The Mighty Orion: Wheels up for one last time

A very appropriate Retro Wednesday.

For the last time in over half a century - the East Coast has sent a P-3 Orion on deployment. Via Patrol Squadron 26's LTjg Elizabeth McNaught;

Sailors of Patrol Squadron (VP) 26 will make history Jan. 22 as the last East Coast squadron to deploy in the P-3C Orion aircraft. For the squadron, this deployment will mark the sunset of an aircraft with a 50-year legacy of excellence and historic milestones which began with the acceptance of its first P-3B back in 1966. On Jan. 4 of that year, nearly 49 years to the month, VP-26 became the Navy’s first operational P-3B squadron, when the squadron ferried the first P-3B from its production site in Burbank, Calif. to Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine.

The mighty Orion served her nation well, and still will for a few more years. She is long in the tooth and the airframes have about finished giving their last full measure.

For an old bird born to chase down and nuke Soviet submarines, this will be a sad little deployment;

So, when the sailors return from El Salvador and Bahrain, they'll upgrade to a new Boeing 737 called P-8 Poseidon.

The P-8A still has some work to do - but with time and a bit more money I'm sure - it will get there.

Is has to.

Until then - thanks old girl.

Oh, you beautiful DELTA of my youth ...

Here is a retro-Wednesday that has me going over my passive sonar equation, trying to remember how many teeth there were in the turbine of the DELTA III (Project 09786), working the CZ slide rule, working out F0, wondering what kind of propellers she had ... and ahhhh ... yes.

Look at her old, yet beautiful converted SSBN self. 

To many K-129, so some BS-136 - but to her friends, the ORENBERG. The old flirt, she seems to have popped her head up to say, "Hey there!"

Yngve Kristoffersen and Audun Tholfsen, two Norwegian researchers, were coming to the end of their day when they spotted something unusual on the water. 

"In the evening we spotted lights at a distance," the scientists recorded in their blog for October 16. 

"Turned out to be a submarine at the surface in position: 89° 17.5' N, 172° 42.9' W. We were not able to identify it." 

The men said that they approached the boat, but she sank back under the ice when they were within 100 metres of her.

How do you say, "Crap ... those aren't Polar Bears!" in Russian?

They did, however, obtain several photographs which show a distinctive profile, with the outline of the fin and bulbous bow pointing to her being a Russian nuclear submarine.

She has been potentially identified as the Delta class boat Orenburg.

If so, then the scientists met an old monster, a former ballistic missile bomber which displaces 13,700 tons when submerged, and was originally commissioned into the Northern Fleet in 1981.

Yep, that's her. Here is a shot of her pierside - they've taken away her classic DELTA hump;

The old girl has had an interesting post-Cold War life.

Man. I bet that CO is about my age, probably doing a bonus Command tour or perhaps the ORENBURG is considered a Major Command at Sea. I'd really love to share a bottle with that man and his XO to talk about, "back in the day." There is an old VICTOR III and TANGO cruise I would love to pick their brains about. If he was a JO on either, I could die right then a happy man.

Sigh.

Want to get underway on the ORENBURG? Me too ... believe it or not ... you can, in a fashion. Take some and enjoy the below video. I can almost smell that submarine funk through the screen. For a Russian ship, they seem to have taken good care of her considering her age.

Underway with wine, cigarettes and a cat. Sailors are Sailors, but in some ways - some still have a different kind of fun.

Retro Wednesday

1950s Iraq;

"...alive with the bustle of a young people who are taking back from the West the means to a brighter future."

Indeed.

A few decades of proper, if a bit rough colonial rule ... set things up and running ... give them the keys with the last British bases closed in 1955 ... and then ... in 1958 the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party took power ... and, well, you read the news.



I won't get too cocky though ... here was 1961's Detroit.

The View of LCS from ... 2002

Often times it is helpful to look back a bit to see where we are. You can see the kernel of the compromises that got us to where we are today, specifically paragraphs 4.d and 4.g.

It's a good read for Retro Wednesday.

Family of Ships by CDR Salamander

Hat tip K.

Retro Wednesday

OK folks ... let's us review an important aspect of the Operational Art; Planning Assumptions.

Click the map for larger.

Hat tip Stacey Pettyjohn.

Retro Wednesday

Well ... some things don't change that much ... and I think that bratty kid at the end is Skippy.


Hat tip MD.

Retro Wednesday

Did you know Don Rickles in on Twitter?

Of course - he is a Sailor!

A long time ago, March 1943, Dad and I before I left for the "Big One" - WWII........ twitter.com/DonRickles/sta…
— Don Rickles (@DonRickles) May 29, 2013

Retro Wednesday

Sailors immortal.

USS BROOKLYN from 1899.

USS NEW YORK 1896.

Hat tip SP.

Retro Wednesday

Smoking!  Drinking! Sailors oogling foreign women in bikinis! Wearing uniforms on liberty in foreign ports!

CRAZY TALK!

... ahhh ... Destroyermen.

Retro Wednesday

There is so much here I really don't know where to start.

OK, the Navy made this - so you can use it for GMT, right? Who cares if it was made in 1965 ... I am sure that it is fine now.

From the source as well at BTHBTS.

Retro Wednesday: Save the HMS CAROLINE

As we continue to watch the USS OLYMPIA rust away, it is good to see another nation making the extra effort to preserve part of her very rich history.

She was commissioned in 1914 and with the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron, fought in 1916 in the Battle of Jutland. On an off duty, she was finally and at last decommissioned in 2011.

We discussed her a couple of years ago - but I wanted to bring her up again so you could see this great photospread via the TelegraphUK. More via the DailyMail.

Retro Wednesday: VOGE

Back in the heyday of the Hairy Navy ... a little shot of the USS VOGE (FF-1047) coming alongside for UNREP.

Watch it the whole way through as a reminder that those who say, "but the sea is so calm," usually speak too soon.

Speaking of the VOGE ... one of my favorite frigate stories involves her.

Who wouldn't want to write this OPREP?

Retro Wednesday

1954 Med Cruise by the USS RANDOLPH (CVS-15).

Yes, Naples looks the same. 

 

Hat tip CB.

Retro Wednesday

LT B; contain yourself.

USS Iowa (BB-61) in the Gulf of Sidra in 1987 during FON operations. Thanks to Steve for the pic. He was onboard the USS SARATOGA (CV-60) when the Iowa did a GUNEX.

Retro Wednesday

There was a lot of variety in Navy uniforms in WWII. Some I like (such as the covers worn by the crew of The Truculent Turtle right after the war) - but to be honest ... I don't care if you are Admiral John S. McCain, Sr - sir, that infernal mutt of a cover you wore towards the end of the war needed to go!

Another view of that horrible cover can be found on page 12 of Life.

On the other end - I kind of liked the Confederate States Navy in WWII - you know - the guys wearing Service Dress Grey?

Retro Wednesday

Funny, I think somewhere along the way we forgot how to communicate.

Leadership, at its best, is pithy.

Retro Wednesday

I would have made the drive.

Nobody tells me things until its too late. I'm going to have a good pout.

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Hat tip Darryl.

Retro Wednesday: Menu From the Chief Petty Officers Club on Yokosuka Naval Base

The Korean War ended less than a decade ago and Vietnam was just a back page story.

If you were a Chief and you had $5 burning a hole in your pocket ... (click image for larger)

The Windjammer Menu, 1961

History of The Windjammer

The first Chief Petty Officers Club on Yokosuka Naval Base was in Building H-83 located in the area of the new Middle School. It had been used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a gymnasium for Judo and Fencing, it remained the CPO Club from 1945 until it was destroyed by fire in 1949. Three months later H-43, (where JRNOC is currently located) which previously had been a galley and dining area for the Imperial Japanese Navy shipyard workers, was remodeled into a CPO Club. It remained so until 1978 when it was also gutted by fire.

The Chiefs Club then moved to the old Seaside Club Building J-201 and utilized the Bar Area as the CPO Club until the completion of the Arleigh Burke Officers Club when they moved into the Chain Locker.

The current CPO Club, Building B-39, was completed sometime in 1927 in which the Japanese Imperial Navy used first for offices of the Shipyard Superintendent and later as a Supply Office. At the end of World War Two, the Occupation Forces continued to use it as Supply Offices until 1949 when it was renovated and remodeled into a recreation facility for Petty Officers below the grade of Chief Petty Officer. The Petty Officers Club closed in 1982 with the opening of the new Club Alliance at the Main Gate.

In 1982, CNFJ Force Master Chief, SKCM Jim Berry, realized that the Chain Locker in the Officers Club was not working out and convinced CNFJ and CFAY to relocate the CPO Club to B-39. The inside was renovated and the current CPO Club opened for business in 1983.

Hat tip PD.

Retro Wednesday: Those Innocent Soviet "trawlers"

All you old Cold Warriors ... remember those innocent "tattletales" that always seemed to want to collect "Electronic Intelligence" on our HVU?


What's a few torpedo tubes between friends? This was in dry dock in St. Petersburg in the middle of last decade. I am pretty sure this was just a test and development ship - at least that is what a quickie search about the hull number says.

I tend to believe that - because I really don't see how you could hide that for long. Remember what part of the world they were found in more than not? You see the underside of every hull eventually.

Still though .... Innocent? Sure they were!



Hat tip RS and other dudes in email.

Retro Wednesday: I Relieve You Sir

Timeless lessons.

In the darkness of early morning on June 3, 1969, destroyer USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754) collided with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (R21) in a joint exercise in the South China Sea, resulting in the loss of 74 lives. This 1975 Navy training film recreates the events surrounding the collision. Names of the officers involved in the collision have been changed. Source: Naval History and Heritage Command, Photographic Section, UMO-40.

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UPDATE: Here is the gif from wikipedia C-14 mentioned. Thanks Commodore!



Hat tip Mike.