Tag Archives: USS Vicksburg

Warship Wednesday, December 12

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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 12

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Here we see the USS Vicksburg (CL-86), a Cleveland-class light cruiser, off the U.S. East Coast, 17 October 1944. Photographed by from a blimp of squadron ZP-12, based at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey. The ship is painted in Camouflage Measure 33, Design 6d. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center #NH 98331.)

Vicksburg was first laid down as the cruiser Cheyenne in 1942 she was renamed before commissioning in June 1944 a week after the D-Day landings. She rushed to the Pacific and was soon in the midst of protecting the fast carrier task forces of the US Navy from Kamikazes in the push to the Japanese home islands. Although arriving late in the war she made her presence felt in Iwo and Okinawa, dropping six-inch shells on Japanese positions while bagging a number of kamikazes with her formidable battery of 40mm and 20mm guns as perhaps the most modern ship of her class.

with searchlights

with searchlights

After the war she served as the flag of Commander, 3rd Fleet before being placed into mothballs at the ripe old age of three-years old. There she remained for 15-years quietly waiting for a call that never came.

Like 26 of the 27 Cleveland class that were completed as cruisers, Vicksburg was scrapped.  Only one Cleveland-class ship remains, the CLG-converted Little Rock, which has since 1976 been a museum ship in Buffalo, New York. Elements of the Vicksburg were used to refurbish her.

The Little Rock, Vick's sistership, on display in Buffalo.

The Little Rock, Vick’s sistership, on display in Buffalo.

Specs:
Displacement:     11,800 tons (standard), 14,131 tons (full)
Length:     600 ft (Waterline) 600 ft (180 m), 608 ft 4 in (Overall) 608 ft 4 in (185.42 m)
Beam:     63 ft (20.2 m)
Height:     113 ft (34.5 m)
Draft:     20 ft mean (7.5 m)
Propulsion:

4 Babcock & Wilcox, 634 psi boilers
4 GE geared steam turbines
4 Screws
100,000 hp (75 MW)

Speed:     32.5 knots
Range:     14,500 nm @ 15 kts
Complement:     992 officers and enlisted although by 1945 this grew to 1255 total.

Armament:     12 × 6 in (150 mm) guns (4×3), 12 × 5 in (130 mm) guns (6×2), 12 × 40 mm Bofors guns (2×4, 2×2), 10 × 20 mm guns (10×1)
Updated in 1945 with 28 × 40 mm Bofors guns (4×4, 6×2) and additional sensors

Aircraft carried:     4 OS2U Kingfisher scout planes
Aviation facilities:     2 launching catapults

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Warship Wednesday, June 20

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  June 20

Here we have the Here we see  the Annapolis-class gunboat USS Vicksburg. The U. S. Navy gunboats Annapolis, Vicksburg, Newport, and Princeton were authorized in 1895. Their functions were to show the flag and keep order in foreign ports, in keeping with the “gunboat diplomacy” policy of the period. They were attractive ships, with fine lines, composite construction (wood planks on steel frames), vertical triple-expansion engines, and three-masted barkentine rigs for economical operation over great distances

Specs (1900)
Displacement:     1,010 long tons (1,030 t)
Length:     204 ft 5 in (62.31 m)
Beam:     36 ft (11 m)
Draft:     12 ft 9 in (3.89 m)
Installed power:     1,118 ihp (834 kW)
Propulsion:     1 × triple expansion steam engine
1 × screw
Speed:     Under Steam: 13 kn (15 mph; 24 km/h)
Under Sail: 6.5 kn (7.5 mph; 12.0 km/h)
Complement:     143
Armament:     6 × 4 in (100 mm) guns
4 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.24 in)) rapid-fire guns
2 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.46 in)) rapid fire guns
1 × Colt machine gun

In her time with the Navy, from the date of her acquisition on 27 June 1897 until she was transferred to the US Coast Guard 18 August 1922, a span of just slightly over 25 years, she was decommissioned and recommissioned a total of four times. She spent  a total of just 11 of those 25 years on active service. However the service she did see, was very active indeed.

In the Spanish American War she blockaded the Cuban coast and captured the blockade runners Oriente, Ampala, and Fernandito in addition to exchanging shots with Havana’s shore batteries. She assisted the US Army in the occupation and pacifcation of the Philippines including capturing the Philippine president, Emilio Aguinaldo, at Palanan, Isabela in March 1901. She watched the Russian cruiser Varyag (see Warship Weds June 13) destroyed at Inchon during the Russo-Japanese War. She patrolled the coast of central America and Mexico during the Mexican revolutions and intervened in Nicaragua where she landed marines. During World War One she captured the German schooner and alleged surface raider Alexander Agassiz in the Pacific in 1917.

Plan of the Hamilton 1922. Note the 4-inch and 6-pdrs still aboard. USCG Historians Office plan

She then found herself transferred to the USCG in 1922 for use as a sail training ship at the US Coast Guard Academy (a task that the USCGC Eagle performs to this day.) She carried the name USCGC Alexander Hamilton from 1922 until 1936. After that she was simply reassigned as a station ship with a number and no name. She finished her career as a unmanned and unarmed training platform in Curtis Bay where she trained World War Two coasties how to fix things until December 1944.

The Hamilton at sea, 1978 painting at USCG Museum

She was given back  to the US Navy 12 March 1945 at just over 47-years young who held on to her for a year. On 28 March 1946, the old gunboat was turned over to the War Shipping Administration and her ultimate fate is unknown.