While in San Diego, I made a return visit to Midway, which I have previously reviewed based on my visit six years ago. But that was written almost two years after said visit, and I will take the opportunity to write a more detailed one.

Website

Midway is in the heart of downtown San Diego, a block or so from the San Diego Maritime Museum. I would not recommend trying to see both on the same day, particularly if anyone in your group is the type of person who is tempted to read all of the signs. The Fatherly One and I moved quite quickly, and we didn't quite get to everything in the five hours we were onboard. She could easily absorb an entire day for someone who is moving moderately slowly, and I think they even offer reduced-price admission the next day, which suggests that some people don't find that sufficient. I was also struck by how busy the ship was. She wasn't the busiest museum ship I'd ever seen, that honor instead falling to Iowa during Fleet Week 2016, but for a fairly ordinary Friday in September, she was both busy and well-crewed, certainly more so than Iowa was when I visited the following Sunday. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.

Apologies that this post was late in going up. Lord Nelson and I were busy interviewing prospective participants for a new 3MS:

As Naval Gazing is rapidly approaching its fifth anniversary, I am considering how to deal with overhauls. It is taking up an increasing amount of time with each passing year, and although I'm taking steps to reduce the amount of work added by writing less, there seems to be less to do on overhauls. Some of this is the aforementioned writing less, but a lot of it is also just that I've got a lot of the structure I want set up, so old stuff isn't getting new references. Not sure what the solution here is.

Also, I'm going to be in DC next weekend for another DSL meetup. The plan is for a group visit to Udvar-Hazy on Saturday, and any readers are also invited. Details are still a bit up in the air, but send me an email if you're interested.

2018 overhauls are Secondary Armament - Light AA, Going back to Iowa, The Washington Treaty, Survivability - Flooding, my review of LA Maritime sites and Falklands Part 7. 2019 overhauls are Dumb Bombs and LGBs, Riverine Warfare - China Parts two and three and Pictures - Iowa Officer's Quarters. 2020 overhauls are Naval Bases from Space - Hampton Roads, Military Sealift Command Parts one and two, The Midway Rant and List of Battleship Losses. 2021 overhauls are Pictures - Iowa Secondary Battery Plot, Norway Parts seven and eight and Types 82 and 42 - Procurement Follies.

The day before the Miramar airshow, the Fatherly One and I headed into downtown San Diego to see two things: the USS Midway, which I'd been to before, and the San Diego Maritime Museum, which I hadn't. They're within easy walking distance of each other, so it made sense to try and combine them, starting with the Maritime Museum.

Website

The San Diego Maritime Museum has a number of ships of different eras, focusing mainly on sailing vessels, as well as museum exhibits. This sounds suspiciously similar to another maritime museum I visited a few months back, but unlike its counterpart in San Francisco, this one is done very well. The ships are well-maintained, the exhibits are interesting, and there are plenty of friendly staff. In fact, the National Park Service should just hand over the keys and their budget, and go find something useful to do with their lives. Read more...

No American armed service has seen more change in its roles than the Marine Corps. When it was founded, its men were soldiers who fought at sea, going aboard almost every American warship. Today, they are soldiers who fight primarily on land, carried across the sea by specialized amphibious ships, and it has been over 20 years since the last Marines came ashore from detached service aboard America's conventional warships, ending the mission that was ultimately the root of the modern concept of the Marine.

Royal Marines go ashore in boats

Soldiers had been going to sea since Antiquity to fight land battles aboard ship. At various points, this had been the main weapon available to warships. For instance, a third of the complement of the ships of the Spanish Armada were Marines, but from that point the the rising importance of naval guns saw this role decrease in importance, while the skills of sailing a ship grew more valuable. But that didn't foreclose the utility of a body of trained troops aboard ships, a practice the British regularized with the founding of the Royal Marines, who specialized in the job, in 1664. They would find their niche in two new roles. First, they were useful for the raids and small amphibious operations that warships were often called upon to perform, being trained as soldiers and also more familiar with the sea than the typical soldier. Second, and perhaps more importantly, they were under similar discipline to the Army and could be trusted to remain loyal to their officers, even if the sailors began to mutiny. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

I had a great time last weekend at Miramar, and expect to get photos up over the next few weeks. As a down-payment, have the last two currently on my cell phone:

I have learned a valuable lesson about the amount of sunscreen necessary for Miramar

On the way out, my plane flew over the Port, giving me one last look at my favorite place

2018 overhauls are Secondary Armament Parts one, two and three, my reviews of Mystic Seaport and Albacore and Battlecruisers Part 3. 2019 overhauls are Fouling, Naval Ranks - Warrant and Enlisted, Four Years Ago, Riverine Warfare - China Part 1, the McKinley Climatic Laboratory and HMS Warrior. 2020 overhauls are the Arleigh Burke Class, Territorial and International Waters, Falklands Part 24 and Pictures - Iowa Aft Living Spaces. 2021 overhauls are Liberty Ships Parts two, three and four and Pictures - Iowa Main Battery Plot.

The United States Coast Guard is unique among the country's six armed services.¹ Unlike the other services, it is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and its missions range from maritime law enforcement to search and rescue to port security to setting and enforcing regulations on ships to environmental protection and even maintenance of navigation aids. All of this requires what is usually credited as being the world's 12th-largest navy,² with 40,000 military and 10,000 civilian personnel, 259 cutters,³ 200 aircraft of various types and 1,600 boats.

The Coast Guard's origins go back to 1790, when Alexander Hamilton established the Revenue Marine to clamp down on smuggling, raising the tariff revenue that would support the new government. At the time, it was the only armed maritime force available to the United States, as the Navy had been disbanded and wouldn't be reestablished until 1798. The Revenue cutters were placed under Naval command during the War of 1812, as they have been in every American war since then, serving with distinction. The 19th century saw them fight pirates in the Gulf of Mexico, interdict the illegal slave trade and serve with the Union in the Civil War. It also saw the formation of a second organization, the United States Life-Saving Service, tasked with rescuing mariners in distress along the coasts. In 1915, the two organizations were merged to form the United States Coast Guard. Read more...

Reader Evan Þ recently visited the destroyer Turner Joy, and has agreed to contribute a review.⁴

Several weeks ago, a few friends and I went to see the USS Turner Joy, a destroyer museum ship in Bremerton, WA, right next to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

The Turner Joy is billed as the ship that fired both the first and last shots of the Vietnam War - she was involved in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and she was doing fire support off the DMZ up until the moment the armistice went into effect. The ship is set up as she was in the Vietnam era, complete with the Orders of the Day posted for the trip back across the Pacific after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and also complete with an ominous warning on the bridge of what to do in case of a nuclear attack. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.

Reminder that Miramar is next weekend, and there's still time to join us there. Also, will everyone who is planning to meet up send me an email so I can coordinate better day of.

2018 overhauls are my reviews of Salem and Nautilus, SYWTBAMN - Strategy Part 3, Falklands Part 6, Nimrod and Auxiliaries Part 3. 2019 overhauls are Riverine Warfare Africa and South America, my pictures from the Tinker Airshow, Falklands Part 18, Fire Control Transmission and Naval Ranks - Officers. 2020 overhauls are Operation K, ICNW Part 5, Missile Defense Through the Decades - A Worked Example and Falklands Part 23. 2021 overhauls are Liberty Ships Part 1, Standard Parts one and two and Missile Defense Tests Part 2.

I've recently been thinking deeply about the question of dual-purpose secondary batteries in the treaty era. Until recently, I've basically bought the line that DP is the obvious solution thanks to superior weight efficiency and the fact that you can build one gun which fills both roles. But further research has left me unsure of this, at least for most countries.

Vittorio Veneto displays portions of her secondary battery

The logic that Japan, Germany and Italy used in selecting their secondary batteries was all fairly similar. Basically, they thought that they needed a 6" weapon firing ~100 lb shells to be able to effectively counter destroyers. France also bought this logic on the Richelieu, although they chose to make those guns DP. They then discovered the problem with this, that a 6" shell is far too heavy to load rapidly, particularly at high angles, and were forced to join everyone else in fitting their ships with dedicated AA guns of around 4", which seems to have been the ideal AA caliber early in the war, with only the US not making use of it. Read more...

Despite the rather tortuous process that led to its authorization, the travails of the Trident I missile continued as the detailed specifications were worked out. The design brief was essentially to maintain the capability of Poseidon in a missile of the same size, but with twice the range to counter potential advances in Soviet ASW. This would require substantial changes in both the design of the missile and the guidance system, changes which proponents of hard-target capability would use to launch an attack on the Air Force's monopoly on the counterforce role.

A Trident C4 demonstrates its aerospike

Getting a range of 4,000 nm out of a missile that had to fit in the same tubes as Poseidon required extensive technical development. A third stage would be needed, and to keep length down, the designers wrapped the bus and warheads around it. This posed a serious problem when it came time to shut down the third stage. The normal strategy of venting the motor would impose unacceptable shocks on the bus, while flying the motor out the front would bathe it in rocket exhaust. An ingenious solution was found that removed the need for thrust termination. The guidance system was programmed to fly the missile on a trajectory that would use up all of the fuel in the third stage. The motor would then be ejected at 1 G, which allowed the ejection system to be tested on the ground instead of in flight, and the bus could begin releasing its warheads. The third stage required an extremely blunt nose, which would normally have increased drag when low in the atmosphere, and the designers came up with another solution, the aerospike. This was a rod that protruded from the nose on launch, and essentially tricked the air into acting like the nose was much longer than it was, giving an extra 300 miles of range. Read more...