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Ingalls Update
Had a chance to swing by my old childhood stomping grounds at “The Point” in Pascagoula and captured some snapshots of the Navy’s newest under construction at HII. This included the 13th and final...
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Lions and Aardvarks living together!
Some 40 years ago this month, July 1984: Massive U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat fighters of Fighter Squadron VF-114 “Aardvarks” and VF-213 “Black Lions” nestled snugly aboard the one-of-a-kind...
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Rocket-Carrying Drone Boats? We got that
The ROK Marine Corps ordered the LIG Nex1 Poniard (Bigung) light “fire and forget” surface-to-surface missile in 2016 for coastal defense use, specifically to zap North Korean landing craft and small...
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A Lot Has Changed in the Arctic Since 2019
A force of 37 U.S. and Canadian Soldiers was tactically inserted in 50 below F weather by a ski-equipped LC-130H Hercules onto Arctic Ocean ice just east of Little Cornwallis Island in Nunavut,...
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Warship Wednesday, July 24, 2024: To the Sea, to the World
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Omaha’s Trip Home
For your approval, a scenic peacetime view some 90 years ago this month, showing the class-leading baby cruiser USS Omaha (CL-4) at anchor in Commencement Bay in Puget Sound at the end of July 1924....
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Grocery Run
How about these great images from Commander, Submarine Group 9, showing a commercial contract H225LP Super Puma Mk II assigned to the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Cesar Chavez (T-AKE 14)...
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RIMPAC Recap
The biannual RIMPAC exercises are always a double-edged sword in the aspect that there is typically a SINKEX or three that sees the deep-sixing of a hard-serving veteran without ceremony in a funeral...
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Smokey’s Lucky Witch
Twenty-year-old Ens. Darrell C. “Smoke” Bennett, USNR, stands beside “Smokey’s Lucky Witch”, his FM-2 Wildcat, onboard the ill-fated Casablanca class escort carrier USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73), August...
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Mighty Mo, Stretching Her Sea Legs
If you have followed this blog for more than five minutes, you know I am a sucker for period Kodachromes and classic warships, so this superb 80-year-old photo essay of the brand new Iowa-class...
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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024: Oft Overlooked Essex
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Second EPF Flight II inbound
The Navy christened its 15th Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport operated by Military Sealift Command, the future USNS Point Loma (T-EPF 15), in Mobile over the weekend. The Spearheads have...
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Green Side Blue Dives
Always nice to see the “Marines back in Submarines” so to speak. Check out these recent images of Force Reconnaissance Marines from the 2nd Recon Battalion conducting dive operations near the...
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Keeping Nautical Traditions Alive
A couple of interesting bits caught my eye lately and warmed my salty old heart. On PCU Nantucket (LCS 27), the planned third commissioned ship in naval service to carry the name of the Massachusetts...
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Super BB vs America’s Largest Cruiser
This great overhead shot at Norfolk Naval Base’s piers, on 20 August 1944, gives a good comparison of two of the Navy’s newest surface combatants at the time. The newly commissioned Iowa-class...
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Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Aug. 22, 2024: Ghosts of Gagil Tomil
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Building 39 Down Under, Seeming Very Familiar
A recurring theme of WWII U.S. submarine war patrols, as witnessed in yesterday’s Warship Wednesday on the USS Burrfish, was the typical cycle of going out on a 50-to-70-day deployment and then...
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Persistent UAV Maritime Snoopers Getting to be a Real Thing
One of the sleeper stories from RIMPAC is that General Atomic’s MQ-9B SeaGuardian spent some 100 hours poking around the exercises and demonstrated Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) targeting and a...
View ArticleNavy Feels the Sting of its Shortfall in Civilian Mariners (and it’s not...
Ever since the end of the Cold War, Big Navy saw dollar signs in trying to push just about anything haze gray but without fixed weapons to the Military Sealift Command whose ships are still...
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Remember to take a break today
Value your health, my dudes, do shit while you can and when your body lets you. There will be a day when your body no longer affords you the opportunities you have now. Happy Labor Day, chums!...
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