While putting my kayak in at the Point in Pascagoula, I saw these three across the way at Ingalls SB’s West Bank.
(Photo by Chris Eger)
PCU USS John Basilone (DDG-122) is afloat and fitting out to the far left, with her bow forward. Meanwhile, PCU USS Delbert D. Black (DDG-119) is in the center, showing off her stern and twin helicopter hangar. To the far right, with her bridge visible between the cranes, is PCU USS Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123), which is still land-bound and nearing launch.
They are named for the famous Marine machine gun Rembrandt of Henderson Field, the first Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON) and the Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during World War I.
All three are Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the 72nd, 70th and 73rd such ships, respectively, of that huge tin can family. All are what the Navy calls “technology insertion” ships, containing elements of the Flight III ships, projected to begin with DDG-124.
Airlines and the TSA are pretty humorless when it comes to flying with guns, no matter how funny you are, but that shouldn’t keep you from flying with one in your checked bag.
As part of my job, I spent a lot of time living out of suitcases. While I prefer to drive, on trips longer than a 500nm radius of Biloxi I wind up having to catch a plane– which I abhor.
As I generally like to carry wherever I am going, something that I have done virtually every day since about 1992, this gave me lots of sour experiences with airlines and, post-9/11, TSA.
This throwback picture from 77 years ago today shows Pearl Harbor on a war footing just over a half-year after its Day That Will Live In Infamy.
It is of the fabled fleet carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6), taken 12 July 1942 off Ford Island. She would leave Pearl just three days after this image was taken to join TF 61 to support the amphibious landings in the Solomon Islands.
NH 83990
Note Grumman F4F Wildcat on barge aft alongside, also extensive anti-torpedo nets and well-camouflaged buildings on Ford Island. The slick shown in the water is likely from the battleships sunk on Dec. 7, 1941, which were being salvaged at the time.
For reference, planes from Enterprise had just a month before at the Battle of Midway attacked and disabled the Japanese carriers, Kaga and Akagi, leaving them ablaze, then followed up by doing the same to the carrier Hiryu and cruiser Mikuma. All three of the flattops had been in the attack on Pearl.
In the bonkers short video below, you see a U.S. Coast Guard Deployable Specialized Forces TACLET guy deployed on the U.S. Coast Guard Legends-class National Security Cutter Munro (WMSL 755) going for a ride on a 31-foot Long Range Interceptor “somewhere in the Eastern Pacific.”
Said Coastie makes a perfect landing on what JIATF-South calls “a self-propelled semi-submersible suspected drug smuggling vessel (SPSS)” but best just known as a Narco-Sub. The below happened June 18, 2019.
This is the SPSS when surfaced, to give a scale at just how much of the hull was below the sea:
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro (WMSL 755) crew members inspect a self-propelled semi-submersible June 19, 2019, in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. U.S. Coast Guard photo
Just two weeks after the above video was shot, crewmembers of the USCGC Mohawk (WMEC 913) and Tactical Law Enforcement Team South interdicted a second SPSS while conducting counter-trafficking operations in the Eastern Pacific.
(Coast Guard Photos)
The Coast Guard hasn’t been this busy fighting submarines since the Germans!
This bad boy is the experimental “hydrofoil sub chaser”USS High Point (PCH-1)out of the water on the West Coast going for a flight with her hull above the water.
NHHC L45-125.04.01
Built by Boeing for the Navy, she was constructed by J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corporation, Tacoma, WA and launched 17 August 1962.
The Navy’s first hydrofoil submarine chaser, USS High Point (PCH-1), nears completion at the J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corporation, Tacoma, WA. In this photograph the after foil and starboard nacelle is visible. Accession #: L45 Catalog #: L45-125.04.02
According to DANFS, the 115-foot craft was named after the North Carolina city and:
High Point is the first of a series of hydrofoil craft designed to evaluate the performance of this kind of propulsion in the modern Navy. She has three submerged foils containing propulsion nacelles and propellers and is also capable of riding on her hull like a more conventional ship. On her foils, High Point is capable of very high-speed operation and can add mobility and flexibility to America’s antisubmarine forces. The craft carried out tests in Puget Sound from 1963 through 1967.
“Flying” above the surface of Puget Sound, the United States Navy’s first patrol craft – hydrofoil, USS High Point (PCH-1), demonstrates the lift capability of her wholly submerged, wing-like foils. The submarine chased is designed for speeds in excel of 50 miles an hour (80 km-h) and, with an automatic control system closely akin to an airplane’s autopilot, provides a swift and stable platform in seas virtually as high as the length of its foil struts. July 5, 1963. Accession #: L45 Catalog #: L45-125.04.04
She later was used in testing Harpoons off her stern, which would lead to the Pegasus-class PHMs.
Nanoose, Canada – the hydrofoil submarine chaser, USS High Point (PCH-1), launches an AGM-84A harpoon anti-ship missile during a test to evaluate the prototype canister launching system on a hydrofoil platform. January 1974. Catalog #: KN-21507
The Coast Guard even utilized the vessel, then with a lot of miles on her twin Rolls Royce Proteus gas turbines, in a series of tests that ended up with a blown engine.
(428-GX-K108129) Patrol Craft, Hydrofoil, USS High Point (PCH-1) underway during a search and rescue exercise off San Francisco by JOC(AC) Warren Grass, 25 April 1975
Put in mothballs, she was stricken by the Navy in 1980 (although still used off and on for testing and not sold by MARAD until 1991) and has passed through a series of private owners over the past 40 years. Today, she is available for sale in the Portland region (Tounge Point) for what would seem to be a bargain price ($74,900).
The good news is: she floats.
The bad news is: she is an almost 60-year-old experimental craft that hasn’t operated as she was designed for most of that. While she still has her auxiliary 12V-71 450hp Detriot Diesel still installed for propulsion, it is not in working order. Also, the years have not been kind to her.
Still, if you have the dough to buy her and refurb her, she could be the world’s coolest live-aboard yacht. I would pick her up for LSOZI’s West Coast office if I had that kind of cash.
This very early Lee-Enfield India Pattern Mk 1 .303-caliber bolt action cavalry carbine was issued to Indian Volunteer Force mounted units of the era.
NAM. 1973-09-20-1
This particular specimen was produced at the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield and issued to the Assam Valley Light Horse Regiment. With its headquarters at Dibrugarh in the state of Assam, the AVLH was formed in 1891, largely from local Europeans amalgamated from four previously raised troop-sized dragoon units (the Sibsager Mounted Rifles, Darrang Mounted Rifles, Lakhimpur Mounted Rifles, and Newgong Mounted Rifles.) Some members of the unit served in the Boer Wars as part of Lumsden’s Horse.
The rifle was presented to Lt.Col. James Stenhouse Elliot, VD, in 1905 on the occasion of his retirement from the Indian forces (he is listed on the Indian Army’s reserve list with an 1879 rank date).
The good Lt.Col. Stenhouse Elliot likely took the rifle back to England with him, where it was pressed into service during WWII with the Britsh Home Guard and, in the initial stages of the formation of “Dad’s Army” it was likely one of the most modern weapons in the armory.
The first muster from the fictional Dad’s Army, which was based on the very real story of the British Home Guard
As for the AVLH, they were part of the British Indian Army’s cavalry reserve and never deployed as a unit, although members did volunteer for service in both World Wars and against the Abors in 1911-12. They were disbanded after India’s independence in 1947.
The first installment of Select Fire, the show I am hosting on Guns.com where we go around checking out cool gun stuff coast-to-coast. On this one, it is a “Guncation” where I stopped off at Machine Gun America and Tank America. It is kinda campy, but tell me what you think:
Warship Wednesday, July 10, 2019: The Slayer of Victoria
Here we see the Royal Navy’s Admiral-class early barbette-type pre-dreadnought ironclad battleship HMS Camperdown via The Engineer in 1893. A very modern ship when she was designed, she did, in fact, quickly and easily send another period battlewagon to Neptune’s cold embrace– just not as you would think.
Britain’s first barbette ships, a class that would provide the basic format for all the Victorian and Edwardian battleships right up until HMS Dreadnought broke the mold in 1906, the so-called Admiral-class vessels were, in actuality, six fairly different vessels.
While all six had roughly the same hull, running about 330 feet in length with a 68-foot beam (although even this varied a few feet between sisters), the class weighed in between 9,500 and 10,600 tons. Armor at its thickest was an impressive 18-inches of iron plate backed by another 20-inches of timber. Each had two centerline funnels and a deep (27+ foot) draft with a relatively low freeboard, a facet common on front-line capital ships of the age. Speed was 16 to 17 knots depending on the ship, which made their ram bows, popular ever since the 1866 Battle of Lissa, deadly at close quarters (more on this later!)
Each had their main armament split fore and aft with secondary and tertiary batteries arranged along the waterline in broadside while five early torpedo tubes were also carried.
A German scheme showing typical international battleships of the 1880s, with Collingwood, the nominal Admiral-class leader, shown second from the bottom right.
When it came to armament, things got wild.
Collingwood mounted two pair of 12″/25cal BL Mk V rifles
Benbow, the final ship of the class, meanwhile, mounted two single Armstrong 16.25″/30cal BL Mk I guns
Benbow, note her huge forward 16.25-incher. That’s 413mm of bore.
As for the middle four ships– Anson, Rodney, Camperdown, and Howe— they mounted four 13.5″/30 caliber (34.3 cm) Mark I “67-ton” guns, often regarded England’s first successful large breechloading naval rifle.
13.5″/30 caliber guns in barbettes of HMS ANSON, colorized by Diego Mar of Postales Navales
Capable of firing a 1,200-pound Palliser shell to 12,260 yards when at a maximum elevation of 13 degrees (!) these guns could switch to AP shells and penetrate up to 11-inches of Krupp steel at 3,000 yards or a whopping 28-inches of vertical iron plate at point blank distances.
Admiral Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Rodney pictured in 1890 with her BL 13.5-inch naval guns. Note the 47mm/40cal 3pdr Hotchkiss Mk I anti-torpedo boat gun in the foreground.
As a negative, the ship’s magazines were shallow, carrying just 81 (20 AP, 12 Palliser, 39 common and 10 shrapnel) shells per gun while a trained crew could only keep up a rate of fire of about one round every other minute. Additionally, the open barbette construction gave said crew about 30 seconds of life expectancy when exposed to a naval engagement against an opponent firing more than just spitballs and coconuts.
H.M.S. Camperdown firing big guns, William Lionel Wyllie National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection
While all six of Admirals carried a half-dozen BL 6″/26cal BL Mk IV guns as secondaries, their small batteries often varied, with Camperdown and Anson at least toting 12 57mm (6pdr) Hotchkiss Mk Is and a further 10 47mm (3pdr) Hotchkiss anti-boat guns.
Gun drill aboard Camperdown with the QF 6-pounder Nordenfelt guns
Colorized image of HMS Camperdown gunners taking cover on deck with a 6″/26 to the left and 57mm Hotchkiss to the right.
Laid down at HMs Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth on 18 December 1882, Camperdown was the only member of the class constructed there with the other five being built at Pembroke, Chatham, and Blackwall. She was, of course, the third such British warship named after the epic sea clash at Camperdown in 1797 off the coast of the Netherlands in which Admiral Adam Duncan bested the Dutch fleet under Vice Adm. Jan de Winter.
“Action off Camperdown” Stipple engraving by J. Greig after R. Dodd. Published in The Naval Chronicle, September 1800, by Bunney & Gold, London. A view representing the situation shortly before the action ended the Dutch Flagship is seen at center engaged with HMS VENERABLE, while the Dutch 64 gun ship HERCULES drifts afire across these ships’ bows. on the left is HMS MONARCH with her prize, The JUPITER NH 66179
While not very well known outside of the UK or Holland, the engagement was one of the largest of the Napoleonic era prior to Trafalgar and is a key point in British naval history.
Camperdown compared to Trafalgar and Jutland
Completed in May 1889, HMS Camperdown served first as the flag of the RN’s Mediterranean Fleet and then the Channel Fleet while passing in and out of reserve status for the first several years of her life.
By all accounts, she was a happy and proud ship during this time.
Gathering around the rum tub
Then came a fateful day in the summer of 1893.
THE TWIN-SCREW FIRST-CLASS BATTLESHIPS H.M.S CAMPERDOWN AND H.M.S. VICTORIA, from the Graphic
While in the Med on summer exercises under the eye of the Ottoman Turks, Camperdown was in close maneuvers with the rest of the line and struck the brand-new battleship HMS Victoria in broad daylight. In short, Victoria sank following a bizarre order from Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon– a career officer with some 45 years at sea under his belt– to perform a difficult turning order at close range to Camperdown which brought his flagship in collision to Camperdown, the latter of which flew the flag of Tyron’s second-in-command, Rear Admiral Sir Albert Markham.
HMS Camperdown ramming HMS Victoria, Thursday, June 22nd, 1893 off Tripoli. The image shows HMS Victoria (1888) in a collision with the Admiral Class battleship, HMS Camperdown (1885) during close maneuvers on the 22nd June 1893 off the coast at Tripoli in Lebanon by Reginald Graham Gregory. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
The sinking of HMS Victoria by HMS Camperdown after Victoria was rammed during a fleet exercise.
The collision of the HMS Victoria and HMS Camperdown 8 July 1893 Le Petit Journal
Tyron was last seen on the bridge of Victoria, as she sank with the loss of over 350 men in something like 13 minutes, largely due to the fact that most of the ship’s hatches were open on the hot summer day in the Med. Tyron’s last words were said to be, “It is entirely my fault.” An RN inquiry into the affair was happy to let Tyron carry the blame.
In true Victorian gothic fashion, the good Admiral’s ghost is said to have appeared that night, to friends attending a party thrown by his wife back in London.
As for Camperdown, her bow ram was almost pulled completely off when she backed out of the sinking Victoria just before that stricken ship capsized, only narrowly missing joining her on the seafloor.
Damaged HMS Camperdown’s bow after collision with HMS Victoria, via Wiki
Camperdown diver suits up for hull checks, from the Army and Navy Illustrated, May 1896. Several images of this diver in harbor operations were immortalized in a series of collectible Tuck Cards
After extensive repairs, Camperdown returned to the Med where she was part of the six-power International Squadron in 1897 that was involved in what was termed the “Cretan Intervention” which ultimately led to the semi-independent Cretan State (before that island was annexed by Greece), separated from Ottoman rule.
International Squadron bombarding Chania, 21 February 1897. B. F. Gribble, from a sketch by a British officer published in The Graphic via Wikimedia Commons
The squadron included not only British ships but those sent by the Kaisers of Austro-Hungary and Germany as well as the French Republic, Royal Italian Navy and units sent by the Tsar. Camperdown, as well as other vessels of the task force, engaged insurgents ashore and landed armed tars and Royal Marines to mop up.
The gunboat diplomacy was to be Camperdown‘s swan song.
Camperdown June 1898 still in her white scheme, just before she would enter the reserve
After but 10 years with the fleet, by September 1899 she was in reserve and would spend the next decade alternating between mothballs and service as a coast guard vessel and submarine tender at Harwick. During this period, she carried a haze gray scheme, her days as a flagship long gone. Notably, she also carried a second mast.
Camperdown is shown with a flotilla of early C-class boats between 1908 and 1911 with, C5 (inboard aft), C2 and C6 in the after trot with C7, C8, and C9 in the forward trot. HM submarine C2, the middle boat in the after trot, bears the number C32 Via Pbenyon http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/RN/Photos/Camperdown_and_C-class_boats.html
She would be sold in 1911 for her value in scrap, a fate shared by all five of her sisters before her. Camperdown was just 22 years old but was hopelessly obsolete.
Her name would be reissued to HMS Camperdown (D32), a Battle-class destroyer commissioned on 18 June 1945.
In a twist of fate, in 1953, at Plymouth, this subsequent Camperdown was accidentally rammed by the former Flower-class corvette HMS Coreopsis (K32), the latter of which was owned by Ealing Studios at the time and was being used as a floating set for the British WWII film “The Cruel Sea.” Unlike the 1889 crack-up, both Camperdown and Coreopsis survived the encounter.
Since D32 was sold for scrap in 1970, the RN has not issued the “Camperdown” name to any other vessel.
As for the original Camperdown‘s tragic victim, HMS Victoria stands famously upright off the Lebanon coast today, with her bow stuck in the seafloor. She is a very popular wreck for skin divers.
Specs:
Displacement: 10,600 long tons
Length: 330 ft
Beam: 68 ft 6 in
Draught: 27 ft 10 in
Propulsion:
2 3-cyl Maudslay coal-fired steam engines, 12 cylindrical boilers, twin screws
11,500 indicated horsepower at a forced draught
Speed:
17.4-knots, maximum
Range: 7,000nm at 10 knots with 1,200 tons coal
Complement: 530
Armament:
4 x 13.5″/30 caliber (34.3 cm) Mark I “67-ton” guns
6 x BL 6″/26cal BL Mk IV guns
12 x 6-pounder (57 mm) Hotchkiss guns
10 x 3-pounder (47 mm) Hotchkiss guns
5 × 356mm tubes for Whitehead 14-inch torpedos
1 x very deadly bow ram
Armour:
Compound Belt: 18–8 in (457–203 mm) with 178mm timber backing
Bulkheads: 16–7 in (406–178 mm)
Barbettes: 11.5–10 in (292–254 mm)
Conning Tower: 12–2 in (305–51 mm)
Deck: 3–2 in (76–51 mm)
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While in Pascagoula a few days ago, I spotted this familiar old girl in the shallow waters of the muddy Pascagoula River along Ingalls SB’s West Bank.
(Photo: Chris Eger)
Note her Union Jack on the bow, which was only recently raised a couple of weeks ago.
About that…
Commissioned at Bath in 1995, USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) carries the nickname of “Fightin’ Fitz” and recently made international news when, on 17 June 2017, the destroyer was involved in a collision some 50 miles off Japan with the 40,000-ton Philippine-flagged container ship MV ACX Crystal. The encounter damaged the ship, killed seven of her crew were killed– lost in a flooded berthing compartment in the predawn collision– and left a number seriously injured. With her hull open to the sea, swift and effective damage control by her crew saved the vessel.
Fitz has since been in Pascagoula for the past 18 months undergoing a $400~ million repair/refit.
Three weeks ago, at morning colors on June 17, 2019, her crew unveiled a commemorative flag honoring the Sailors who died in a collision in the Sea of Japan two years ago. In addition, the National Ensign and Union Jack were raised on the ship for the first time since November 2017.
From the Navy’s presser:
Designed by current crewmembers, the flag memorializes their seven fallen shipmates. The flag is blue with “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP” emblazoned above the names of the seven Sailors. The motto is a common Navy phrase, but all Fitzgerald Sailors embodied that spirit on June 17, 2017, when they fought significant flooding and structural damage following the collision.
190617-N-BR740-1106 PASCAGOULA, Miss. (June 17, 2019) The crew of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) unveiled a commemorative flag June 17, 2019, during a remembrance ceremony honoring the Sailors who died in a collision in the Sea of Japan on June 17, 2017. The flag, designed by current crew members, is blue with “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP” emblazoned above the names of the seven Sailors. (U.S. Navy photo by Samantha Crane/Released)
“I am proud of this flag and proud of our shipmates who helped design it, as it is a product of respect and professionalism that symbolizes their great service and sacrifice,” said CDR Garrett Miller, Fitzgerald commanding officer, who unfurled the commemorative flag for the first time.
“Fitzgerald’s crew designed this flag from scratch as a way to embody those shipmates we lost,” said Cmdr. Scott Wilbur, Fitzgerald’s executive officer. “It will be flown every year on 17 June to honor them and to never forget their sacrifice. The current crew continues to live out that motto while bringing the ship back to the Fleet.”
Burt Reynolds was, of course, a guy’s guy. Besides his prep and college (FSU) athletic career and work on the large and small screen, he was also an avid hunter and firearms collector. As his father was the Chief of Police of Riviera Beach, Florida while he was a youth, Burt no doubt felt a sort of kinship to cop roles, especially those set in the South, and in 1989-90 he played a retired New Orleans PD detective turned Florida houseboat-residing private detective B.L. Stryker for two seasons.
While it was not his best acting, he apparently really dug the guns from the show as he kept the S&W Model 10 .38 special that was used on camera in his “B.L” role until he died and it was later sold at an estate sale, reportedly in unfired condition.
The Stryker Smith
Notably, the Smith was without the on-screen holster used by Reynolds.
That, according to auctioneers, went on to be used in his real life to carry his EDC wheelgun around his Florida homestead. It was an old-school 1970s-era carbon steel round-butt Rossi .38 that had its 4-inch barrel chopped to 2.75-inches and a new sight added.
It has a lot of honest wear.
I have a couple of these old (pre-Taurus) Rossis and will vouch that they are reliable. When talking recently with a friend of mine who cut his teeth in the Brazilain Army’s mountain troops, he also stood by those old Smith-pattern Rossis.
Sold by Julien’s Auctions, it is now on the market again (for $4K), with the verbose tag that “Every day Burt carried this Rossi concealed, where he knew if required he could draw and defend himself from any crazed maniac or other threat.”
Note the BL Stryker cocoa basketweave special…waste not, want not.
