Things That Warm The Cockles Of A Destroyerman's Heart

[desertswo]

As most of you know by now, I spent the bulk of my career (20 of 25 years) in the field of Surface Warfare. Three years of purgatory in an aircraft carrier, and the rest where people like me belong; in frigates, a cruiser, and an afloat staff. I also taught twice at Surface Warfare Officers School Command, so to say I am steeped in the traditions of those who went before me would be an understatement.

What I propose for this thread is simply a place to post those videos or perhaps written anecdotes about destroyers and cruisers and the men (and now women) who make them live and breathe. This first one is sort of fun because it demonstrates some pretty reliable firepower that often gets lost in all of "Oooh-ing" and "Awww-ing" over this missile or that. This the Mark 45 Mod 4 5"/62 caliber main gun that is found in the later flights of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. For the uninitiated, that's 21 rounds in 1:15. Each round is 70 pounds of "boom" which, with the 62 caliber gun tube, can be felt somewhere between 13 and 20 miles away. The really nice thing about this gun system is that it is capable in three of four surface warfare missions; naval gunfire support of troops on the beach, anti-air defense, and anti-surface unit defense. Imagine the ship in the NGFS mission getting a call for fire, troops in the open, fire for effect. With one spotting round, that gunfire control system will lock in there and just keep dropping VT rounds that are exploding 20 or so feet overhead, turning everything underneath into a pink mist. It's things like this that make my . . . well, let's just say I get a little excited. :)

[desertswo]

And who doesn't like a girl with a bone in her teeth? ;)

[desertswo]

Here are a couple from the type of cruiser in which I served. Actually, this is two different classes; the Belknap-class which had one MK 10 launcher and one MK 42 5"/54 gun, and the Leahy-class which was referred to as a "double-ender" because the only guns with which she was built were two twin 3"/50s which were removed when Harpoon was fitted to the platform. She had a MK 10 missile launcher both fore and aft. My ship, USS Gridley (CG 21) was of the latter variety. Other than the different launcher arrangement, the ships are nearly identical in all other respects.

This first video is of USS Horne (CG 30), one of the Belknap-class going through her paces. What's cool about this video is that you are taken into the interior of the MK 10 missile house, or as we called it, "the Cathedral of Doom." It's a big space with lots of brass and chrome that Gunners Mates just love to polish. The missile magazine is below the missile house, and the missiles are on kind of a rotating system not unlike the cylinder in a revolver. You see it operating in the video. The missile house is manned by 11 men at General Quarters, and their purpose is to wing and fin the birds before they go out on the rail. The wings and fins cannot be on them when they are struck down into the magazine. It sounds like a lot of work but actually, a well trained crew can wing and fin a missile and run it out on the rail in a manner of seconds. The ship in question, USS Horne had received the New Thread Upgrade (NTU), which basically meant it's combat systems suite was that of an Aegis-type ship, only instead of the AN/SPY-1 radar, she had the AN/SPS-48E 3D air search radar. Other than the fact that it had a rotating antenna, it was pretty much the equal of the SPY-1 in all other respects. There are even some who will argue that it's better, but I'm really not enough of an electronics geek to argue one way of the other. I just know they both work . . . real good.

The second video is a short one of USS Halsey (CG 23), the same class as the ship in which I served, firing one of her SM-2ER Block II birds. The interference you hear that sounds like a bunch of pissed-off bees are the dulcet tones of a AN/SPG-55B fire control radar, and its nutating member filling the air with microwave energy that will blow up a seagull in midair if it is unfortunate enough to fly in front of it. The SM-2ER Block II with booster is 26 feet long. It's fast but I can't tell you how fast. Just not likely to lose a foot race with any aircraft in anyone's inventory. The range is somewhere in the vicinity of 100 miles, but again, that's as close as you'll get for an actual range from me. What's really cool about this weapon is that they can also be used as an anti-surface weapon even though that is not what it was designed to do. It won't sink a large combatant, but it will make a real mess of its superstructure and antennae arrays; in other words, a "mission kill." At the speed it travels, it's roughly 200 pounds of explosives and all the anti-air frag crap in its warhead have a lot of inertia when they find their mark. Hit something with two or three of those things and they are going to be bleeding big time . . . and ducking for cover. The Iranian Le Combattante II-class missile boat Joshan was hit by six SM-2ERs during Operation Praying Mantis and actually did sink, but at 154 feet, I don't consider that a large warship. Still, it's a nice arrow to have in the quiver.

[Officer of Engineers]

Captain,

You've touched on this briefly in the battleship thread. May I ask you to expand on how the surface warship concept is a WWIII changer away from the carrier?

Being a bellycrawler, we always saw the USN as support and not as decisive force. The carriers are supposed to help us execute REFORGER and when REFORGER was implemented, it was the carriers' jobs to help execute the land campaigns.

Would you mind expanding how the surface warfare group was going to influence the battle at the Fulda Gap?

[desertswo]

Captain,

You've touched on this briefly in the battleship thread. May I ask you to expand on how the surface warship concept is a WWIII changer away from the carrier?

Being a bellycrawler, we always saw the USN as support and not as decisive force. The carriers are supposed to help us execute REFORGER and when REFORGER was implemented, it was the carriers' jobs to help execute the land campaigns.

Would you mind expanding how the surface warfare group was going to influence the battle at the Fulda Gap?

That requires me to answer a rhetorical question with one equally rhetorical: How long is the US Army/NATO supply train to Fulda and beyond?

Everything you need to fight the war that never happened wasn't in Europe; and while the US Air Force would like us to get all creamy over an air bridge from North America with a supply laden airplane every 50 miles (I witnessed this with my own eyes during the Kosovo Air Campaign), the simple truth of the matter is that resupply from North America in a major theater war is predicated on our control of the SLOCs; denying the Soviets access to the North Atlantic via the GIUK Gap, and keeping the access to the Mediterranean and the ports along the Atlantic coast of Europe open.

Logistics resupply on any meaningful level is only possible by sea. Container ships, RO-RO ships, crude, distillate, and natural gas carriers, and so on are the means by which those things needed to defeat a capable enemy on what is essentially his turf get into the right hands. Those logistics ships cannot do their mission if they are being harried by the enemy's naval and air forces. The other side already has the advantage in that at least initially, he's fighting on interior lines. We have no choice but to fight on exterior lines, and that being the case, protecting the SLOCs is quite literally a life and death mission for the maintenance of NATO ground and land-based air forces.

So while it may not be real sexy, or even obvious to those of you toiling as what the US Air Force refers to as "Victory Verification Units" (VVU), those cruisers, destroyers and submarines are protecting the convoys and the carriers from air, surface and subsurface attacks, prosecuting submarine contacts, and when called upon, launching TLAM-C strikes from the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, as well as Scandinavian Fjords in an effort to take down enemy C4ISR nodes, and anti-air defensive systems to facilitate NATO ground-based and carrier air missions; and all because an army travels on it's belly. TLAM-C changed the game because no longer is the strike forward from the sea role solely a naval air mission; there are new players in town and no longer are those surface combatants merely hard working sheep dogs protecting the flock; more than a little of the wolf that exists in every dog has risen to the surface.

[dundonrl]

the only thing that I will say, the 1st video of the 21 shots rapid fire.. a 5" BLMP (Blind Loaded and Plugged) shell fired from a 5" 62 is 74 lbs.. I've been down in the magazine that holds them on both the USS Halsey DDG 97 and USS Momsen DDG 92 and moved hundreds of them during ammo on loads. (and when one lands on your little finger nail, from a 1/2" drop, the finger looks like a stepped on grape after that)

the photo, in my avatar is my last ship, the USS Halsey DDG 97 shooting a Block IV Tomahawk into the California desert (I'm a retired Tomahawk Tech, so it's one of my favorite photos)

here's a video that I recorded of the Halsey firing her 5" gun

[desertswo]

the only thing that I will say, the 1st video of the 21 shots rapid fire.. a 5" BLMP (Blind Loaded and Plugged) shell fired from a 5" 62 is 74 lbs.. I've been down in the magazine that holds them on both the USS Halsey DDG 97 and USS Momsen DDG 92 and moved hundreds of them during ammo on loads. (and when one lands on your little finger nail, from a 1/2" drop, the finger looks like a stepped on grape after that)

the photo, in my avatar is my last ship, the USS Halsey DDG 97 shooting a Block IV Tomahawk into the California desert (I'm a retired Tomahawk Tech, so it's one of my favorite photos)

Yup, I had 54 on the brain (as in 5"54) and meant 70 pounds actually for HE rounds.

[desertswo]

Breaking away from an UNREP ship is always fun. This video starts out with both the UNREP ship and USS Mitscher (DDG 57) doing 14 knots alongside, and then once the hoses and span wires have been retrieved by the UNREP ship, Mitscher kicks it in the ass and as soon as practicable, puts the rudder over to port. She's probably barely on the edge of a flank bell there, judging by her wake. You'd know if she was going faster than that because she'd be throwing up a hell of a rooster tail. Still, it gives you an idea of her maneuverability. It just doesn't get any better than that in something displacing nearly 10K tons.

[Dreadnought]

You just have to love a large caliber gun that fires a round at almost the same second the expended powder canister hits the deck and just keeps right on going.

[Dreadnought]

USS Caron DD-970 being rammed by a Soviet CG patrol boat Black Sea 1988 while conducting umm exercises. Tough to push a USN Destroyer around with a Soviet CG Patrol boat. Aint happening, Carry On!.

[Gun Grape]

I've been in the North Sea on a LST in the winter.

Not sure which would be worse.

[Gun Grape]

Underway refueling of the Momsen. With explanations

Wonder if our very own Momsen Plankowner was still aboard when this was shot?

[desertswo]

I've been in the North Sea on a LST in the winter.

Not sure which would be worse.

Grape, I can pretty much guarantee that the flat bottomed sumbitch you were riding was a lot worse.

[desertswo]

Underway refueling of the Momsen. With explanations

Wonder if our very own Momsen Plankowner was still aboard when this was shot?

In all my years at sea, I've never seen a ship back down after terminating an UNREP like that. They were practicing an Emergency Break Away (you pretty much always do just for drill), that's why the five short blasts on the ship's whistle, but I've never seen anyone back down before. I wish they would have filmed the entire evolution from that point on because now my interest as a ship handler is piqued big time. That was pretty cool actually.

I don't know obviously and am just guessing but I wouldn't be surprised if they were segueing into a Loss of Main Engine Lube Oil Drill, which would require them to stop and lock the affected shaft. You don't have to back down to do that, but it does help to get the affected shaft stopped that much more quickly. Engineering Casualty Control Drills are the bread and butter of any engineering department. The more you do them, and the more realistic you make them, the better your engineers are going to be when the real thing happens.

I once had a fuel oil leak that became a fire on the top of one 1B boiler in Brooke while alongside. That was a real barrel of laughs. I was bringing the offline boiler up to pressure anyway, but was holding off putting it online until the UNREP was over. When the fire started, I didn't have a whole lot of choice. You are supposed to trip the Fuel Oil Quick Closing Valve (FOQCV) right away to eliminate the source of the fire, but had I done that alongside like that we'd have lost electrical power and steam to the main engine, and I felt that people could have gotten hurt or even killed topside, so I took an extra minute or so to balance out the boiler loads and then shift the load entirely to 1A boiler before tripping the FOQCV on 1B.

Then we hit the boiler top (Pressure Fired Boilers are top fired) with PKP and AFFF. All while calling away the Main Space Fire and going to GQ. The fire was out before it even really got started, but the thing was that stuff happened so fast that the comms with the bridge weren't very good. I was actually in the Fire Room during the UNREP, as was my habit. I had my Master Chief Machinist's Mate has my special evolutions EOOW so that I could spend my time in the Fire Room, where things were always more "interesting."

Anyway, the CO started to tear a major piece of my ass off for shifting boilers while alongside (generally a major no no) until I explained the situation. He calmed down and saw the logic of it, but it was one of those times where a CO with less engineering knowledge (like most of them) would have just fired me on the spot. He was an engineer's engineer (I later worked for him on the CINCPACFLT Propulsion Examining Board) so he "got it" even though it was a bit risky. He saw it was far riskier to just secure the boiler regardless of where we were and what we were doing. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! ;)

[desertswo]

OK, this isn't a destroyer, but it's a good lesson learned for everyone, regardless of the class of ship. I could break this down about who did or didn't do what, but suffice it to say there is something of a "perfect storm" of errors, not the least of which is the fact that Dumb and Dumberer are manning the windlass brake. Whoever posted the video does a pretty good job of pointing out the various shots of chain paying out and so forth. Even someone who's never been to sea can figure out that great badness is occurring here. They are fortunate that no one was hurt or worse.

By the way, contrary to what someone posted on the U-Choob page, the bitter end of the last shot of chain is in fact attached to a padeye on the bulkhead of the chain locker. In an uncontrolled drop, it will sheer as it has done here rather than rip the bulkhead out of the hull structure and maybe worse. It's not something to dick around with.

Losing anchors probably happens more than most people realize. I had a Warrant Machinist that worked for me in Constellation who started out life as a SEAL in Vietnam but as sometimes happens in that community they get a little long in the tooth for falling out of airplanes and all that so they transfer to the salvage diving community. Now days there is a Special Warfare rating for the SEAL types, but back when he was doing it, and when I started out, you had to have a regular sea going rating to fall back on like Engineman in his case, or Boatswain's Mate, Hospitalman, etc. He had served in several salvage ships like USS Grapple (ARS 7), and told me that they actually spend a fair amount of their time recovering lost anchors. He didn't quantify his assertion, but he was pretty adamant that it was a pretty frequent occurrence fleet wide.