Great Job, Now Pivot

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80 years ago today.
 
Official Caption: “Homeward Bound. Sicily, Salerno, and Normandy are on the log of this LCI flotilla making its triumphant homecoming at an East Coast port. Invasion craft sailed for the European coast nearly two years ago. Twenty of the original 24 craft returned—four were knocked out during the Normandy invasion. Vessels are manned by Coast Guard crews.”
 

Coast Guard photo from the Allison collection, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.

The slow-moving self-escorting convoy left Falmouth, England, on 5 October for Charleston, where they arrived on the 24th. The convoy included the 20 surviving USCG-manned Landing Craft Infantry (Large) of LCI Flotilla Four (Capt. M. E. Imlay, USCG), which were returning from Europe, where the further likelihood of U.S. amphibious landings was slim.
 
Of the above landing craft, 13 were found to be worth being refurbished and sent on to the Pacific to join the all-USCG LCI Flotilla Thirty-Five. They would perform well in the Okinawa campaign, where one, USS LCI(L)-90, would take a kamikaze to the bridge in June 1945. 
 
The once 24-strong flotilla had entered service with the Tunisian operation in June 1943. Then came the Husky Landings off Sicily in July 1943, the Avalanche Landings in Salerno, and the Overlord Landings in Normandy, where four: USS LCI(L)-85, 91, 92, and 93 would be lost to a combination of mines and German coastal artillery. 
 

USCG LCI Invasion craft, in camouflage, sailing in convoy formation during WWII 80-G-42482

LCIs, including several of the USCG’s LCI Flotilla Four, massed at Bizerte, Tunisia, on 6 July 1943 while loading troops for the invasion of Sicily. The shallow-draft 158-footers could carry a reinforced company to the surf line, capable of beaching their bows in water just 32 inches deep. US Army Signal Corps photo # 176486, now in the collections of the National Archives.

“The Coast Guard-manned landing craft LCI(L)-85 approached the beach at 12 knots. Her crew winced as they heard repeated thuds against the vessel’s hull made by the wooden stakes covering the beach like a crazy, tilted, man-made forest… The Coast Guard LCI(L)-85, battered by enemy fire after approaching Omaha Beach, prepares to evacuate the troops she was transporting to an awaiting transport. The “85” sank shortly after this photograph was taken. The LCI(L)-85 was one of four Coast Guard LCIs that were destroyed on D-Day.”

Crews from the other returning ETO landing craft, after rehabilitation leave, were dolled out as “old salts” to the 36 newly commissioned USCG-manned LSTs added to the fleet between August and November 1944 that formed LST Flotilla Twenty-Nine, under Capt. C. H. Peterson USCG (’25) in the Pacific.

USS LST-831 is seen approaching the beachhead at Okinawa on D-Day, 1 April 1945. (Note: the unauthorized letters “USCG” are stenciled on her inner hull above the main ramp. US Coast Guard photo from the collections of the Office of the US Coast Guard Historian.

 
LSTFlot29 would be destined to take part in the landings in the Detachment Landings (Iwo Jima) and Iceberg Landings (Okinawa) in 1945.  
LST GROUP 85
  ComLSTGrp 85 Comdr. W. B. Millington (USCG)
LST DIVISION 169 (3)
LST 758   Lt. F. J. Molenda (USCG)
LST 759   Lt. J. A. Baybutt (USCGR)
LST 760 (FF)   Lt. R. T. A. McKenzie (USCG)
LST 782 (GF)   Lt. H. C. Slack (USCGR)
LST 784   Lt. D. H. Miner (USCG)
LST 786   Lt. E. T. Ringler (USCG)
LST DIVISION 170
LST 761   Lt. C. N. Huff (USCGR)
LST 763    
LST 764   Lt. R. F. Nichols (USCG)
LST 785    
LST 787   Lt. W. S. Lawrence (USCGR)
LST 789 (GF)   Lt. H. M. Mulvey (USCG)

 

LST GROUP 86
  ComLSTGrp 86 Comdr. S. R. Sands (USCG)
LST DIVISION 171
LST 762   ……….
LST 765   Lt. J. G. Coffin (USCG)
LST 766   Lt. L. W. Newton (USCGR)
LST 767   Lt. R. B. Seidman (USCG)
LST 788   ……….
LST 790   ……….
LST DIVISION 172
LST 768   ……….
LST 769   ……….
LST 791    ……….
LST 792   ……….
LST 793   Lt. G. A. Miller (USCG)
LST 795   Lt. M. H. Jackson (USCG)
 
LST GROUP 87 (3) (1)
  ComLSTGrp 87 Comdr. E. Anderson (USCG)
LST DIVISION 173
LST 770 (GF)   ……….
LST 771   ……….
LST 794   ……….
LST 796   ……….
LST 829   ……….
LST 885   ……….
LST DIVISION 174
LST 830   Lt. G. Rowe (USCG)
LST 831   Lt. R. T. Leary (USCG)
LST 832   Lt. W. H. Young (USCG)
LST 884   ……….
LST 886   ……….
LST 887   Lt. L. O. Chandler (USCG)

Warship Wednesday Oct. 23, 2024: A Tough Little Wolf

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024: A Tough Little Wolf

Nationalmuseet, Danmark, asset THM-3367

Above, we see the Danish Soridderen (Sea Knight) class torpedobåden patrol boat Søulven (Sea Wolf)—also cited in the West as Soloven, Soeulven, and Søulv —as she passed near the Trekroner Søfort at the entrance to the Copenhagen harbor before 1920.

A small boat with a fearsome name, her skipper and crew proved all-heart during the Great War, and a noteworthy British admiral doubtlessly owed his life to her pluck.

The Søridderen trio

Between 1879, when Hajen, Torpedobaad Nr.4, joined the fleet through Svaerdfisken, which entered service in May 1913, the Royal Danish Navy fielded 40 assorted torpedo boats across several different classes to include designs from British (Samuel White, Yarrow, Thornycroft), French (Forges & Chantiers), German (F. Schichau) and domestic (Burmeister & Wain, Orlogsvaerftet) yards. No less than 17 of these were still in service by the time Gaviro Princep caught up to Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and set the world alight.

In 1911, a program of three new German Schichau-designed boats and a matching set of three British Yarrow-designed boats were ordered. The lead ship would be built overseas in each case, and the two follow-on units would be constructed domestically. This led to the Schichau-designed and built 250-ton Tumleren (and Orlogsvaerftet-constructed sisters Vindhunden and Spaekhuggeren) and the 230-ton Yarrow-designed and built Søridderen (accompanied by the Burmeister & Wain-constructed Flyvefisken and Soulven).

The ships were competing designs of similar size, armament, and capability with the Tumlerens running 250 tons, 186 feet long, 18 feet on the beam, and with a 6-foot draft while the Søridderen went 181x18x6 feet.

The German-built Danish torpedobåden Tumleren. Note her trainable torpedo tubes. THM-3340

Both classes were coal-fired steam turbine-driven and fast (27.5 knots), as well as armed with five 18-inch torpedo tubes (one fixed in bow and four trainable on deck) and two 12-pounder 3″/52 M.07 QF guns.

Danish Torpedobåden Tumleren i Svanemøllebugten, 1915, by Christian Benjamin Olsen. These boats were notoriously smokey especially when using the thrifty Danish navy’s (preferred) cheap coal to stretch training dollars.

The Søridderens went a bit faster than designed on trails, hitting 28.3 knots.

Søridderen class member Flyvefisken, seen in a color period postcard. THM-30779

Søridderen member Flyvefisken, the port view seen underway. THM-4490

Jane’s 1914 listing for the Søridderen class.

The British-designed ships were also seen as more seaworthy than the German-designed boats. However, the events of 1914 precluded further orders.

Meet Soulven

Our subject carried a traditional Danish navy moniker and repeated one used by one of the Scandinavian country’s first batch of torpedo boats, a little 95-footer built in France that remained in service until 1911.

Photo showing the first torpedo boat Søulven, Torpedobaad Nr.5, launched in 1880 at anchor in Copenhagen. The picture also shows the visiting German armored battery ship Heligoland and the French cruiser Chateau Renault. Photographed Sep 8, 1891. THM-9524

The second Danish torpedo boat Soulven joined the fleet in 1911, likely recycling most of the crew of her namesake which was decommissioned at the same time.

Note her forward bow tube and trainable singles.

She would spend her first three years as a training ship, and there are some great images of her pier side conducting training with Madsen light machine guns complete with massive 40-round detachable box magazines. A treat for any gun nerd!

Soluven crew at Flådens Leje with Madsen LMGs THM-6173

Soulven note bridge and Madsens THM-6175

THM-6175 inset

War!

When the Great War began in August 1914, Denmark armed-up to protect her neutrality, having just fought Germany in 1864 and the Brits in 1807. This meant mobilizing 52,000 reserves and new drafts to add to the professional 13,000-man Army and building the 23 km-long Tunestillingen line of defenses outside of Copenhagen. Likewise, the Danish Navy dusted off its guns and torpedo tubes and began to actively patrol its waters.

With that, Soulven left her training duties behind and became the flagship of 1. Torpedobådsflotille, assigned to patrol in the Oresund, the strait that separates Denmark and Sweden.

Torpedo inspection on board Soulven 1914 THM-4687

Her skipper at this time, and dual-hatted commander of the 1st TBF, was Kapt. Eduard Haack, 43, a career regular with 28 years of service on his seabag that included tours in the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) on the old steam frigate Jylland, Med cruises on the gunboat St. Thomas and cruiser Hejmdal, a stint as an officer instructor at the service’s NCO academy, service aboard the coastal battleships Iver Hvitfeldt and Herluf Trolle, command of a section of the naval mine corps (Søminekorpsets), and command of the icebreaker/OPV (inspektionsskibet) Absalon on the Greeland-Iceland-Faeroes beat.

Haack was a professional.

Haack, on Iver Hvitfeldt before he war. THM-4745

The E-13 Affair

It was during this time that the British started sending small E-class submarines through the Skagerrak and the Kattegat around Jutland then through the Oresund and across the Baltic to the Tsarist port of Revel in the Gulf of Finland. HMS E-1 and E-9 made it by October 1914, while E-11 turned back. They would soon be joined by HMS E-8, E-18, and E-19. One of their less fortunate sisters was HMS E-13.

Around 2300 on 17 August 1915, while E13 was attempting to make the passage through the Oresund to join the other British Submarines operating with the Tsar’s Navy, she experienced a gyro compass failure and ran aground in the mud on the Danish Island of Saltholm, her hull surrounded by nine feet of water.

English submarine E13 grounded on Saltholm THM-12243.

Spotted by the old (circa 1888) Danish Thornycroft-built torpedo boat Narvalen at 0500 on the morning of 18 August, the Dane dutifully notified E13 they had 24 hours to get unstuck or be interned for the duration. LCDR Geoffrey Layton, RN replied that he understood and would work to free his boat. His executive officer, LT Paul Leathley Eddis, was sent ashore to see if he could arrange a tug. 

Soon after, at 0620, two German S90-class large torpedo boats on patrol, SMS G132, and G134, likewise spotted the disabled British sub, with her crew resting atop E13’s casing. The 215-foot S90s were really more destroyer than TB, and ran large at 535 tons, carrying an 88mm gun, two 2″/40 guns, and three torpedo tubes.

S90-class Hochsee-Torpedoboot SMS S-125, a good representative of her class. Photographed by A. Renard of Kiel, probably before 1911. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 45400

To guard the beached sub, flotilla leader Søulven arrived on the scene at 0845 with Narvalen’s sister Støren. The Danish bathtub battleship Peder Skram, armed with 9.4-inch guns and swathed in as much as 8 inches of armor, was just over the horizon and making steam for the area.

With the greenlight from RADM Robert Mischke, head of the Küstenschutzdivision der Ostsee, by radio, at 1028 the German torpedo boats went on the offensive.

Signaling “Abandon Ship Immediately,” G132 and G134 heeled over and made maximum revolutions for the grounded E13, sailing into Danish coastal waters with their guns blazing. Some 15 British submariners were killed outright.

English leave E13 after the shelling, 19 Aug. 1915 THM-4679

Despite being outgunned by the two larger German boats, Søulven’s skipper, Kapt. Haack gave the order to move his boat directly between E13 and the German guns to shield the British, with the Dane calling on the Germans to halt. The maneuver worked and at 1035, the German boats turned away and left Danish waters, having closed to within 300 yards of the submarine. Haack noted that the German commander of G132 raised an arm in the air as a sign that the protest was accepted.

The Danes soon went to work rescuing the survivors of E13, including Storen’s boatswain, one AFP Olsen, who reportedly dived into the frigid water and pulled a wounded Tar, Leading Seaman Herbert Lincoln, off the bottom. Olsen would be awarded an Albert Medal by the British government for his action, but not allowed by the Danish Foreign Ministry to accept it.

The wounded were passed on to Peder Skram, who would take them to Copenhagen. The recovered bodies of 14 of the 15 men lost were loaded aboard Søulven’s sister Søridderen and brought to Lynettehavnen. The 15th was later recovered and joined his shipmates. 

The reaction in the British and Scandinavian press to the German violation of neutrality was understandable.

What occurred over the next several days in Denmark was an outpouring of mourning for the British submariners who were killed in their waters. This included some 200 Danish sailors providing an honor guard for the recovered bodies during a funeral procession in Copenhagen where the survivors of E13, clad in Danish dress uniforms, were assisted in carrying their shipmate’s coffins to the refrains of Handel’s Dead March. The proceedings were well-attended by the international legations.

Photos from the event show Haack and his men prominently.

THM-3427

Note the Remington falling block 1867s with sword bayonets. THM-3426

THM-3421

While most foreign bodies recovered in Danish waters during the war– such as Jutland sailors buried at Frederikshavn cemetery– were simply interred in Danish soil with military honors, London approved a Danish ship to carry the E13 crew remains to return speedily to England.

This led the procession solemnly to the Det Forenetede Dampskibsselskab (DFDS) steamer SS Vidar (1,493 tons) while a crowd of thousands of Danes stood by to observe in procession, with Dannebrogs lowered at half-mast across the country.

Vidar carried the remains to Hull, accompanied by the Danish torpedo boats Springeren and Støren as escorts. Vidar carried a Danish Ministry of the Navy’s representative, CDR Rørd Regnar Johannes Hammer, a Knight Commander Dannebrogorden, with 39 years of service on his record, who was responsible for the steamer’s grim cargo. Most were later interred at the Haslar Royal Naval Cemetery. 
CWGC in Hampshire. 

The British consul in Denmark, Robert Erskine, commended the Danish authorities for the dignity and efficiency with which the handling of the dead was conducted.

As for the survivors, interned for the duration of the war under international law, they were put up at the Copenhagen Naval Yard under very loose custody– referred to by the Danes as engelske orlogsgaster (“English military guests”)– and allowed to travel around the city on their own recognizance.

The crew of the English submarine E13 before leaving for Russia in 1915. Half of these men would perish in Danish waters and the other half would cool their heels in Copenhagen for the duration. Had it not been for Soulven, their story would have been likely very different. THM-4680

The Danes likewise “entertained” assorted German naval personnel as well during the war, such as the crew of Zeppelin L.3. 

German Navy zeppelin LZ-24 (Luftschiff.3) participated in 24 reconnaissance missions over the North Sea, including the first raid on England on 20 January 1915. She was scuttled by her crew after a forced landing caused by an engine failure during a snowstorm on Fanø Island, Denmark on 17 February 1915. The crew were interned. Remnants of the zeppelin are displayed in a museum in Tonder, Denmark.

Rather than enjoy this comfortable prison, E13‘s skipper, LCDR Layton, accompanied by his No. 1, LT Paul Leathley Eddis, released himself from polite custody/parole, leaving a note behind to explain his actions, and made his way back to England via Sweden three months later.

The rest of E13’s crew remained in Denmark until after the Armistice. The sub’s third officer, Sub-LT William Garriock, RNR, was left behind to command these marooned submariners. 

Largely to prevent the Germans from attempting to do so, the Danes recovered E13 and towed it to Copenhagen.

E13 grounded at Saltholm, 1915 THM-6768

Shell-wrecked English submarine, E13, beached at Saltholm THM-12244

Salvage work on English submarine E13 at Saltholm THM-12245

English submarine E 13 under tow between pontoons and salvage steamers Odin and Thor. 1915. THM-4482

Her shell and shrapnel-ridden hull were on public display for the world to see.

English submarine E13 at Copenhagen harbour THM-12255

As were recovered relics including her pierced periscope and a shot-up prayer book.

The sub was put in drydock at Orlogsvaerftet, with her interned sailors allowed to come and claim personal property and mementos. Several even reportedly helped in the ultimately futile three-year effort to repair the vessel and place it in Danish service.

Ultimately, E13 was refloated and tied up alongside the Danish submarine tender Helka in 1918, used for training purposes.

Tender Hekla, British, submarine, E13 1918 THM-8938

THM-6767

U-bådsstationen, Cophenhangen. Petty officers aboard the Danish submarine tender Hekla in 1918. The group was photographed on deck in front of the ship’s stack. To the right is the tower of the salvaged HMS E13. THM-3494

In February 1919, after the Danish Navy washed their hands of the hulk, the British sold it to a local Danish company for its scrap value.

But back to our Søulven.

Continued Service

Søulven, returning to her role in protecting Denmark’s territorial sea, conducted several rescues and police actions in the Oresund before the end of the war, including capturing Swedish smugglers on two different occasions.

Photo showing the bridge of a torpedo boat with her bow 3″/52. To the left of the picture is the torpedo boat Soulven underway, seen from the front to port. Taken in the 1920s. THM-22312

Transferred to the reserves in 1929, along with her two sisters, Søridderen and Flyvefisken, and the three rival Tumlerens, they were collectively stricken in 1935-1937 and disposed of after they were replaced by the new and very strongly armed torpedo boats of the Dragen and Glenten classes.

Their hulls were stripped of anything usable and scrapped, with their 3″/52s recycled for use as coastal artillery around the Danish littoral for another decade. 

Danish Den næstnordligste 7,5 cm kanon i Hørhaven from old torpedo boats

Epilogue

Of our cast of characters, Soulven’s skipper and commander of the 1st TBF during the Great War, Eduard Haack, finished the war as head of coastal defense for Northern Denmark. He retired from the Navy in 1920, with his last post as inspector of lighthouses. He became chief ship inspector at Statens Skibstilsyn, the Danish Shipping Authority, the next year, and remained in that post until 1936. He then helped organize the Icelandic Shipping Authority and received, among other things, a knighthood in the Icelandic Falcon Order (Islandske Falkeorden) and was made a commander of the Dannebrogordenen order. Capt. Haack passed in 1956 and is buried at St. Olai cemetery in Kalundborg, aged 85.

The German admiral who gave the go-ahead for the attack on E13, Mischke, would end the war as a vizeadmiral and pass in 1932. His family is the owner of Lahneck Castle, which he purchased in 1907.

The two torpedo boats used in the attack on E13, G132, and G134, at the end of the war were disarmed and served as minesweepers out of Cuxhaven. Retained briefly by the Reichsmarine they were scrapped in 1921.

E13’s skipper went on to be known as ADM Sir Geoffrey Layton, GBE, KCB, KCMG, DSO. After returning to England via Sweden in time for Christmas in 1915, he was given command of the experimental steam submarine HMS S-1. Transitioning to capital ships in the 1930s, he started WWII as commander of the 1st Battle Squadron, consisting of the battleships HMS Barham, HMS Warspite, and HMS Malaya. Sent to command the ill-fated China Station in September 1940, he handed it over to Tom Phillips just before the Japanese went ham in the Pacific in December 1941. He went on to command British forces in Ceylon through 1945. Retiring in 1947 as head of Portsmouth, he passed in 1964.

ADM Layton

Layton’s XO, LT Paul Eddis, survived continued submarine service in the Great War only to be killed when his boat, HMS L24, was tragically lost with all hands in a collision with the battleship HMS Resolution off Portland on 10 January 1924. Subs are a dangerous game even in peacetime.

Speaking of which, the funeral transport for E13’s 15 recovered sailors, the Danish steamer Vidar, was herself sent to the bottom during WWII while traveling from Grimsby to Esbjerg via the Tyne with coal and general cargo, torpedoed by the German submarine U-21 (Kptlt. Wolf-Harro Stiebler) in the North Sea in January 1940– four months before Germany invaded neutral Denmark. In tragic irony, she carried 15 of her crew to the bottom.

The very well-marked Vidar. Photo courtesy of Danish Maritime Museum, Elsinore

The Danes would recycle the name of Soulven for use with a new class of fast torpedo boats ordered in the early 1960s from Britain (heard that before?). This Danish third torpedo boat Soulven (P 515) would serve from 1967 to 1990.

Danish Sea Lion Class Vosper PT boat MTB P 515 Søulven (The Sea Wolf)

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Goodbye, AKS-74U. Hello, AM-17

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The Kalashnikov pattern AKS-74U (GRAU Index 6P26) rifle was adopted for service by the Soviet military in 1979. A shortened version of the 5.45x39mm AK74, the U stands for “Ukorochenniy,” which is Russian for “shortened” which is logical as it only has an 8.3-inch barrel and 19.36-inch overall length with its stock side folded.

Soviet paratrooper clutching his AKS-74U Krinkov

Of course, the AKS-74U is better known in the West as the Krinkov. Its typically issued in the same vein as the M1 Carbine was in WWII among the U.S. Army: to equip vehicle crews, for use by officers and NCOs, and by light/elite troops such as airborne and special operations units. In all, equipping something like 30-40 percent of the Russian ground forces.

Well, it seems those days are over.

The Kalashnikov Concern JSC announced recently it plans to put the 5.45mm AM-17 compact rifle into mass production in 2025. The rifle’s design, based on the Dragunov MA (yes, as in the same guy behind the SVD rifle) was updated following combat trials in the Ukraine.

The new features include a folding telescopic buttstock, an ambidextrous fire selector switch, a Picatinny rail coupled to the barrel, what looks to be M-LOK slots, and a charging handle that can be installed on either the right or left side.

The same general size of the AKS-7U, the AM-17 is lighter and easier to produce due to the fact that it uses a polymer lower rather than sheet metal, while still allowing a rate of fire of 850 rpm.

Secret Space Plane & Aerobraking

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The tiny USAF/USSF unmanned space shuttle that has quietly been breaking records across seven lengthy deployments (up to 900 days on orbit per trip) since 2010, is set to perform some very next-level maneuvers.

Powered by Gallium Arsenide Solar Cells with lithium-ion batteries, the X-37 is just over nine feet tall and 29 feet long with a wingspan of just under 15 feet. For reference, the Space Shuttle Orbiter was 122 feet long and had a wingspan of 78 feet, making it several times larger.

The pint-sized X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, as detailed by the USSF, “will begin executing a series of novel maneuvers, called aerobraking, to change its orbit around Earth and safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation.”

Artist rendering of the X-37B conducting an aerobraking maneuver using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere. (Courtesy graphic by Boeing Space). 241010-F-FA999-0011

This is the first time the U.S. Space Force and the X-37B have attempted to carry out this dynamic aerobraking maneuver leveraging six successful missions of operating the space plane safely, as well as decades of general lessons learned from the scientific community conducting Moon and Mars missions.

Boeing, eager to point out they can get some stuff right when it comes to off-planet ops, has released an interesting reel including depictions of releasing payloads and some of the X-37’s declassified records.

A Forest of Doomed Lattice

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105 years ago today. Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. 22 October 1919. Obsolete “pre-dreadnought” type battleships in the Reserve Basin almost a year after the conclusion of the Great War, awaiting a very near future that would turn nearly all of them into recycled scrap iron or sunk in live fire exercises.

Courtesy of Frank Jankowski, 1981. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 92300

Ships in the front row are, from left to right: USS Iowa (BB-4), USS Massachusetts (BB-2), USS Indiana (BB-1), USS Kearsarge (BB-5), USS Kentucky (BB-6), and USS Maine (BB-10), while at least three other battlewagons are in the rear, almost certainly including USS Missouri (BB-11) and USS Ohio (BB-12). Although some including the three Maine-class ships were rather “low mileage” — Ohio had only joined the fleet 15 years prior and had spent much of her latter career in ordinary, only venturing out of mothballs for summer midshipman cruises– others were relics of the Span-Am War, with Indiana credited with having dispatched two Spanish destroyers at the Battle of Santiago. 

While all had seen updates in their service life, switching from pole masts and the gleaming paint schemes and bow crests of the Great White Fleet days to lattice masts and haze grey, they could not compete with the new way of war. For instance, a single Colorado-class super-dreadnought, the first of which would enter service in 1921, weighed 32,000 tons and carried eight 16-inch guns compared to Indiana’s circa 1893 10,000-ton displacement and main battery of four 13″/35s.

Of the above nine or ten battleships, all save for Kearsarge— the only United States Navy battleship not named after a state– would be sold for scrap or sunk (Iowa and Massachusetts) by 1923 to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. They were left to be remembered only by their silver services, bells, and bow crests, typically preserved somewhere in their namesake states. 

Soon after the above image was snapped, Kearsarge was converted into a cruising heavy-lift crane ship (AB-1) in 1920, then was unimaginatively renamed Crane Ship No. 1 in 1941, before being finally sold for scrap in 1955.

Heavy Lift Crane Ship No1,(Ex Lead Ship, Battleship USS Kearsarge) pictured in dry dock at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston. c.1925.

 

During her “second life,” Kearsarge raised the lost submarine USS Squalus in 1939 and would lift into place much of the heavy guns, turrets, and armor for cruisers and battleships constructed or rebuilt at Norfolk/Newport News through 1945. Here, she is seen, left, alongside the new SoDak-class fast battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), right, fitting out at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1942. Note the size difference between the two hulls. NH 57767

Interestingly, the wreck of Massachusetts scuttled off Pensacola in shallow water in 1923, was still used as a target through WWII when she passed to the ownership of the state of Florida.

Crosshairs

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80 years ago today. Leyte Operation, October 1944. The day of the first noted use of kamikaze.

Official Wartime caption: “The Australian heavy cruisers HMAS Shropshire (left) and Australia (right), with an unidentified U.S. heavy cruiser, photographed through a ring gun sight on board USS Phoenix (CL-46), off Leyte on 21 October 1944.”

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-291377

The gunsight is on a, likely Detroit-built, Bofors-licensed 40mm L60 quad mount, of which the “Phoo-Bird,” as a Brooklyn class light cruiser, carried six by this time in the war. She put them to good use, too.

In the first 11 days of the Japanese kamikaze attacks in the Leyte Gulf, Phoenix called her gunners to action no less than 55 times.

Her Navy Unit Citation reads, in part:

In encounters with the enemy air forces the ship shot down three of the suicide divers coming at her and assisted in shooting down several others that attacked other ships.

The Swedish-designed 40mm (which needed extensive conversion for inch-pattern mass production) was a godsend both to the U.S. Army who used it for ground-based AAA and to the Navy, who used it to fill the gap between 20mm Oerlikon, the fiasco that was the 1.1-inch “Chicago Piano,” and the excellent 5″/38 DP gun.

The Navy credited the 40mm Bofors with splashing an astounding 742.5 enemy aircraft during the war with 1,271,844 shells– an average of 1,713 per “kill.” Of note, they were credited with fully one out of every three aircraft downed by AAA, a record matched by no other platform.

Not put into U.S. domestic production until early 1942, during 1944-45 alone, no less than 7,440 single mountings, 6,670 twin, and 1,550 quad mountings were produced for the Navy by the time the end of the war halted production.

Only in first-line service for six years (it was officially replaced by the new rapid-fire radar-controlled 3″/50 Marks 27, 33, and 34 in 1948) the Navy still had Bofors afloat on WWII-era auxiliaries until at least 1977, with some reportedly being used from time to time on LSTs engaged in brown water ops during Market Garden during Vietnam.

USS Garrett County (LST 786) in the Co Chien River, Republic of Vietnam, June 1968. Note the PBRs alongside and HAL-3 Seawolf Hueys on deck. Commissioned in 1944, she also has manned 40mm Bofors at the ready in her gun tubs. U.S. Navy Photo K-51442

And of course, dozens of these mounts endure on WWII-era museum ships around the globe.

These images are from one of my recent visits to the SoDak battlewagon USS Alabama.

Looking for a Better Deal on a CMP Navy MK2 7.62 NATO Garand?

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Back in June, we let you know that the CMP was beginning to sell off a supply of surplus U.S. Navy circa 1960s MK2 7.62 NATO Garand conversions-– of which AMF upgraded 17,050 rifles and H&R another 15,000 rifles using a 3:1 mix of converted .30 caliber barrels (the MK2 MOD 0 rifle) and new-made 7.62mm barrels from Springfield Armory (the MK2 MOD1).

The price at the time was $950 for the MK2 MOD0s and $1,600 for the MK2 MOD1s.

Well, that has now dropped to $900 (Mod 0) and $1200 (Mod 1) plus $35 shipping & handling per rifle.

Guns are available here.

Plus:

After review by the CMP Rules Committee, the following CMP Games Rifle and Pistol Competition Rules Rule G4.2.2 e) has been edited to: As-issued M1 Garands must be chambered for the .30-06 or the 7.62mm NATO (.308) cartridge.

This change will allow CMP MOD 1 7.62mm NATO M1 Garands to be used in As-Issued Military Rifle Matches – including the upcoming Talladega 600 in November!

Learn more about the Talladega 600 at https://thecmp.org/cmp-matches/talladega-600/.

Foxtrot Zulu Milkshake

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The old ways: 

040303-N-6842R-025 Key West, Fla. (Mar. 3, 2004) Ð Lt. Allen Karlson, a student pilot assigned to the ÒTigersÓ of Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), with instructor Cdr. Joe Kerstiens (USNR) sits ÒshotgunÓ(rear seat) evaluating Lt. Allen Karlson before his solo formation training. 1st Lt. Tim Miller flies his T-2C Buckeye down to cross under the lead, on his first formation solo, during a formation training mission over Key West, Fla. VT-9 came to Key West to teach Navy and Marine Corps student pilots formation flying and gunnery techniques. The instructors are part of Squadron Augment Unit Nine (SAU-9), the Reserve component for Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), one of two training squadrons that operate from Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss., under Training Wing One (TW-1). U.S. Navy photo by Ens Darin K. Russell. (RELEASED)

U.S. Navy photograph 330-CFD-DN-ST-89-08969. Photographer Jim Bryant. Via NARA. National Archives Identifier: 6445247

In case you missed it, the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) last August announced they are ditching the classic white/orange/black/red scheme used by its aircraft for generations (since the mid-1950s) in favor of sort of a glossy faux tactical look.

From last year’s presser:

CNATRA utilizes four different type/model aircraft, with a fifth on the way, to support intermediate/advanced strike, intermediate/advanced multi-engine and advanced rotary training. These aircraft include the T-45C Goshawk, TH-57 Sea Ranger, TH-73 Thrasher (replacing the TH-57 Sea Ranger), and the T-44C Pegasus, soon to be replaced by the T-54A (King Air 260).

For these aircraft, the new paint scheme will utilize shades of a glossy grey coat to more closely resemble the tactical paint scheme (TPS) covering operational fleet aircraft. The shade of grey will closely resemble the specific counterpart for each training aircraft. For example, the coat of the TH-73 Thrasher will reflect the darker tactical paint scheme of the MH-60S Seahawk, while the T-54A will have a lighter coat similar to the P-8A Poseidon. Colored markings will contrast the grey paint for lettering and symbols like the United States roundel.

Additionally, the tail of each aircraft will feature a distinctive color scheme identifying the specific training air wing (TAW) an aircraft is assigned to, typically referred to as a tail “flash.”

Well, it looks like the first T-45s, those of Training Air Wing 2, have been repainted. 

The conversion will slow:

The new changes to CNATRA aircraft will be gradual. An aircraft will only receive its new paint when the current life cycle of its orange-and-white coat is nearly complete. This will result in the last orange-and-white paint coats disappearing in seven to eight years.

As with everything, there are mixed feelings, with many bringing up the fact that the high-viz livery was chosen to help visually deconflict airspace (and ground space!) and make spotting downed aircraft easier.

I’ve always been a fan of the old yellow-chrome “Yellow Peril” look from WWII for trainers and target tugs.

NAMU Johnsonville Curtiss SB2C Helldiver target tug.

N3N pictured at NAS Pensacola, NNAM photo

Sailor cranks the engine of an N3N training flight, circa 1941 Kodachrome NNAM

Stearman N3N-3 N2S trainers NAS Corpus Christi, TX WWII cadets

Harry Greene flies his Boeing Stearman Kaydet Primary Trainer airplane over the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, May 30, 2016. Greene is a helicopter pilot at Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point and an aircraft enthusiast in his off-duty time. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle/Released)

Yellow is my favorite

Alternatively, I think that the high-viz 1920s look or 1940s-early-50s fleet blue would be great choices. 

USS Boxer CV-21 March 10, 1948, off San Diego First operational jet fighter squadron VF-5A FJ-1 Fury LIFE Kodachrome.

Plus, this new gray Goshawk look greatly resembles the gag-filled privately-owned Folland Gnats and HF-24 Ajeet used in 1991’s Hot Shots!

Who knows, maybe someone in CNATRA is a fan.

Clip ensues.

HK Has Entered the Micro 9 Game (7 Years Late?)

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Germany’s Heckler & Koch finally dropped a commercially available micro compact 9mm pistol this week, debuting the thoroughly tested HK CC9 onto the market.

The polymer-framed striker-fired “one and a half stack” 9mm offers flush 10+1 and extended 12+1 capacity magazines, is optics-ready (RMSc/407k footprint) with a tritium front sight and a blacked out, serrated rear sight; and is somewhat modular through the use of interchangeable backstraps.

It is almost the exact same size as the SIG P365 (introduced in Jan. 2018), Springfield Armory Hellcat (Aug. 2019), and March 2021’s Ruger MAX-9 and S&W M&P Shield Plus. Then of course there are the more recent Canik Mete MC9, Taurus GX4, Stoeger STR-9MC, et. al, ad nauseum.

However, HK has a big up by saying they held to the same standards as their full-size duty pistols and tested the micro compact to the NATO AC/225 standards across 750,000 rounds. This meant running it in extreme temperatures, dust, sand, and mud, and “being dropped to simulate real-world conditions,” with the latter part seeming like the company was throwing a little shade at some other pistol makers.

So they may have just taken the time to get it right…

More in my column at Guns.com.

The Last Hurrah of The Third Republic’s Tanks

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When the Germans swept into France in May 1940, the Gallic country had over 3,200 tanks on hand, by far besting the invading forces which only had about 2,400 Panzers they brought to the party.

However, it’s not how many you have but how well you use them that counts, and, by June 1940 it was all over.

As part of the Compiegne Armistice of 22 June 1940, which kneecapped the rump of the Vichy government’s military forces, especially those still in Europe, most of the decent French armor still in service– over 2,500 tanks– was turned over to the Germans.

French SOMUA S 35 and Renault R 35, handed over by Germans to Italians. Spring of 1941

A captured French Somua S-35, under new management, circa June 1940

The Germans allowed the Vichy a few small tank units– in overseas colonies. There, they fought the Americans in Morocco and the British in Syria in 1941-42.

Not one to throw away anything of value in the largest land war in Europe, the Germans dutifully used more than 800 old Renault FT17 and 800 newer Renault R35 light tanks in a mixture of static defense roles along the Atlantic Wall and constabulary uses in occupied areas.

German soldiers at a checkpoint at the crossroads near Dieppe, with a pillbox made of a French FT Renault light tank. Note the Hotchkiss MG

Renault FT17 (German Panzerkampfwagen 17R 18R 730f) in Serbia for security anti-partisan operations

Canadian officers examining abandoned German defenses in liberated Dieppe in 1944, including a dismounted Renault FT17 turret

French FT 17 Renault light tank of the Veinesodden coastal battery Btt. Nr.4 448. Located near the villages Kongsfjord and Veynes Finnmark

More modern and better-armed/armored tanks (Char B1bis, S35s, R-35s, and H-39s) were passed on to armor-poor Axis fellow travelers such as the Italians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Romanians.

A Soviet soldier stands next to an abandoned ex-French Romanian Renault R35 that had been rearmed with a captured Soviet 45 mm AT gun, 1944

The Germans used over 500 11-ton Hotchkiss H35/H38/H39s in counter-partisan efforts in the Balkans and Eastern Front.

German Hotchkiss Tanks 21 Pz Div by Steve Noon

Armed with a 47mm L32 main gun, the Germans seemed to have thought highly of the 20-ton Somua S35 AMCs (Automitrailleuses de Combat), and some 300 of them were pressed into service, largely on the Eastern Front, with the 201. and 202. Panzerregiments.

Somua S35 in German use

Captured French Somua S35 and Hotchkiss H38 tanks in a German parade, in Paris, in 1941.

Prague, May 1945: the last stand of the Wehrmacht in Czechoslovakia was spearheaded by French AMR 33 and 35 tanks

Meanwhile, heavy Char B1bis were used by Panzer-Abteilung 213, the unit that garrisoned the Channel Islands, as well as in training and service roles and as Flammwagen flame tank conversions. Formed on 17 November 1941 in France, it was equipped with 56 captured French tanks: 20 FT17s, which were largely converted into pillboxes, and 36 Renault Char B1s.

The latter included two Char B bis command tanks with Abteilung Headquarters in Guernsey, 12 standard Char B1 bis tanks, and five flame tanks with 1. Kompanie in Gurnesy, and an identical 2. Kompanie in Jersey. It was assigned to 319. Infanterie-Division on the Channel Islands.

French Char B1 bis sent to the Channel Island of Guernsey in 1941, as part of Panzer Abteilung 213

Fast forward to the Overlord and Dragoon landings in Normandy and along the Riviera in the summer of 1944, and the Allies increasingly came in contact with running second-hand pre-1940 French tanks kept in good repair by the German occupier.

Cherbourg Two GIs examine a camouflaged Renault UE tankette, German designation: Schlepper UE-630(f) (infantry tractor).

Many were scooped up by Resistance groups who were happy to go from hiding in attics and garages to openly controlling strategic points from behind armor plates.

Free French H-39 tanks (Pz. Kpfw. 38H 735 fs) in Paris, August 1944: French, then German, then French again.

Resistance marked B1bis tank, recovered in Paris on August 25, 1944

Somua S-35 tank taken on August 20 in Saint-Ouen, photographed on August 23 in front of the town hall of the 17th arrondissement of Paris, rue des Batignolles.

By early October, the Allied forces in liberated France had collected 60 working tanks (17 B1bis, 21 S35s, and 22 H35/39s) along with at least twice that many junked hulls that could be cannibalized for parts. Plus, workmen and repair shops at Souma and Renault were available.

With that, it was decided to set up a French tank regiment, equipped with these recaptured domestic tracks, to augment the French armored units that were already rolling against the Germans with American-supplied vehicles.

The old 13e Régiment de Dragons, which had operated S35s and H35/39s in 1940 before they lost 90 percent of their tracks in combat against the Germans and were disbanded, was reactivated on 16 October 1944 and given the job of rolling with these rag-tag upcycled tanks which were derided as “defective, unreliable, unstable and of fanciful operation.”

Under Chef d’Escadrons Georges Lesage, the 13e RD was authorized 20 officers, 90 NCOs, and 500 men, with a HQ squadron and one squadron each of S35s (1st Sqn, Capt. d’Aboville), B1bis (2nd Sqn, Cpt. Voillaume), and H35/39s (3rd Sqn). Support was a mortar battery on half-tracks, an oversized recovery and repair troop, and truck-carried engineer and medical platoons.

Talk about a wacky TOE!

Making lemonade, 13e RD was used not on a frontline where they could possibly bump into a Tiger or Panther, but rather in an infantry support role against isolated pockets of German holdouts along the French Atlantic coast that had been bypassed in the advance across Western Europe.

This included clearing out Royan (Operation Vénérable), the island of Oléron (Operation Jupiter), La Rochelle (Operation Mousquetaires), and the liberation of the Pointe de la Coubre. Grueling reduction operations against desperate and cutoff men, where the object was a daily squeeze until the pocket was no more. 

Free French Char B1 named Vercors of the 13th Dragoons enters a French town, 1944

Char Somua S35 du 13e Régiment de Dragons dans les ruines de Royan, le 16 avril 1945.

Char B1bis tanks from the 13th Dragoon Regiment parading in Orléans on May 1, 1945, for the Joan of Arc Festival

Somua S35 tank of the 13th Dragoon Regiment (13e RD), in Marennes (Charente-Maritime) on April 30, 1945, while loading onto a barge for its transfer to the island of Oléron. This tank, taken by the Wehrmacht from the French Army in 1940, is one of the vehicles recovered in the Paris region or in Gien. It still bears German camouflage. The French cockade probably covers a German Maltese cross.

However, they were popular with the locals, who were no doubt overjoyed to see the pre-war Republic’s tanks, operated by French crews, on parade after rooting out the “boche“.

13e RD Parade of tanks on rue du Palais, May 8, 1945 by Pierre Langlade

“B1bis tanks recovered by 13e RD, parading in front of General de Gaulle at Les Mathes, on 22 April 1945, during the troop review organized after the battles of Royen and Pointe de Grave. These tanks are partly from the recovery campaign organized during the previous winter in Normandy:”

A report dated 13 June 1945 is equal parts complimentary and realistic:

The French equipment has generally given complete satisfaction on this front. The Somua has only confirmed the qualities of robustness and handling that it had shown in 1940. The B1bis, much more delicate in terms of maintenance and handling, has [not] caused any major problems […]. The tanks were used as support tanks for infantry units, arriving before or after the infantry depending on the circumstances, leading the infantry to the shutters, or being surrounded by them if necessary.

Post VE-Day, 13e RD was sent to help occupy the Rhine and remained there until it was disbanded in April 1946, its men then disbursed to other units.

Its sister unit, the 12e RD, had made it to Germany the previous May along with a smattering of French armor.

April 1945. R35 tanks of the 12ᵉ Régiment de Dragons

Hotchkiss H39 recaptured for use by the 3e Regiment de Dragons (renamed 12e Regiment de Dragons in early 1945), 1st French Army

Parade of Hotchkiss H39 tanks recovered and assigned to the 12th Dragoon Regiment, in Lindau (Germany), May 9 or 11, 1945

Re-established (sans armor) in 1952 as a paratrooper unit to fight in Algeria, today the Camp de Souge-based 13eme RDP is a fire brigade of sorts and has been deployed since 1977 everywhere from Chad to the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, and Syria.

Tracing its origin back to 1676, the regiment’s motto is Au-delà du possible (Beyond the impossible), which makes sense.

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