Welcome to MSW’s Scuttlebutt! Here’s the news for the day.
Look what the tide washed up...
MSW associate editor Frank Portela (Clanky44) has started a thread that allows crew mates here to share with fellow modelers what we’ve recently purchased. If you’ve bought a ship model, aftermarket accessories, reference material or tools, feel free to post it. As long as it’s ship/hobby related, it’s welcomed.
Ahoy
Community Build 8th Session Voting
Here’s the voting breakdown on the Community Build 8th Session.
OOB
Full Build
Official Gator Navy Thread
The “Gator Navy” campaign has started! So get to building my little amphibians.
Gator Navy
Campaign – APPROVED - WWII Flattops
Ahoy mates! This campaign has been approved! So, start thinking flattops!
Campaign
This Day in U.S. Naval History
1801 - The U.S. Senate approves a peace treaty with France, ending an undeclared naval war which began in 1798.
1917 - The United States severs diplomatic relations with Germany.
1991 - Battleship USS Missouri (BB 63) fires eight 2,000-pound shells from her 16-inch guns, destroying prefabricated enemy concrete command and control bunkers Iraq is moving into Kuwait.
Unmanned Vehicle Contributes to Counterpiracy Operations
Source: US Navy
USS MAHAN, At Sea --- The guided-missile destroyer USS Mahan (DDG 72) brings an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability to Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, which enhances the counterpiracy task force's effectiveness.
This UAV supports the CTF 151 counterpiracy mission by providing maritime surveillance and cueing on suspicious activity.
"This is a significant step forward and is reflective of the increased use of UAVs across the spectrum of military operations," said Cmdr. Steve Murphy, Mahan's commanding officer.
The unique attributes of a UAV – namely the ability to stay airborne for long periods and cover hundreds of square miles of ocean during the course of one mission, all the while sending imagery in real time back to Mahan and other assets in the task force – provide a significant tactical advantage.
"It can fly day or night in a covert or overt posture, making it much harder for pirates to hide" said Murphy. "It is also important to note that the images and information obtained [by the UAV] at sea is shared with our coalition partners, thereby improving overall mission effectiveness and strengthening key partnerships between navies."
As part of Combined Task Force 151 Mahan is coordinating and deconflicting counterpiracy efforts with approximately 14 nations also operating in the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.
Taken in context with other aircraft and ships operating in the area, the UAV is considered by Murphy and other leaders in the task force as a force multiplier. The information the UAV generates also helps CTF 151's leadership determine where to position all available units.
"It provides high quality imagery in real time, speeding decision making and is a significant advantage in stopping piracy on the high seas," said Murphy. "It is versatile and very responsive, able to change operating areas and change missions in mid-flight."
Mahan has integrated the UAV into every mission it has conducted while on deployment, gathering valuable information on maritime traffic patterns and the patterns of those suspected to be involved in illicit activity.
According to Murphy, it also helps protect the ship and crew, providing extended surveillance and early indications of potential threats.
"[The UAV] has great significance as a developing effort to apply 21st century technology to the 21st century challenges that our Navy faces."
The civilian and Sailor team operating the unmanned aerial vehicle on Mahan is documenting lessons learned during this mission and throughout the ship's deployment. This information is expected to contribute to the U.S. Navy's plans for the future of UAVs at sea.
Rosyth Prepares for Royal Navy Supercarriers
Source: UK Ministry of Defence
The Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers will be assembled at Rosyth on Scotland's east coast in the next decade. Work is already well underway to make sure the dockyard is ready.
If you see huge sections of warship on barges inching their way up the UK coast in a few years' time, chances are they are on their way to Rosyth. Work is underway to prepare the Firth of Forth yard's No 1 dock - originally built in 1916 - to accommodate the two massive 65,000 tonne aicraft carriers to be in service in the next decade.
The yard contains the largest non-tidal basin for ship repair in the UK and Babcock Marine is working to increase the capacity of the dock, as well as widening the entrance to allow entry of the parts and departure of the 280-metre long, 56-metre high carriers. A £15m 120-metre span crane - nicknamed Goliath - is also being installed to straddle the dock.
Up to 150 staff from BAM Nuttall are doing the engineering in a £35m contract with Babcock on behalf of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, which also includes BVT Surface Fleet, Thales UK, BAE Systems and MOD's Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) as both participant and client. There are workers from around 50 other sub-contractors also working on site.
Work on No 1 dock began last March and is set to be completed by summer 2010:
"The project is in full swing and on schedule," said Sean Donaldson, Babcock's carrier project director at Rosyth. "The first parts of the first carrier will arrive in the summer of 2011, so we are not going to be short of things to do in the next few years."
Staff at Rosyth have been preparing for the work for at least two years:
"The work presents some challenges because it is related to old structures and, as the majority is below ground and in a marine environment, the project has significant risks," said Mr Donaldson. "We have spent two years on site investigations and de-risking activity to get to this stage. But working with the MOD we knew that investing the money up front would save us much in the long term."
The first carrier should be in dock for between 18 and 24 months. Assembly of the second will begin soon afterwards. It is a complex logistical process:
"It is a joint team doing the integration, led by BVT, to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle do fit together," said Mr Donaldson. "It is a very challenging timeline but it is in all our interests to make sure everyone comes together. We are all incentivised to work together to complete the project.
"We were refitting nuclear submarines at Rosyth until 2001 and they were massively complex projects. We have also refitted each of the current aircraft carriers. But we are certainly not complacent. We have had a team in place, three years ahead, to make sure we can complete this task."
"The Goliath crane will rest on two uprights either side of the dock and will be a towering icon of engineering endeavour and industrial capability."
Director Capital Ships, Tony Graham
The dock is long enough to accommodate each vessel but its cross- section is unsuitable for modern warship building, the ship's hull being flat-bottomed rather than the traditional V-shape. Huge granite steps, known as altars, that stick out from the side of the dock are being cut back to the width of the top tier. The dock floor will be nine metres wider when they have been removed.
Work is now underway to widen the main entrance to the Rosyth basin from the Firth of Forth. The 38-metre-wide entrance features a sliding gate to hold the tidal water back but is soon to be increased to 42 metres. A 25-metre-deep wall will be installed behind the existing entrance wall to allow excavation work, with the void filled with concrete. This will allow the existing entrance wall to be demolished before the final face of the new entrance is installed. Goliath is due to arrive in August 2010 with handover soon after.
Built by Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery, the 68-metre gantry crane to straddle the dock will be able to lift up to 1,000 tonnes from three hooks, two suspended from an upper trolley and one from a central, lower trolley which will have a capacity of 500 tonnes.
The individual capacity of each of the three hooks provides valuable flexibility in lifting awkward loads and will allow units or blocks to be turned over. Nearly 90 reinforced concrete bored piles are being socketed three metres into the underlying rock on the eastern side of the dock as foundations for the crane, with further piles driven up to seven metres into rock on the western side.
The crane will arrive partially erected through the newly-widened dockyard entrance and will be 'skidded' from ship to shore onto the crane rails. DE&S visitors to the dockyard to see the progress Babcock are making have included the Director Capital Ships, Tony Graham, who saw the works in the autumn:
"This is an exciting time for the CVF [future carrier] project as, around the UK, we make final preparations for cutting of steel on the ships in early 2009," he said. "For stability, the Goliath crane will rest on two uprights either side of the dock and will be a towering icon of engineering endeavour and industrial capability.
"In this sense, it parallels an ever-ready and world-class carrier strike capability, resting as it does on the two iconic ships - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - lifting the Royal Navy into a new modern age."
Dam marks big milestone
A major milestone has already passed at Rosyth's No 1 dock with the completion of a cofferdam, a huge enclosure of steel and rock-fill extending 14 metres from the basin floor to dockside level. The cofferdam creates a dry working environment where the civil contractor can work.
Five circular steel 18.5-metre-diameter cells have been built to sit on the bed of the main basin and then filled in with thousands of tonnes of imported rock. It is the biggest cofferdam of this type built for many years:
"Modifying a dock in a marine environment like this is not easy," said Babcock civil engineer Mike Murray. "The design and installation of the temporary works needed to hold back the water during the construction period can be very challenging.
"The No 1 dock cofferdam alone weighs more than 50,000 tonnes and has to resist around 8,000 tonnes of thrust imposed by the retained water in the basin. It has to be buildable and sealable. Sealing is the craft bit and the difficulty is making the seal at the basin bed.
"We are on time. The No 1 dock cofferdam was constructed in six weeks and is working well," he added.
When work on No 1 dock has finished the cofferdam will be removed and installed at the basin entrance along with another bespoke structure on the river-side to allow the entrance to be widened.
U.S. Navy Retires Last Lockheed Martin S-3B Viking from Fleet Service
Source: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
NAS JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --- The U.S. Navy retired the last Lockheed Martin S-3 Viking from fleet service in ceremonies here this morning, closing out the aircraft's distinguished 35-year naval career.
Development of the S-3 began in August 1969, and first flight occurred on January 21, 1972. Sea Control Squadron 41 (VS-41), the S-3 training unit known as the Shamrocks and the first operational S-3 unit, received its first aircraft in February 1974. A total of 187 S-3s were built (eight test and 179 operational aircraft) between 1971 and 1978. Over its career, the Viking served with 18 Navy squadrons and accumulated approximately 1.7 million flight hours.
"The S-3 Viking was known as the 'Swiss Army Knife of Naval Aviation' and served the U.S. Navy well in a wide variety of roles over the course of its operational service life," said Ray Burick, Lockheed Martin vice president of P-3/S-3 programs. "The Viking has played a critical role in carrier-based anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, as well as overland operations, refueling, targeting, and electronic surveillance. And of course Lockheed Martin is proud of the role it will continue to play in support of these critical Navy carrier-based missions, as many of these missions will eventually be carried out by the F-35C Lightning II."
The first S-3 was built at the then-Lockheed Aircraft Co. plant in Burbank, Calif., and was trucked to the company's facility in Palmdale, Calif., for first flight. Company pilots John Christiansen and Lyle Schaefer were at the controls, kicking off a 26-month test program. Among its notable firsts, the S-3 was the first antisubmarine warfare (ASW) platform to have a computerized acoustic system.
Sea Control Squadron 29 (VS-29), known as the Dragonfires, made the first S-3 deployment aboard the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-67) in July 1975. The S-3 fleet surpassed 100,000 flight hours less than two years after that first deployment.
Several variants of the S-3 carried out a range of missions for the U.S. Navy. Seven aircraft were modified to US-3A Carrier Onboard Delivery aircraft, capable of carrying 4,250 lbs. of cargo. The ES-3A Shadow was designed for fleet electronic surveillance, replacing the EA-3B. Sixteen aircraft were modified to ES-3A configuration, and the first mission capable Shadow flew in May 1991. Development of a KS-3A tanker variant began in 1979; although the KS-3A was never produced, it did prove the concept of "buddy tanking" (aerial refueling using a wing-mounted pod), which most S-3s later performed. At the height of combat operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom, S-3 crews transferred nearly eight million pounds of fuel to Coalition aircraft.
The significantly improved S-3B was developed in the early 1980s to better detect quiet Soviet submarines, identify targets and carry standoff weapons. The S-3B flew for the first time in prototype form in September 1984. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, an S-3B from VS-38, the World Famous Red Griffins, carried out the first S-3 attack mission, disabling Saddam Hussein's ocean-going yacht with a laser-guided Maverick air-to-surface missile. In 2003, an S-3B from VS-35 became the first aircraft ever to have the Navy One call sign when it carried former President George W. Bush to the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).
Under the S-3 Integrated Maintenance Program (IMP), Lockheed Martin and Navy personnel worked side-by-side to perform scheduled depot maintenance and repairs on the S-3s to return the Vikings rapidly to the operational fleet. The program began in 2001, primarily as a means of reducing the backlog at Naval Aviation depots. IMP increased S-3 aircraft operational availability by 53 percent and reduced maintenance tasking by 47 percent over the depot-level maintenance plan. IMP also resulted in significantly reduced costs to the Navy. A total of 149 aircraft were processed through the IMP inspections, and nearly all of the aircraft were redelivered to the Navy on or ahead of schedule. The program concluded in 2007, as the Viking fleet was being drawn down.
"The S-3 Viking will long be remembered for its mission capability, its flexibility and its reliability," said Burick. "The aircraft has served the U.S. Navy admirably for more than three decades. We salute all who have flown and supported the Viking."
The NASA Glenn Research Center near Cleveland, Ohio, currently has four S-3B Vikings, performing aircraft icing research missions. It is likely that four S-3Bs will remain in Navy service, although in a support role providing range surveillance at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at Point Mugu, Calif.
Photo of the Day
Commissioning ceremony on aft deck of the German battleship Bismarck.
Source: German Federal Archive
Gator
