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Warship Wednesday December 4, 2013 The Ice Cold S-13

Posted on December 4, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, December 4, 2013, The Ice Cold S-13

Here we see Red Submarine S-13 of the Baltic Submarine Brigade of the Red Banner Fleet as she would have appeared in WWII.

The S-13 was an S-class Stalinents submarine. This class was a turning point for Soviet submersible development. Designed in the 1930s with help from the Germans, who were forbidden to work on U-boats by the Versailles Treaty, these boats were some of the most modern in the world at the time. Diesel-electric with a pair of engines and motors tied to their own independent propeller shafts, these boats could make nearly 20-knots on the surface and 10 submerged. Capable of depths of over 300-feet, they could submerge their 1000-ton 240-foot hull in just 30-feet of water. A dozen torpedoes in six bow and stern tubes gave the boat an impressive set of teeth. For surface action, a 100mm deck gun along with smaller AAA pieces were mounted. In all, some 56 S-class submarines were completed between 1939-1947.

They formed the backbone of the Red Navy for two decades and at least four went on to serve the Chinese as their first submarines. These boats saw hard service in the Baltic and the Black Sea during World War Two with only S-13 surviving of the first 13 ships of the class built.

The S-13 went on to become the most famous (infamous?) of all Soviet submarines

The S-13 herself was commissioned on 31 July 1941, six weeks after the Soviet Union was invaded by Hitler’s Axis forces. Her keel had been laid down by Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky on 19 October 1938, during much happier times. Homeported at Baltic Fleet anchorage at Kronstadt, her first captain was the unremarkable Pavel Malantyenk. Captain Malantyenk sank a pair of Finnish merchant ships before the S-13 was damaged by a depth charge attack from Finn subchasers. This led to his replacement by a hard-drinking skipper by the name of Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko.

Born the son of a Rumanian sailor in Odessa, Marinesko had long been a naval maverick. Although a good skipper, he was known to be somewhat flamboyant, hard on the vodka, and with a questionable eye to the ladies, (even once facing desertion charges after disappearing with a Swedish woman for several days during the war). As commander of the M-class submarine M96, he had sunk a German Artillery Barge and landed commandos behind the lines, earning an Order of Lenin and promotion to captain third rank. Taking over the newly repaired S-13 in 1943, he found her unlucky and was unable to sink any German ships on patrol.

Finally, on January 30, 1945, he saw a huge German ship in his periscope. Nearly 700-feet long and over 25,000-tons, this proved to be the MV Wilhelm Gustloff. An ocean liner taken up by the Kreigsmarine at the beginning of the war, the Gustloff had spent most of the war in Danzig, serving as a floating headquarters and training ship for the German U-boat service. But that night, the Wilhelm Gustloff was evacuating Danzig ahead of the approaching Red Army. She was carrying a crew of 173 (naval armed forces auxiliaries), 918 officers, NCOs, and men of the 2 Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision (the best of the U-boat brain trust), 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 162 wounded soldiers, and 8,956 civilians, among them an estimated 4,000 children, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew.

Image from http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/sinking.htm

Her only escort was the torpedo boat Lowe (the captured Norwegian destroyer HNoMS Gyller). Although the Gustloff was full of civilians she was painted as a military ship, not marked or declared as a hospital ship, armed with visible guns (3x105mm, 8x20mm cannon), and running dark in a combat zone– all of which made her a legitimate target.

The S-13 launched three torpedoes at the Wilhelm Gustloff′s port side while it was 16 miles offshore soon after 21:00, hitting it with all three. The first torpedo (marked by the crew “For Motherland”) struck near the port bow. The second torpedo (“For Soviet people”) hit just ahead of midships. The third torpedo (“For Leningrad”) struck the engine room in the area below the ship’s funnel, cutting off electrical power to the ship. The Gustloff took a light list to port and settled rapidly by the head.

In the panic that followed, many of the passengers were trampled in the rush to the lifeboats and life jackets. Some equipment was lost as a result of the panic. The water temperature in the Baltic Sea at this time of year is usually around 39 °F; however, this was a particularly cold night, with an air temperature of -0 to 14 °F and ice floes.

Soviet submarine S-13 shells the transatlantic Wilhelm Gustloff 13 of January 1945.

Soviet submarine S-13 attacks the transatlantic Wilhelm Gustloff 13 of January 1945.

Many deaths were caused either directly by the torpedoes or by drowning in the onrushing water. Others were crushed in the initial panic on the stairs and decks, and many jumped into the icy Baltic. The majority of those who perished succumbed to exposure in the freezing water. Less than 40 minutes after being struck, the Wilhelm Gustloff was lying on her side and sank bow-first, in 144 ft of water. Thousands of people were trapped inside on the promenade deck. When she went down, more than 9,000 people went with her and is the largest maritime disaster in human history.

SS General von Steuben was the S-13s next victim

This crippled the German U-boat arm for the rest of the war. On the way back to Krondstadt, S-13 sank the SS General von Steuben. This 14,660-ton liner was also performing similar work as the Gustloff. Onboard were 2,800 wounded German soldiers; 800 civilians; 100 returning soldiers; 270 navy medical personnel (including doctors, nurses, and auxiliaries); 12 nurses from Pillau; 64 crew for the ship’s anti-aircraft guns, 61 naval personnel, radio operators, signalmen, machine operators, and administrators, and 160 merchant navy crewmen: a total of 4,267 people. The S-13 fired two fish into her side and she sank in 20-minutes with only 300 survivors ever found.

In the span of a single war cruise, the S-13 sent over 40,000 tons of shipping to the bottom along with 13,000 souls for the cost of just five 21-inch torpedoes. However, returning to port the Soviet high command doubted Marinesko’s claims. Here they had a drunk who had only sunk a barge in four years of combat coming in with his scratch and dent submarine saying he sank two huge naval vessels. The fact that the Germans were silent on their losses also played into this.

Still, the subs political officer did in fact vouch that two attacks had been made, which earned Marinesko an Order of the Red Banner (instead of the more appropriate Hero of the Soviet Union award). When the brass came by to decorate Marinesko, he submerged his sub and left the dignitaries on the dock. On the next war patrol, the submarine did not make a single attack, even though it was in a target-rich environment.

Marinesko was drummed out of the service in 1946, “For neglect of duty, regular heavy drinking and domestic immorality, the Commander of the Red Submarine S-13, Red Submarine Brigade of the Baltic Fleet, Captain 3rd Rank Marinesco, Alexander Ivanovich, to be dismissed, downgraded in military rank to lieutenant and placed at the disposal of the military council of the same fleet.”

He died in 1963 forgotten and marginalized, living on a small pension. However, today he is seen as a Soviet hero and the Submarine Museum in St Petersburg is named after him. He is after-all the highest-scoring Russian Submarine Ace by tonnage in history.

The S-13 was decommissioned on 7 September 1954, stricken two years later, and scrapped.

Stalinets-class S-13 submarine in 1951, the most successful soviet submarine in history

Her sister ship, the S-56, the only known S-class still in existence, is on display as a museum ship in Vladivostok.

Specs

Type:    Diesel attack submarine
Displacement:    840 tonnes (surfaced)
1050 tonnes (submerged)
Length:    77.8 m
Beam:    6.4 m
Draught:    4.4 m
Propulsion:    2 x diesels (2000 hp)
2 x electric motors (550 hp)
2 x propeller shafts.
Speed:    19.5 knots (36 km/h) surfaced
9 knots (16.7 km/h) submerged
Range:    9800 miles (10.4 knots) surfaced
148 miles (3 knots) submerged
Test depth:    100 m
Complement:    8 officers
16 non-coms and
21 ratings
Sensors and
processing systems:
2 x periscopes
Mars-12 microphone system
Sirius communication system
ASDIC (on some boats)
Armament:    6 x 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes
(4 forward, 2 aft, 12 torpedoes)
1 x 100 mm B-24-2 gun
1 x 45 mm 21-K gun
mines

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.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.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday November 27th 2013, One of the Best Tin Cans

Posted on November 27, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time
period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday November 27th 2013 One of the Best Tin Cans

On June 4, 1942, the pivotal day of the Battle of Midway, a group of new TBM Avenger torpedo bombers headed to the isolated atoll to improve the base’s security. These six planes from VT-8 included one 32-year old AM3 William Clare Lawe, who, along with
the crews of five other planes never reached Midway, jumped on the way by Japanese zeroes. Lawe received the posthumous
Distinguished Flying Cross and was set to have a new destroyer escort named after him. This ship, DE-313 was canceled before it could be commissioned so his name was given to another ship (DE-373) which was also canceled. Then it was finally bestowed to the new Gearing class destroyer DD-763, which you see above.

The Gearing class was the Cadillac of US Navy WWII-era destroyers. What was not to like? I mean they could steam at almost 37-knots, carried six rapid-fire 5-inch/38 caliber guns, 23 anti-aircraft guns, depth charges, and ten beautiful 21-inch torpedo tubes. Further, they had long legs, capable of steaming over 4500 miles between fill ups. The Navy asked for 156 of them and Congress paid for 99, of which the new USS William C Lawe was one.

Note, this is pre-Fram, as you can see her with two 5-inch turrets forward as commissioned.

She was laid down at Bethlehem Steel Co., San Francisco, California on 12 March 1944. When the war ended the next year, her completion was delayed and she did not get to see service until December 1946. This was baby may have been conceived during the Big One, but she didn’t get delivered until it was all over. Nevertheless, she had a very active life, and did a little bit of everything for nearly forty years.

After 1960 the Lawe was ‘FRAM’d’ which removed much of her WWII armament and added, among other things, ASROC rockets and a Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter) remote control drone that could drop nuclear depth charge or torpedoes on submarines upto 22-miles away or help direct naval gunfire via a video link. The drones were unsuccessful and the Navy pulled them by the early 1970s.

The Lawe escorted President Harry S. Truman, joined a Deep Freeze task force to the polar regions, exercised often with NATO ships at sea, conducted midshipmen cruises, walked the picket line around Cuba during the Missile Crisis, and supported the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. She also stood by in the very tense waters off Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and helped recover NASA’s Gemini IX and X space capsules.

The ship between the carrier and the Soviet destroyer? Lawe

The picture above shows a U.S. Navy McDonnell F-4B Phantom II armed with an AIM-7 Sparrow missile from Fighter Squadron VF-33 “Tarsiers” on the catapult of the aircraft carrier USS America (CVA-66). VF-33 was assigned to Carrier Air Wing 6 aboard the America for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea from 10 January to 20 September 1967. In the background are the U.S. Navy Gearing-class destroyer USS William C. Lawe (DD-763), screening the carrier from the Soviet Kashin-class guided missile destroyer 381. This was during the tense standoff of the Arab-Israeli War.

By 1972 she was part of the gunline that floated just off the coast of North Vietnam, conducting hot and heavy naval gunfire support that included exchanging shots with NVA shore batteries and point-blank range. She received two battle stars for her Vietnam War service.

In 1978, as one of the smallest ships in the navy, she toured the Great Lakes, making stops in Ohio, Canada, and Michigan, in some places being the first US Navy warship to make port since WWII. US Navy recruiting posters of the time featured the ship and promised adventures.

The Lawe, along with her sister-ship USS Harold J. Ellison DD-864 (which was also named after a naval aviator who died during the Battle of Midway) were the last WWII-era destroyers of the Gearing class in US Naval service. They both were decommissioned 1 October 1983, replaced by much larger Spruance-class destroyers. While many of the Gearings went on to serve in other navies, (both Mexico and Taiwan still have a few that are nominally operational), the 37-year old Lawe never again left the US.

The ex-USS William C Lawe in mothballs, prepared to become a target ship. Picture from Navsource

The ex-USS William C Lawe in mothballs, prepared to become a target ship to test weapons systems. If only they could give them a final cigarette before they send them to the bottom….(Picture from Navsource)

She sat in mothballs with the James River reserve fleet for sixteen more years until she was sunk as a target at sea 14 July 1999. Two of her sisters, USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850) in Fall River, MA; and USS Orleck (DD-886) in Lake Charles, LA are maintained as museum ships.

Specs
Displacement:    2,616 tons standard; 3,460 tons full load
Length:    390.5 ft (119.0 m)
Beam:    40.9 ft (12.5 m)
Draft:    14.3 ft (4.4 m)
Propulsion:    2 shaft; General Electric steam turbines; 4 boilers; 60,000 shp
Speed:    36.8 knots (68.2 km/h)
Range:    4,500 nmi at 20 knots
(8,300 km at 37 km/h)
Complement:    350 as designed
Armament:

As built:
6 × 5 in /38 cal guns (127 mm) (3×2)
12 × 40 mm Bofors AA guns (2×4 & 2×2)
11 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
2 × depth charge racks
6 x K-gun depth charge throwers
10 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes

By 1950:
6 × 5 in/38 cal guns (127 mm) (in 3×2 Mk 38 DP mounts)
6 × 3 in/50 cal guns (76 mm) (2 x 2, 2 x 1)
2 x Hedgehog ASW weapons
1 × depth charge rack
6 x K-gun depth charge throwers

After FRAM
4 × 5 in/38 cal guns (127 mm) (in 2×2 Mk 38 DP mounts)
1 x ASROC 8-cell launcher
2 x triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes
1 x Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH), removed by 1970
Variable Depth Sonar (VDS)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.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.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of
which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday November 20, 2013 The Last Dreadnought

Posted on November 20, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, November 20, 2013, The Last Dreadnought

Here we see the 10th HMS Vanguard that sailed in the Royal Navy. Coming from a long maritime tradition, she was the third battleship to carry that name. As a twist of fate would have it, she was also the last of Her Majesty’s battleships and the above image is how she spent most of her life.

Ordered under the Emergency War Program of 1940 she was laid down on 2 October 1941 at John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland with Winston Churchill taking a keen interest in her. The largest and fastest warship in the Royal Navy, the 47,000-ton HMS Hood, had been sunk by Hitler’s Bismarck on 24 May 1941 with a profound effect on the British nation. Vanguard would be larger, and better.

Displacing over 50,000-tons, she would be heavier than any German battleship ever built. Capable of over 30-knots, she could outrun all but the U.S. Navy’s new Iowa-class fast battleships. Her armor, except for the Iowas and Japan’s Yamato-class, was the heaviest installed on the world’s oceans with improved splinter protection. She did, however, have a throw back to the Hood and the battleships of the rest of the British fleet in the fact that she was designed to carry the same 1915-era BL 15 inch Mk I naval gun as her main armament. This same gun was fitted to Queen Elizabeth, Revenge, and Renown class battlewagons (as well as the Hood herself). With these HMS Vanguard could range to 33,550 yards (30,680 m) (1900-pound Mk XVIIB or Mk XXII streamlined shell at 30 degrees.

With air attack an ever-increasing concern, she was fitted with over 70 40mm Bofors cannons.

The thing is, building a 50,000-ton warship while your country is fighting for its life against U-boats, buzzbombs, the Blitz and threatened landings across the English Channel was not the most urgent of matters. In that type of warfare, destroyers were needed, not battleships. Since Hitler never was able to get more than a half-dozen large armored ships operational at any time, and the Royal Navy outnumbered these by a factor of 2:1 with their WWI-era battleships alone, Vanguard never had much emphasis put upon her.

By the time she was launched on 30 November 1944, the war in Europe was already a forgone conclusion and the German navy had sidelined their last few armored warships to provide crews for U-boats which were being sunk as soon as they were commissioned.

This left Vanguard to enter service on 12 May 1946, some eight months after the Japanese surrender. She was the last battleship completed by any navy on earth.

vanguard 3

As such, the Royal Navy came full circle as they had commissioned the HMS Dreadnought in 1906, exactly forty years before, starting the period of all-big-gun Dreadnoughts.

Vanguard had a happy and peaceful, if boring life. She was the fleet flagship and as such was one of the best accommodations in the fleet, being both air-conditioned and heated. She was very connected to the royal family with then-Princess Elizabeth having christened her and King George VI almost having died upon her.

Princess Elizabeth playing tag with midshipmen on board HMS Vanguard during the Royal Tour of South Africa. 1947.

Princess Elizabeth played tag with midshipmen on board HMS Vanguard during the Royal Tour of South Africa. 1947.

However the days of battleships were waning and in 1955, after just nine years with the fleet, she was placed into reserve, though still in commission. There she served as flagship of the reserve fleet.

Sailors employed in the very peacetime job of polishing HMS Vanguard's gun caps. [1600x1265]

Sailors employed in the very peacetime job of polishing HMS Vanguard’s gun caps. [1600×1265]

At the time, besides the old WWI-era Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim which had struck in 1954, and the collection of US battleships in mothballs, she was the last battleship in the world in any type of military service. As such, she had almost all of the scenes involving battleships for the 1960 film “Sink the Bismarck!” filmed aboard her. Thus she had the distinction of playing both the Hood and the Bismarck in movies.

Two of John Brown’s finest; HMS Vanguard and RMS Queen Elizabeth. Absolute stunners both.

She was decommissioned on 7 June 1960 and sold to the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain for £560,000, scrapping in 1962.

Vanguard hard aground on way to breakers

The 11th ship with this name in the Royal Navy is the HMS Vanguard (S28) is a Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarine launched in 1992 and currently in service.

Specs:

Displacement:    44,500 long tons (45,200 t) (standard)
51,420 long tons (52,250 t) (deep load)
Length:    814 ft 4 in (248.2 m)
Beam:    108 ft (32.9 m)
Draught:    36 ft (11.0 m) (deep load)
Installed power:    130,000 shp (97,000 kW)
Propulsion:    4 shafts
4 Parsons steam turbine sets
8 Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers
Speed:    30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Range:    8,250-nautical-mile (15,280 km; 9,490 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement:    1,975
Sensors and
processing systems:    1 × Type 960 air-warning radar
1 × Type 293 target-indication radar
1 × Type 277 height-finding radar
2 × Type 274 15-inch fire-control radar
4 × Type 275 5.25-inch fire-control radar
11 × Type 262 40 mm fire-control radar
Armament:    4 × 2 – BL 15-inch Mk I guns
8 × 2 – QF 5.25-inch Mk I dual-purpose guns
10 × 6 – 40 mm Bofors AA guns
1 × 2 – 40 mm Bofors AA guns
11 × 1 – 40 mm Bofors AA guns
Armor: Belt: 4.5–14 in (114–356 mm)
Deck: 2.5–6 in (64–152 mm)
Barbettes: 11–13 in (279–330 mm)
Gun turrets: 7–13 in (178–330 mm)
Conning tower: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Bulkheads: 4–12 in (102–305 mm)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday November November 13th Of Irish Clippers and Russian Comrades

Posted on November 14, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, November 13th Of Irish Clippers and Russian Comrades

Here we see the four-masted barque rigged clipper ship Tovarish (also spelled Tovarisch, and Товарищ meaning “comrade”), the pride and joy of the Pre-WWII Soviet Red Banner Fleet, Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR in full sail. She served under no less than four flags and fought in three wars– often on both sides.

Launched at the Irish-based shipyard of Workman, Clark & Co., Belfast, for Galbraith & Moorhead, London, and delivered in December 1892, her original name was the clipper Lauriston. She was a four-masted windjammer built for blue-water cross-ocean trading service. There was nothing about her that was modern even at the time of her birth. She had no electric lights, no engine of any sort, no mechanical ventilation, no refrigeration, bathing facilities, watertight bulkheads, or water distillation devices. There was a single steam boiler, but it was just for powering the cargo boom to load and unload her four holds. She was one of the last of the old-school clipper ships. Her crew did everything manually from turning capstans on up. Their only comfort was salted pork and stored water. Their only light was by the flicker of kerosene wicks. While the ship would sail for over 50 years, this was never improved upon.

Nevertheless, what she lacked in comfort she made up for in speed, without any coal or oil to store, freed up most of her below-deck areas for cargo. She raced the oceans from one continent to another for twenty years. She completed the Liverpool – Rangoon run in just 95 days once and the Holyhead – Calcutta one in 96. When it was considered that these trips normally took even steam-assisted ships 107 and 116 days respectively, you can see just how fast the ship was. This shouldn’t surprise you when you realize that her sail plan was for nearly 10,000-square feet of canvas aloft on 30 sheets.

She hauled silks, sheep, dry goods, jute, teak wood, wool, and just about anything else that paid. First for Galbraight, then after 1905 for G. Duncan & Co, then after 1910 for Cook & Dundas, London (sold for £ 4,000), and finally to Cherey, Eggar & Forrester of London in 1913.

On to Russia!

It was Eggar (no relation) who sold the ship to an agent of the Tsar in 1914 to work the convoy route from Aberdeen to Murmansk during World War One, carrying railroad ties and equipment. A large quantity of the Murmansk-St Petersburg Railway, which was completed in 1917, came from the UK on the Russian-owned, Finnish/British-crewed His Russian Majesty’s Ship Lauriston. After the line was finished, she became a coal lighter/mothership for the flotilla of Russian navy minesweepers there. (She would be used for this in another war too, but more on that later.)

When the Tsar was kicked out in 1917 and the now-Soviet Russians sued for peace in March 1918, the Brits accompanied by other allied forces (including US doughboys) seized Murmansk. It was then the Lauriston was seized by the Brits and placed at the disposal of the Hudson Bay Co., London, moving cargo back and forth from the UK to Murmansk as needed and serving as a floating base of operations for these “Interventionist” forces in the Russian Civil War. When the Brits evacuated Murmansk to the Soviets in 1920, they towed the Lauriston back with them of course.

I mean, she may have been a 28-year old scratch and dent windjammer from another era, but she was free, right?

Well, not quite. It seems the Soviets believed that what the Tsar once owned, the State now did and by 1921 they had pitched enough of a fit to get her back. After having a refit for her (new sails, rigging, etc) at bargain prices in Germany, she was renamed Tovarish (Comrade) in 1923 and made a training ship for the Soviet navy and merchant marine, officially assigned to the Leningrad Maritime College. In her new service, she had a 32-man crew of professional officers and NCOs who oversaw 120 cadets.

She also had female crew, with the ladies being seen as equals under the new Communist utopia.

Moreover, she was one of the first operational Soviet-flagged merchant ships. This meant she could move across Europe in the 1920s, bringing back to the Soviet Union much-needed flour (the country was beset by famine throughout the 20s).

It was also theorized that she dropped of Soviet agents, and picked up Communist political prisoners. In one mission six Communist party members in Estonia were quietly bundled out to the Tovarish and away from local authorities, escaping a death sentence passed upon them.

She was the first Soviet-flag ship to enter and receive honors in many foreign ports from Europe to the Americas. For instance, she completed a run from Leningrad to Rosario, Argentina in 1926 in just 74 days by sail alone. Although with no watertight bulkheads and a riveted iron-hull, she was very strong. So much so that in a collision in the English Channel in 1928 with the Italian cargo ship “Alcantara“, it was the newer Italian steamer that went to the bottom while the Tovarish picked up survivors. Two years later an English Admiralty Court ruled that the Italian steamer was at fault, not the Soviet school ship.

It was during these salad-days of the pre-WWII Red Navy that the Tovarish proved a happy and successful ship. Her cadets included many men who would go on to become admirals of the Red Navy during and after the war.

One of the heroes that walked her deck was the infamous Alexander Marineseko, the highest scoring submarine ace in Russian history. While aboard Tovarish at age 17, Marinesko stood on his hands high up the tallest mast of the ship. Seeing the young man teetering precariously 20 meters above the deck, the ship’s longtime captain, Ivan Freiman prophesied: “You will go through a whole lotta pain, young man, if you do not learn to tame your desires and your nature!”

The cadet should have listened because even though he sank two huge German naval troopships in the Baltic (Wilhelm Gustloff and General Von Steuben) taking more than 15,000 souls down in the process, he was cashiered from the Navy for drinking and chasing tail.

When World War Two broke out, the Tovarish was sitting at Novorossisk in the Black Sea. As the Germans approached the port in 1941, the Soviets abandoned the school ship, opening her to the sea. The Germans were able to raise her and tow her to Mariupol where she sat as a floating barracks ship for the Croatian Naval Legion (Hrvatska Pomorska Legija).

The Croatian Naval Legion wore German Kreigsmarine uniforms with a Croat checkerboard emblem on the sleeve. These Adriatic sailors lived and fought from the Tovarish for nearly two years

This group of 340 ethnic-Croat sailors was formed by the Nazi-puppet Croatian Government and sent to the Black Sea to man minesweepers and patrol boats for the Germans. The Croatian government hoped that the German Kriegsmarine would use their valiant countrymen on the Eastern Front to gain valuable experience and form the core of future free Croatian Navy. Active throughout 1942, the Croatian Legion owned 31 small sailing-craft and 35 motorboats, which they operated from the mother-ship Tovarish.

In August 1943, with the Soviets closing on Mariupol, the Germans/Croats sank the ship for the second time, with Soviet aircraft finishing the job. There she sat on the harbor floor until 1959 when she was raised and scrapped. Her anchor was retained In the Town Square near the port gate, where it remains to this day, a 4-ton 1890s Irish anchor in a Ukrainian port.

She was also remembered with a special gold coin for the 300th Anniversary of the Russian Navy in 2000, as well as a postage stamp by the Soviet Union in 1981.

*(As a side note, when the Soviet Navy seized the scuttled German training ship SMS Gorch Fock at the end of the war, she was soon salvaged and repaired as a replacement for the lost Torvarich. Fittingly, that replacement ship carried the name Tovarisch in the Soviet Navy from 1951-90 and then in the Ukrainian Navy until 1999. This kept a legacy of nearly 75 years of naval training on a sailing ship named Comrade, flying the red banner fleet’s ensign. )

Specs:

The length of the upper deck (register), m 86.73(284.56-feet)
LWL, m    84.00
Beam at the middle, m 12,80, m (41.99-feet)
Depth, m    7.93
The height of the outer bar keel, mm 254
Maximum draft with the keel, m 6.60 (21.65-feet)
Full-load displacement, t 4750
Lightship, t    1150
Deadweight, t 3600
Capacity Gross, Reg. t    2472
Capacity clean, reg. t    2118
By Bruce    3.3
Crew    32
Number of trainees 120
Armament (small arms)

Sail plan:
(Sail area, m2, four-masted barque)
Flying jib –    57.9
Cleaver –    66.3
Midship jib – 62.8
Fore topmast staysail –    68.6
Fok – 226.0
The lower form Marseille – 127.0
The top form Marseille – 142.0
The lower form bramsails – 76.4
The top form bramsails – 92.8
Four-bom-bramsails –    70.0
Main-topmast staysail 1st grotto –    66.6
Main-topgallant staysail 1st grotto – 58.0
The first cave – 243.0
The lower topsail 1st grotto – 127.0
The upper topsail 1st grotto – 142.0
Lower bramsails 1st grotto – 76.4
Upper bramsails 1st grotto – 92.8
Groth-bom-bramsails 1st grotto –    70.0
Main-topmast staysail 2nd grotto –    66.6
Main-topgallant staysail 2nd grotto – 58.0
The second cave – 231.0
The lower topsail 2nd grotto – 127.0
The upper topsail 2nd grotto – 142.0
Lower bramsails 2nd grotto – 76.4
Upper bramsails 2nd grotto – 92.8
Groth-bom-bramsails 2nd grotto –    70.0
Apsel – 68.6
Cruys-topmast staysail – 53.6
Mizzen –   105.0
Mizzen topsail hafnium – 48.4
Total – 3005.0m2

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
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Warship Wednesday November 6th Farragut’s G Ride

Posted on November 6, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 5 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, November 6th Farragut’s G Ride

Here we see the 225-foot long 40-gun screw sloop of war USS Hartford as she appeared in 1862 when leading the US fleet under the command of Flag Officer (Admiral) David G Farragut up the Mississippi River. The Hartford is the tall ship in the center, mixing it up with a rag-tag group of rebel ships in the night as she steams upriver past Forts Jackson and St Phillips at the far left and right. The ship alongside is the Confederate ironclad CSS Manassas that was too slow to keep up with the swift Hartford. This is a photograph of the classic painting by Julian Oliver Davidson entitled “Capture of New Orleans by Union Flag Officer David G Farragut“.

Here we see a A 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore naval gun and crew in the stern pivot position of USS Miami, 1864. The Hartford carried 20 of these bad boys, each of which could fire a 75-pounds shell over 3400-yards, which was devastating for the time.

Here we see a 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore naval gun and crew in the stern pivot position of USS Miami, 1864. The Hartford carried 20 of these bad boys, each of which could fire a 75-pounds shell over 3400-yards, which was devastating for the time.

Built at Boston Naval Yard, Hartford was commissioned on 27 May 1859. A powerful ship, she carried 20 impressive 9-inch Dahlgren guns another twenty 20-pdr rifles, and a few 12-pounders that could be landed ashore. Her 300 man crew could fight, land up to 100 person naval party ashore for raids, and steam the sloop with her combined coal-fired boiler-driven screw powered by two horizontal double piston-rod engines coupled with a sail rig at speeds over 13-knots. With her range virtually unlimited due to her hybrid propulsion, she spent the first two years of her life sailing the Orient and Africa, showing the flag.

Hartford leading the Gulf Squadron up the Mississippi

When the Civil War broke out, Hartford was recalled home and arrived in Philadelphia by the end of 1861. After a short refit, she was placed under the command of Farragut who used her as the flag-ship for his West Gulf Blockading Squadron. On April 24, 1862, Hartford hung a red lantern on her mast in the darkness of predawn and led the ships of the squadron up the heavily defended Mississippi River, deep into Confederate history. Forcing the river mouth as seen in the painting above, the Hartford arrived in New Orleans the next day and started the task of cutting the Confederacy in two. This was finally accomplished in July 1863 after the Vicksburg campaign, in which Hartford remained as flagship. During the campaign the ship suffered much damage from shore batteries, snipers, and fire-barges, even having about a quarter of her above-water hull charred black.

Then on 5 August 1864, the ship again led the fleet into the hell that was Mobile Bay. Secured by Fort Gaines at Dauphin Island to the East and Fort Morgan on Gulf Shores to the West, the Bay itself was strewn with submarines, naval mines (called torpedoes), the ironclad warship CSS Tennessee, and other fears. With the fleet at risk, Farragut lashed himself to the masts of Hartford and directed the fleet from the rigging with his force of will and a megaphone.

The deck plate that Farragut stood on before ascending the rigging of the Hartford, preserved at the Fort Gaines museum.

When the monitor USS Tecumseh blew up, rolled over, and sank in the muck of Mobile Bay, the fleet began to falter. It was believed that the new warship had struck and been holed by a rebel torpedo. Then came Farragut’s cry of “Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead.”. At that, the Bay entrance was passed, leaving the Forts to fall from infantry assaults from their landward sides, and Mobile closed for business to blockade runners.

Admiral Farragut and the USS Hartford's Capitan Percival Deayton, USN, aboard the ship in 1864. Deayton was Hartford's 6th captain. Her last , CPT Earl Peck Finney Sr in 1923 was her 23rd. No less than a dozen of the men who walked the decks of Hartford at the Battle of Mobile Bay that year would become recipients of the Medal of Honor.

Admiral Farragut and the USS Hartford’s Captain Percival Deayton, USN, aboard the ship in 1864. Deayton was Hartford’s 6th captain. Her last, CPT Earl Peck Finney Sr in 1923 was her 23rd. No less than a dozen of the men who walked the decks of Hartford at the Battle of Mobile Bay that year would become recipients of the Medal of Honor.

After the Civil War, Hartford was sent to the Pacific, becoming the head of the new Asiatic Squadron. She would spend the next 34 years on the West Coast between China and California, with stops at virtually every port in between. In 1880, she was given the barely used twin non-condensing back-acting steam engines of the scrapped Milwaukee-class river monitor USS Keywadin, which doubled her power plant. Her original bronze screw was replaced by a new one, but the Navy did not throw this old prop away. We’ll get to that later.

The Hartford at sea in 1905, nearly 50 years young

The Hartford was one of the few Civil War-era ships that the Navy maintained into the 20th Century. Remember, by 1865 the US fleet had swollen to where it was arguably the largest and most modern in the world, with more than 671 ships including the most up-to-date collection of all-gun, all-armored, steamships. However, the nation soon divested itself of more than 90% of its naval list within a decade. Even though she was not the most modern in the fleet, Hartford, famous for her time with Farragut and capable of miserly travels on her sail suite, was retained not only on the list but in active service while her would-be replacements were broken up for scrap.

Gun drill, 1905. Note the long-barreled flap holsters for Colt 38 revolvers and the two 57mm Hotchkiss guns trained out to sea.

By the dawn of the 20th Century, the old screw frigate was over forty years at sea but was still a service. Rebuilt and sent to the East Coast, she spent twelve years from 1899-1912 as the unarmed seagoing training ship for Naval Academy midshipmen as well as new bluejackets and goats. Although the ship was almost all original above deck, her Civil War-era engines had been replaced by a pair of modern 1000-hp compound engines coupled to their own boilers. They did still turn the same single screw installed in 1880 however and would for another half-century.

Ships inspection 1905

With the Navy moving from sail and coal to oil, she found herself a solid anachronism and by 1913 was reduced to a dockside receiving and barracks ship in Charleston South Carolina, moored just a mile from Fort Sumter, like two bookends to Civil War that had happened more than fifty years before. There she endured World War One, still in commission and serving as a floating headquarters for the local Naval District. In 1928 she was decommissioned, having given 69 years of famous service. The Navy held on to her as floating equipment without either masts or engines, giving her the official hull number of IX13. She was towed first to Washington Naval Yard in 1938, then to Norfolk in 1945, with the ultimate goal of turning her into a floating and restored museum alongside the old USS Olympia, Dewey’s flagship during the Battle of Manila Bay. During this time she was largely gutted and her hull repaired in preparation.

After her decommissioning in 1928, she became a barracks and receiving ship for another decade. Basically a floating hotel (BQ) for sailors between berths. Note her decks built up to accommodate another row of berths and how high she sits in the water, not needing cannon, coal, or rigging anymore.

This was not to be and the mighty old warship eventually filled slowly with water over time and settled on the harbor in 1956. She was raised and scrapped the next year, not feasible of being repaired. Still, a marked piece of naval history, hundreds of relics from the old girl were salvaged. This puts her as one of the most visitable ships that do not exist in the country as parts of her are scattered from coast to coast to coast.

During WWII she sat at Norfolk, her transition to a museum ship put off indeffinatly by the war. Note that her masts have been stepped at the deck level.

During WWII she sat first at Charleston, then at Norfolk, her transition to a museum ship put off indefinitely by the war. Note that her masts have been stepped at the deck level.

Forgotten and neglected, the Hartford settled in the muck along the Virgina coast and sank in 1956, right at 100 years after her keel was laid.

Forgotten and neglected, the Hartford settled in the muck along the Virginia coast and sank in 1956, right at 100 years after her keel was laid.

Her bow figurehead is at her namesake city of Hartford Connecticut at the State Capitol while her ship’s bell is in the clock tower there. One of her anchors is across town at the University of Hartford while two of her Dahlgren guns are at Trinity College in town.

At Mobile, where Farragut damned the torpedoes, one of her anchors is on display in the central parade ground of Fort Gaines, which had fired shots at her in the Battle of Mobile Bay. Inside the museum, there is a brass deck plate that the Admiral walked upon.

One of Hartford’s anchors on the parade ground at Fort Gaines. During the Battle of Mobile Bay, the sloop fired her guns into where her anchor now lay.

The ship’s capstan is in a place of honor at the Farragut Naval Academy at St Petersburg Florida while a hatch-cover is used as a coffee table in the Superintendent’s Office at Annapolis.

Her Civil War-era cannon were removed in a refit in 1887 and sold to Bannerman’s in New York for their value as scrap. Instead of torching them, Bannerman sold them for a slight profit to veterans groups and villages who wanted a tie to the past. A few of these guns were still listed in that company’s catalog as late as the 1940s. Several of these guns, at least 14, are preserved on city greens, town halls, and museums across the country from New York to Maryland to Michigan to California. It is believed that some of these were used to build a breakwater on Bannerman’s Island, where they can still be seen today.

Her wheel and fife rail is at the Museum of the Navy in Washington DC and other relics are found all around the Washington Naval Yard while her billethead is in nearby Newport News as the Mariner’s Museum. Finally, the bronze used to create the statue of Farragut in downtown Washington DC was drawn from the ship’s screw that was removed in 1880.

In effect, Farragut will be a part of Hartford forever.

Specs:
Displacement: 2,900 long tons (2,947 t)
Length:    225 ft (69 m)
Beam:    44 ft (13 m)
Draft:    17 ft 2 in (5.23 m)
Propulsion:    Steam engine and Sails, changed several times from 1859 to 1899.
Speed:    13.5 knots (25.0 km/h; 15.5 mph)
Complement: 310 officers and enlisted
Armament:

(Commissioned to 1863)
twenty 9″ Dahlgren smoothbores
twenty 20-pdr muzzleloading rifles
one or two 12-pdr
(June 1863)
twenty-four 9″ Dahlgren smoothbores
one 45-pdr muzzle loading rifle
two 30-pdr muzzleloading rifles
(June 1864)
one 100-pdr muzzle loading rifle
eighteen 9″ Dahlgren smoothbores
one 30-pdr muzzle loading rifle
three 13-pdr howitzers
(after 1887)
ship’s small arms locker and a few small deck-mounted guns (57mm 6-pdrs) for training until 1912.

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Warship Wednesday, October 30 Mr. Holland’s toy

Posted on October 30, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, October 30 Mr. Holland’s toy

Here we see what started off originally as the Holland VI, a small submersible invented by Mr. John Philip Holland in 1896. The ship was built at Lewis Nixon’s Crescent Shipyard of Elizabeth, New Jersey for Mr. Holland as his sixth personal submarine (as the name implies).

Mr. Holland showing off his boat for the media. Nothing says 1900 submarines like bowler hats…

Just 53-feet long, she was the forerunner of every submarine today. Yes, there had been dozens of earlier experimental boats that had been produced in the US and Europe from the 1700s on, but the Holland VI had several unique features that are now standard on underwater boats. These included both an internal combustion engine (in Hollands case a 45hp Otto gas engine) for running on the surface, and a 56kW electric motor for submerged operation. She had a re-loadable torpedo tube and a topside deck gun (a pneumatic dynamite gun!). There was a conning tower from which the boat and her weapons could be directed. Finally, she had all the necessary ballast and trim tanks to make precise changes in-depth and attitude underwater.

What more could you ask for?

After running around the US coast and several interested (and very international ) parties popping in to take a look at it, the US Navy bought the little boat for $150-grand in 1900. This was about $3.5-million today. She was placed in commissioned six months later as USS Holland (SS-1) on 12 OCT 1900. The US promptly ordered six larger boats from Holland’s Electric Boat Company as did the Tsar. It was Holland boats sold to the Russians that saw limited use in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, itself a dress-rehearsal for most of the technology used in the First World War.

Holland (SS-01), at the US Naval Acadamy, Annapolis, MD., summer of 1905. The crew on deck are, L to R: Harry Wahab, chief gunner's mate; Kane; Richard O. Williams, chief electrician; Chief Gunner Owen Hill, commanding; Igoe; Michael Malone; Barnett Bowie, Simpson, chief machinist mate, and Rhinelander. The two vessels on the right are monitors. The inboard vessel has only one turret and is probably one of 3 monitors: Arkansas (M-7), Nevada(M-8) or Florida (M-9). The outboard 2 turreted monitor is also one of 3 probables: Amphitrite (BM-2), Terror (M-4) or Miantonomah (BM-5).

Holland (SS-01), at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD., summer of 1905. The crew on deck are, L to R: Harry Wahab, chief gunner’s mate; Kane; Richard O. Williams, chief electrician; Chief Gunner Owen Hill, commanding; Igoe; Michael Malone; Barnett Bowie, Simpson, chief machinist mate, and Rhinelander. The two vessels on the right are monitors. The inboard vessel has only one turret and is probably one of 3 monitors: Arkansas (M-7), Nevada(M-8) or Florida (M-9). The outboard 2 turreted monitor is also one of 3 probables: Amphitrite (BM-2), Terror (M-4) or Miantonomah (BM-5).

Made quickly obsolete by very rapid developments in submarine design not only in the US but in Russia, Germany, the UK, and France, she was decommissioned in 1905.

The Navy kept her for eight years in mothballs then sold her as scrap to Henry A. Hitner & Sons, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 18 June 1913 for $100. Within just a few months of her being sold as scrap, British shipping was being sunk at amazing rates by German U-boats in WWI.

The breaker, with that in mind, held onto the ex-Holland through WWI, then passed her onto a local museum who held onto her for 15 years, only cutting her up in 1932 when the Depression dictated it was worth more in scrap iron regardless of sentimental attachment.

A small chunk of her is still in the National Museum of the Navy in Washington.

Nameplate of submarine Holland Exhibited in the “Dive, Dive, Dive!” display area in Bldg. 76

Today the Electric Boat Company still makes boats as part of GenDyn but Holland is largely forgotten.

Specs:

Displacement:    64 long tons (65 t) surfaced
74 long tons (75 t) submerged
Length:    53 ft 10 in (16.41 m) LOA
Beam:    10 ft 4 in (3.15 m) extreme
Draft:    8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Installed power:    45 bhp (34 kW) (gasoline engine), later upgraded to 160hp
75 bhp (56 kW) (electric motor)
66 Exide batteries
1 × screw
Speed:    First 3knots then later 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) surfaced
5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph) submerged
Complement:    6
Armament:    1 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tube forward

1 ‘Aerial torpedo tube’ (experimental)
1 × 8.4 in (210 mm) dynamite gun (removed in US Naval service)

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

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Warship Wednesday October 23, The Net Jumping Cricket

Posted on October 23, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, October 23, The Net Jumping Cricket

Here we see a rendering of a very interesting boat in the Italian Naval service during World War One. Part tank, part torpedo boat, it was designed to crawl over the nets protecting enemy naval bases, then punch holes in the bad guy’s ships, sending them to the bottom and taking them out of the war.

When the Great War started, Italy, which was officially an ally of Germany and Austria, flung its hands in the air and proclaimed its official neutrality. You see Italy bordered France to the west, faced the might of the combined British and French fleets in the Mediterranean, and had very little to gain for coming into the war for the two Kaisers, with everything to lose. After eight months of wooing the Allies, Italy double-crossed their buddies and cast their lot with the West. Although the Italian Army found itself in a bloody stalemate in the Alps against the Austrian army that brought nothing but misery, their navy served a genuine purpose in bottling up the rather large Austrian fleet in the Adriatic. This freed up the British and French forces in the Med to move into the Atlantic to face the Germans.

Just look at all of those pretty Austrian battleships at anchor in Pula harbor. Here you see Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleships ( Tegetthoff class ) at the roadstead in Pula Croatia , Which Was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

For most of 1915, 1916, and 1917 the Italian Navy, (Regia Marina) was content with holding the line across the Adriatic and keeping the Austrians in their ports. Then in 1918, they decided to go north and sink the Kaiser’s battleships where they slept. Two Italian torpedo boats made it into the lightly defended harbor at Trieste and sank the old battleship, Wien. The problem was, the Austrians had years to fortify their largest naval base at Pola (now Pula in Croatia) with anti-submarine nets, anti-torpedo nets, underwater obstacles, coastal artillery, and naval mines. To penetrate these harbors, the Italians had to come up with something different.

They came up with the “Barchino Salvatore” or “punt jumper”. These fifty-foot-long wooden hulled boats had a flat bottom and two tracks along each side of the hull, port, and starboard. Each track held a series of metal crampon hooks and was turned by a set of pulleys fore and aft, propelled by a pair of 5hp electric motors. This unusual boat 8-ton could literally crawl over the rows of torpedo nets and anti-submarine nets that separated the Adriatic from the protected harbor. Once over the nets, the boat would drop into the inner harbor, where it would transit, using its spinning tracks to move like a side-mounted paddle wheel, at 4 knots. Then, lining up with an Austrian battleship at anchor, it would send two torpedoes into its side before beating feet (err, tracks) back out to sea. Of course, this required the punt jumper to be towed to Pola and back by a larger ship, but once there, it was good to go.

The Italians built four of these boats and named them the Cavalletta (Grasshopper), Locusta (Locust), Pulce (Flea), and Grillo (Cricket). The were made a part of MAS 95 and 96 squadrons, which became famous for irregular naval actions in the war.

Four times in early May 1918, two Italian destroyers, two torpedo boats, and the punt jumper Grillo left the Italian side of the Adriatic and made their way in convoy to Pula. On the first three of those attempts, conditions were less than ideal Then on the night of May 13-14, 1918, the Grillo made a go of it with a mission to make it through Pola harbor. Crewed by Stoker Giuseppe Corrias, Seaman Angelino Berardinelli, and commanded by Lieutenant CC Pellegrini, the Grillo made it through four of the five Austrian obstruction nets but got caught on the last one. These obstacles were rows of timber balks and wire hawsers six feet apart.

Four out of five doesn’t count in harbor defenses and the Austrians opened fire on the helpless Grillo when it was caught in the searchlights, which sunk.

Italian crawling MTB Grillo after the attack on Pola on 13 May 1918

Pellegrini

Her three-man crew was captured and ended the war as POWs, winning the Italian Gold Medal for Military Valor.

The Austrians’ Grillo clone

The Austrians thought it interesting enough to make one of their own as a testbed to make sure the Italians couldn’t get successful using one of these tank-boats in the future.

With that in mind, the Italians shelved the other three and concentrated on human torpedoes, which they used to penetrate Pola in November and sink the battleship Viribus Unitis (20,000 t) and the nearby steamer Wien (7,400 t) in the last days of the war.

Specs:
Displacement 8 tons
Length    16.0 m (52.29ft)
Width    3,10 m (10.17 ft)
Draft    0.75 m (2.46ft)
Propulsion    2 electric motors on the axis for 10 HP total
Speed    4 knots
Range   30 mn at 4 knots
Crew    4
Armament    2x 450mm torpedoes

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Warship Wednesday October 16, The Ship that Wouldnt Die

Posted on October 16, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday October 16, The Ship that Wouldnt Die

Here we see the USS Franklin (CV-13), one of the 24 Essex class fleet carriers that were completed. Laid down a year to the
day after Pearl Harbor, the 800+ foot long ship was built in just over 400-days, commissioned 31 January 1944.

She rushed out to sea, did her shake down cruise, and was almost immediately in combat. Among her crew was bandleader Horace Kirby “Saxie” Dowell, who had just had one of the largest hits in the country before the War started with “Three Little Fishes”, which was famously covered by the Andrews Sisters. Saxie at 37 was one of the oldest of the 2600 men on the boat. But like Saxie, most of the rank and file had only a year before been a civilian.

By June 1944 she was neck-deep in Japanese disputed waters, sending sorties into Bonin and Mariana Islands, Peleliu, and other islands on the final push towards the Empire. Then came the Philippines in October where Franklin and her escorts fought in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea in which her planes helped drop ordnance on the Japanese battleships Musashi, Fuso, and Yamashiro. This was followed by the Battle off Cape Engano where her planes helped scratch the Emperor’s carriers Zuiho and Chiyoda.

Then by March 1945, she was the closest US carrier to the Japanese coast, lying just 50 miles offshore. It was then on 19 March that a single Japanese aircraft came in low and slow on Franklin and dropped two 550-pound bombs right on to her deck. There she had 31 fully armed and fueled aircraft ready to take off for strikes against the home islands. The resulting explosions and fires led to an amazing struggle between men and flame. This left the ship dead in the water, charred, and listing at 13-degrees. Suffering 807 killed and more than 487 wounded, half of the ship’s crew had been killed or seriously injured. Cumulatively on the magazine explosion on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor caused more loss of life in US Navy history.

Well within a day she had made enough repairs to make it off to Ulithi Atoll at 14-knots. Within six weeks she had steamed across the Pacific, through the Canal, and into Brooklyn Naval Yard. Her war over, she spent months being restored to near-new condition. Unneeded after the war, she was decommissioned 17 February 1947, having spent just over three years in service. Her condition kept her in mothballs for almost two decades but unlike her sisters, she was never converted to the post war Essex-type pattern with an angled flight deck.

On 1 August 1966 she was sold for scrap.

A monument to the ship is at Bremerton Washington.

Specs:

Displacement:    As built:
27,100 tons standard
36,380 tons full load
Length:    As built:
820 feet (250 m) waterline
872 feet (266 m) overall
Beam:    As built:
93 feet (28 m) waterline
147 feet 6 inches (45 m) overall
Draft:    As built:
28 feet 5 inches (8.66 m) light
34 feet 2 inches (10.41 m) full load

Propulsion:    As designed:
8 × boilers 565 psi (3,900 kPa) 850 °F (450 °C)
4 × Westinghouse geared steam turbines
4 × shafts
150,000 shp (110 MW)
Speed:    33 knots (61 km/h)
Range:    20,000 nautical miles (37,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h)

Complement: As built:
2,600 officers and enlisted

Armament: As built:
4 × twin 5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns
4 × single 5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns
8 × quadruple 40 mm 56 caliber guns
46 × single 20 mm 78 caliber guns

Armor: As built:
2.5 to 4 inch (60 to 100 mm) belt
1.5 inch (40 mm) hangar and protective decks
4 inch (100 mm) bulkheads
1.5 inch (40 mm) STS top and sides of pilot house
2.5 inch (60 mm) top of steering gear

Aircraft carried: As built:
90–100 aircraft
1 × deck-edge elevator
2 × centerline elevators

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Nearing their 50th Anniversary, 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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Warship Wednesday October 9, The Broken America

Posted on October 9, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday October 9, The Broken America

Here we see the luxury liner SS America. At the time she was one of the fastest and most elegant ships at sea. Her life would take a tragic and sad end.

Built in the end of the preWWII luxury liner era that saw such ships as the Hamburg, Normandie, and Queen Mary take to the seas, the SS America was not the biggest ship in the sea, but at 35,000-tons, was still the size of a battleship. With a capacity of 1200 passengers, she was intended to take up the North Atlantic trade from New York to England/France at speeds of over 22-knots. Laid down in August 22, 1938 by the Maritime Administration, she was paid for in part by the government but ran by the United States Lines company from New York.

When she was completed and sailed on her maiden voyage on August 22, 1940, World War Two had been going on for a year in Europe. To keep her safe from German U-boats or surface raiders, (the US was neutral at the time), she sailed with every light on, giant American flags painted on her sides (where a U-boat captain would target through his attack periscope) and behaved as noisy as possible. Even with this said, USN inspectors poured over her plans and made notes, even helping to degauss the ship in early 1941 against magnetic mines. The FBI also quietly removed two German spies from her crew.

Then, just six months before Pearl Harbor, the Maritime Administration called in their marker and pressed the ship into service with the navy. Renamed the troop ship USS West Point, she was given pennant number AP-23. Armed with four single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts , four single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts, four twin 40mm AA gun mounts, and eight .50 cal machine guns, she was made capable of carrying as many as 7600 Army troops as well as some 400-tons of their cargo. Although on some missions she carried as many as 8500.

Capable of moving an entire brigade at once, with a few extra battalions attached, she was one of the most capable ships in the Naval Transportation Service. During the war she moved over 450,000 US, Canadian, Australian, British and other allied troops to North Africa, Italy, the Pacific and back and forth across the Atlantic. In a single year, between June 27, 1944, and June 24, 1945, the West Pont crossed the Atlantic 27 times and carried more than 140,000 passengers. Used on occasion as a hospital transport, she carried another 16,000 wounded soldiers back home to urgent medical care. Another class of passenger, 14,000 Axis prisoners of war, were also carried off into life in POW camps. Thus she served as a prison ship, transport, and hospital craft.

On March 12, 1946, the MARAD, having gotten their moneys worth from the ship, disarmed her and gave her back to the United States line. In all, West Point had accomplished 145 missions, made 15 Pacific crossings and 41 on the Atlantic, steamed 456,144 nautical miles and carried 505,020 passengers of all kinds while in US service.

The ship resumed a weird and varied life over the next 48 years.

The Name Game!

Ok guys and girls, lets play the name game with this ship. Follow along at home.

She was built as the SS America for the United States Lines in 1940.
In 1941, the MARAD acquired her and sailed her for five years as the USS West Point.
Then the United States Lines picked her back up and used her old name until 1964 when…
The Chandris Grooup bought her and renamed the aging ship the SS Australis, and changed her to Greek registry.

Then Venture Cruises started up and for a year (1978) ran her as the SS America for the third time before…
Chandris required her and renamed her SS Italis…
Intercommerce bought her and called her the SS Noga to be converted to a floating prison ship in Lebanon before…
Silver Moon picked her up and referred to her as the Alferdoss in 1984…
Then finally the Chaophraya Transport Co acquired the fifty year old ship and caller her the SS America Star in 1994.

So if you were keeping track, that’s at least 9 different name changes including going back and forth to the SS America three times. Eh, it happens.

Well, after four decades of abuse and varying levels of maintenance from one cruise liner company to the next, the old SS America was, by the 1980s, basically derelict. In 1993 her last owner decided to tow her from Greece, where she had sat for decades to Thailand to be converted to a floating hotel at Phuket Beach. In the course of a 100-day tow by the Ukrainian tugboat Neftegaz-67, she broke her lines and ran aground off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

There she has stayed for the past 19 years, slowly being washed out to sea.

In another decade, all that will be left is the memory.

Specifications (as USS West Point) :
Displacement 26,455 t.(lt) 35,400 t.(fl)
Length 723′
Beam 93′ 3″
Draft 32′ 9″
Speed 24 kts.
Complement
Officers 57
Enlisted 912
Troop Accommodations
Officers 587
Enlisted 7,091
Largest Boom Capacity 20 t.
Cargo Capacity 400 DWT
non-refrigerated 110,243 Cu ft
Armament
four single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts
four single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts
four twin 40mm AA gun mounts
eight .50 cal machine guns
(later augmented by as many as 10 20mm Oeirkilons)
Fuel Capacities
NSFO 32,100 Bbls
Diesel 525 Bbls
Propulsion
two Newport News Shipbuilding turbines
six Babcock and Wilcox “A”-type boilers, 430psi 725°
double De Laval Main Reduction Gears
four turbo-drive 600Kw 100/240 D.C. Ship’s Service Generators
twin propellers, 34,000shp

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday October 3 The Phoenix of Pearl Harbor

Posted on October 2, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday October 3 The Phoenix of Pearl Harbor

Here we see the Colorado-class battleship USS West Virgina (BB-48) as she appeared at the end of her WWII refit. You wouldn’t know it at the time but she was over 20 years old and had already seen severe combat, even being sunk in the first hour of the war.

Commissioned on 1 December 1923, with Navy Cross-winner Captain (later Admiral) Thomas J. Senn in command, West Virgina was the last US battleship built for nearly two decades. The end of World War One and the resulting Washington and London Naval Treaties stopped further battleship construction. In fact, one of her sister ships, the USS Washington BB-47, was canceled while some 75% complete and sunk as a naval target.

Her appearance in the 1920s and 1930s was far more ‘old-school’

West Virgina was arguably the most powerful class of battleship afloat in the world at the time. Displacing nearly 35,000-tons at a full load, their clipper bow set them apart from earlier US battlewagons and made them far drier, especially in rough weather. Turbo-electric transmission pushed four screws and could make 21-knots. Keeping enough oil in her bunkers for a 8000-mile round trip at half that, she was capable of crossing the Atlantic without an oiler to keep close to her. Upto 13.5-inches of armor (18 on turret faces) shielded her while 8 powerful 16-inch guns gave her tremendous ‘throw’.

The closest rival in any fleet around the world to her in 1923 was the British HMS Hood. Hood was bigger and faster (47,000-tons, 31-knots) but had thin armor and 8-15-inch guns. The Japanese Nagato-class were also slightly larger (38,000-tons), slightly faster (25-knots), and 8x 16-inch guns, but like the Hood had less armor.

As a hold back of pre-WWI thinking, she was the last US battleship commissioned with torpedo tubes and a four-turret main battery.

The West Virgina is seen forward, settled and burning after 7 torpedo hits. Half-sister USS Tennessee is just behind her

A happy ship, she spent the first 18 years of her life in the peacetime navy, participating in naval gunnery exercises, showing the flag, and taking part in war games. On December 7, 1941, just a week after her birthday, she was sitting peacefully at the quay on Battleship Row. Japanese torpedo bombers sent *seven* fish into her sides while at least two Type 99 bombs hit her decks (one of which failed to explode). Catastrophic damage, flooding, and oil fires resulted and the battleship sank in 40-feet of water, settling on her hull with her decks awash. No ship can withstand 7 torpedo hits. Incredibly, only a hundred of her crew (about 10%) were lost in the battle.

After spending six months on the bottom of Pearl, she was one of the first ships salvaged. Patched up and pumped out, she refloated and spent the next year at Pearl under repair. Following this, she was able to steam to Puget Naval Yard for modernization. There she spent 15-months being converted from 1923 to 1943. Her old 5-inch/51s and 3-inch guns were removed as were her dated observation towers. She was given a new camouflage scheme, a wider hull (with more torpedo protection), a new radar package, and a huge new AAA suite that included 16 new rapid fire 5-inch guns and nearly 100 40mm Bofors and Oerlikon 20mm cannons. Likewise, the entire interior of the ship was upgraded from keel to bridge.

Compare this picture of the USS Alabama, a brand new SoDak class battleship in 1943 compared to the refurbished Wee Vee at the top of this post…

In the end she looked more like a new 1943-era South Dakota class battleship than a 1920s Colorado.

She took her new act on the road and steamed West for some payback. As the flagship of Battleship Division Four (BatDiv4), she led five other WWI-era battleships into the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf. These ships included the USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Mississippi (BB-41), USS Tennessee (BB-43), USS California (BB-44), and USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)— three of which had been at Pearl Harbor with the Wee Vee.

Wee Vee in 1944, post-refit

In combat with the Japanese battlewagons Fuso and Yamashiro, the Wee Vee sent more than 16 salvos into the Japanese line in a night action, being credited with numerous hits on Yamashiro, leading to that ship’s sinking.

USS West Virgina off Okinawa April 1, 1945. That’s one heck of an April Fools day payback to the Japanese, who had already marked the WV off their “to sink” list once before

She finished the war with bombarding Iwo and Okinawa, coming to within 600-yards of the beach (which is close for a ship that needed 31-feet of water under her keel to float). She caught a kamikaze for her trouble.

Decommissioned on 9 January 1947, the Navy kept the newly rebuilt old battlewagon on red lead row for 12 years before striking her in 1959. With several newer ships around for donation to museums such as the Massachusetts and Alabama, no one seemed to want the Wee Vee and she was sold for her value in scrap metal per pound after 36-years of service.

Her bowflag is preserved in Clarksburg, WV, and her mooring quay is retired on Battleship Row, in mute testimony to that quiet Sunday morning in 1941.

Still waiting for her to come home…..

Specs:

Displacement: 33,590 tons
Length: 624 ft (190 m)
Beam:

97.3 ft (29.7 m) (original)
114 ft (35 m) (rebuilt)

Draft:    30.5 ft (9.3 m)
Speed:    21 kn (24 mph; 39 km/h)
Complement:    1,407 officers and men
Sensors and
processing systems:    CXAM-1 RADAR from 1940[3]
Armament:

8 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 cal guns
12 × 5 in (130 mm)/51 cal guns
4 × 3 in (76 mm)s
2 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes

After Reconstruction:

8 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 cal guns
16 × 5 in (130 mm)/38 cal guns
40 × Bofors 40 mm guns
50 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons

Armor:

Belt: 8–13.5 in (203–343 mm)
Barbettes: 13 in (330 mm)
Turret face: 18 in (457 mm)
Turret sides: 9–10 in (229–254 mm)
Turret top: 5 in (127 mm)
Turret rear 9 in (229 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (292 mm)
Decks: 3.5 in (89 mm)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

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