Beware of an old man in a profession where one usually dies young..
That 40mm M79 Bloop Gun, though…known in Australian service lovingly as “The Wombat Gun” and the plot device to at least one Gus Hasford novel about Vietnam.
CBP takes delivery of first of 52 Coastal Interceptor Vessels
Last year Safe Boats International announced the award of a contract for a fleet of 52 boats to replace the agency’s aging 42-foot Invincible-class Miami Vice style cigarette boat style interceptors.
SBI’s 41 Center Console-Offshore craft design, which uses a 41 ft (12.5 m) deep-V aluminum monohull and was already in use with the Colombian Navy and Royal Bahamas Police Force, uses four outboards to hit 54+ knots in open ocean (though not likely that fast in anything but the calmest of sea states). These craft will carry a up-to four armed AMO agents in shock-absorbing seats and are capable, like slightly smaller USCG 45-footers, of 12~ hour patrols.
Photo: CBI
Now, CBP announced they have taken possession of the first of these $923,000-a-pop coastal gunboats, which will be named the Alexandria, after of one of the first maritime law enforcement “collectorships” used by the Department of Treasury in 1789.
Photo: CBP
Grace would be proud
U.S. Navy photo by Leah Garton (2048×1366)
Sailors on the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) conduct two developmental flight tests of the Standard Missile-3 Block IB Threat Upgrade guided missile off the coast of Hawaii.
“The flight tests demonstrated the successful performance of design modifications to the SM-3 third-stage rocket motor nozzle.”
Incidentally, this particular Burke is only the second U.S. Navy warship to be named for a woman, after computer scientist Rear Admiral “Amazing” Grace Hopper, who earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale in 1934, was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer in 1944 (where she literally had to debug the huge device of moths), went on to craft validation software for COBOL, etc.
She was so valuable that, even though she was officially retired at age 60 as per regs, she was recalled and remained on active duty for several years by special approval of Congress, finally mustering out at age 79 and change.
Portrait Goals
Here we see the very dour Maj. General Hugo MacNeill of the Irish Army about 1923. Note the red staff pips on his collar and the Irish national harp insignia on his jacket buttons.
MacNeill was reportedly a bit of a scrapper and was the Irish Army’s cloak and dagger man.
As a teen he was a member of the Fianna Éireann, a sort of pre-IRA boy scouts before the IRA existed. This of course led to his service in the the Irish Volunteers (Óglaigh na hÉireann) which naturally morphed into the IRA proper after 1919. However, upon independence from the UK in 1922, he cast his lot with Michael Collins and the pro-Treaty National Army of the Irish Free State, becoming a Colonel in the regulars tasked with intelligence missions. He was then assistant Chief of Staff (as a Maj. Gen) after the Civil War, when this image was likely taken.
He remained at that grade through WWII, during which he commanded a division of the Irish Army during the island’s tense neutrality against all comers, founding an indigenous commando school and apparently was very chummy with both the Germans and the Brits during the conflict, as befitting a neutral.
He retired in the 1950s as a Lt. General and helped form the Irish equivalent of the American Legion for former servicemen.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Thomas Baumgartner
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, photographers and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Thomas Baumgartner
Born in Munich in 15 July 1892, Thomas Baumgartner was a Bavarian through and through. Studying at the Aktklasse at the Munich Academy from 1911, he was awarded the prestigious Goldene Medaille from the Münchner Glaspalast following exhibition of his works, including that of General Von Keller in particular.
Specializing in portraits, the young man was not picky about who he painted, spending the same amount of time and attention on both high society and common man
Portrait of Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma by Thomas Baumgartner 1912. This image was oddly enough used by a brand of beer and thus on beer steins in Munich for years.
Bavarian Koenig Ludwig III
During the Great War, Baumgartner was tapped to continue to craft portraits of high-ranking Bavarian and other German officers, as well as a wonderful series of paintings of captured Allied troops highlighting their uniforms in 1916.
Assorted Russians from three different regiments, with the soldier in the center wearing the typical short cap of those worn by Tsarist Rifles battalion.
Asiatic Russians. The one on the right is a junior NCO, a lance sergeant, as noted by his pogoni (shoulder boards) too bad you can’t make out the regimental number
Note the scars on these West African French soldiers, likely from Senegal
Asian Commonwealth soldiers, likely from the Malay Rifles though it is broadly possible though unlikely they are from “The Suicide Battalion” 46th Battalion (South Saskatchewan), CEF due to the battalion insignia. The 10th Regiment (1st Burma Rifles) Madras Infantry was formed during the war, but served in the Middle East after Baumgartner painted this picture, making it unlikely these men were from that unit.
British Indian troops
French Tirailleur Algerians
Nepalese Gurhkas
Scots, with tartans very close to that of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders
British commonwealth troops, possibly from the West Indies but it’s hard to tell without shoulder or collar insignia
After the War, Baumgartner resumed his more traditional work.
In the 1920s he became first a regular contributor then later an editor for Jugend (Youth) magazine, a Bavarian art journal that popularized “Jugendstil” a sort of German art nouveau style that remained well liked through the Wiemar era while the style lost favor in the rest of the world.
Jugend remained in publication, though heavily edited, after the Nazis came to power, until 1940 when it folded for good. After all, Hitler thought himself both something of an artist and a Bavarian.
This led Baumgartner into some very dark works during the 1930s and 40s including Der Kampf des Arztes mit dem Tod but was nonetheless an “approved artist” under National Socialism and during the same time provided portrait services to many in the upper level of the Third Reich, which I don’t have the stomach to repeat here.
He was one of the driving forces behind founding the Haus der Deutschen Kunst (House of German Art) in Munich.
Baumgartner survived the war and lived until 1962, returning to the occasional portrait of those close to him in the twilight of his life.
Baumgartner’s neighbor in Kreuth, farmer Lorenz Hagen, who was 99 years and 9 months old when painted.
Some 46 of his paintings are in the collection of the Deutschen Nationalbibliothek and his traditional portraits trade modestly.
Thank you for your work, sir.
If you left a blue Dodge Coronet behind in the 1974 Cyprus War, now is your last chance to get it
A British soldier walks past abandoned vehicles at the British military base in Episkopi near the southern coastal city of Limassol in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, on Wednesday, May 25, 2016. The cars were abandoned by Turkish Cypriot owners inside a British military base amid the confusion of a war 42 years ago that cleaved Cyprus along ethnic lines. Now base authorities are hoping to reawaken the interest of owners to reclaim these vehicles before their disposal starts next year. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
When Turkish Cypriots in the southern coastal city of Limassol left area during the highly volatile 1974 war that split the Mediterranean island of Cyprus along ethnic lines, they left behind more than 400 cars, trucks and vans that have been quietly rusting away at the British military base in Episkopi for the past 42 years.
From the Washington Post:
The vehicles have sat since inside this wind-swept, fenced-off field for safe-keeping. But the relentless Mediterranean sun and humidity, coupled with a huge brushfire that swept through the field 15 years ago, have turned more than half of them into little more than rusting hulks.
Now, base authorities are hoping to reawaken the interest of owners — either in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot northern part of the island or abroad — to reclaim the vehicles before their disposal starts next year.
“We have to make the effort to give them back before we start disposing of them, it’s the proper thing to do,” said Ian Brayshaw, a British Bases official in charge of the project.
The overwhelming majority of the vehicles are of little value other than scrap metal. But there are a few gems that could be worth some money, including the aluminum-framed Land Rover Mark 1 and a decrepit Volkswagen Beetle that is said to be worth as much as 2,000 euros ($2,230) despite its condition, Brayshaw said.
Of Chucks and Berettas
Source photo
An Italian Gruppo Operativo Incursori (G.O.I.), del Comando Operativo Subacquei e Incursori (COM.SUB.IN.) operator shown in 1973 with a super sweet Beretta M12 SMG with jungle clipped mags, and some very American Chucks on his feet.
Hey, Italians like good shoes. And as for myself, I’ve always been a fan of “The Spaghetti Uzi“
Deadshot Mary Shanley
Atlas Obscura has a great piece up on an iconic gun-slinging NYPD Detective, “Deadshot” Mary Shanley. An Irish emigrant who joined the force in 1931, Shanley was apparently a fan of the .32-caliber Colt Detective (as shown below) and off-body purse carry (also shown below) but not of trigger D (hey it was the 1930s).
She was a colorful character who apparently pulled her piece a lot in the rough and tumble streets that were the Diesel crime noir era, although she suffered at least one apparent negligent discharge (while in a bar off duty, see trigger D above).
Still, the 5’6″ 160-pound tough Irish cop was formidable and something of a press darling, as her Wiki entry notes more than a dozen articles on her from the NYT and Brooklyn Eagle and she has inspired at least one off-Broadway play.
From the AO piece:
During the first half of the 20th century, policewomen in America often worked undercover, on so-called “women’s beats.” “They are called upon regularly to trail or trap mashers, shoplifters, pickpockets and fortune-tellers; to impersonate drug addicts and hardened convicts, to expose criminal medical practice, find lost persons, guide girls in trouble, break up fake matrimonial bureaus and perform special detective duty,” wrote the New York Times.
For most of her career, Mary would be assigned to the NYPD pickpocket squad. By the time of her retirement in 1957, she would be a first grade detective, with over 1,000 arrests under her belt.
Looks like the USMC wasn’t kidding about robbing F-18 parts from a museum
Both the Navy’s Legacy and Super Hornet fleets are having devastating readiness issues.
Currently, three out of four F-18s are not ready to go to war (In April 2016, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis — the Marines’ deputy commandant for aviation — told the U.S. Senate that just 87 of the Corps’ 276 Hornets were flightworthy — a mere 32 percent) and there has been a scramble to find parts that has seen perfectly good airframes cannibalized while Marines have even gone out combing for parts on static display aircraft.
A few months ago U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry blasted the brass in a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee about Marines coming to a military museum looking for spare parts as the current sequestration-driven budget crisis, exacerbated by the ongoing and very real live shooting war against ISIS and company that gets little press, has left the Corps aviation readiness looking like a soup sandwich.
This was duly reported by military blogs and other media though some pundits later scoffed and argued it never happened or no such part was acquired.
Well, according to the museum manager, that of Patriot’s Point where a vintage F/A-18A on loan from the Naval Air and Space Museum graces the desk of the former USS Yorktown (CV/CVA/CVS-10), it happened.
The aircraft on display at Patriots Point, McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A-15-MC Hornet, Bu.No. 162435, carries VMFA-142 markings and was SOC Jun 27, 2007. She was in a fatal accident in 1985 and rebuilt for display purposes, which may have been why the MCAS personnel came looking, since she had particularly low hours.
As reported by the Post and Courier
“We said, ‘Come on down. She’s yours,’” Mac Burdette said Wednesday at the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s annual military update, which highlighted the broad impact the Pentagon makes on the regional economy.
A team of Marines from Beaufort removed the part [a forward left nose landing gear door hinge that’s no longer manufactured] and replaced it with a manufactured duplicate that was suitable for display purposes but not for flight, said Patriots Point public information officer Chris Hauff.
“The Marines don’t tell us everything … but their plane is now fixed,” he said. “Whether they used the part, we don’t know.”
The good news is there are at least 15 other F-18As on display around the country– most of which are on military bases which makes it easier to cannibalize parts from on the quiet.
Unless that’s what already happened…
That’s a lot of Knox
USN photo # DN-ST-95-01861, by Calvin Larsen, from the Department of Defense Still Media Collection, courtesy of dodmedia.osd.mil. Click to embiggen
An aerial stern view of the decommissioned battleship Iowa-class USS New Jersey (BB-62) and seven decommissioned Knox class frigates (and a carrier just peeking in off camera to the left) tied up at the Ship Intermediate Maintenance Facility at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, WA., on 17 May 1993.
New Jersey was decommissioned for her fourth (and final?) time on 8 February 1991 and has since 15 Oct 2000 been a museum at 62 Battleship Place, Camden, New Jersey
The seven much smaller (438-foot/4,260-ton) Knox class destroyer escorts fast frigates were from a large class of 46 steam powered tin cans rapidly decommissioned by the Navy in the early 1990s with the last of their kind, USS Truett (FF-1095), paying off on 30 July 1994.
As far as trivia goes, Truett lives on in the Royal Thai Navy as the HTMS Phutthayotfa Chulalok (FFG 461)— now say that five times fast.