Welcome to MSW’s Scuttlebutt! Here’s the news for the day.



Feature - Revell's PT Boat Kits In Plastic
MSW crew-mate T. Garth Connelly (TGarthConnelly) shares his treatise focusing on the Revell releases of plastic kits of USN PT-boats, in this MSW Reference Feature!
Feature


Victory at Sea - Coronel
This weekend was the anniversary of the World War I Battle of Coronel. Follow the link to read a full account of the battle.
Victory at Sea




The Myths of Pearl Harbor

With the upcoming anniversary of Pearl Harbor, here’s a website that looks at the myths of that day.
Website




This Day in U.S. Naval History

1853 - USS Constitution seizes suspected slaver H. N. Gambrill.
1931 - Dirigible USS Los Angeles (ZR 3) makes 10-hour flight out of NAS Lakehurst, N.J., carrying 207 persons, establishing a new record for the number of passengers carried into the air by a single craft.
1943 - Battleship Oklahoma (BB 37), sunk at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, is refloated.
1956 - USS Cambria (APA 36) removes 24 members of United Nations Truce Commission team from the Gaza Strip.
1956 - USS Chilton (APA 38), USS Thuban (AKA 19), and USS Fort Snelling (LSD 30) evacuate more than 1,500 U.S. and foreign nationals from Egypt and Israel because of the fighting. 1961 - After Hurricane Hattie, helicopters from USS Antietam (CV 36) begin relief operations at British Honduras providing medical personnel, medical supplies, general supplies, and water.


SCALP Naval Gets Ready for its First Firing

SCALP Naval has just completed its series of aerodynamic trials at ONERA’s wind tunnel facility in Modane, France. This milestone was achieved less than two years after the French DGA (Délégation Générale pour l’Armement) notified the development contract for its MdCN naval cruise missile programme in December 2006.



The year 2008 has been especially rich in technical events for the programme. It started with a preliminary design review during which several system aspects were validated with the national client, notably: the general architecture of the missile; its launch platform interfaces (surface vessel vertical launch and submarine torpedo-tube launch); mission planning as well as the range of activities leading up to the next milestone, namely the detailed design concept.

During the course of the year, several partial trials were also carried out on the principal components of the vertical launch container and of the watertight submarine-launch capsule as well as on the warhead. The principal sub-assemblies of the Microturbo TR50 turbojet, which will provide missile propulsion during cruise phase, have also been tested. A distinctive feature of the turbojet motor is its endurance, required to provide the missile’s very long range.

Most recently, the first test at system level was carried out at the DGA’s Centre d’Achèvement et d’Essai des Propulseurs et Engins (CAEPE) near Bordeaux on 2nd September 2008. This involved a test firing of a missile mock-up fitted with the booster system within the Sylver A70 vertical launcher as a contribution towards eventual launcher qualification with regard to its safety aspects. Sylver A70 is being provided by DCNS under the prime-contractorship of MBDA within the FREMM integration contract.

These partial trials have prepared the way for the first firings of SCALP Naval which will take place from 2009 onwards. These test firings will be in both launch configurations, namely from the Sylver A70 launcher in its FREMM frigate configuration and from a submarine launch system in a Barracuda submarine configuration.

The Livre Blanc, France’s defence and national security planning document published in June 2008, reaffirmed the priority conferred on the MdCN programme to provide the French Navy with a new, precision deep-strike capability from its FREMM frigates as of 2013 and from its Barracuda submarines as of 2015.


With an annual turnover of EUR 3 billion, a forward order book of EUR 13 billion and over 70 customers worldwide, MBDA is a world leading, global missile systems company. MBDA currently has 45 missile system and countermeasure programmes in operational service and has proven its ability as prime contractor to head major multi-national projects.


Naval Forces Received A Minehunter in the Netherlands

On 24 October, the National Armed Forces (NAF) Naval Forces (NF) took possession of the ALKMAAR-class minehunter vessel in the Dutch city of Den Helder. The vessel received the identification number M07 and the name Visvaldis. This will be the fourth ship received from the Netherlands. The Naval Forces have already received the minehunters M04 Imanta, M05 Viesturs and M06 Tālivaldis.



Senior officials of the Latvian and Dutch Naval Forces, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Latvia to the Kingdom of Netherlands Sanita Pavļuta-Deslandes, Latvian Defence Attaché to the UK and Netherlands, Lieutenant Colonel Arnis Kalnājs, minehunter Visvaldis crew and godmother will be present in the ceremony of taking possession of the ship.

The ship was received in accordance with the Agreement of 24 August 2005 signed between the Latvian and Dutch Ministries of Defence on purchase of five ALKMAAR class minehunters from the Dutch Navy. One vessel costs 8 million lats.

The first minehunter M04 Imanta was received on 7 March 2007 in Liepāja, the second minehunter M05 Viesturs was received on 5 September 2007 in Den Helder and the fourth minehunter M04 Tālivaldis was received on 4 April 2008 in Den Helder.

The main task of minehunters is to search and dispose mines. It is planned to include the vessel in the BALTRON (Baltic Naval Squadron) in 2009. In accordance with a tradition, the name of the vessel class in Latvia is derived from the name of its first vessel; therefore all Latvian vessels belonging to this class are called the Imanta class vessels.

The minehunter M07 Visvaldis was built in 1984 and its previous name was Delfzijl; its displacement is 595 tons, length: 51.6 metres, width: 8.96 metres, maximum speed: 15 knots. The ship has a crew of 35 sailors.

The ship’s commander is Lieutenant First Class Sandis Zviedrāns. The ship’s godmother is psychotherapist Aina Poiša.




For all you fans of college football, here’s this week’s BCS top 5
1. Alabama
2. Texas Tech
3. Penn State
4. Texas
5. Florida

Scores from around the country…
Late TD grab lifts No. 7 Red Raiders over No. 1 Texas 39-33.
No. 2 Bama blanks Arkansas St. 35-0.
No. 3 Penn State was off this weekend.
No. 4 Oklahoma starts fast, routs rival Nebraska 62-28.
No. 5 USC adds to winless Washington's problems 56-0.

Scores of interest
Charleston Southern beats VMI 31-21.
Senior Newswriter Gator Loup’s alma mater McNeese tops SELA 24-14.

Military Academy Scores
Navy completes 20-point comeback, downs Temple 33-27.
Air Force victorious over Army 16-7.

Photo of the Day



A Standard Missile - 3 (SM-3) is launched from the Pearl Harbor-based guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) enroute to an intercept over an open ocean area northwest of Kauai as part of Pacific Blitz 08. The SM-3 successfully collided with a ballistic missile target launched from the Pacific Missile Range Test Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii.

Gator