Howdy All,

Came across this wee bit of a surprise {at least to me} whilst researching something entirely different.
I have been aware of the German employment of 'Flak Barges' during WWII, and even began scratching one up sometime back. I got as far as building one of the Flak 88's {four were planned} and two of the quad 20mm's. I had also accumulated all the required rod/strip-stock for the outer perimeter of the barge itself. Anyway, back to the point, I was surprised to discover that they also developed 'flak' or artillery barges during the 'Nam!
Enclosed is a couple of really bad photos, and one interesting diagram of how these barges were floated and deployed. Apparently they were towed into place by Tango boats{LCM-6/8's}

These arty-barges were designed to have two 105mm howitzers emplaced on each barge, complete with crew, ammo and command 'hooche's'. Both resupply and replacement were carried out by helo.
Here's a look at the barge itself;
{yeah, as I said, bad photo}



And here's the schematic showing the configuration for towing the barges to their firing positions;
{although, from the diagram it appears to me the LCM is facing the wrong direction}



These barges were used both in the middle of the Mekong river, as well as being beached on the shoreline, as shown below;
{again, really poor photograph}



Further, the same innovative person {Lieutenant Colonel Carroll S. Meek} designed oversized Helo Barges as both a supplement to the rather limited, single-padded ATC-(H)'s, as well as a supply and support system for multiple, grouped artillery barges as seen below. These helo-barges were designed with three landing pads plus off loading & storage areas, so as you might suspect, they were rather large in size.



If anyone is interested in any further information I'd be happy to share, otherwise I just thought there might be some others out there who would as equally surprised as I to have discovered this wee Vietnam-era factoid.

Regards,

Tread.

Ahoy, Gordon!
Nice to see you around!

Fantastic information, mate, thanks for sharing!
Sooo, now that you have this info abd a couple of pics, any plans on reproducing one of these MOST interesting vessels???
~Gunny

Howdy Gunny

Thx for the kind words of "welcome", it's always nice to stop back by the old stompin' grounds...

As to the information, I enjoyed bringing it to the front. I don't think many of us even knew of the Mobile Afloat Force, or the existence of these Arty Barges....not to mention the Helo Barges.
As far as a build or dio is concerned well, the only thing I've got to say about that is that even though the potential diorama possibilities are supremely tempting, before I would even consider thinking about something like that I have a long overdue project I would have to address first, namely a kit-bash ATC (H) 'Tango' boat that my good mate HeavyArty has been tappin' his foot about for quite some time now.......... .....love ya Gino my man!

Tread.

Tread,

I'm always interested in Info!!!
PM Me

Matt

Hey again, Tread!

You're welcome ANY time in these waters, Bro. . .you always bring with you both great information, and great modeling!

Cheers,
~Gunny

Howdy Mark,

Many thx for your kind words And regarding that unfinished ATC (H) project I mentioned to you, and the pictures I spoke to you about in my PM to you, I remembered I have few of them in my 'My Photos' album if you wanted to check them out.

Now as far as "...You're welcome ANY time in these waters, Bro..." I might just take you up on that. Because, even though I am a devout fan of anything MRF related, the pending release of the new 1/35th scale Elco boat, and the even more exciting future release this year of the 1/35th scale German Schnelleboot is right up my alley.
I'm not really sure why, but I've never really been that excited to build most of the 'usual' fair normally associated with ship modeling. I have always been much more intrigued by the plethora of support, maintenace, shorecraft, and/or oddball maritime subject matter. My recent interest in the newly found {for me} Vietnam Arty Barges is an extension of my previous research into the German Flak Barges of WWII.
And, just to mention it, I have also spent some synapse-firing time on tackling one of these very cool maintenance vessels.....



The above photo depicts the usual configuration of ten (10) ABSD's linked together and offshore performing maintenance on a couple of ships. These vessels were very unique in that they traveled individually across the ocean to within very close distances to the enemy frontlines, and having arrived on station they would link up side-by-side, lock together, and then fill their internal ballast systems with sea water, slowly submerge the entire hull section of the group of ships so the vessel needing repair could navigate between the uprughts. And then once the ailing vessel was properly positioned, the ABSD's would then drain their ballast and rise up, trapping the ship to be repaired in a 'drydock' made up of multiple ABSD's...........pretty cool huh?
I had a friend of mine back in Colorado who had scratchbuilt a mockup of one of these in 1/144th scale. And I always thought it would be interesting to creat one of them {or ten? } in 1/350th........

Tread.

Hmmmm, fell off the page huh? I guess I must have commited a real ' faux pas' when I kinda poo-pooed the "usual fare" of the ship modelers, the big ships.......I'll just quietly zip my boca

No worries.

Hi Gordon,
It has been too long since you have been to Colorado. Loose Cannon now has the ABSD's in their kit offerings in 5 units kit and single unit kits. We will also be adding all the barges that you find around the ABSD's so you can have a complete diorama.