Foundering.

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Here two instances of warships not even able to make one voyage without sinking.

1. USS Guitarro. American nuclear powered attack submarine having been launched but sinking while at dock, construction crews to blame, the ship settling to the bottom without even having left port on a single occasion.

This particular web site with lots of images devoted to the sinking, raising and placing back into action the Guitarro that process a major construction project just unto itself.

The nuclear reactor and fuel having NOT having been installed or the vessel carrying any weaponry, catastrophic disaster even beyond a sinking averted, but perhaps only slightly less so humiliating.

Guitarro successfully raised from the bottom, cleaned, restored to fighting trim and sailing in an admirable manner for thirty years subsequent, unfazed it seems by the experience.

Immersion total in salt water for any period of time especially destructive to any and all electronic gear, I cannot even imagine what would have occurred to the nuclear reactor if in place.

2. Vasa. Swedish naval vessel, a sailing warship from the old school and at the time of construction [1626] perhaps the most powerful warship [?] in the world. Foundering and sinking on the maiden voyage, not able to sail even a slight distance from port.

Again, the humiliation most great, recovery to the extent of removing from the bottom bronze cannon property of the Swedish King a paramount issue, the ship not until the latter half of the last century [20th]  resurrected and brought back to the surface NOW that most important tourist attraction in all of Sweden.

"Vasa (or Wasa) is a Swedish warship built 1626-1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into its maiden voyage on 10 August 1628."

"A wind stronger than a breeze" and that was that.

You would have thought even at the time of the Vasa naval architects and construction crews would have all the protocols and procedures worked out and honed to fine technique devoid of any possible failure.

That was evidently not so!! 

coolbert.

Haywire?

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From the article in the Chicago Tribune today, as originally seen in the Washington Post article by Craig Whitlock. 'This is the third of three articles." I missed the two originals.

"Remote U.S. base at core of secret operations"

"DJIBOUTI CITY, Djibouti — Around the clock, about 16 times a day, drones take off or land at a U.S. military base here, the combat hub for the Obama administration’s counterterrorism wars in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East."

And as you might expect, this particular entry from the Post article catches my attention right away:

"As the pace of drone operations has intensified in Djibouti, Air Force mechanics have reported mysterious incidents in which the airborne robots went haywire."

"In March 2011, A predator parked at the camp started its engine without any human direction, even thought the ignition had been turned off and the fuel lines closed Technicians concluded that a software bug had infected the 'brains' of the drone, but never pinpointed the problem."

ROBOT GONE AMUCK!

The possibilities here are:

* Bad software.
* A virus.
* Remote control by a hostile party.
* The ROBOTS have become sentient and are learning to operate autonomous from the controls of man!!

" Never pinpointed the problem." Of course the technicians did not pinpoint the problem. The ROBOTS as their intelligence and autonomy evolves KNOW HOW to cover their tracks and render troubleshooting techniques moot.

coolbert.

Der Landser III.

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 Continuing and concluding with the extracts, military sketch art and commentary from the German military "dime novel" Der Landser.

German Skorzeny [?] commando units on a sabotage mission. German troops special operations ranger types wearing masks, NOT face paint. And making good their get-away in a kubelwagen. 

German troops manning an eighty-eight mm gun [?] on the Eastern Front, defending against on-rushing massed formations of Soviet T-34 tanks. Anti-tank guns organized into what was deemed a PAK front. Panzer anti-kanonen. That PAK front consisting of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank obstacles, anti-tank mines, the approaches to the PAK  front guarded by batteries of anti-tank guns with interlocking fields of fire, a senior "chief" in charge. "A group of up to ten guns were placed under the command of one officer. He was responsible to designate targets and direct the fire of his guns."

German night fighter, a Bf110 scores a knock-out blow against a British Lancaster bomber. That antenna array on the nose part and parcel for the Lichtenstein radar. The Bf110 a two-seater not effective as a day bomber but very useful as a night fighter. Especially so when equipped with Schrage Musik, that pair of 37 mm cannon firing upwards as the 110 passes UNDERNEATH a Lancaster.

 See thanks to youtube this most interesting video, a German night fighter and aging veteran actually demonstrating the method by which the schrage musik would be employed in combat. 

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Der Landser II.

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 Continuing with the military sketch art extracts and commentary from Der Landser.

Feld Gendarmes. German military police. Instantaneously recognizable by the gorget hanging from the neck. That gorget a symbol of authority. The Feld Gendarme all either non-commissioned officer or of the officer rank, one and all. This particular Feld Gendarme questioning and examining the papers of two other German soldiers. The Feld Gendarme on the alert for deserters, malingerers, shirkers. That Feld Gendarme hardly a man to be trifled with or shown disrespect toward. Quite the opposite!

This particular image taken from a Der Landser issue entitled "Battle for Berlin". Shows middle-aged men moving forward to engage the Soviet invader, 1945. Middle-aged men beyond the age of conscription [45 years] and armed with captured Soviet PPsh submachine guns. These men dressed in civilian dress constituting the Volksturm [Peoples Storm]. Many of these men more than likely having seen military service and combat during the Great War [WW1]. Volksturm defending Berlin with small arms to include the armor defeating shaped-charge rocket-propelled grenade casualties among these somewhat elderly men catastrophic! 

 To be continued.

 coolbert.

Der Landser I.

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 Here begins a series of blog entries, extracts of military sketch art from the German Der Landser magazine with my commentary.

 To be honest I was actually surprised that a magazine such as Der Landser was allowed to be published in Germany.

 Evidently this type of "dime novel" and "pulp fiction" magazine has been around at least since 1956 and is nearing sixty years of publication.

There are nearly 3,000 [?] weekly issues in print and the tradition continues unabated.

 Der Landser devoted the lowest ranking German common soldier of the Second World War [WW2]. German troops of the Heer [some stories deal with the sailor of the Kriegsmarine or aviators of the Luftwaffe] portrayed as always brave, courageous, and stalwart, performing their duty with skill and panache'.

 NO mention ever [?] made of the Nazi regime, Hitler, or the other things.

 OH, you know what I mean, "the other things"!!

"Der Landser"

"Der Landser (private, common soldier) is a German pulp magazine . . . featuring mostly stories in World War II settings . . . The magazine claims that its war novels are true stories and that their underlying message is one of peace. In fact many of their stories come with disclaimer reminding the reader of the horrors of war."

 "In THE LANDSER read every week Personal stories from the front of World War II events. From the perspective of the fighting forces and by the memory of individuals, the largest military conflict in world history in all its drama is clear. Based on individual stories, the reader is shown the tremendous hardships and sacrifices that the war demanded 1939-1945 daily by the soldiers and officers."

 That "dime novel" also sometimes referred to as "pulp fiction" best defined as:

 "In the modern age, "dime novel" has become a term to describe any quickly written, lurid potboiler and as such is generally used as a pejorative to describe a sensationalized yet superficial piece of written work."

To the extracted images with commentary:

Here a German Sd.Kfz. 232 eight wheel reconnaissance vehicle as seen during the Ardennes Offensive of 1940. "The Sd.Kfz. 232 (8-Rad) was produced from 1938 to 1943 . . . many of the old vehicles were upgraded with new radio communication equipment, replacing the "bedstead" with more modern and compact wire antennas . . . It was armed with a 2 cm [20 mm] KwK 30 L/55 autocannon . . . [and] also carried a 7.92 mm . . .  machine gun. That apparatus as mounted on the vehicle a RADIO ANTENNA! My original thought was that this was some sort of protection in case of vehicle roll-over. NOT so!

The Sd Kfz 232 as shown in Der Landser.

Again a unit of German reconnaissance advancing. NOTE always the blood red skies. 

To be continued.

 coolbert.

Dry Dock.

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Well, this is so apropos. Was just speaking about this subject. And came across the Al Nofi CIC entry quite by accident. Thanks to Professor Al:

Al Nofi's CIC Issue #408, December 20th, 2012

"On 8 August 1944, the floating dock in which the British battleship Valiant was resting at Trincomalee, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka], collapsed, damaging the ship’s two inner screws and one of her rudders so severely that, although she eventually made it back to Britain, she never returned to active service and was sold for scrap in 1948."

HMS Valiant while in floating dry dock suffering damage that put the ship out of the war [World War Two].

HMS Valiant a Queen Elizabeth class battleship that saw yeoman service and duty during both World Wars finally finished by an accident while in dry dock the career of the vessel ended.

From the World War Two wiki entry for Valiant:

"Floating dry docks and the ships that they hold are raised through increased buoyancy gained when sea-water ballast is pumped out of ballast tanks. In Valiant's case, the sequence in which tanks were being emptied was inappropriate for the ship's weight distribution which was exacerbated by a full munitions load. As a result, the dry dock was over-stressed at its ends, broke its back and sank."

The phenomenon of damage as incurred by warships while in dry dock and NOT at sea strange but true. And goes against intuition as well I would think. And NOT a phenomenon strictly confined to the Russians or Americans. British too!

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Fire!

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Here with the tale of two submarines.

Within a period about six months, two submarines in dry dock, under-going repairs, restoration, enhancements, having caught fire, major damage occurring.

My thought is that the second incident [American] a copy cat arson?

First from Russia.

1. "Russia submarine fire 'totally extinguished'"

"MURMANSK, Russia | Fri Dec 30, 2011
(Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it had doused a raging blaze aboard a nuclear submarine after nearly a full day and night, by partially submerging the vessel after battling the flames with water from helicopters and tug boats."

"Official statements were vague, but the blaze is believed to have started when wooden scaffolding caught fire during welding repairs to the 167-meter (550 feet) Yekaterinburg submarine, which had been hoisted into a dry dock."

That fire on the Yekaterinburg only finally extinguished by partially submerging the vessel in water. Firefighters facing an almost impossible task the construction of a submarine rendering conventional fire-fighting methods and techniques near useless.

[that welders torch set the wooden structure of the dry dock on fire, heating the steel hull of the ship and setting fire to the underlayment I might assume!]

Second from the United States.

2. "Civilian worker set fire to submarine in Maine so he could leave early, Navy says"


"PORTLAND, Maine –  A civilian employee set a fire that caused $400 million in damage to a nuclear-powered submarine because he had anxiety and wanted to get out of work early"

"Casey James Fury, 24, of Portsmouth, N.H., faces up to life in prison if convicted of two counts of arson in the fire aboard the USS Miami attack submarine while it was in dry dock May 23 and a second blaze outside the sub on June 16".

Life in prison a possible and Mr. Fury has already entered a guilty plea. Restitution is impossible, the man needs to re-pay the government nearly half a BILLION dollars!! The taxpayers will be responsible for the restitution.

Mr. Fury evidently a person with some sort of mental problems and also taking medications but the pharmaceuticals not working to the extent needed, Mr. Fury acting in an aberrant most destructive manner.

Again, fighting these fires on submarine while the ship in dry dock a difficult and most arduous task.

Most surprisingly so, these various naval warships, in particular the submarine, more likely to damaged while in dry dock and under-going repairs, maintenance and refurbishment. Operations at sea less hazardous it seems to the health and well-being of the vessel!!


That American submarine USS Guitarro the most extreme example of a submarine while at dock, having been launched, but sinking even before making the maiden voyage!!

coolbert.