HI Sutton over at the Covert Shores blog has a really in-depth write up of the Columbia Group’s Proteus SDV mini-combat swimmer sub.

Specifications:
Length: 7.82m
Beam: 1.61m
Height: 1.62m
Displacement: 4,120 Kg
Speed: 10kts max, 8kts cruise
Endurance: not stated – considerable, some sources suggest 900 miles although considerably shorter if manned given human tolerances
Maximum Operating depth: 50m (manned), 70m (unmanned)
Personnel: 2 crew (optional) pls four additional passengers (or six passengers)
Payload: 2 x 900kg external stores (storage containers, mobile mines, limpet mine assemblies (LAM), Combat Rapid Attack Weapon (CRAW) / Common Very Light Weight Torpedo (CVLWT), missiles or torpedoes)
Batteries: 148 kWh Baseline 296 kWh Extended Lithium Polymer
Masts: Two
Communications: (surfaced): Iridium, free wave, VHF radio.(submerged): Benthos modem, OTS divers communication. (Internal): Internal intercom

You are gonna want to go over there and check it out.

Click to bigup

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Shirane-class destroyer JS Kurama (DDH 144) leads the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Gridley (DDG 101) and USS Stockdale (DDG 106) during a passing exercise while under way in the Pacific Ocean Jan. 10, 2011. Stockdale and Gridley were underway at the time with the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group on a deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans, U.S. Navy/Released)

Do you notice how much beamier the two U.S. Burkes are (as Flight IIA vessels they are over 10,000-tons on a 509-foot long hull with a 66-foot beam) when compared to the Japanese ship?

The Kurama is a rather dated Shirane-class destroyer, of which just two were built in the late 70s. Just 7,500-tons full load and 522 feet long, they were big tin cans for thier day, mounting a pair of old school  FMC 5″/54 caliber Mark 42 guns forward to allow room for a large helicopter deck aft that can accommodate 3-4 medium ASW helicopters. They are reported to be excellent ASW ships with an OG style ASROC launcher, bow active and towed passive sonars, and Mk.32 tubes all of which would come in handy against a DPRK or PLAN underwater threat.

Here is a profile shot from the same day, same photographer.

PACIFIC OCEAN (Jan. 10, 2011) The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Kurama (DDH-144) is underway in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans/Released)

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 April 1, 2015: Lucky Georgios, the last man standing

Click to big up

Here we see the Italian-made Pisa-class armored cruiser Georgios Averof of the Royal Hellenic Navy as she appeared in 1913, shortly after almost single-handedly routing the entire Ottoman fleet the year before.

In the early 20th Century, the Southeastern Europe, popularly known as the Balkans, was a powder keg of a number of upstart countries living in the shadow of the “sick man of Europe”– the Ottoman Empire. With more than a century of low-key warfare between the Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Bulgars, Croats and so on to try to break free from the Sultan and his court, by about 1900 the lines had been drawn between the Turks and the Greco-Slavic nations. Combined, the Balkan countries could cough up nearly a million men under arms– more the enough to take on the Turks. However, they could not match the Turkish Navy in either the ancient Adriatic, Aegean, Ionian, Med, and Black seas.

That’s where Greece, who had a small army but an excellent naval tradition, stood alone against the Turks.

Between 1879 and 1914, the Royal Hellenic Navy was transformed into a modern force, picking up battleships and destroyers from Italy, France, the UK, and the U.S.

However, their French built pre-dreadnoughts: Hydra, Spetsai, and Psara, were exceptionally small at just 5,300-tons, and were lightly armed (3x 10-inch guns) and slow (16 knots). After winning the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the Greeks went shopping for a new mega ship with a 2.5 million gold franc donation from Greek philanthropist George M. Averoff.

George M. Averoff, the man. He left the Greek government a fortune in his will and they went warship shopping

Across the Adriatic, they inspected the Italian (by no less of naval engineer than Giuseppe Orlando) Pisa-class “second-class battleship” and fell in love. These 10,000-ton ships, technically armored cruisers, could break 23-knots through the power of 22 Belleville boilers and carried a quartet of 10″/45 cal guns backed up by eight 7.5-inchers in four twin turrets on the center line and more than a dozen smaller anti-torpedo boat pieces. Sheathed in up to 7-inches of steel plate, they could fight off ships their own size and outrun most that were larger.

The Italian cruiser Pisa or the Regina Marina, the sister of the Greek Averoff. (Click to big up)

Although they only needed a crew of about 700, they also could accommodate a battalion of naval infantry if needed for amphibious landings which is key in the far flung and disputed islands that the Greeks cruised in. Not perfect when compared to British and German ships of the day, certainly, these cruisers were still better than anything the Turks had at the time. Better yet, the Italian Navy had a third Pisa that they had ordered but were going to cancel– talk about timing.

Swapping out the 10″/45 cal guns for a set of much more modern British-made 9.2″/47 (23.4 cm) Mark X breechloaders, (which had been the standard at the time of the Royal Navy’s armored cruisers), the Greek “battleship” Georgios Averof was laid down at Orlando, Livorno in 1910. With tensions between the Balkan countries and the Turks ramping up (the Italians themselves went to war with the Ottomans in 1911 over Libya), construction progressed rapidly and just 15 months later the Averof was commissioned on May 16, 1911 and was made fleet flagship.

Postcard of her as completed.Note the very Italian scheme

When war came the very next year, the Averof led the older French battleships to first blockade and then engage the Turkish fleet off the Dardanelles. There, on 16 December 1912, the four Greek capital ships met four elderly Ottoman battleships and the largest battleship fight to take place not involving “Great Powers” occured.

Elli naval battle, painting by Vasiileios Chatzis. Charging ahead to cut off the Ottoman line

Borrowing a page from Admiral Togo’s 1905 Battle of the Tsushima Straits, the Averof raced ahead all alone at over 20-knots and crossed the Turkish T, taking on each of the enemy ships single file.

While the casualties were minimal, the Turks ran after Averof‘s big British 9-inchers hammered the flagship Barbaros Hayreddin (the old German SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm) enough to where they figured that it was either shook and jive or sink. This sharp scrap is remembered in Greece as the Battle of Elli.

Just a month later, the two fleets again met with similar outcome off Lemnos Island.

Between the two battles, the lucky Averof was hit a total of four times by Turkish shells and suffered just three casualties. It was her guns that by large part helped win the First Balkan War.

Averof 1916 during WWI

Averof color

Although Greece eventually joined the Allies in World War I, she saw little service. However across the Adriatic, her sistership, the Italian cruiser Amalfi, was torpedoed by the Austria-Hungarian submarine U-26 and sank in 1915.

Painting of the Greek Battleship Averof in Bosporus, Hagia Sophia in the background, in 1919

After the war, she became the first Greek warship to enter Constantinople as part of the Allied victory mission to that town and– soon enough — was back in the fight against the Turks in 1919 during the Greco-Turkish War where she was used to help evacuate a defeated Greek Army.

In addition, she helped safeguard the withdrawal of the White Russian exiles after the Russian Civil War, reportedly exchanging a few rounds with the Reds.

In the 1920s, as one of the last armored cruisers around (most had been mothballed, replaced by more modern designs), she was upgraded in France where she lost her obsolete torpedo tubes and half of her low-angle 3-inch guns in exchange for a decent battery of high-angle AAA weapons. At about the same time her final sistership, the Italian cruiser Pisa, was relegated to a training status in 1921, and was eventually scrapped by the Depression.

After that, Averof was the sole remaining member of her class afloat.

Averof after her refit

By WWII, she had been downgraded to the third most powerful Greek ship, after President Wilson had sold the Greeks the battleships USS Mississippi and Idaho (who served as the Kilkis and Lemnos respectively). Those American ships, though unwanted by the U.S. Navy, at 13,000-tons and with a quartet of 12″/45 and sixteen 7 and 8-inch guns, were a good deal better armed.

Averoff outside with RHS Kilkis (ex-USS Mississippi) and RHS Lemnos (ex-USS Idaho) taken pre-WWII. Note the size difference and the very 1914-ish lattice masts of the former U.S. battle wagons.

Nevertheless, when the next world war came to Greece, both the Kilkis and Limnos were sank by Hitler’s Luftwaffe while at anchor yet the 30-year old Averof was able to beat feet across the Med with three destroyers and five submarines to the join up with the British Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria.

Averoff in WWII under British orders, note typical RN camo scheme

She spent the rest of the war, which if you are keeping count was at least her fifth, in Royal Navy service escorting convoys in the Indian Ocean and hiding from both Japanese and German submarines. In 1944, she carried the Greek government in exile home from London. As in the first World War, she came out of the Second unscathed and without losing a single man.

Averoff in WWII under British orders, note typical RN camo scheme

After 41 years at sea, she was the last pre-WWI era armored cruiser in active service in any fleet when she was finally decommissioned August 1, 1952. Held in mothballs for three decades, in 1984 she was overhauled, disarmed, and emplaced as a historical museum ship at Palaio Faliro where she is a popular tourist attraction.

Averof today

Averof is her latest dry dock. Note the rearward facing 7.5-inch turret to the port side. Averof has four of these mounting a total of 8 guns, which is a significant battery all its own.

Now, still officially on the Greek Navy’s list and with an active duty (if greatly reduced) crew assigned, she will celebrate her 114th birthday under the flag of the Hellenic Navy in May.

Averof is the last armored cruiser in existence above the water. The only two comparable pre-WWI steel blue water ships to her still around, Dewey’s protected cruiser USS Olympia at Philadelphia, and Togo’s pre-dreadnought battleship Mikasa preserved at Yokosuka.

Specs

Displacement: Full load 10,200 tons
Standard 9,956 tons
Length: 140.13 m (459.7 ft.)
Beam: 21 m (69 ft.)
Draft: 7.18 m (23.6 ft.)
Propulsion: Boilers: 22 Belleville water tube type, Engines: 2 four cylinder reciprocating steam engines, Shafts: 2 (twin screw ship), Power: 19,000 shp (14.2 MW)
Speed: 23.5 knots (43.5 km/h; 27.0 mph) maximum
20 knots operational
Range: 2,480 nautical miles (4,590 km) at 17.5 knots (32 km/h)
Complement: 670
Maximum capacity: 1200
Armor: Belt: 200 mm (7.9 in) midships, 80 mm (3.15 in) at ends
Deck: up to 40 mm (1.6 in)
Turrets: 200 mm (7.9 in) at 234mm turrets, 175 mm (6.9 in) at 190mm turrets
Barbettes: up to 180 mm (7.1 in)
Conning tower: up to 180 mm (7.1 in)
Armament: Original configuration:

4 × 234mm (9.2in) guns (2 × 2)
8 × 190mm (7.5in) guns (4 × 2)
16 × 76mm (3in) guns
4 × 47 mm (1.85in) guns
3 × 430mm (17in) torpedo tubes
After 1927 refit:
4 × 234mm (9.2in) guns (2 × 2)
8 × 190mm (7.5in) guns (4 × 2)
8 × 76mm (3in) guns
4 × 76 mm (3in) A/A guns
6 × 36mm (1.42in) A/A guns

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.

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During the 1960s, the Royal Norwegian military, with the backing of some $500 million in NATO funds (about $3.5 billion in today’s cash), built a huge and very secretive (at the time) base that would make a Bond super villain squeal like a little girl.

It doesn’t look like much on the outside…

But its big enough to store all of Uncle Olaf’s submarine fleet and then some

This place was made back when tunneling into mountains was the “in” thing baby, yeah.

The Olavsvern Naval Base, with some 145,000-square feet of above-ground buildings and nearly 270,000-square feet of bombproof interior mountain space shields a submarine dry dock, a tunnel system, an emergency power system and enough storerooms for an infantry brigade in its protective rock.

The thing is, the Cold War ended officially in about 1990-ish and by 2009, the Norwegians pulled the plug on the base located near Tromso, putting it up for lease.

And now the Russians have moved in after assuming a $17 million lease.

Cue the rimshot.

We’ve talked about the I-400 and her sister the 401, Japan’s underwater aircraft carriers in past Warship Wednesdays. These lurking submarine sneak attack leviathans could tote a few seaplanes and, it was planned, for them to attack such strategic targets as the Panama Canal. Well, the funny thing about super weapons is that they often aren’t given a chance to be that super.

In the end, the 400 and 401 were captured by the Navy and, to prevent the Soviets from getting a look at these tasty treats, were scuttled in very deep water off Barber’s Point. In 2013 one was found, but was missing its famous hangar.

Well it looks like researchers from the University of Hawaii and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration got the funding for one more dive and it proved worthwhile

When compared to the large U.S. fleet boats used in the Pacific in WWII, the Royal Navy’s 49 U-class submarines were downright tiny. At just 700-tons submerged and 191-feet oal, these boats were originally designed as coastal training subs. However, with the Italians and Germans giving the UK a run for their money in the Med, the Brits started churning these craft out in numbers.

Armed with a half dozen 21-inch tubes, they could carry 8 warshot torpedoes and a 3-inch pop gun on deck. They gave a good account of themselves, sinking a large number of Axis transports and freighters carrying much-needed supplies to Rommel and his Italian compatriots in North Africa– although they suffered severe losses of their own, with 19 U-class sisters going down during the war.

Photograph FL 3433 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 8308-29)

This brings us to HMS Urge. Commissioned 12 December 1940 at Vickers, she lasted 17 action-packed months during which she managed to torpedo the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, damaging her in the First Battle of Sirte. She had better luck on 1 April, 1942 when she torpedoed and sank the 6844-ton Italian Giussano-class light cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere.

The Regia Marina’s Giovanni delle Bande Nere, some 10-times HMS Urge’s size, was bushwacked by the hearty British submarine with two torpedos and sent to the bottom on April Fools Day, 1942, breaking in half and taking 381 Italian sailors with her.

However, Urge went missing at the end of that month and was never heard from again.

— That is until 76-year old Belgian diver Jean-Pierre Misson, poking around off Tobruk, Libya, came across something very submarine-like. It now appears that Italian dive bombers reaped retribution for their lost cruiser.

The rest here

The Soviets have always had a penchant for oddball weapons systems. Determined to never lose the underwater battlespace for lack of heavily armed frogmen, they have some of the most neat-o waterguns.

I’ve covered these in the past for gun sites to include the the Avtomat Podvodnyj Spetsialnyj better known in the west as the APS underwater assault rifle and the Spetsialnyj Podvodnyj Pistolet (Russian for ‘Special Underwater Pistol,’ apparently to differentiate it from the plain underwater pistol) model 1, its moniker is commonly shortened to SPP-1 when written.

With that being said, the below video, posted by Russian media in the Crimea (which is now being beefed up to remain a hard Putin enclave in a very anti-Russki Ukraine), showing Russian Naval Spetsnaz getting down with both of the above weapon platforms, made me squeal like a prepubescent girl at a One Direction concert.

“Combat Swimmers from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet took part in drills in Sevastopol, Thursday, focused on defending the fleet from underwater saboteurs.”

Watch out for those guys, they are pretty hardcore.

Seals dressed in military uniforms swim during a show marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, at an aquatic park in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia, May 9, 2015. (Photo by Evgeny Kozyrev/Reuters)

When World War II came to the Philippines on Dec. 8, 1941, the U.S./Philippine forces under Gen. MacArthur (land and air) and the Navy’s Asiatic Fleet under Adm. Thomas C. Hart seemed mighty enough for regional defense. Hart’s fleet, however, was a paper tiger, consisting of a couple dozen seaplanes, two cruisers, 13 destroyers, and a number of gunboats and auxiliaries.

What Hart did have was 29 submarines–, which would have been deadly effective had their torpedoes actually ran straight at the correct depths, and detonated on impact.

As McArthur’s land and air forces were overwhelmed and pushed back, Hart was directed to fall back with the fleet to the comparatively safer waters of Australia and the Dutch East Indies. With the Japanese largely controlling the sea-lanes around Luzon and the skies above it, it was suicide to maintain surface ships in those waters.

Yet, with MacArthur’s troops cut off, Hart endeavored to attempt a force of blockade-runners to bring in vital food, ammunition, and medicine to the PI. While huge cash bounties offered to civilian sailors brought a few desperate souls to attempt the voyage in small freighters and coasters, these attempts inevitably either ended with mutinous mariners turning around short of the islands, or with burnt out hulks adrift and riddled with Japanese shrapnel.

But what about those 29 submarines?

Well a lot of these were small, cramped old boats including a half-dozen aging S-boats, slow 800-ton submersibles that dated to the First World War and were arguably obsolete even then. However, there were also a number of large and comparatively modern fleet boats of the Sargo, Salmon, and Porpoise-classes. These went some 2,000-tons and could range up to 10,000 nautical miles on their economical diesels.

USS_Seawolf;  Port side view of the Seawolf (SS-197) underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 7 March 1943. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. US Navy photo # NH 99549.

It was with this in mind that the Asiatic Fleet’s subs started to run the Japanese gauntlet from Australia and Java into the Philippine archipelago. Over a 45-day period, at least nine made it all the way to Manila and the last U.S. stronghold in Luzon at the “Rock” of Corregidor.

Carrying antimalarial drugs, small arms and anti-aircraft ammunition, diesel for the island fortresses generators and tons all-important food, they unloaded these under cover of night and then evacuated the Philippines national treasury, 185 key personnel, codes and vital records that could not fall into Japanese hands. On both the entry and exit they had to evade destroyer and aerial patrols, weave through minefields, and navigate using primitive tools and often inaccurate charts, typically just surfacing at night.

Here is a brief rundown of those missions:

USS Seawolf (SS-197) a Sargo-class submarine, left Australia with 40 tons of ammo that consisted of 700 boxes of 50-caliber machine-gun bullets and 72 3-inch anti-aircraft shells. Arriving at Corregidor on January 17, she left with a cargo of submarine spare parts that had been left behind and 25 Navy and Army evacuees.

USS Trout (SS-202) a Tambor-class submarine barely in service a year before the war started, left Pearl for Manila with 3500 rounds of 3″ AAA ammunition for the Army gunners and unloaded them in Manila in early February. She then took on 20 tons of gold bars and silver pesos (all the paper money in the islands had already been burned), securities, mail, and United States Department of State dispatches, which she brought back to Pearl.

USS Trout (SS-202) unloads gold to USS Detroit (CL-8), March 1942 Photo #: 80-G-45971 USS Trout (SS-202) At Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, unloading gold bars which she had evacuated from Corregidor. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

USS Sargo (SS-188), head of her class, offloaded her torpedoes (keeping only the war shots in her tubes) and took on 1-million rounds of .30 caliber ammunition which she landed in Polloc Harbor on Valentine’s Day 1942. On her return trip, she evacuated 24 B-17 specialists from Clark Field.

Swordfish (SS-193), entering Pearl Harbor prior to WW II. USN photo by Tai Sing Loo, courtesy of Scott Koen & ussnewyork.com.

USS Swordfish (SS-193), this Sargo-class sub took the Submarine Asiatic Command Staff at Manila and headed for Soerabaja, Java, at the end of December, the last submarine to evacuate the Philippines with the fleet. She then returned to the islands with supplies and evacuated the President of the Philippines, his family and select high-ranking officers as well as some Navy codebreakers in late February. She was on her way back with 40-tons of food crammed into every space when Manila fell and was ordered to abort.

USS Permit (SS-178), a Porpoise-class submarine, in December embarked members of Hart’s staff at Mariveles Harbor, and brought them to Java. On a blockade run return trip, she surfaced off Corregidor on the night of 15–16 March, took on board 40 officers and enlisted men (including 36 precious cryptanalysts from the vital cryptanalysts and traffic analysts intelligence station, CAST), and landed her cargo of ammunition. She endured a 22-hour depth-charge attack from three Japanese destroyers on her way back.

USS Seadragon (SS-194), a Sargo, on the night of 4/5 Feb in Manila Bay offloaded her cargo of vital radio gear and spare parts, as well as a portion of 34 tons of rations and almost 12,000 gallons of petroleum, then settled on the harbor floor during the day, then surfaced the next night and took aboard 25 high-value passengers including 17 CAST members, as well as 3000 pounds of crypto gear to include a vital “Purple” machine capable of deciphering the Japanese diplomatic code, and made her getaway.

USS Sailfish (formerly the lost submarine USS Squalis) (SS-192), another Sargo-class boat, landed 1,856 rounds of 3-inch anti-aircraft ammunition while taking a moment out to pump four torpedoes into the 6,440-ton Japanese aircraft ferry Kamogawa Maru, who she mistook for the carrier Kaga.

USS Snapper (SS-185), a Salmon-class boat, brought 46 tons of food and 29,000 gallons of diesel oil into Corregidor on April 4, evacuated 27 personnel and weaved her way back through the blockade, the last successful cargo landed on the besieged fort.

USS Spearfish (SS-190) another Sargo-class boat, unable to reach Corregidor proper to offload anything, surfaced in Mariveles Bay on May 3, just two days before the Rock fell. She took on the last Americans evacuated from that doomed fortress: 25 personnel, including 12 Army nurses. She was the last U.S. ship out of the Bay.

As an honorable mention, USS Searaven (SS-196), a Sargo-class boat, left Fremantle in Australia on 2 April with 1,500 rounds of 3-inch antiaircraft ammunition, but was also diverted and failed to deliver any of the shells to Corregidor.

For more detail on this chapter in U.S. military history, try the U.S. Naval Historical Center and the U.S. Army Center for Military History

Here we see at least 20 inactivated boats of the WWII-era Salmon/Sargo, Gato, and Balao classes at rest at Mare Island, California on 3 January 1946.

Click to bigup USN photo # 17-46, courtesy of Darryl L. Baker. Text courtesy of David Johnston, USNR. Photo via Navsource

Front row left to right: Sand Lance (SS-381), next two could be Sealion (SS-315) and Seahorse (SS-304), Searaven (SS-196), Pampanito (SS-383), Gurnard (SS-254), Mingo (SS-261), Guitarro (SS-363), Bashaw (SS-241).

Back row left to right: Unknown, Tunny (SS-282), next three could be Sargo (SS-188), Spearfish (SS-190), and Saury (SS-189), Macabi (SS-375), Sunfish (SS-281), Guavina (SS-362), Lionfish (SS-298),Piranha (SS-389).
The Scabbardfish (SS-397) is docked in ARD-11 on the other side of the causeway.

Although out of commission, most of these boats remained in pier-side service as classroom for Naval Reserve units for years and many returned to active duty in either the U.S. or allied fleets– in fact, two are still afloat today.

• Sand Lance would be transferred to Brazil as the Rio Grande do Sul (S-11) in 1962 and struck ten years later.
• Sealion who sank the Japanese battleship Kongō, would be recalled to operate in Korea and as a SEAL boat in Vietnam, would be struck in 1977 and sunk as a target off Newport on 8 July 1978.
• Seahorse would never be beautiful again and would be sold for scrap, 4 December 1968.
• Searaven, who tried to reinforce Corregidor, was A-bombed at Bikini then sunk as a target off southern California on 11 September 1948.
• Pampanito has been a museum ship in San Francisco since 21 November 1975.
• Gunard was sold for scrap, 29 October 1961.
• Mingo was transferred to Japan in 1955 as the Kuroshio, then sunk as a target in 1973.
• Guitarro was transferred to Turkey as TCG Preveze (S 340) and remained in service until 1972.
• Bashaw was GUPPY’d and returned to service until 1969 then scrapped in 1972.
• Tunny gave hard service in Korea and Vietnam, then expended as a target in 1970.
• Sargo, another Corregidor vet, was scrapped in 1947.
• Spearfish was likewise scrapped in 1947.
• Macabi was transferred to Argentina as ARA Santa Fe (S-11) and remained in service until 1971.
• Sunfish only left Mare Island again when was scrapped in 1960.
• Guavina was converted to a submarine tanker (AGSS-362) and was to be used to refuel P6M SeaMaster strategic flying boats at sea. However, as SeaMaster never took off, she was scrapped sunk as a target off Cape Henry, 14 November 1967 (see below).
• Piranha was scrapped in 1970 after 24 years at Mare Island.
• Lionfish was brought back for Korea and after she was finally struck was donated to become a museum ship at Battleship Cove, Fall River, Massachusetts in 1972.
• Scabbardfish was transferred to Greece as Triaina (S-86) and remained in service until 1980– the longest-serving of the above subs.
• As for ARD-11, the Auxiliary Repair Dock, she was given to Mexico in 1974 and her final fate is unknown.

USS Guavina (AGSS-362), refueling a P5M-1 Marlin flying boat off Norfolk, Virginia (USA), in 1955. Prior to World War II several submarines were fitted to refuel seaplanes. During the war, Germany and Japan used this technique with some success. After the war this technique was experimented with within the US Navy. It was planned to use submarines to refuel the new jet powered P6M Seamaster flying boats. As part of this program Guavina was converted to carry 160,000 gallons for aviation fuel. To do this blisters were added to her sides and two stern torpedo tubes were removed. When the P6M project was canceled, there was no further need for submarine tankers. This concept was never used operationally in the US Navy.

Swimmer Deliver Vehicles (SDVs) are the unsung heroes of littoral covert naval action. Its that “covert” part that keeps them that way. News of them rarely eeks out and when it does its normally bad as most of the “good” stuff is classified.

Well about that.

HII recently put out a presser on their prototype Proteus dual-mode underwater vehicle (DMUV). That’s a submersible able to operate as a conventional manned swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) and as an unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV), which gives the warfighter a bunch of neato options that the old X-boat and Chariot drivers of WWII would have loved.

The news is that two females, Chloe Mallet, an ocean engineer, and Andrea Raff, a mechanical engineer, have now been certed to drive Proteus.

Mallet and Raff are the only two women on the seven-person dive team that works with Proteus.

When in use in the manned mode, the vehicle is flooded with water and can submerge to depths up to 150 feet, weighs 8,240 pounds, is 25.8 feet long (the Navy’s DSS has an inside dimension of 26 feet) can carry almost 2-tons of cargo and uses a 300kHz Multi-Beam Sonar to keep her steady and away from undersea collisions while traveling at 10 knots.

So if you are around Panama City where all the small boat secret squirrels live, and see a 25.8 foot whale in the water, now you know.
.

This a Wildcat firing a torpedo for the first time.

825 Naval Air Squadron spent two days over Falmouth Bay practicing torpedo attacks, culminating in the launch of a Sting Rant dummy weapon.

The Wildcat HMA Mk2 is beginning to enter front-line service – the first is currently on deployment with HMS Lancaster in the Atlantic – and although it’s undergone extensive trials and testing over the past five years, until now it’s not dropped a torpedo.

Some 62 Wildcats are set to replace the RN’s and RAF’s aging fleet of Lynx helicopters over the next few years.

More here

You may remember a few months back when the Swedish coastal artillery and naval forces went ape shit on a possible non-NATO (read= Russki) midget sub in their territorial waters– and reportedly dropped a good number of ASW weapons on active contacts. Well, it seems like they have found a 20m (66 foot) long 3m (10 foot) abeam submarine in their waters with Cyrillic letters on its hull.

Note the groovy Steampunk hatch

As reported by The Express, a Swedish newspaper, the submarine is just under two miles off the coast of Sweden, although Ocean X, the team that discovered it, are not disclosing its exact location.

It was discovered last week, and the Swedish armed forces confirmed to the paper that the images of the craft are currently being analyzed.

HI Sutton over at Covert Shores thinks it could be an unknown Russian midget, possibly a variant of the Piranha-M.

While Per Andersson, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Swedish Coastal Artillery, says he is “sure” it is a much older submarine, and says he has been in touch with former military colleagues who agree with him.

Electric Boat built the Fulton (renamed the Som/Catfish) in the U.S. then disassembled her in 1904 and shipped the craft to Russia

They feel it could be the old Tsarist Navy’s Som, the 66-foot long, 11-foot abeam craft built originally as the private submarine Fulton by the Electric Boat Company in 1901 and sold to the Tsar during the Russo-Japanese war.

Som at dock. Note the Cyrillic letters on her hull (big up)

Som ensnared in fishing nets, DOH! Note the Cyrillic on the hull (Click to big up)

The humble Som was lost in the Baltic in 1916 but her grave has been lost to history.

Either way, its going to be interesting to find out just which one it is.

UPDATE:

It looks like its the Som.

Video shows Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735) underway in the vicinity of Hawaii. Video by Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Swink | Commander Submarine Forces Pacific | Date: 06.28.2015

The fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1837 140-gun ship of the line, 1863 screw steamer, 1903 armored cruiser, and the famous BB-38 of the World Wars), SSBN-735 was commissioned in 1989 and is home ported at Bangor.

She just completed her Engineered Refueling Overhaul (ERO) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 2012 and is expected to serve well into the 2030s at which point she will be pushing a half-century with the dolphins.

The Coast Guard Cutter Stratton crew seizes cocaine bales from a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS, a/k/a/ sneaky dope sub, a/k/a narco nautilus) interdicted in international waters off the coast of Central America, July 19, 2015. The Coast Guard recovered more than 6 tons of cocaine from the 40-foot vessel.

Interesting footage of the Stratton‘s 35 foot LRI-II notching in the rear ramp of the big 418-foot National Security Cutter. I’ve done it on a 17 footer in the back of a WPB and it was a blast so I can only imagine the scale involved here.

More on Stratton‘s epic 8.4 ton seizure here.

These things are used for oceanography data collection and have even crossed the Atlantic (in 221 days, no one said they were fast!). They work by adjusting their buoyancy to create forward movement but usually have a set of wings. Kind of like one of those cereal-box submarines that you had as a kid, but without the need for baking soda. Their commo is via satellite.

But the funny thing is, it took the Chinese 3 years to figure out its not theirs…or at least three years to make the statement known.

According to Chinese news sources:

When Huang Yunlai from Hainan province found a one-meter-long, torpedo-like device while fishing 3 years ago, he took photos of it and informed the province’s National Security Bureau immediately. Experts preliminarily concluded it was suspicious and brought it back for further analysis.

It is now confirmed that the unmanned underwater machine, disguised to look like a torpedo, is an intelligence device capable of taking pictures with fiber-optic and satellite communication. It was secretly placed in the water by a foreign country to obtain information on the Chinese navy fleet’s operations at sea.

Formerly known as Facility 825 GTS, the top-secret military facility was used as an underground submarine base in the Crimea near Balaclava during the Cold War. Built in the 1950s hollowed out mountain lair was turned over to the Ukrainians in 2000. It could house upto 14 submarines in its galleries and some 3,500 personnel.

During DSEI 2015 which took place in London from 15-18 September, UK based engineering company SubSea Craft unveiled a revolutionary new submersible called the Diver Delivery Unit (DDU). The DDU is modular and offers mission-specific capability on and under the surface. It is scalable and reconfigurable for a variety of roles. The DDU features a unique catamaran design and can deploy up to 8 special forces operators including the crew of two.

Of course, it seems about 2-3 times too wide for U.S. Navy submarine dry deck shelters, but could have some use from surface ships with well decks such as LSDs, LPDs, LHDs etc. Or maybe Independence-class tri-hulled LCS platforms(?)

For more than a century, the CSS Hunley rested at the bottom of the ocean just outside Charleston harbor, its crew entombed, its hull gradually encased in hardening encrustations.

When it was raised 15 years ago off South Carolina, it looked more like a barnacled sea monster than the world’s first operational submarine, sunk in battle during the winter of 1864.

The remains of its eight sailors were removed in 2001, but research has continued, and Thursday, a conservation team announced that experts have now removed more than half a ton of the encrustations.

The result: the Hunley has much of the look and menace of a modern sub and is clearly the ancestor of the U-boat and the nuclear submarine of today.

The uncleaned stern of the historic Confederate submarine, CSS Hunley, is seen in a photo provided by the group Friends of the Hunley. The sub has recently been cleaned of the 1,200 pounds of undersea concretions that had accumulated over the 136 years the sunken sub rested on the bottom outside Charleston harbor. Courtesy of Friends of the Hunley via The Washington Post

The cleaned stern of the historic Confederate submarine, CSS Hunley, cleared of the 1,200 pounds of undersea concretions that had accumulated over the 136 years the sunken sub rested on the bottom outside Charleston harbor. The work is being done at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, S.C. The Hunley is considered the 1st submarine in history to sink another warship. Courtesy of Friends of the Hunley via The Washington Post

More here

General Atomics has unveiled a new capability for its MQ-9B Guardian maritime UAV (a navalized 9B Reaper), presenting a sonobuoy capability along with other modifications to the Royal Navy in a bid to market the Guardian as an unmanned maritime patrol aircraft to supplement the likely procurement of a manned maritime patrol aircraft.

From Flight Global

“What we’re really looking at is a Predator B carrying sonobuoys, controlling them, and sending sonobuoy information back to the ground station over a SATCOM link,” King says.

“The work has seen us put the system together in a lab and carry out ground testing and prove it end to end. We were ready to go flying in 2015, but the aircraft were diverted to more urgent work. So we will be flying this early in the new year to prove the system.”

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 Oct. 7, 2015: Los Submarinos!

Submarino S-01 leaving harbor, 1962. She looks remarkably like a Type VIIC U-boat. Hey, wait a minute…

Here we see what could have very well been the last of old Adolph’s U-boat fleet in fleet operations, Submarino S-01 of the Armada Española.

Starting life as U-573, a Type VIIC U-boat built for Germany’s Kriegsmarine, she was laid down 24 October 1939, roughly 76 years ago this month, at Blohm and Voss in Hamburg. As such, she was a war baby, with the German invasion of Poland beginning some two months before. She cost the Germans 4 million marks.

The Type VIIC design was the backbone and icon of the U-boat force, with 568 commissioned from 1940 to 1945. For instance, the submarine in Das Boot, U-96, was a VIIC.

These 800-ton, 220-foot long vessels had great range (8,500 nm), could make 17.7 knots on the surface which was faster than most merchantmen of the day, and carried 14 advanced torpedoes and an 88mm SK C/35 gun with some 200~ rounds for those ships not worthy of a torp.

Commissioned 5 June 1941, on the cusp of the invasion of the Soviet Union, U-573 completed four combat patrols in an eight-month period between 15 September 1941 and 2 May 1942. Spending 119 days at sea, her inaugural skipper, Kptlt. Heinrich Heinsohn, helmed the vessel the whole time.

U-573 in German service

The city of Landeck in Tyrol adopted the submarine within the then-popular sponsorship program (Patenschaftsprogramm), organizing gifts and holidays for the crew, earning her the honorary name “U-573 Landeck,” and she carried that town’s coat of arms briefly.

U-573s four patrols produced lackluster results, only chalking up one kill, the 5,289-ton Norwegian flagged steamer Hellen, sunk by two of three torpedoes fired by the submarine about 4 miles off Cape Negro. The bow broke away and the Norwegian sank shortly after midnight without loss of life. All 41 crew members were picked up by the armed trawler HMT Arctic Ranger and landed in Gibraltar the next day.

SS Hellen

Speaking of Gibraltar, on April 29, 1942, U-573 was encountered on the surface by a Lockheed Hudson bomber (U.S. A-28) of RAF Sqdn. 233/M who promptly dropped 325-pound depth charges on her until she submerged.

Damaged, the submarine was again attacked by Hudsons from No. 233 the next day.

Lockheed Hudson of No. 233 Squadron RAF preparing for take-off in August 1942, with the Rock of Gibraltar in the background. Taken by Lt. G.W. Dallison, War Office official photographer – This is photograph GM 1405 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums; captioned A Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson III of No. 233 Squadron RAF leaves its dispersal at Gibraltar for a reconnaissance sortie.

With one man killed, his batteries leaking, a crack in his hull that prevented submergence to more than 45 feet, and numerous other issues, Heinsohn made for the closest friendly harbor– that of neutral but pro-German Spain– arriving at Cartagena on 2 May.

There, under the howls of British diplomatic protests, the Spaniards allowed the sub 90 days to patch up and get back into the Med. However, the battered U-573 was too far gone for pierside ersatz repairs against a waiting British blockade and on 2 August 1942, Germany sold her to Franco for 180 million pesetas (1.5 million marks) in a warm handover, minus torpedoes and shells, which were destroyed to help keep the British happy. Her flag, books, code machine and crests were given to the German ambassador.

Handover. Note the caps!

Her 43-man crew, officially to be interned for the duration, snuck back to the Reich in small groups,  and was replaced by a few civilian German naval technicians who remained with Spain’s new sub as advisers until well after the war.

(Note- One other German Type VIIC sub, U-760, was interned under the guns of the Spanish cruiser Navarra at Vigo harbor in 1943 and, her engines dismantled, was towed away by the British in 1945.)

While the war ended and Hitler was swept away with all of his legions of VIICs (Heinsohn himself, as well as most of Crew 33, were killed on other U-boats after they returned home), U-573, rechristened G-7 by the Spanish, endured.

Why G-7? You see Franco had planned to build six of their own VIICs that were to be numbered G1 to G6, but that never happened.

G7 during her reconstruction

The thing is, the sole Type VIIC the Spanish did have was still a wreck. A floating wreck to be sure, but far from operational by any stretch of the imagination.

It wasn’t until 17 November 1947, after extensive refit in dry-dock to include much German contract labor, salvaged gear from Hamburg and new (American) batteries, she was in active service.

Barcelona, 1950

Painted gray, she still carried her 88mm Rheinmetall Borsig forward although her 20mm AA gun was landed. The Armada had acquired 12 working 533mm torpedoes and mounted a 7.62mm MG3 on her tower when needed. Still, she was far in advance of the few smallish pre-WWII subs the Armada had been using.

Tested to 120 meters depth (half or original design), her Spanish crew consisted of a Commander, Deputy Commander, Chief Engineer, Deputy Engineer, three CPOs, 13 Cabos (NCOs) and 24 ratings.

Her 88mm was kept standard in working condition until 1970.

Across her tower was installed “Todo por la Patria” (All for the Fatherland) in place of the old Landeck crest.

The most modern Spanish submarine until the 1950s, she was the pride of the fleet and made frequent appearance in period movies and film footage portraying German U-boats for obvious reasons.

“U 47 – Kapitänleutnant Prien,” a 1958 German film starring one U-573/Submarino G-7

In 1961, refitted with the help of the U.S., she was repainted black and renamed S-01.

Her skippers:
CC. D. GUILERMO CARRERO GARRE of –.–. 1947 to 26.9.1949
CC. D. Ayuso SERRANO JACINTO of 26/09/1949 to 27/11/1952
CC. Joaquín Florez of 27/11/1952 to 19/11/1954
CC. D. TOMAS NAVARRO CLAVIJO of 11/19/1954 to 17/04/1956
CC. Juan A. MORENO AZNAR from 04/17/1956 to 04/05/1960
CC.D. ENRIQUE ROMERO GONZALEZ of 05/05/1960 to 09/29/1961
TN. D. Luis Rodriguez Mendez-Nunez 09.29.1961 to 15.02.1965
CC. D. LUIS FERNANDO MARTI NARBONA of 15/02/1965 to 20/09/1966
CC. ENRIQUE SEGURA Agacino of 20/09/1966 to 04/16/1968
CC. JAVIER GARCIA CAVESTANY of 16/04/1968 to 05/10/1969
CC.D. AREVALO EMILIO Pelluz of 05/10/1969 to 02/05/1970

Docked for the last time in February 1970, she was stricken from the Armada on 2 May that year. Plans to preserve her as a museum fell through and she was sold for about $25,000, her value in scrap metal.

She was replaced in service 11 months later by USS Ronquil (SS-396), a Guppy’d Balao-class smoke boat who became SPS Isaac Peral (S-32)— with much of S-01‘s former crew aboard. Ironically,  Ronquil was also a movie star, having appeared as the fictional USS Tigershark in the film Ice Station Zebra.

While numerous submarines are preserved as museums, including 9 in Germany, there is only one Type VIIC on public display– U-995 at Laboe, Germany. Like U-573/S01 she was a Blohm and Voss boat and is a near sister.

(Note, U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry, in Chicago, Illinois is a type IXC).

Submarino S 01 Ex U573 y G-7 1941-1970 By Martin Garcia Garcia

Specs:

Displacement: 769 tonnes (757 long tons) surfaced
871 t (857 long tons) submerged
Length: 67.10 m (220 ft 2 in) o/a
50.50 m (165 ft. 8 in) pressure hull
Beam: 6.20 m (20 ft. 4 in) (o/a)
4.70 m (15 ft. 5 in) (pressure hull)
Height: 9.60 m (31 ft. 6 in)
Draft: 4.74 m (15 ft. 7 in)
Propulsion: 2 × supercharged 6-cylinder 4-stroke Germaniawerft diesel engines totaling 2,800–3,200 PS (2,100–2,400 kW; 2,800–3,200 shp). Max rpm: 470–490. Two Brown, Boveri & Cie GG UB 720/8 double-acting electric motors
Speed: 17.7 knots (32.8 km/h; 20.4 mph) surfaced
7.6 knots (14.1 km/h; 8.7 mph) submerged
Range: 8,500 nmi (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) surfaced
80 nmi (150 km; 92 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) submerged
Test depth: 230 m (750 ft)
Calculated crush depth: 250–295 m (820–968 ft.)
Complement: 44-52 officers & ratings
Armament: 5 × 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes (4 bow, 1 stern)
14 × torpedoes or 26 TMA or 39 TMB mines
1 × 8.8 cm SK C/35 Rheinmettal Borsig naval gun with 220 rounds
1x Rheinmettal 20mm antiaircraft

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