US Navy downsized after the WW2.

shush

Part 1;
https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/mothballing-the-us-navy-after-wwii-pt-1/

Part 2;
https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/mothballing-the-us-navy-after-wwii-pt-2/



Fascinating subject.

May be of interest to some.





Found while doing some research.



Garand in the Falklands.



"During the April-June 1982 Falklands War, one of the more curious photos released by Argentina showed an Argentine marine carrying what appeared to be a M1 Garand, accompanied by a comrade with the standard FAL modern assault rifle."

tennmike

Interesting read! :up:
Same thing happened after the Viet Nam War; U.S. Navy downsized due to end of draft and not enough personnel to man the ships; the ships were already way undermanned as it was. That was also when the Navy decided to fill billets with WAVEs, and they took up all the shore billets and caused an even higher lack of retention of male sailors due to the totally screwed up sea-shore duty rotation. Weren't many seagoing shemales in the Navy at the time. And the Navy was downsized again in the 1990s and 2000s. The USN is at a point that fighting a one ocean war would be difficult, and a two or three ocean war absolutely impossible.

shush

:topic: For a change.




Was there not a M1 Garand chamber insert to allow the use of 7.62 NATO in existing .30-06 barrels?

Just thinking of the cheapskate "Dagos" and the logistics nightmare of mixing .308 and 30-06 on the battle field.

PS.


Second view, different website.



Beretta M1 Garand in cal. 7.62/Beretta BM 59?

Big Chief

Yep, they told us about Task Force Smith as a learning point when the Korean War started US Troops from Japan were sent in under-equipped/units not trained good and were told the North Koreans would run at their sight.

http://www.nj.gov/military/korea/factsheets/tfsmith.html

History repeats itself over and over to some extent, especially with draw downs.
They went too far after the Wall came down and the cold war (as we knew it) ended.
If nothing else, I think a strong presence is need in Europe in places like Germany/Poland to keep an eye on things.

Just today they were talking about US troops/units (like a continuous REFORGER) now being rotated and equipment being pre-positioned throughout Europe. We had Pre-Pro Afloat where equipment/Brigades was in big transport ships around and pulled in for periodic maintenance ready to be issued in a port anywhere need be. Don't know the status, but knew some civilians who worked on some of it in Charleston back in the 90s.

Of course, landlocked or countries with few decent ports make that problematic. And particularly if we don't control that area or port.

tennmike

I remember reading about them trying the .308 insert in the .30-06 chamber. There were major problems with it if I remember correctly. Like the chamber insert getting pulled out during firing. :silly: Then the M1 Garand became a heavy and effective, but short range, club. On the other hand, by that time it wouldn't have been all that hard to convert a .30-06 Garand to .308 by rebarreling them; the U.S. Navy had some of those for a while.

It could also be the Italian BM59 with the magazine removed, which was a .308 version of the M1 Garand with a 20 round magazine. Sort of a knockoff of the M14.

zorba

Very cool. I remember well the "Mothball fleet" at Suisun Bay.

woodsrunner

Back when I was a young "White Hat" in the mid-50's there was a mothballed fleet of DD's, DE's and APD's near Mayport Naval Base, Florida where I was stationed aboard ship. Our Skipper, an old "Mustang" who had been in the Navy during WWII, would send us over to the mothballed ships to get whatever we could scrounge up for our current use. Navigation materials was what my team was after mostly, and we got it! Even found an M-1 carbine once in a chart drawer!

pjames777

zorba wrote: »

Very cool. I remember well the "Mothball fleet" at Suisun Bay.

In the fifties that fleet went from Benicia to Antioch and half the width of the Carquinez strait. It was awesome to behold as a young lad.

Big Chief

Oh, think that port those guys worked at was called Goose Bay (Creek?).

tennmike

Used to be a big group of old mothballed WWII destroyers and destroyer escorts at the naval base at Newport, RI. The hoity toity rich snot rags in Newport got the Navy kicked out of the base in either 1972 or 1973. Don't remember which now. When the Navy left, they took everything but the buildings and the sudden vacuum of $$$ that the Navy pumped into the economy went, too. Taxes in Newport went through the roof to make up for the shortfall, and a lot of businesses closed due to nobody patronizing them. They tried to get the Navy back, and the Navy sent two reservist training destroyers back; that was a drop in the bucket to a local economy with a huge hole in the bottom of the bucket. Newport getting a huge shot in the shorts served them right. Never have been around a more hateful bunch of people, except for Boston, Mass. Back then, any branch of the armed forces was pretty much treated worse than child molesters.

Getting homeported in Mayport, FL was nice, though. Weather was good year round, no shoveling snow off the decks in winter, and lots of eye candy on the beaches nearly year round. And the fishing was a lot better, too. Lots of fishing opportunities at the mouth of the St. John's river mouth and all along the beaches with fishing piers. And the people didn't hate us; tolerated us, but didn't hate us. Different times back then.

Big Chief

We found drunk sailors from NAS/Cecil Field/Mayport entertaining..................I especially liked the ones who would score me and my buddies a quart of Colt 45 each, all we needed at 13 years old to get a good buzz :beer: :beer:

snake284

Big Chief wrote: »

We found drunk sailors from NAS/Cecil Field/Mayport entertaining..................I especially liked the ones who would score me and my buddies a quart of Colt 45 each, all we needed at 13 years old to get a good buzz :beer: :beer:

When I was attending Lamar University Vocational School taking Diesel Engines, we used to go to the Orange Texas Mothball fleet and HEW would grant the college lathes out of the DEs and DDs there. We'd go inside the old ships and unbolt the lathes and hoist em up on deck. That was in 1970-1972 and those old ships were still in great condition then.

U.S.S. Texas still sits proudly at her berth at the San Jacinto Battle Grounds just outside of Deer Park, south of Houston close to the Lynchburg Ferry on the Houston Ship Channel. It was 100 years old in 2014 as it was commissioned in 1914. It's the last surviving Dreadnought class ship (The style
of battle ship in the same period following HMS Dreadnought which was commissioned in I believe 1908. It was actually a New York Class as it followed U.S.S. New York in that its keel was laid in 1911 right after New York. Actually, I believe Texas was commissioned first though. They were sisters. New York was used as a target at the Bikini nuclear tests in 1946 and had to be sunk afterwards due to radiation levels.

It served in both WWI and WWII. It's so old that it had coal fired boilers during WWI and until a refit from 1925 to 1927, when oil fired boilers were installed and the old cage masts done away with and a stronger super structure put in place. It also has Reciprocating steam engines. It's a real museum for sure.

It has fallen on hard times of late and almost sank a few years back. The State legislature had appropriated 25 million dollars to build a dry berth for it, but the interior of the ship including some important structural parts had corroded to the point they were afraid that it's huge Recip engines would fall out the bottom. Corrosion has taken its toll. So the $25,000,000 appropriated for the dry berth was spent on structural repairs.

The problem was the thinking when it was set up at its present berth in April 1948 was that they should flood come compartments and sink it in its berth in case of a hurricane so it wouldn't capsize. But there was no thought given to the internal corrosion this caused. It was towed down to a dry dock in Galveston in 1989 and had a lot of hull repairs done, but it needed more attention since. Then nothing much was done to her until lately when the ship took on water in 2012 and almost sank her berth. Now the structure has been repaired and the dry berth project put off until money can be raised.
in
I hope and pray this happens because this ship is a real piece of history. What I'm wondering now though is what about the other museum ships around the country? They too are getting old and will be in need of repair soon. The Essex class Carrier U.S.S. Lexington named after the one lost at the Battle of the Coral Sea. and was Admiral Mitchers flag ship in the later Pacific battles, is just down the road in Corpus Christi. It's another real museum.

It was used as a training ship out of Pensacola and was active up into the late 70s or early 80s when it was stricken from the roles and was up for scrapping. But some Texas lawmakers saved it. This pissed Teddy Kennedy off I read. It was named after Lexington MA.

Up the Gulf Coast in Mobile is the U.S.S. Alabama. I've been on her as well. What a beautiful ship. It was a South Dakota Class ship and sister to the U.S.S. Massachusetts which is a museum ship berthed South of Boston. Then there is North Carolina, which was the lead ship in its class, being only North Carolina and Washington.

All 4 of the Iowas are Museums now. And there's various Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts and subs around the country. Hell, we have a virtual navy among the various states. The only thing missing are the Cruisers. I think there's only a couple left around the world now. It would have been cool to have the New Orleans, the San Fransisco, and Pensacola, to name a few.