm-fixed-price and cost reimbursement line items.  The contract with options will provide for the delivery of up to 10 FFG(X) ships, post-delivery availability support, engineering and class services, crew familiarization, training equipment and provisioned item orders.  If all options are exercised, the cumulative value of this contract will be $5,576,105,441.  Work will be performed at multiple locations, including Marinette, Wisconsin (52%); Boston, Massachusetts (10%); Crozet, Virginia (8%); New Orleans, Louisiana (7%); New York, New York (6%); Washington, D.C. (6%), Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin (3%), Prussia, Pennsylvania (3%), Minneapolis, Minnesota (2%); Cincinnati, Ohio (1%); Atlanta, Georgia (1%); and Chicago, Illinois (1%).  The base contract includes the DD&C of the first FFG(X) ship and separately priced options for nine additional ships.  The FFG(X) will have the multi-mission capability to conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and electronic warfare and information operations.  FFG(X) represents the evolution of the Navy’s small surface combatant, with increased lethality, survivability, and improved capability to support the National Defense Strategy across the full range of military operations in the current security environment.  Work is expected to be complete by May 2035, if all options are exercised.  Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $795,116,483 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website and four offers were received.  The Navy conducted this competition using a tradeoff process to determine the proposal representing the best value, based on the evaluation of non-price factors in conjunction with price.  The Navy made the best value determination by considering the relative importance of evaluation factors as set forth in the solicitation, where the non-price factors of design and design maturity and objective performance (to achieve warfighting capability) were approximately equal and each more important than remaining factors.  The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-20-C-2300).

Happy Facial Hair Friday

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If you are like me, you may be looking a bit between a caveman and Ted Kaczynski these days, and with that in mind:

Tonkin Gulf Beard Contest Winner, EN James I. Hart, USN, has his beard measured by a Vietnamese refugee white other refugees look on during their “Passage to Freedom” from Haiphong to Saigon, South Vietnam, 1954. 

NARA Catalog #: 80-G-709245

Speaking of facial hair, I have been tapped for the American Suppressor Association’s “Silencer Stache” contest, which starts today. More info to come on that.

Last minutes of Saigon, 45 Years Ago today

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29 April 1975: As NVA tanks were moving into the city, the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam, Graham Martin, sent the below telegram to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, at the White House, during the evacuation of Saigon during the Vietnam War.

This primary source comes from the Collection GRF-0330: Backchannel Messages (Ford Administration). National Archives Identifier: 7367441

Martin states that he is, “well aware of the danger here tomorrow and I want to get out tonight.” He asks that the President send an order to finish the job quickly, evacuating the rest of the Americans and their children.

The American Ambassador to Vietnam resisted limiting the evacuation to Americans, as 10,000 locals were crowding the compound’s gates. In this cable he asks repeatedly for 30 CH-53 Sea Stallions:

“Perhaps you can tell me how to make some of these Americans abandon their half Vietnamese children?”

The helicopters did come, shuttling away the non-combatants all night. In all, some 7,000 people, mostly newly homeless refugees of the now-former South Vietnam, were airlifted from the Embassy complex by the Marines and from a series of other sites around Siagon by CIA-front company Air America.

A CH-46D, Swift 2-2, of HMM-164 lifted off with Marine detachment commander Major James Kean and the 10 remaining Marine Security Guards, leaving at 07:53 on 30 April. Just 37 minutes later Swift 2-2 landed on USS Okinawa (LPH-3) just offshore.

The last members of the Marine Security Guard land on USS Okinawa USMC Photo by GySgt Russ Thurman 

By noon, NVA regulars were in possession of the abandoned former U.S. Embassy. A mix of about 350 loyal Vietnamese employees and South Korean citizens still awaited a rescue that would not come.

The remains of MSG detachment 21-year-old Corporal Charles MCMAHON, Jr, 023 42 16 37, USMC; and 19-year-old Lance Corporal Darwin L. JUDGE, 479 70 89 99, USMC; killed on 29 April by an NVA rocket attack at the Tan Son Nut Airport, were, unfortunately, left behind during the withdrawal. They were later recovered via diplomatic means in 1976 and buried with full military honors.

Maj. Kean’s after-action report is available, here. 

An 8-pound pistol

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So for the past few weeks, I have been fooling around with a T&E DB15 pistol. Featuring a 7-inch barrel, it is a fairly compact blaster and I have to admit that the KAK Flash Can and Gearhead Works Tailhook is growing on me.

While right out of the box, the 23-inch long 5.56 NATO handgun weighs just 4.53-pounds, I have added a Sig Sauer Romeo 5 red dot, a 600-lumen Streamlight and a Magpul D60 drum to it, bringing its loaded all-up weight with spare batteries (in the MOE grip) and boolits of 8.7-pounds.

Nice. For reference, the total cost as shown with all accessories is still under $1K. 

More in my column at Guns.com. 

Dragons Headed to Pikit, 75 years ago today

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An LCI landing craft carries troops of Company I, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry “Victory” Division up the Mindanao River for the assault on Fort Pikit, Philippines, 30 April 1945.

U.S. Signal Corps photo 207688, via NARA

An old Spanish provincial post established in 1893 overlooking the Pulangi River, the small bastioned stone masonry fort was occupied by U.S. troops in 1898, relieving a 65-man Spanish garrison, then handed the site over to the Philippine Constabulary in the 1920s.

The Japanese Imperial Army took over Fort Pikit in 1942 but abandoned it in poor condition in April 1945 before withdrawing into Eastern Mindanao. In 2012, the installation was declared a National Historic Landmark.

As for the 34th Inf Rgt, they were a standing regular Army unit since 1916 and on the eve of the Japanese attack on the Philipines, they were ordered to reinforce the archipelago. Still waiting to embark for the PI on 7 December 1941 at San Francisco, they were instead diverted to Hawaii where they were assigned to defend Oahu until 1943 when made a backbone unit of the reforming 24th Inf Div.

Landing at Hollandia and Biak in New Guinea in 1944, they were in the thick of things in the liberation of the Philipines from October 1944 onward, hitting Red Beach with the first wave and earning the nickname, “Leyte Dragons.” Three of the regiment’s soldiers would receive the MoH (posthumously) for their actions on Leyte. The unit would continue mopping up operations against Japanese holdouts from the central Mindanao jungles into October 1945. The unit would receive the Presidential Unit Citation.

After Occupation Duty in Japan, men of the 34th were one of the first units rushed to South Korea when the balloon went up there and the first U.S. casualty in that forgotten conflict is often thought to be the 34th’s Pvt. Kenneth R. Shadrick, killed in action 5 July 1950, south of Osan.

Korean Conflict. Men of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division, covering up behind rocks to shield themselves from exploding mortar shells, near the Hantan River in central Korea. 11 April 1951 LOC LC-USZ62-72424

Warship Wednesday, April 29, 2020: Faithful Battlewagon of the Three Crowns

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, April 29, 2020: Faithful Battlewagon of the Three Crowns

This photo and almost all of the imagery in this post, courtesy of the Swedish Sjöhistoriska museets, with Swedish captions intact.

Here we see the pansarbarten/pansarskepp HMS Svea, the leader of Sweden’s first class of large armored vessels, chilling in Goteborg around 1890. A tough little steel-hulled and sheathed surface combatant, she was a turning point in Stockholm’s naval policy and went on to live a longer life than most of her period contemporaries.

Just after Swedish-born engineer John Ericsson had introduced the ironclad turret warship in 1862 when he lent his genius to the USS Monitor, his homeland soon ordered two classes of iron-hulled coastal monitors to counter Baltic Sea rival, Imperial Russia, as the Tsar was upgrading his own fleet with American-designed monitors. However, by the 1880s, those aforementioned vessels were almost considered quaint by rapidly evolving naval technology.

To reboot their fleet from the first-generation ironclads to steel warships, the Swedes in 1883 placed an order for the 248-foot Svea for 1.24 million krona.

Built of good Swedish Motala Bessemer steel, the 3,050-ton vessel was outfitted with early compound carbon steel armor, her belt running upwards of 11-inches thick down to 2-inches over the deck. Essentially a slow protected cruiser or coastal battleship of about 3,300-tons, she could make 14-knots on her steam plant (she made 16 on trials) and float in 17 feet of water. American military almanacs of the time classified her as a “first-class ironclad” despite her steel coat.

Sammanställningsritning, profil samt 2 st planritningar på trossdäck KR 2775

Her main armament was a pair of British-made Elswick/Woolwich 10″/32cal m/1885 guns (as carried by the modernized RN ironclad HMS Thunderer) in a forward turret backed up by a quartet of 5.9-inch Armstrong-produced singles, several smaller Nordenfelt/Palmcrantz anti-torpedo boat guns, and a single 15-inch torpedo tube in her bow, described in naval journals of the time as an “appliance for firing mines.” Speaking of the latter, she also carried a pair of steam launches with spar torpedoes, a common tactic for the 1880s.

Electrically-lit in her interior spaces by 132 16-candle Ericson incandescent lamps, she also carried a battery of searchlights topside powered by a 3-cylinder 140-amp steam-driven dynamo. Her hull was divided into 194 watertight cells below deck, lined with cork. Unlike the monitors, she had higher freeboard and greater seaworthiness.

A proper warship.

Pansarbåten Svea by Jacob Haag. OB 530

Laid down at the Lindholmen works in Goteborg, Svea was completed on 20 August 1886 and joined the Swedish fleet. She was equal to or superior, for instance, to the American protected cruiser USS Atlanta (3200 tons, 2×8-inch guns, 2-inches armor, 16.3 knots), German Siegfried-class coastal battleships (3500-tons, 3×9.4-inch guns, 9.4-inches armor, 14-knots) and the Russian cruiser Vladimir Monomakh (5500-tons, 4×8-inch guns, 9-inches armor, 15.2-knots), steel warships completed at around the same time as she was.

Pansarbåten Svea, pre 1905. Fo88709A

Notably, Svea was followed by a pair of somewhat half-sisters, HMS Göta and HMS Thule, who had better armor–steel plate provided both by the French firm of Schneider-Creusot and Germany’s Krupp– as well as upgraded m/1889A series 10-inch guns, more numerous torpedo tubes, and more powerful engines as they weighed some 300-tons heavier.

These were the first installment of a series of similar pansarskepp vessels that Sweden would field by the end of 1918 that would see a total of 15 ships across five evolutionary classes, each slightly more improved than the last. The type would prove the backbone of the Baltic country’s fleet for more than 70 years, with the last pansarskepp only removed from the battleline in the 1950s.

Together, Svea and her sisters, which were completed by 1893, were a powerful trio for the Swedish Navy and would remain the strongest units of the Flottan for a decade. The three follow-on Oden-class pansarskepp-type coastal defense ships (3445-tons, 2-10inch guns, 9.5-inches armor, 16.5-knots) which were completed in 1899 were only complementary, not much superior.

Pansarbåt class at play: Gota, Thule, and Svea. O 08236

By 1900, the Svea-class ships were far from elderly but naval technology had passed them by. But if you think the Swedes were going to toss these low-mileage ships in the scrapyard, you have another thing coming.

Pansarbåten Svea och en kanonbåt TEKA0010987

Over the next four years, the Svea class were taken out of service and completely rebuilt with new engines and electrical systems and newer armament, which changed their profile. Gone were the 1880s BL 10-inch guns, replaced with a single 8.2″/45 m/98 gun made by Bofors Gallspanz, as used by the new four-ship Äran-class pansarskepps. The old guns were recycled as coastal artillery, installed at the inlet to the big naval base at Karlskrona, where they remained in service until the 1930s.

Likewise, the old stubby Armstrong 5.9-inch guns were deleted in place of seven new 6″/45 mounts.

A great shot of her stern post-1900 6-inch mount. Also, note the German-style uniforms and the 57mm 6-pounder in the superstructure over the big gun. (Swedish caption: Gåva av Otto von Fieandt. Pansarbåten Svea 1910. MM11661 85)

Of note, the reconstruction of the three Sveas cost an estimated £275,000, roughly the price of each individual Aran-class ship, a comparative bargain.

For reference, here is the Svea-class entry from the 1914 edition of Janes where they are listed as “coast service battleships.”

During the same period the Sveas were upgrading, Sweden also rebuilt 11 of their remaining 1860s-era ironclad monitors, rearmed them with more modern 4.7-inch guns, and retained even those dinosaurs through the Great War.

Pansarbåten Svea. Aug. 1911. Note her 8-inch Bofors gun forward and 6-inchers rear and sides. Note she also has a pair of military masts rather than her original single main mast. As noted by Alex M:  the two masts for the 1911 refit are for the Telefunken wireless telegraph system that Sweden adopted for its fleet in 1909-10. More on telecom upgrades a century or more ago: https://bit.ly/2WifWB2. UMFA53278 0540

Speaking of the Great War, with the increase in Sweden’s military spending as a result of the country’s Neutralitesvakten armed neutrality– which saw a series of extensive minefields sown on the Oresund and war dead from Jutland wash up on her shores– the old Svea became a barracks and gunnery training ship in 1915. For this task, her armament was augmented by eleven 57mm guns.

By 1921, with the war in the rearview and the Russians, the country’s perceived greatest threat, left with a dysfunctional fleet in the Baltic for the next decade at least, the surplus Svea was converted for use as a submarine tender, a role she would fill for the next two decades.

This conversion reduced her engineering suite and her armament, which changed her profile again as she went down to a single mast and stack after 1929. As with her previously-removed 10-inch guns in 1900, her 6″/45s went to shoreside emplacements on Stockholm’s Galärvarvskyrkogården Island.

Former Swedish coastal battleship Svea, converted to submarine depot ship July 1929. German Bundesarchiv Bild 102-08152

Svea med ubåtar vid Östra brobänken på Skeppsholmen. Valen närmast Svea sedan Springaren, Nordkaparen och Delfinen. Fo112121A

Swedish submarine Valen, torpedo boat Vega, and three Bavern-class submarines alongside the tender Svea. The destroyer Wachmeister is in the distance. NHHC NH 88434

1930, Karlskronavarvet: submarine depot ship Svea submarines Valen, Walrossen, Gripen, Illern and Uttern Via https://digitaltmuseum.org/021176011511

By 1928, both of Svea’s sisterships were taken out of service and hulked, with Thule expended in gunnery tests.

Ouch, so much for 1890s Krupp armor. (Swedish caption) Före detta pansarbåten THULE som skjutmål

Nonetheless, this still left the Swedes with a dozen relatively younger “bathtub battleships” of which some would be modernized to provide floating muscle for the country’s new navy, which would be centered around modern fast cruisers and hyper-fast Italian-designed torpedo boats. But I digress.

In 1932, Svea’s legacy armament was removed altogether and replaced with two 40mm AAA guns, but she continued to plug on.

Logementsfartyget Svea i Kustflottaan late in career

SVEA Swedish submarine tender, ex-battleship photograph dated 1936 NH 88425

Shown in the distinctive Swedish war stripes during WWII. (Swedish caption: Depåfartyget Svea utgår ur Kustflottan den 7 Oct. 1941. Fo88710A)

She looked not unlike the rest of the Swedish fleet at the time.

1943-45. The brand new coastal destroyer J29 HMS Mode (J29) leads the armored division (pansarbåtsdivisionen) in an archipelago trail. In addition to Mode, we see the Sverigeskeppen pansarskeppen HMS Sverige, HMS Drottning Victoria, and HMS Gustaf V. Three more destroyers follow after that.

Still serving in the first part of World War II, she was only decommissioned in late 1941 and scrapped in 1944 after further use as a hulk.

Today, numerous relics of Svea still exist in museums across Sweden and she is remembered in period maritime art.

Svea. pansarbåt Foto Karl Karlsson Karlskrona G Fo195559

Finally, on Galärvarvskyrkogården, her 1900s-era searchlights and 6-inch guns are well preserved.

It probably helped that they were still used and maintained by the Navy’s coastal artillery branch up until the 1980s.

Specs:

Halvmodell av trä förställande pansarbåten SVEA O 11419

Displacement: 3,050 tons (1888)
Length: 248 ft.
Beam: 48 ft.
Draft: 17 ft.
Engineering: 6 boilers, 2 HTE, 2 screws, 3640 ihp
Speed: 14 knots designed, 16 on trials. 830 nm range on 200 tons coal
Crew: 237
Armor:
2-inch deck
4-inch hoists
7-inch forward turret
8 to 11.75-inches Belt
10.5-inches Conning Tower
Armament:
(1888)
1 x 2 Woolwich 254/32 m/1885
4 x 1 Armstrong 152/25 m/1883
1 x 2 Nordenfelt QF 37/34 m/1884
4 x 4 Palmcrantz 25/32 m/1877
1 x 1 Palmcrantz 12/75 m/1875
1 x 381mm Whitehead bow torpedo tube
(1900)
1 x Bofors 8.2″/45
7 x 6″/45
11 x 6-pounders
2 x 1-pounders
1 x 450mm bow torpedo tube
(1921)
4 x 120/45 Bofors
2 x 57/21
(1932)
2 x 40mm AAA

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Apache Junction

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Back at the hottest part of the Iran-Iraq Tanker War in 1987-89, Operation Prime Chance saw Army SOAR Little Birds and OH-58s deploying from FFGs as well as two leased Brown & Root crane barges dubbed Mobile Sea Base Hercules and Mobile Sea Base Wimbrown 7. Set-up in the Northern Persian Gulf, the latter supported eight MkIII 65-foot patrol boats and an array of Army AH-64D Longbow Apaches, Navy Seahawks for C-SAR while they were protected by Marine air defense units to pop interloping low-flying tangos.

An aerial view of the leased barge Hercules with three PB Mark III patrol boats and the tugboat Mister John H tied up alongside. The barge is part of Operation Prime Chance, supporting U.S. Navy efforts to provide security for U.S.-flagged shipping in the Persian Gulf. 1 January 1989 Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Smith DNST8908773

Fast forward to 2020 and the concept is fully fleshed out some 30 years later with the 78,000-ton purposely-built expeditionary mobile base vessels of the USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3) class.

USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3) employs a flight deck for helicopter operations. ESB 3 is able to carry at least four MH-53E helicopters or five Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit Military Vans and still have room to maneuver and store other equipment.

Puller has a dozen weapon stations (think M2 .50 cals) to protect against small boats, and the ability to support at least four CH-53-sized helicopters and 300 mission crew.

Recently, Puller showcased Task Force Saber, an Army AH-64 unit, which caused a lot of interest from Iranian Revolutionary Guard guys last week.

Official caption: Soldiers of Task Force Saber conduct rotary-wing deck landing operations with the U.S. Navy onboard the USS Lewis B. Puller in the Persian Gulf April 15-16, 2020. Task Force Saber utilized the USS Puller as a maritime base to practice launching rotary-wing assets. (U.S. Army video by Sgt. Trevor Cullen):

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