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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Aug 19, 2015: The first of the bucking ‘165s

Image via ShipSpotting

Here we see a great color photo the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tallapoosa (WPG-52) at rear just before World War II while still in her gleaming white and buff scheme. She may not look like much, but she was the forerunner of a class of ships that did much of the heavy lifting for the Coasties through Prohibition and two world wars.

In 1914 the Revenue Cutter Service was looking to replace the 25~ year old 148-foot steel-hulled cutter Winona.

The aging Winnie was the galloping ghost of the Gulf Coast and roamed from Galveston to Key West pulling duty busting smugglers, responding to hurricanes, operating with the Fleet when needed and, of course, saving lives at sea. Armed with a single 6-pounder to give warning shots across the bow, Winona patrolled the East Coast during the Spanish American War but by the opening of the Great War was a bit long in the tooth.

This led the service to design a new vessel to replace her.

In November 1914, the government ordered at a cost of $225,000 ($5.3 million in today’s figures) from Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia hull number CG27. This ship was based on lessons learned from Winona and was a bit longer at 165-feet, 10-inches and gave 912 tons displacement. A pair of oil-fired (most of the fleet was coal at the time, so this was advanced stuff here) Babcock & Wilcox boilers fed through a single center stack powered a triple-expansion steam engine that gave the little gunboat a 12 knot maximum speed. A 51,000-gallon load of fuel oil gave her a range of 6,000 miles, which is impressive for such a small vessel.

Tallapoosa, note the similarity to Winona, only longer. Also note the DF gear and crows-nest, both of which were used often. USCG photo.

She was one of the first ice-strengthened ships in any maritime force and was heavily armed for a cutter of the time, given literally four times the deck guns that Winona had before her.

One fat screw and a 1:5 length to beam ratio led these early 165s to hog in high seas

Able to float in just 11.9 feet of seawater, the new ship, named Tallapoosa, was launched on May Day 1915. She was commissioned on 12 August with Winona placed out of commission at Mobile, Alabama on 12 July and sold for $12,697 to a Mr. W. M. Evans of Mobile. Much of Winona‘s 39-man crew went to Virginia by train to operate the replacement vessel.

Sister USCGC Ossipee at launch, note the hull shape

A sistership to Tallapoosa, USCGC Ossipee, was laid down just afterward and built side by side with the new cutter and was commissioned 28 July 1915 at the Coast Guard Depot, Arundel, MD. Curiously, she was classified as a river gunboat though I can’t find where she operated on any.

As for Tallapoosa, she arrived at Mobile on 18 August, taking Winona‘s old dock at the L&N Railroad landing near Government Street and was assigned to patrol from Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana to Tampa, Florida.

Tallapoosa soon rode out the epic July 4, 1916 Hurricane in Mobile Bay, narrowly avoiding three different collisions with ships that had broken their moorings in 104 mph winds then responded to check on Forts Morgan and Gains at the mouth of the Bay where U.S. Army Coastal Artillery units were stationed and cut off from commo.

Over the next few days, she ranged the Gulf looking for hurricane survivors and ships in need of assistance. As noted from a very interesting 17 page after action report filed at the time she assisted the schooner Henry W. Cramp, unnamed Russian and Norwegian barks, an unnamed British steamer, the three-master Laguna, the demasted schooner City of Baltimore, and the three-master Albert D. Mills, many of which were thrown high and dry on the barrier islands.

She then found the schooner Carrie Strong some 65 miles south of Mobile Bay, turned turtle but still afloat. After trying to sink the vessel with mines (!) which was unsuccessful due to the ship’s wooden construction and cargo of pine boards, Tallapoosa towed her to shore where the derelict was beached. While no survivors of Strong were found, the Tallapoosa‘s skipper did note that:

In light of recent news reports it may be of interest that when found, at least a dozen large sharks were found around this wreck and they were so bold that when the first boat was lowered they came alongside and struck the oars. A number were caught and killed while work was in progress.

When the U.S. entered WWI, Tallapoosa, now part of the Coast Guard, was assigned to the Naval Department on 6 April 1917. She landed her battery of 6-pounders, picked up a new one of a quartet of 3″/23 cal guns and for the next 28 months served as a haze gray colored gunboat for the Navy assigned to Halifax, N.S. (remember, she and her sister had their plating doubled around the bow and a steel waterline belt to enable them for light icebreaking, which surely came in handy in the Gulf of Mexico) as a coastal escort and search and rescue platform until 28 August 1919.

Tallapoosa‘s war record was quiet, as few U-boats popped up around Halifax, but sister Ossippee deployed to Gibraltar on 15 August 1917 and before the end of the war escorted 32 convoys consisting of 596 Allied vessels and made contacts with enemy submarines on at least 8 occasions, on one of these reportedly side-stepping a torpedo by about 15 feet.

While in open seas, they tended to roll and be generally uncomfortable, but nonetheless made great coastal boats and were generally used as such.

In 1919, both Tallapoosa and Ossipee traded their gray scheme and 3-inchers for more familiar white/buff and 6-pounders.

Tallapoosa 1924 via Janes via Navsource. Note the hot weather awnings for Gulf service and the lookout post has been deleted from the foremast

During Prohibition, Tallapoosa was back in the Gulf trying to stop rum-runners from Cuba while her sister was assigned to Portland, Maine and did the same for ships running good Canadian whiskey to thirsty mouths in New England and New York.

In 1930, they landed half their 6-pounders for a pair of new 3″/50s.

USCGC_Tallapoosa 1935 In Alaskan waters. USCG photo

These two ships, with the lifesaving, war, and bootlegger busting service proved so useful that a follow on class of 24 ships based on their design with some improvements were ordered in the 1930s to modernize the Coast Guard.

The follow-on 165s, note two stacks and twin screws for better seakeeping

The first of these new “165s,” USCGC Algonquin (WPG-75) was laid down 14 Oct. 1933 and the last was commissioned by the end of 1934– certainly some kind of peacetime shipbuilding record. Funded by PWA dollars, these ships carried slightly less oil but due to a better engine could make 12.5 knots instead of the slow 12 knots of their older sisters.

Note the 165 at bottom, with a slightly different layout from Tallapoosa/Osippee, showing two stacks and shorter masts

In the next world war, these 24 cutters proved their worth, splashing a number of German U-boats while escorting convoys, and performing yeoman service in polar areas. We’ve covered a couple of these later 165s before to include USCGC Mohawk and cannot talk these hardy boats up enough.

Tragically, one of these, USCGC Escanaba (WPG-77), was lost after encountering a U-boat or mine in 1943 with only two survivors.

Tallapoosa during WWII, note her extra armament and haze gray. USCG photo. Dig the early radar

Speaking of WWII, both Tallapoosa and Ossipee, along with their new kid sisters, chopped over to Navy service in November 1941– even before Pearl Harbor. Equipped with depth charges Tallapoosa was used as a convoy escort along the East Coast while Ossipee served her time on the Great Lakes as a plane guard for U.S. Navy carrier training operations while busting ice when able.

By 1943 the little Tallapoosa carried a SF-1 Radar, WEA-2A sonar, 2 Mousetrap ASW devices, 4 K-guns and 2 20mm Oerlikons besides her 3-inchers, with her crew doubling to over 100. She made at least two contacts on suspected U-boats but did not get credit for any kills despite dropping a number of depth charges that resulted in oil slicks.

However, with the war winding down, these older and smaller cutters became surplus with Tallapoosa decommissioning 8 November 1945 then was sold for her value as scrap the next July. She was bought by a banana boat company that specialized in shipping fruit from Central America to New Orleans and her ultimate fate is unknown, which means she very well maybe in some port in Honduras somewhere.

As far as Ossipee, she was scrapped in 1946 while the 23 remaining newer 165s were whittled down until the last in U.S. service, USCGC Ariadne (WPC-101), was decommissioned 23 Dec. 1968 and sold for scrap the next year.

Some went on to overseas service, including USCGC Thetis and Icarus, both of whom accounted for a German sub during the war and remained afloat into the late 1980s with the Dominican Republic’s Navy.

Two were briefly museum ships to include Comanche (WPG-76) who was at Patriot’s Point, South Carolina before being sunk as an artificial reef and Mohawk (WPG-78) in Key West, Florida before meeting her end as a reef in July 2012.

Mohawk in poor condition before being reefed. If you see a banana boat in Central America that looks like this, check to see if its the now-100 year old Tallapoosa.

Of the 26 various 165s that served in the Coast Guard and Navy from 1915-1968, a span of over a half century, just one remains in some sort of service.

Commissioned as USCGC Electra (WPC-187) in 1934, she was transferred to the US Navy prior to WWII and renamed USS Potomac (AG-25), serving as FDR’s Presidential Yacht. She was saved in 1980 and is currently open to the public in Oakland.

Ex-USS Potomac (AG-25) moored at her berth, the FDR pier, at Jack London Square, Oakland, CA. in 2008. Photos by Al Riel USS John Rogers.Via Navsource

Tallapoosa‘s bell is maintained in a place of honor in downtown Tallapoosa, Georgia while her christening board is on display at her longtime home port of Mobile at the City Museum.

Specs:

Profile of the 165 A class Cutter Escanaba, who was based on Tallapoosa and Ossipee. Image by Shipbucket

Displacement (tons): 912
Length: 165′ 10″ overall
Beam: 32′
Draft: 11′ 9″
Machinery: Triple-expansion steam, 17″, 27″, and 44″ diameter x 30″ stroke, 2 x Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 1,000 shp; 12 knots maximum degraded to 10 by WWII.
Complement 5 officers, 56 as commissioned
9 officers, 63 enlisted, 1930
100~ by 1945
Armament: 4 x 6-pounders (1915);
2 x 6-pdrs; 2 x 3″ 50-cal (single-mounts) (as of 1930);
2 x 3″/50 (single-mounts); 1 x 3″/23; 2 x depth charge tracks (as of 1941);
2 x 3″/50 (single-mounts); 2 x 20mm/80 (single-mounts); 2 x Mousetraps; 4 x K-guns; 2 x depth charge tracks (as of 1945).
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/

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!

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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Aug 26, 2015: The Finnish Lighthouse Battleships

Here we see the Väinämöinen-class panssarilaiva (“armored-ship”) FNS Ilmarinen of the Merivoimat (Finnish Navy) dropping it like its hot on some pesky Red Army positions in 1941. This big Baltic bruiser and her slightly older sister were a matter of Finnish pride from the 1920s through World War II– and gave the Russkies a far bit of heartburn at the same time.

In 1809 when the Russians carved the Ducy of Finland away from the Swedish Empire, Finland was largely left to their own bit, even being allowed to keep their local rule (the Diet) form their own army units, military academy and a small navy (the Suomen Meriekipaasi)– the latter of which served well when the Brits came a calling in the Baltic during the Crimean War.

Well by 1878, Tsar Alexander II decided to Russify the Finns and implemented conscription into the segregated units of the Russian army, disbanded the navy and a host of other measures that only ensured that by 1918, with the Tsars swept away, Finland broke free of St. Petersburg’s yoke.

They formed a new, independent Finnish Army (Maavoimat) and Navy (Merivoimat), fought a brief but brutal civil war against Bolshevik-backed Red Guards, and kept an eye peeled for the day when the Soviets decided to renegotiate the status of Finn sovereignty.

While the Merivoimat inherited a dozen or so small ex-Imperial Russian Navy gunboats, torpedo slingers and minesweepers left behind post-1918; as well as a corps of professional former mariners and officers to sail them, they needed some legit vessels if they expected to keep the Red Banner Fleet out.

They were in luck with the respect that in Turku there was a shipyard, Crichton-Vulcan, which had repaired Russian naval ships as well as constructed small boats. (The company later became Finnish mega yard Wärtsilä in 1936). In the mid-1920s the Germans were restricted from building certain military ships (um, U-boats, battleships, cruisers, you know, all the good stuff), but they struck a deal to build three small Vetehinen/Vesikko-class U-boats submarines at Crichton-Vulcan to improved WWI designs, which, though the ships never sailed for Germany, helped keep the flower of their sub industry nurtured until 1933 when the gloves came off.

Therefore, in 1927 Parliament approved a plan to build two rather unique armored ships (panssarilaiva) as well as order some off the shelf motor torpedo boats from the UK to help round out their burgeoning fleet.

These two ships were laid down at Crichton-Vulcan within a month of each other in 1929.

Väinämöinen

Layout of the Väinämöinen class

Weighing in at 3,900-tons and with a 305-foot long hull, today these ships would be considered a frigate. At the time, the size made them either large destroyers or small cruisers.

However, unlike either of those types, these ships were glacially slow, with a top speed of just 14 knots on their good German-supplied Krupp engines. Further, they could only keep this speed up for a few days as they carried only enough fuel oil to make it 300~ miles away from port before they had to turn back for more.

Different guns of Väinämöinen nicely visible: the huge 254 mm main guns, 105 mm multi-purpose guns and 40 mm Vickers AA guns.

But that’s OK, because they weren’t designed to run, or to chase down ships on the high seas, these ships were designed to lurk in 15 feet of shallow water close to Finland’s craggy coastline, and plaster approaching Red Navy amphibious assaults or Red Army troops ashore.

They were given four 254mm/45cal Bofors guns (if you do the math, those are 10-inch guns there, homie!). These big guys could hurl a 496-pound AP shell at a rate of 2-3 per minute per tube out to 33,140 yards.

Via Navweaps

Via Navweaps

In effect, allowing one of these destroyer-sized ships to blast off a dozen sumo-wrestler-sized shells off in the first 60 seconds of an engagement.

The two twin 10-inch turrets were augmented by eight 105mm/50cal. Bofors DP guns in four turrets that could coat either shore or airborne targets with 15 rounds per minute per tube, allowing 120 55.6-pound shells to rip out from the ship in 60 seconds.

These had a range on land targets to 19,900 yards and could reach as high as 40,000 feet to pluck random enemy aircraft down.

A very tall centerline fire direction center/tower directed the fall of shot, giving these two ships an instantly recognizable silhouette.

Väinämöinen Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

Class leader Väinämöinen was commissioned 28 December 1932 while follow-on sister Ilmarinen was commissioned in 1934.

Prior to WWII, the two ships sailed the summer months around the idyllic waters of the Eastern Baltic, and wintered near the shipyard at Turku when the ice came, then hit repeat.

With Mannerheim aboard

A great view over the front of the bow from above the rangefinder

They took part in the fleet parade at Spithead, where they participated in the festivities for the coronation of King George VI– but had to be towed due most of the way due to their short legs

When the Soviets picked a fight that led to the Winter War of 1939-40, the two ships sailed to secure the Ahland Islands between Finland and Sweden but were soon forced back to port with the coming winter.

While in Turku, the ships, whitewashed as camouflage and powered by shorelines to prevent exhaust from giving them away, fought off a number of Soviet bomber attacks, receiving slight damage.

Finnish coastal defense ship Ilmarinen anchored at Turku harbor, Finland, 10 Mar 1940

When Finland came into World War II proper against the Soviets in 1941, both ships proved very active in supporting advancing troops ashore.

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

However, Ilmarinen soon ran into trouble when, accompanying a German fleet to seize Soviet-held islands off Estonia, struck a sea mine on 13 September 1941 and sank with heavy loss of life, some two-thirds of her crew in all.

Väinämöinen had a more charmed existence, patrolling the Gulf of Finland with a force of patrol boats and minelayers and waiting for an eventual Soviet naval thrust that never came.

These ships camo’d well. Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

The Reds did not forget the big V, however and demanded she be turned over as reparations after the war, to which the Finnish Navy reluctantly agreed to, handing the proud ship to her new communist masters on 29 May 1947.

Renamed Viborg after the Russian name for the Finnish city of Viipuri seized by the Soviets in 1944 and still part of Russia, the ship served the Baltic Fleet for two decades until she was scrapped in Leningrad.

As for Ilmarinen, she was discovered off Estonia in 230 feet of water, turned turtle but otherwise intact. If you speak Finnish, there is a very interesting documentary of her discovery, here.

Specs

Displacement: 3,900 t
Length: 305 feet
Beam: 55.5 feet
Draught: 14.5 feet
Propulsion: Diesel-Electric “Leonard System” powertrain, four Krupp engines 875 kW, two shafts, 3,500 kW (4,800 hp)
Speed: 14.5 kt (15.5 on trials)
Range: 700 nm on 93 tons of fuel oil
Complement: 403 (September 11, 1941)
Armament design:
4×254mm/45cal. Bofors (2×2)
8×105mm/50cal. Bofors DP (4×2)
4×40mm/40cal. Vickers AA (4×1)
2×20mm/60cal. Madsen AA (2×1)
1941:
4×254mm/45cal. Bofors (2×2)
8×105mm/50cal. Bofors DP (4×2)
4×40mm/56cal. Bofors AA M/36S (1×2, 2×1)
4×20mm/60cal. Madsen AA (4×1)
1944
4 × 254 mm/45cal. Bofors
8 × 105 mm/50cal. Bofors
4 × 40 mm/56cal. Bofors M/36
8 × 20 mm/60cal. Madsen

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/

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!

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert tours the Lockheed Martin undersea systems facilities in Riviera Beach. While there, Greenert viewed a littoral combat ship remote minehunting system test module and underwater autonomous vehicles. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Peter D. Lawlor

The Littoral Combat Ship is a sausage program that was envisioned to replace the Navy’s diverse minehunters/sweepers, frigates and patrol craft with 50+ ships on a single hull that could do it all (after all, any ship can be a minesweeper once, right?) through a series of plug-and-play modules.

Remote Minehunting System (RMS) to be used on the LCS, in theory

Well what we have almost 20 years into the program are two hulls (Freedom and Independence classes) that can do some of the same tasks as the frigates and patrol craft (except for ASuW or ASW against a modern opponent), but there’s a thing about that $706 million mine module program…

From USNI

At issue are recent reports on the reliability of a core component in the MCM package, the Remote Minehunting System (RMS) — comprised of the Raytheon AQS-20A towed array sonar and the Lockheed Martin remote multi-mission vehicle (RMMV).

The 7.25-ton semi-submersible RMMV — designed to deploy from the LCS and autonomously scout mines with the AQS-20A — in particular has had a history of persistent reliability problems.

SASC Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) cite an early August memo signed by director of the Office of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) Michael Gilmore that “assessed the current Remote Mine Hunting System and RMMV reliability as being 18.8 hours and 25.0 hours between mission failures… which is well below the Navy’s requirement of 75 hours” and that the Navy provided “no statistical evidence that the [system] is demonstrating improved reliability, and instead indicates that reliability plateaued nearly a decade ago.”

Worse, the Navy put their low-mileage Osprey-class coastal minehunter (with some hulls just being eight years old) on the chopping block back in 2007 (Taiwan, Egypt and Greece picked them up lighting fast) and is planning on retiring the Avenger-class mine sweepers and vaunted MH-53 Sea Dragon MCM helos in just a few years, making the LCS/MCM program “it” for U.S. Navy mine sweeping.

Doh

In 1955, the humble 131-foot fishing trawler Sir William Hardy was launched in Scotland and soon found herself in the service of the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food board for twenty years until she was no longer economically viable. Then she was sold to a group of peacenik save the whales types for $57,000 in 1978 (about $250,000 in today’s money), probably more than what she was worth.

Rechristened Rainbow Warrior, she went on to cause seven years of heartburn for the Spanish, Japanese and the French (more on this later).

Well, the latter held a grudge for the group protesting their nuclear tests at Moruroa in French Polynesia in 1985 and launched Opération Satanique (talk about sweet op names). This amounted to two DGSE agents visiting the ship in New Zealand undercover as peaceniks for the purpose of intel which another two agents (Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart), trained combat swimmers, placing two limpet mines on the hull of the trawler over the engine room that they were reasonably sure would be unmanned at 11:30 at night.

Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour after bombing by French secret service agents. (Annual review 1993-1994 page 2) Accession #: 0.85.072.001.01

Tragically, the ship took photographer Fernando Pereira down with her and the French were soon figured out when Kiwi investigators picked up Prieur and Mafart almost red-handed while ten of their support team made good their getaway.

The pair served two years in jail and while France has never issued an apology, the leader of the op, Lt. Col. Jean Luc Kister, now retired, did this weekend, calling the strike overkill.

“For us it was just like using boxing gloves in order to crush a mosquito,” he said,” it was a disproportionate operation, but we had to obey the order, we were soldiers.”

One of the more quiet entries into harbor and coastal mine clearing that the Navy has been working on besides the more high profile RMS as used by the LCS, is devices like Ocean Server’s Iver 3 unmanned underwater vehicle.

Specs:
Standard Length: 60-85 inches depending on instrumentation package
• Base weight (standard vehicle) <85 lbs man-portable.
• Extended Range DVL options for 80 plus meter bottom lock and ADCP
• 100m depth rating (deeper options available)
• 8-14 hours endurance at speed of 2.5 knots (configuration dependent)
• 1-4 knots speed range using Smart Motor: 48 V DC servo controlled motor with speed feedback
• GPS/Wifi (802.11n Ethernet standard) Fixed Antenna mast with LED for visual location and integrated satellite based augmentation system reception capability (Iridium and Acomms optional)
• Swappable Battery Section (Eight 98 Whr Battery Packs for 760 Watt-hour capacity)
• Single Dual Core 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Low Power CPU with Windows Embedded
• 256 GB Solid State Drive for Operation & Data Storage
• Removable flash drive for immediate access to sonar records (USB2) and data transfer for mission planning while on deck
• Integrated WiFi Hub for rapid data movement
• World Class Sonar Options (L3 Klein, EdgeTech, StarFish..etc) including OceanServer’s rapid assessment tools to create GeoTiff images of side scan records and KMZ files for Google Earth
• Built for continuous operation, virtually maintenance free, intuitive operation and mission planning in minutes

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician 2nd Class Ryan Bejar, assigned to Commander, Task Group (CTG) 56.1, talks about his experience with the Iver 3 unmanned underwater vehicle and its importance to the Navy EOD community at CTG 56.1 in Manama, Bahrain, July 6, 2015. Also available in high definition. (U.S. Navy video by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Arthurgwain L. Marquez/Released)

One funny looking crab pot

A Kongsberg Remus model UUV operated by Boeing conducting ‘sonar tests’ for the Big Blue popped up by a waterman’s boat in the Chesapeake so guess what he did…

From the Baltimore Sun:

“It was super foggy the day they discovered this thing,” Laurie Haas said. “They almost hit it with the boat.

“They didn’t know what it was because it was such a bright color yellow.”

Figuring the object was valuable, the crew pulled it onto their boat to see if they could reunite it with its owner. Davis Haas stashed the drone in his shed back home.

“I couldn’t wait to see it when I got home,” Laurie Haas said. “This was the catch of a lifetime.”

Of course Boeing chopped chopped over to them when they found out.

Here’s pictures of a Slocum Glider and a Sea Lion that I came in contact with a couple years back. They are marked up pretty good with ‘If found’ labels.

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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Dec. 16, 2015: The Long Legged Bird of the Java Sea

Naval History and Heritage Command#: NH 85178

Here we see the humble Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Heron (AM-10/AVP-2), while fitting out at her builders in late 1918, being rushed to completion to help serve in the Great War. While her service “over there” was rather quiet in the end, her trip to the other side of the world and experiences in another world war would prove more exciting.

When a young upstart by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the Navy Department in 1913 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he helped engineer one of the largest naval build-ups in world history. By the time the U.S. entered World War I officially in 1917, it may have been Mr. Wilson’s name in the role of Commander in Chief, but it was Mr. Roosevelt’s fleet.

One of his passions was the concept of the Great North Sea Mine Barrage, a string of as many as 400,000 (planned) sea mines that would shut down the Kaiser’s access once and for all to the Atlantic and saving Western Europe (and its overseas Allies) from the scourge of German U-boats. A British idea dating from late 1916, the U.S. Navy’s Admiral Sims thought it was a bullshit waste of time but it was FDR’s insistence to President Wilson in the scheme that ultimately won the day.

While a fleet of converted steamships (and two old cruisers- USS San Francisco and USS Baltimore) started dropping mines in June 1918, they only managed to sow 70,177 by Armistice Day and accounted for a paltry two U-boats gesunken (although some estimates range as high as 8 counting unaccounted for boats).

And the thing is, you don’t throw that many mines in international shipping lanes without having a plan to clean the up after the war (while having the bonus of using those mine countermeasures ships to sweep enemy-laid fields as well).

That’s where the 54 vessels of the Lapwing-class came in.

Review of the Atlantic Fleet Minesweeping Squadron, November 1919. USS Lapwing (AM-1) and other ships of the squadron anchored in the Hudson River, off New York City, while being reviewed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels on 24 November 1919, following their return to the United States after taking part in clearing the North Sea mine barrage. The other ships visible are: USS Lark (Minesweeper No. 21), with USS SC-208 alongside (at left); and USS Swan (Minesweeper No. 34) with USS SC-356 alongside (at right). Heron was there, but is not seen on the photo. U.S. Navy photo NH 44903. Note the crow’s nest for sighting floating mines.

Inspired by large seagoing New England fishing trawlers, these 187-foot long ships were large enough, at 965-tons full, to carry a pair of economical reciprocating diesel engines (or two boilers and one VTE engine) with a decent enough range to make it across the Atlantic on their own (though with a blisteringly slow speed of just 14 knots when wide open on trials.)

Not intended to do much more than clear mines, they were given a couple 3-inch pop guns to discourage small enemy surface combatants intent to keep minesweepers from clearing said mines. The class leader, Lapwing, designated Auxiliary Minesweeper #1 (AM-1), was laid down at Todd in New York in October 1917 and another 53 soon followed. While five were canceled in November 1918, the other 48 were eventually finished– even if they came to the war a little late.

Which leads us to the hero of our tale, USS Heron.

Laid down at the Standard Shipbuilding Co. in Boston, she was the first U.S. Navy ship to carry that name, that of a long-legged seabird of the Gulf Coast. Like all her sisters, they carried bird names.

Commissioned 30 October 1918, the war ended 12 days later but she was still very much needed to help take down that whole barrage thing. Therefore, she arrived in the Orkney Islands in the spring of 1919 where, along with 28 of her sisters and a host of converted British trawlers, she scooped up Mk.6 naval mines from the deep for the rest of the year.

When she returned home, she was transferred to the far off Asiatic Fleet, sailing for Cavite PI in October 1920.

There, she was laid up in 1922, with not much need of an active minesweeper.

Then, with the Navy figuring out these economical little boats with their shallow draft (they could float in ten feet of seawater) could be used for any number of side jobs, started re-purposing them.

Six of the “Old Birds” were reclassified as salvage ships (ARSs) while another half-dozen became submarine rescue ships (ASRs). The Coast Guard picked up USS Redwing for use as a cutter during Prohibition while the U.S. Coast & Geographic Survey acquired USS Osprey and USS Flamingo and the Shipping Board accepted USS Peacock as a tug.

A few were retained as minesweepers in the reserve fleet, some used as depot ships/netlayers, one converted to a gunboat, another to an ocean-going tug, three were sunk during peacetime service (USS Cardinal struck a reef off Dutch Harbor in 1923 while USS Curlew did the same off Panama in 1926 and USS Sanderling went down in 1937 by accident in Hawaii) while nine– Heron included– became seaplane tenders.

While these ships could only carry 1-2 seaplanes on deck, they typically milled around with a converted barge alongside that could park a half dozen or more single-engine float planes for service and support.

U.S. Navy Small Seaplane Tender USS Heron (AVP-2); no date. Note the floatplane service barge alongside. Image via USNI collection.

Recommissioned in 1924 (later picking up the hull number AVP-2, as a Small Seaplane Tender), Heron was photographed with a variety of floatplanes including Grumman JF amphibians and Vought O2U-2 scout planes in the 20s and 30s.

Carrying two Vought O2U-2 scout planes of Scouting Eight (VS-8) while serving in the Asiatic Fleet on 15 December 1930. Photo No. 80-G-1017155 Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-80-G

Serving as an aircraft tender before 1936. Note the aviation roundel on her bow.

She continued her quiet existence in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Chinese and Philippine waters, filling in as a target tower, survey ship, and gunboat when needed.

U.S. warships inside and outside the breakwater, circa the later 1930s. Color-tinted photograph by the Ah-Fung O.K. Photo Service. Among the ships present are USS Black Hawk (AD-9), in left center, with a nest of four destroyers alongside. USS Whipple (DD-217) is the outboard unit of these four. USS Heron (AM-10) is alongside the breakwater, at right, with a Grumman JF amphibian airplane on her fantail. Another JF is floating inside the breakwater, toward the left. Two Chinese sampans are under sail in the center foreground. The four destroyers outside the breakwater are (from left to right): USS Stewart (DD-224), unidentified, USS Bulmer (DD-222) and USS Pillsbury (DD-227). Collection of James E. Thompson, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 90544-KN

Stationed at Port Ciego, Philippines when the balloon went up, Heron was luckier than several of her sisters in the same waters, with six sunk in six months.

• USS Tanager (AM-5), Sunk by Japanese shore battery fire off Bataan, 4 May 1942.
• USS Finch (AM-9), Damaged by Japanese bomb (near miss), 9 Apr 1942 while moored at the eastern point of Corregidor. Abandoned, 10 Apr 1942. Salvaged by Imperial Japanese Navy; renamed W-103. Sunk for good by US carrier aircraft in early 1945.
• USS Quail (AM-15) Damaged by Japanese bombs and guns at Corregidor, she was scuttled 5 May 1942 to prevent capture.
• USS Penguin (AM-33) Damaged by Japanese aircraft in Agana Harbor, Guam, 8 Dec 1941; scuttled in 200 fathoms to prevent capture.
• USS Bittern (AM-36) Heavily damaged by Japanese aircraft at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines; scuttled in Manila Bay to prevent capture.
• USS Pigeon (AM-47) Sunk by Japanese aircraft at Corregidor, 4 May 1942.

Heron was ordered to leave the PI for Ambon Island, part of the Maluku Islands of then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), a strategic key to the area held by some 3,000 Dutch and Australian troops. There, along with USS William B. Preston (AVD 7), she supported PBYs of Patrol Wing TEN until the going got tough and the island was overrun in February 1942.

It was during this time at Ambon that Heron became a legend. Upon hearing that the four-piper USS Peary (DD-226) was damaged, she sortied out to help assist or tow if needed but was caught by Japanese flying boats and proceeded to fight them off over several hours.

As noted dryly in the combat narrative of the Java Sea Campaign:

The Heron, which was sent north to assist the Peary, was herself bombed in a protracted action in Molucca Strait on the 31st. Shrapnel from near hits penetrated the ship’s side and started fires in the paint locker and forward hold. About the middle of the afternoon, a 100-pound shrapnel bomb struck the foremast near the top and sprayed the ship with splinters, which did considerable damage. The Heron acquitted herself well, however, in spite of her 12-knot speed, and succeeded in shooting down a large enemy seaplane.

“Evasion of Destruction” by Richard DeRosset portrays a strafing run by three Japanese “Mavis” flying boats following their unsuccessful torpedo attack on the USS Heron (AVP-2) on 31 December 1941. Heron shot down one of the aircraft with her starboard 3-inch gun; her port gun had been disabled by earlier combat action. This final attack followed a series of earlier ones by twelve other enemy aircraft against the seaplane tender as she sailed alone in the Java Sea. Due to heroic actions by her captain and crew, Heron survived seemingly overwhelming odds during the long ordeal. Heron had approximately 26 casualties, or about 50 percent of the crew, because of the attack.

For her valiant action during this period, Heron received the Navy Unit Commendation.

The rest of her war service was less eventful, serving in Australian waters as a patrol boat and seaplane tender until 1944 when she began moving back to the PI with the massive Allied armada to retake the archipelago. She conducted search and rescue operations and assisted in landings where needed, still providing tender service until she was decommissioned at Subic Bay, Philippines 12 February 1946, earning four battle stars for the War.

Sold for scrap to a Chinese concern in Shanghai in 1947, Heron‘s ultimate fate is unknown but she may have lingered on as a trawler or coaster for some time or in some form.

As for the rest of her class, others also served heroically in the war with one, USS Vireo, picking up seven battle stars for her service as a fleet tug from Pearl Harbor to Midway to Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The Germans sank USS Partridge at Normandy and both Gannet and Redwing via torpedoes in the Atlantic. Most of the old birds remaining in U.S. service were scrapped in 1946-48 with the last on Uncle Sam’s list, Flamingo, sold for scrap in July 1953.

Some lived on as trawlers and one, USS Auk (AM-38) was sold to Venezuela in 1948, where she lasted until 1962 as the gunboat Felipe Larrazabal. After her decommissioning she was not immediately scrapped, and was reported afloat in a backwater channel as late as 1968. Her fate after that is not recorded but she was likely the last of the Lapwings.

For Heron‘s memory, the Navy passed on her name to two different mine countermeasures ships since WWII.

The first, the 136-foot USS Heron (MSC(O)-18/AMS-18/YMS-369), was renamed in 1947 and went on to win 8 battlestars in Korea before serving in the Japanese Self Defense Forces as JDS Nuwajima (MSC-657) until 1967.

The second and, as of now final, U.S. Navy ship with the historic name, USS Heron (MHC-52) was an Osprey-class coastal minehunter commissioned in 1994 and transferred while still in her prime to Greece in 2007 as Kalipso.

But that’s another story.

Specs:

Displacement: 950 tons FL (1918) 1,350 tons (1936)
Length: 187 feet 10 inches
Beam: 35 feet 6 inches
Draft: 9 feet 9 in
Propulsion: Two Babcock and Wilcox header boilers, one 1,400shp Harlan and Hollingsworth, vertical triple-expansion steam engine, one shaft.
Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph); 12~ by 1936.
Complement: 78 Officers and Enlisted as completed; Upto 85 by 1936
Armament: 2 × 3-inch/23 single mounts as commissioned
(1930)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
4 Lewis guns
(1944)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
Several 20mm Oerlikons and M2 12.7mm mounts

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.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.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Dec.23, 2015: The lost jewel from Bizerte

960×633

Here we see the French Émeraude-class diesel-electric submarine (Sous-Marin) Turquoise (Q46), captured by the Turks, in dry dock undergoing repairs in Constantinople, 1916.

The French got into the submarine business about the same time as the Americans, launching Admiral Simeon Bourgois’s Plongeur in April 1863.

Before the turn of the century the Republic had flirted with a half dozen one-off boats before they ordered the four boats of the Sirene-class in 1901 followed quickly by another four of the Farfadet-class, the two Algerien-class boats, 20 Naiade-class craft in 1904, Submarines X, Y and Z (not making it up), the two ship Aigrette-class and the submarine Omega.

All told, between 1900-1905, the French coughed up 36 submersibles spread across nine very different classes.

After all that quick learning curve, they proceeded with the Emeraude (Emerald) class in 1903. These ships were an improvement of the Faradet (Sprite) class designed by Gabriel-Émile-Marie Maugas. The 135-foot long/200-ton Faradet quartet had everything a 20th Century smoke boat needed: it was a steel-hulled hybrid submersible that used diesel engines on the surface and electric below, had 4 torpedo tubes, could dive to 100~ feet, and could make a stately 6-knots.

Farfadet-class boat Lutin (Q10), leaving port in 1903.

While they weren’t successful (two sank, killing 30 men between them) Maugas learned from early mistakes and they were significantly improved in the Emeraudes. These later boats used two-shaft propulsion– rare in early submarines–, and were 147-feet long with a 425-ton full load. Capable of making right at 12-knots for brief periods, they carried a half dozen torpedo tubes (four in the bow and two in the stern). They also had the capability to mount  a machine gun and light deck gun if needed.

Again, improvements!

Profile of the Emeralds surfaced.

Class leader Emeraude was laid down at Arsenal de Cherbourg in 1903 followed by sisters Opale and Rubis at the same yard and another three, Saphir, Topase, and the hero of our story, Turquoise, at Arsenal de Toulon in the Med.

Launching 1908

Turquoise was commissioned 10 December 1910 and, with her two Toulon-built sisters, served with the French Mediterranean Fleet from the Submarine Station at Bizerte.

She repeated the bad luck of the Farfadet-class predecessors and in 1913 lost an officer and several crew swept off her deck in rough seas.

When war erupted in 1914, the jewel boats soon found they had operational problems staying submerged due to issues with buoyancy and were plagued by troublesome diesels (hey, the manufacturer, Sautter-Harlé, was out of business by 1918 so what does that tell you).

To help with surface ops, Topase and Turquoise were fitted with a smallish deck gun in 1915.

Saphir probably would have been too, but she caught a Turkish mine in the Sea of Marma on 15 January trying to sneak through the straits and went down.

Topase and Turquoise continued to operate against the Turks, with the latter running into trouble on 30 October 1915. Around the village of Orhaniye in the Dardanelles near Nagara there were six Ottoman Army artillerymen led by Corporal G Boaz Deepa who spotted a periscope moving past a nearby water tower.

Becoming tangled in a net, the submarine became a sitting duck. With their field piece they were able to get a lucky shot on the mast and, with the submarine filling with water, she made an emergency surface. There, the six cannoners took 28 French submariners captive and impounded the sub, sunk in shallow water.

Turquoise’s skipper, Lt. Leon Marie Ravenel, was in 1918 awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honour as was his XO. These sailors suffered a great deal in Turkish captivity, with five dying.

German propaganda postcard, note the Ottoman crew and markings

The Turks later raised the batter French boat and, naming her Mustadieh Ombashi (or Müstecip Ombasi), planned to use her in the Ottoman fleet.

Ottoman Uniforms reports her conning tower was painted with a large rectangle (likely to be red), with large white script during this time.

Via Ottoman Uniforms

However as submariners were rare in WWI Constantinople, she never took to sea in an operational sense again and in 1919 the victorious French reclaimed their submarine, which they later scrapped in 1920.

Her wartime service for the Turks seems to have been limited to taking a few pictures for propaganda purposes and in being used as a fixed battery charging station for German U-boats operating in the Black Sea.

As for the last Bizerte boat, Topase, she finished the war intact and was stricken 12 November 1919 along with the three Emeraudes who served quietly in the Atlantic.

Turquoise/Mustadieh Ombashi has been preserved as a model however.

If you have a further interest in the submarines of Gallipoli, go here.

Specs:

1884×1543

Displacement 392 tons (surfaced) / 427 (submerged)
Length, 147 feet
Bean 12 feet
Draft 12 feet
No of shafts 2
Machinery
2 Sautter-Harlé diesels, 600hp / electric motors (440kW)
Max speed, kts 11.5 surfaced / 9.2 submerged
Endurance, nm 2000 at 7.3kts surfaced / 100nm at 5kts submerged
Armament:
6×450 TT (4 bow, 2 stern) for 450mm torpedoes with no reloads
1x M1902 Model 37mm deck gun, 1x8mm light Hotchkiss machine gun (fitted in 1915)
Complement 21-28
Diving depth operational, 130 feet.

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.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.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Elbit Systems has a new 40-foot unmanned surface vehicle, the Seagull, which is designed to operate in pairs for either mine sweeping or sub busting. The idea is the first vehicle will have surveillance gear to find the sub or mine, while the second will carry either clearance gear (an ROV) or a anti-submarine torpedo to shove right up the sneaky U-boat’s kisser.

From Elbit’s presser:

Drawing on world class know -how derived from generations of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) design, development and operation and its naval capabilities, Elbit Systems’ newest offering in the unmanned platform field is Seagull -an organic, modular, highly autonomous, multi-mission Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) system.

Seagull is a 12-meter USV with replaceable mission modules, with two vessels capable of being operated and controlled in concert using a single Mission Control System (MCS), from manned ships or from the shore.

The system provides unmanned end-to-end mine hunting operation taking the man out of the mine field. It provides mission planning, and on-line operation in known and unknown areas,including area survey, search, detection, classification, identification, neutralization and verification. It is equipped to search the entire water volume and operate underwater vehicles to identify and neutralize mines.

The idea is the two-boat pair can operate within 50-100 miles of the control station and remain at sea for 96 hours, covering a pretty large swath of littoral in the process while their operators sip coffee back in a trailer somewhere. A second set of boats can be kept ready to rotate out the first, making a persistent sea station a very possible endeavor.

This obviously has uses in a MIUWU or PSU augmentation or replacement.

Speaking of which, DARPA’s Sea Hunter–the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV is the U.S.’s version of this, and is mucho larger at some 132-feet long and is getting some love on social media as of late.

Big Blue is looking to get up to 1,000 additional Archerfish mine destructor vehicles (tiny, really maneuverable, slow torpedoes) for the AN/ASQ-235 Airborne Mine Neutralisation System (AMNS).

Developed by BAE Systems, the Archerfish vehicle was selected as the Common Neutraliser to equip AMNS, part of the USN’s airborne organic mine clearance capability, is deployed from the MH-60S helicopter and is intended to neutralize bottom, close tethered, and moored sea mines. Meant largely for Hawks deploying on littoral combat ships, they could conceivably be used fleet wide.

In a $8 million sole-source pre-solicitation notice published on 29 January 2014, NAVSEA announced its plan to contract BAE Systems “to produce up to 966 Archerfish Neutralizers (Destructor, Mine Neutralization, Airborne EX 64 Mod 0 Archerfish, EX 65 Mod 0 Archerfish, and EX 66 Mod 0 Archerfish)”, together with fibre-optic spools, neutraliser interface boards, neutraliser interface and deployment packages, and support equipment.

Testing of the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS), another component of the system, started with the LaserHawks of HSC-26 in August 2014

140804-N-WX059-219 NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY BAHRAIN (Aug. 4, 2014) An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter from the Laser Hawks of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 26, Detachment 2, equipped with the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) conducts flight operations. Operated from the MH-60S helicopter, ALMDS provides rapid wide-area reconnaissance and assessment of mine threats in littoral zones, confined straits, and choke points. The Laser Hawks began the operational testing and demonstration of ALMDS in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility on the system’s maiden deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sean Furey/Released)

US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) this week dropped another $22 million ($56 cumulative) for Archerfish  which should move the ball down the field a bit.

The Latvian-based Legenda relic hunter group found five sealed artillery powder cans while poking around the forests. When unearthed the munitions found inside led the group to conclude it was a WWII-era cache for saboteurs left behind by the Germans for individuals unknown.

The cache was explosives-heavy with some interesting items including magnetic limpet mines (at bottom) coal torpedoes (center) and plenty of good old demo charges

Sure, all the stuff could just be planted for the photo op, but that seems pretty elaborate so we’d like to wish that the magic of it being buried for the better part of a century is the real deal.

The Latvians had no love lost for towards the Soviets (still don’t) and many signed up for the Waffen SS in mass and as auxiliaries to the German military and field police. A lot of that hearkened back to the fact that the remnants of Kaiser Willy’s forces helped keep the Reds out back in 1918-19, earning the country independence and once Uncle Joe rushed back in 1940 with a heavy hand, things kinda soured from there.

So whether the cache was meant for “stay behind” forces when the Germans left in 1945, or was assembled by the Soviets as a deniable supply for partisans of their own, is up to interpretation.

Ahh, German-made abrasive. Pour this in the crankcase of your local T-34 sitting at the depot..

As the contents are absent on German weapons (though contains some commercial German made blaster’s tools), they contain French munitions dated to 1934 (which the Soviets wouldn’t have had access to but the Nazis captured in bulk in 1940) as well as Polish and Soviet made grenades made pre-1939 that also fell into German hands in quantity during the Blitzkrieg years– all kinda verifying the logic behind the relic hunters.

Of course, they could also be a CIA supplied cache for resistance groups fighting the Soviets in the forests in the 1950s made to be deniable as a German-WWII era set, as there is not a single U.S.-made or post-1945 item in the lot…just saying…

A French M1892 8x27mm revolver still in the wrapper, all cosmo’d up. The rounds with the gun are dated 1934 and are SPM (French military arsenal) marked.

For a detailed break down and more images, go to my column at Guns.com

WATERS NEAR GUAM (Mar. 07, 2016) The Arleigh Burke-Class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG-85) fires an MK-54 exercise torpedo (EXTORP) over the port side during an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) event as part of MULTI SAIL 2016. MULTI SAIL is a bilateral training exercise aimed at interoperability between the U.S. and Japanese forces. This exercise builds interoperability and benefits from realistic, shared training, enhancing our ability to work together to confront any contingency. McCampbell is on patrol in the 7th fleet of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Bryan Jackson/released.)

Long a staple of ASW training, exercise/recoverable torpedoes (extorps/rextorps) have been around for the Mk44, Mk46, Mk48, Mk50 and 54 variants and are typically the reworked warshot fish in which the explosive is replaced with an electronic signaling and guidance package that records the position of the device for data analysis after the exercise, and various signaling devices that help locate the torpedo in the water for recovery afterward.

They are pretty brightly marked, and colorful.

130924-N-XZ912-002 MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Sept. 24, 2013) – Gunners Mate 3rd Class Amelia Sandoval, left, and Gunners Mate 2nd Class Samuel Ervin perform maintenance on a torpedo tube aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52). Barry, homeported in Norfolk, Va., is currently on a scheduled deployment supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the 6th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Christopher B. Stoltz)

Almost always retrieved after tests or exercises, they are refurbished and shot again, sometimes dozens of times.

040129-N-9288T-087 Pacific Ocean (Jan. 29, 2004) Ð Search and rescue swimmers Quartermaster 2nd Class Justin Peel, from Polson, Mont., and Sonar Technician Surface 2nd Class Stephen Stavros, from Springtown, Mass., secure an MK-46 exercise torpedo to be hoisted aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes (CG 49) after a successful torpedo exercise. Vincennes is participating in Multi-Sail, a combat readiness exercise in the Okinawa operational area. Its designed to complete Surface Force Training Manual Requirements and to exercise participants in a multi-ship operational environment. U.S. Navy photo by PhotographerÕs Mate 2nd Class Brandon A. Teeples. (RELEASED)

If not recovered by retrieval personnel for some reason, they have a ‘phone home’ marking on the casing should a random skin diver or fisherman chance upon one.

130926-N-ZI955-062 MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan (Sept. 26, 2013) Staff Sgt. Justin Walter, left, originally from Greenville, S.C., inspects a MK46 Recoverable Exercise Torpedo as Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Jeremy Rooks, a native of Chesapeake, Va., observes during a fuel spill response drill at the Navy Munitions Command East Asia Division (NMC EAD) Unit Misawa complex on board Misawa Air Base, Sept. 26, 2013. Walter serves as an explosive ordnance disposal technician for the 35th Fighter Wing Civil Engineer Squadron and Rooks is a weapons training team observer for NMC EAD Unit Misawa. NMC EAD Unit Misawa is conducting a Torpedo Readiness Assessment, which calls for the command to inspect and validate its Otto Fuel II response procedures. (U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Daniel Sanford/Released)

We all live in a yellow submarine…

Boeing’s massive 51-foot Echo Voyager, debuted yesterday, is an outgrowth of their 18-foot Echo Ranger and 32-foot Echo Seeker prototype testbed UUV’s– which were capable of 2-3 day operations– only Voyager would be capable of missions lasting months in theory.

Equipped with a hybrid rechargeable power system and modular payload bay, the midget sub sans crew, according to the video below, can do everything in theory from being a weapons platform, to launching and operating UAVs, to protecting infrastructure (read= smoking frogmen operating near sensitive bases), to submarine decoy, mine countermeasures, ASW search and barrier ops, and battlespace prep– though the video spends a lot of time talking about how it can help with oceanography and oil spills as well.

“Echo Voyager is a new approach to how UUVs will operate and be used in the future,” said Darryl Davis, president, Boeing Phantom Works. “Our investments in innovative technologies such as autonomous systems are helping our customers affordably meet mission requirements now and in the years to come.”

In 1959 this chap by the name of Christopher Cockerell working for Saunders-Roe on the Isle of Wight came up with the first working and practical hovercraft, the “Saunders-Roe Nautical 1” (SR.N1), using an Alvis Leonides radial piston engine that drove a lift fan, and used ducted air from the fan for propulsion, producing a neat three-person craft that was capable of crossing the Channel at 35 knots.

This led to the 65-foot SR.N2 in 1961, which could make 73 knots (that’s seventy-three) and carry 48 passengers.

1963 brought the SR.N3 which was designed for military use and mounted a quartet of Bristol-Siddeley Gnome gas turbines, which enabled it to make 70 knots. The prototype didn’t work out too well but set the stage for what was to come.

SR. N3 Loading Royal Marines at Cowes for the Inter-Service Hovercraft Unit trials.

Saunders-Roe and Vickers Supermarine merged to become the British Hovercraft Corporation (BHC) in 1966, and their fourth hovercraft, SR.N4, was a mammoth design that eventually topped out at 185-feet long. While the RN theorized using these as mine countermeasures craft, these vessels, of which six were eventually built, were used as passenger ferries as last as 2000.

Then came the primary subject of our tale, the SR.N5 military model of which 14 were built, half by BHC in the UK and the other half Bell in the U.S..

Navy patrol air cushion vehicle glides over the waters of Cau Hai Bay near Hue, South Vietnam hovercraft

These 39-foot hovercraft were beamy, at 22 feet wide, and tall at almost 17 feet with the skirt inflated. Powered by a single 900hp Rolls-Royce Gnome turbine for both lift and propulsion, they could make 70 knots and carried enough jet fuel for about 3-4 hours of patrol. They could carry 16 troops.

The hovercraft were flown more than they were sailed

Of the 7 British built vessels, one each were bought by the Sultanate of Brunei and the Canadian Coast Guard, the Brits kept four for the RNAS and the last UK boat went into commercial use. Of the 7 Bell hovercraft (designated SK-5s by that company and equipped with a GE engine), three were bought by the U.S. Navy as Patrol Air Cushion Vehicle (PACV, “Pac Vees”) and three by the U.S Army as Air-Cushion Vehicles (ACV) while the last U.S. boat was bought by San Francisco and Oakland Helicopter Airlines to use as a high speed ferry around the Bay Area.

Navy PACV, dig the mouth

In U.S. military service in Vietnam, these hovercraft picked up .50 cal and 7.62mm machine guns, a modicum of armor and sandbags to protect their four-man crews (thought they could get by with just two crewmen), and by 1966 were hot and heavy in South East Asia as part of Task Force 116 for the Navy craft while the Army’s boats followed the next year as the catchy Air Cushion Vehicle Test Unit, (Armor Platoon Air Cushioned) 39th Cavalry Platoon of 24 men.

Navy PACV3. Note the sandbagged fighting position atop the house

Crewmen of a PACV (patrol air cushion vehicle) and Vietnamese troops round up Viet Cong suspects Caption: During an operation conducted in the plain of reeds near Moc Hoa. The very presence of the “roaring monsters” which the air cushion vehicles are called, skimming across the rice paddies at speeds up to 65 mph, was inducement enough for some Viet Cong to surrender. Photo taken on 21 November 1966 by Photographer’s Mate Second Class D.M. Dreher. Catalog #: USN 1119446 Copyright Owner: National Archives

UH-1 Iroquois helos of Helicopter Combat Squadron One (HC-1), Detachment 25 Escort a PACV (patrol air cushion vehicle) during Operation Moc Hoa. Photo taken on 21 November 1966 by Photographer’s Mate Second Class D.M. Dreher.

Troops and detained locals leave PACV (patrol air cushion vehicle) during Operation Moc Hoa. Photographed 23 November 1966 by Photographer’s Mate Second Class Dreher.Description:Catalog #: USN 1119845 Copyright Owner: National Archives

Operating on the Mekong Delta, Cat Lo, and other hot spots, these half-dozen craft were soon dubbed Quai Vat (Monsters) by Mr. Charles as they raced around the swamps dropping off ARVN troops, Nung mercenaries and U.S. forces in hard-to-reach mudbogs. They were loud as hell (ever been around an LCAC?) but they were effective and, with the turbine shut down and the skirt on a relatively dry spot in the middle of the marsh, they were instant fighting positions.

By early 1968, the Army was even looking at (neat report here) making entire platoons of these craft, armed with 106mm recoilless rifles, Tow or Shillelagh missiles and FFAR rockets much like the helicopter gunships of the day.

Army ACV

Army ACV. They weren’t as wild as the Navy’s PACVs

That Loach is really hugging (and looks like it is having a hard time keeping up)

Then came the epic six-day battle in the Plain of Reeds.

While conducting a combat operation in July 1968 in support of a South Vietnamese CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Force) unit and US infantry advisors, the Army SK5s were engaged in a 7-hour continuous fight with enemy forces.

During the reconnaissance sweep, the SK5 boats inspected over 60 houses along the waterline and discovered over 25 bunkers within the area.

After destroying the bunkers with their supporting infantry, the two hovercraft came under enemy fire. Both craft returned fire, but were unable to press the attack since the CIDG forces were unwilling to dismount into a potential ambush.

After disengaging, both ACVs repositioned to another area and were once again taken under fire. Both vessels returned fire and when the infantry inspected the area they discovered several killed enemy soldiers.

All was good until one of the Army craft, ACV #901, was destroyed on 9 Jan 1970. ACV #902 was destroyed in August 1970. The final Army unit, #903 was returned stateside.

The three Navy PACVs were likewise brought back CONUS and transferred to the Coast Guard in 1971.

Behold, the Coast Guard’s hovercraft fleet!

They actually look snazzy in hi-viz livery. Above is CG-38102, formerly PACV1.

Numbered CG-38101, 38102 and 38103, one (103) was lost in an accident while the first two were transferred to the US Army Mobility Equipment Research and Development Center on 25 April 1975, making the Army the only U.S. military hovercraft owner until the Navy took possession of the first 87-foot long Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) vessels in 1986.

Of the British hovercraft, the original SR.N1 is held by the Science Museum at Wroughton, the only SR.N2 was broken up in the 1970s, SR.N3 was used for target practice, 4 of the 6 SR.N4 ferries were broken up and the two left are currently at the Hovercraft Museum in Lee-on-the-Solent but are facing imminent destruction.

Of the SR.N5s, one U.S Army boat, ACV 903, was returned to the states and is on display at the Transportation Museum in Ft. Eustis, VA. The sole remaining Navy PACV is at the Bellingham International Maritime Museum in Washington.

The last Navy PACV. Image via Flickr

As for the British Hovercraft Corporation, moving past the SR.N5s they built the 58-foot SR.N6 in large numbers in the 1960s, being their most successful model of all with at least 54 completed. Popular in commercial use as a 58-passenger ferry, a military version capable of carrying a platoon was used by the Canadian Coast Guard, Italian Navy, Egyptian Navy, Iraqi Navy, Iranian Navy and the Saudi Arabian Frontier Force. The Shah liked them so much he ordered a half dozen larger 78-foot BH.7 hovercraft in the early 1970s while the CCG bought three of BHC’s last hovercraft, the 90 passenger AP1-88 boats before the company folded in 1984.

But we do have 91 U.S.-built LCACs today…

A landing craft air cushion leaves the well deck aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the Persian Gulf, Sept. 21, 2006

In the 1950s, with mines being a big deal in opening stages of the Korean War, the possibility of the next naval war coming complete with thousands of Soviet M08 seamines, plus with a lingering half million unrecovered WWII era (and some even earlier WWI era) mines still unaccounted for in the waters that HMs ships sailed, the UK embarked on a new construction program of aluminium-framed, wooden planked hulled with non-magnetic fittings (easy to degauss) ocean-going sweepers– the Ton-class.

HMAS Curlew (M 1121), former HMS Chediston, served 1954-1991 and then for at least another 15 years as a fishing vessel, probably without the 40mm guns in the latter role…but you get the general idea.

In all some 119 of these handy and versatile little 152-foot long ships were commissioned, serving not only in the RN but over 30 units went on to the navies of Argentina, Australia, India, Ireland, Malaysia, NZ, and South Africa. They did yeoman work both as MCM craft and as generic patrol boats and auxiliaries.

One, HMS Packington, gained immortality as “R/V Belafonte” in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which is appropriate as Cousteau ‘s Calypso was a 136-foot YMS-1 sweeper herself.

While Packington is still around as a luxury yacht in the Persian Gulf, the rest of the Tons have largely been Deep Six’d or sent to the breakers.

Except for HMS Bronington (M1115), whom seems to be cracking a bit of a sad lately.

From GCaptain:

A historic minesweeper formerly belonging to the Royal Navy has sunk while moored at Vittoria Dock in Birkenhead, England where it has been laid up for years.

The Bronington, one of the last vessels in the Royal Navy’s Ton-class, was discovered to have sank sometime between Thursday and Friday.

A witness told gCaptain on Friday that he last saw the vessel afloat Tuesday, but by Friday the ship had partially sank next to the dock in an upright position and was starting to roll onto its side.

The HMS Bronington was launched for the Royal Navy by Cook, Welton, and Gemmel shipbuilders in Yorkshire, England in 1953 and remained in active service until 1988. In 1989 the vessel was purchased by the Bronington Trust, a charity dedicated to her preservation and display to the public. The minesweeper was brought to Salford Quays and later opened to the public in 1992, but ownership eventually transferred to Mersey Docks and Harbour Company and the ship has been been laid up at Vittoria Docks since 2011.

Images via Phil Owen of PBRStreetgang who seems to be keeping a running tab on the old girl.

Hopefully, jaguar shark will not be an issue in her recovery.

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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday March 30, 2016: Of Mines and Khartoum

IWM Q 38999

Here we see the Royal Navy Devonshire-class armored cruiser HMS Hampshire during her brief life. Although a warship in the RN during the toughest period of the Great War at sea, Hampshire is remembered more for whom she carried rather than where she fought.

The Devonshires were a six-pack of mixed armament (4×7.5-inch; 6×6-inch) cruisers that were popular around the 1900s. These 11,000-ton ships were designed to act independent of the main battle fleet and could cruise worldwide and protect sea-lanes from enemy surface raiders, or in turn become a surface raider themselves.

The concept was invalidated in the Russo-Japanese War, when Russian armored cruisers failed to make much impact on the extensive Japanese maru fleet, while they were sent to the bottom wholesale in warship v. warship ops. In turn, the armored cruiser concept was replaced by the more traditional all-big-gun fast heavy cruiser, and their flawed cousin the battlecruiser, both of which reigned for sometime through WWII.

Still, the Devonshires, though obsolete almost as soon as they were commissioned, gave yeoman service while they were around.

The subject of our tale, Hampshire, was laid down at Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 1 September 1902. She was the fourth such warship to carry that name on the fleet list, dating back to a 46-gun ship built in 1653 for Cromwell’s Commonwealth.

Ironically, Hampshire was completed 15 July 1905, just six weeks after the Battle of Tsushima that largely invalidated her existence. Her cost, £833,817.

After cutting her teeth with the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet for a few years as a shiny new warship for HM, Hampshire had her hull scraped and boilers reworked before being transferred to Hong Kong to sit the China Station in 1912.

1912, note the awnings for service in the tropics.

There, she waved the flag while keeping an eye on the German armored cruisers of Adm. Maximilian von Spee’s East Asia Squadron, preparing for Der Tag.

IWM Q 38999

When the balloon went up, Hampshire sortied for the German colony of Yap to destroy the wireless station there, on the way sinking the German collier SS Elspeth just seven days after the England joined the war. The lack of coal for Spee’s ships would be an albatross that ultimately ended his squadron. (Note: Hampshire’s sister, HMS Carnarvon, was present at the Battle of the Falkands and got licks in on both Spee’s SMS Gneisenau and Scharnhorst).

While in the Pacific, Hampshire just barely missed an opportunity to sink the much smaller cruiser SMS Emden (4200-tons; 10x105mm guns), however she did carry that stricken raider’s skipper, Kvtkpn. Karl von Müller, to POW camp in England while escorting an ANZAC troop convoy through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to Egypt.

At Malta

Arriving back in home waters in January 1915, Hampshire landed Müller, who was sent on to captivity at the University of Nottingham, then joined the Grand Fleet.

Fighting at Jutland with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, her 7.5-inchers tried but failed to hit any German ships during that epic surface battle. Likewise, Hampshire herself came away unscathed.

In July, she was chosen to carry Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC, “Baron Kitchener of Khartoum” to Imperial Russia via the White Sea. Kitchener and his staff were to help revitalize the Tsar’s war machine; after all, he was literally the face of the mighty BEF, which had swollen from a small volunteer force of just six infantry divisions to a modern army capable of holding the Kaiser in place on the Western Front.

Lord Kitchener aboard HMS Iron Duke at Scapa Flow, about one hour before he sailed on Hampshire. This is believed to be the last image of the legendary soldier.

Leaving Scapa Flow for Archangelsk, Hampshire and her two destroyer escorts ran afoul of a minefield laid by U-75 in May.

There, on 5 June off the mainland of Orkney between Brough of Birsay and Marwick Head, Hampshire struck a single mine and was holed, sinking rapidly in just 15 minutes by the bow, taking 737 members of her crew and passengers to the bottom with her. Only 12 crewmen survived and made it to shore.

Able Seaman (Signalman) William George Waterman Tyneside Z/4464. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, one of the 737 men lost on HMS Hampshire. IWM image

One other purported survivor, Boer spy Frederick “Fritz” Joubert Duquesne, known to history as “The man who killed Kitchener” claimed to have guided a German U-boat to sink the HMS Hampshire via torpedo from shore, though nothing supports that claim.

Duquesne

Attaching himself to Kitchener’s staff, he claimed to have escaped Hampshire alone to be picked up by a waiting U-boat. But anyway…

The news of Kitchener’s loss, coming after the carnage of the Somme, was a blow to the Allied war effort.

The Wreck of the Hampshire by Geoffrey Stephen Allfree, IWM ART 5252

Further, without a shot in the arm, the Tsar’s army largely walked away from the war the next year, though not even the hero of Khartoum would likely have change that.

Remnants of Hampshire are considered relics in the IWM collection.

Fragment of boat belonging to HMS HAMPSHIRE in IWM collection

Royal Navy cap tally found among the effects of Midshipman E E Fellowes. Image via IWM

Fragment of a pinnace, or ship’s boat, from the wreckage of the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire, washed up in Hoy Sound, June 1916. Image via IWM

Located in 180 feet of water, a small gun, some other minor wreckage, and one of her props were illegally salvaged in 1983 but have been recovered and preserved in museums.

HMS Hampshire gun at Marwick Head

As for her sisters, the five other Devonshires were luckier, with the exception of HMS Argyll, which wrecked on the Bell Rock, 28 October 1915. The four surviving ships were paid off soon after the war and sold for scrap.

Hampshire‘s name, though currently not in use, was bestowed to a County-class guided missile destroyer (D06) in 1963 and scrapped in 1979 after just 16 years service as part of the Labour Government’s severe defense cuts pre-Thatcher.

A memorial, planned by the Orkney Heritage Society is trying to raise £200,000 to more extensively commemorate the ship.

Image via Orkney Heritage Society

Some 737 names will be inscribed in panels on the wall, which will arc around the tower, with a separate panel for the staff of Lord Kitchener – and another one bearing the names of nine men killed on the drifter Laurel Crown, which was blown up in June 1916 while trying to clear the minefield.

Specs:

Displacement: 10,850 long tons (11,020 t) (normal)
Length: 473 ft. 6 in (144.3 m) (o/a)
Beam: 68 ft. 6 in (20.9 m)
Draught: 24 ft. (7.3 m)
Installed power:
21,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
17 Yarrow boilers; 6 cylindrical boilers
Propulsion:
2 × Shafts
2 × 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines
Speed: 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph)
Complement: 610
Armament:
4 × single BL 7.5-inch (191 mm) Mk I guns
6 × single BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk VII guns
2 × single 12-pounder (3-inch, 76 mm) 8 cwt guns
18 × single QF 3-pounder (47 mm) Hotchkiss guns
2 × single 18-inch (45 cm) torpedo tubes
Armour:
Belt: 2–6 in (51–152 mm)
Decks: .75–2 in (19–51 mm)
Barbettes: 6 in (152 mm)
Turrets: 5 in (130 mm)
Conning tower: 12 in (305 mm)
Bulkheads: 5 in (127 mm)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.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.

PRINT still has it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

DARPA just released some neat but brief 360-view footage of their Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) including some of it underway at a good clip (27 knots). The 132-foot USV is meant to be the expendable subchaser of the 21st century, and actually looks pretty sweet.

If they can get past concept and put 50-100 of these cheaply in the Western Pac, networked all sweet to a central ASW War Room, it could really negate all the skrilla the Norks and PLAN are dropping on subs.

Photo source © IWM A 6312 taken by Lt. L C Priest. Colourised by Joshua Barrett from the UK.

Commander Lionel James Spencer Ede DSO RN, Commander of Minesweeping and Patrol, Dover, testing a rarely seen stripped Lewis Machine Gun probably on board HMS ML 297  1941. These guns usually have their water jackets wrapped around the barrel and forend. The dated armament was common on the launches.

ML297 was a Fairmile B-class motor launch, the 112-foot workhorse of the RN of which a staggering 650 were completed during the War.

Originally tasked as anti-invasion gunboats in the dark days of 1940, they were to slaughter German landing craft near shore with WWI surplus QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss (47mm / L40) cannon and similarly vintage machine guns.

Once Hitler called off Operation Sea Lion, the Brits found use for the launches as subchasers crammed full of depth charges, minesweepers with a few basic trawls, and then finally as rescue motor launches, beach control and ambulances during the subsequent Allied amphibious landings in Europe.

Hampton, J A (Lt) Royal Navy official photographer – Imperial War Museum Collections Search A 23877 Caption: “With the motor launch ML 303 in the foreground, a large number of landing craft approach the beaches during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Several other large ships can be seen in the distance.”

As for the good Lt. Cdr. Spencer, he retired from the RN 10 Oct 1953 at the end of 28 years service after holding several wartime commands including HMS Salamander, Blyth and Rhyl.

Just unveiled a few weeks ago, the 132-foot USV which aims to be the Navy’s newest 21st Century expendable sub-chaser has been formally christened.

Part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV Pronounced “Active,” ) program, in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Sea Hunter as she is now know, is a game changer.

“This is an inflection point,” Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview, adding he hoped such ships might find a place in the Western Pacific in as few as five years. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a totally robotic, trans-oceanic-capable ship.”

Sea Hunter will now move to San Diego for a two year pilot program to R&D just what the platform can do and what sensor package works best.

The ship’s projected $20 million all-up price tag and its $15,000 to $20,000 daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive to operate. For comparison, a single Littoral Combat Ship runs $432 million (at least LCS-6 did) to build and run about $220K a day to operate– but of course that is a moving target.

Still, its easy to see where a flotilla of Sea Hunters could provide a lot of ASW coverage on the cheap and even if mines or torpedoes take half of them out, it’s a hit to the treasury and not incoming C-17s to Dover with waiting honor guards.

And with that in mind, check out this super sweet walk-through/construction video to see just how simple this craft is.

The 3kg Hafthohlladung (“adhesive hollow charge”) was a shaped-charge anti-tank mine developed by the Wehrmacht from 1942 onward. Three magnets around the outer rim could be used to attach it to armor plate, before the 5 second fuse detonated. The hollow cone focused the explosive lining into a superheated plasma jet, which would explosively burn through 140mm of armor. It was intended for use against pillboxes and fortress cupolas as well as tanks, and was colloquially known as the “Panzerknacker” (“tank cracker”). It was replaced in the last year of the war by the panzerfaust, which was much safer for the user, if not for the recipient.  [ Source: Tank Museum, Bovington]

One in use, from “Männer gegen Panzer” (“Men Against Tanks”) — a 1943 German Lehr film used for training by the Wehrmacht in WWII: