Posted on 02/12/2003 5:35:38 AM PST by SAMWolf
The Lord be with and bless us and our guys.
Wednesday's weird warship, Imperial Russian Navy's Vitse Admiral Popov
Popov class coastal defense ship
Displacement. 3550 t.
Lenght. 120'
Beam. 120'
Draft. 13'6"
Speed. 6 k.
Complement 203
Armament. 2 12", 8 88mm, 2 1pdr MG.
In the 1860's a number of naval authorities porposed maximising the beam of warships to shorten the hull and reduce the area protected by armor. Russian Admiral A. A. Popov took the idea to the extreme and designed a warship with a flat bottomed circular hull. In 1870 he built a small 24ft circular steamer to test his ideas and persuaded the Imperal Russian Navy to accept his idea for a fleet of 10 circular ironclads. Fortunatly, only two were built, The Novgorod and the Viste Admiral Popov.
The Viste Admiral Popov was laid down in 1874 as the Kiev at the Nikolaev Naval Shipyard near Odessa, and later renamed in honor of her designer. She was launched in 1875 and completed completed in 1877.
The ship was a dismal failure. She was too slow to steam against the current of the Dniepr, and proved very difficult to steer. The firing of just one gun caused her to spin out of control. Even counter-rotating some of the six propellers was unable to keep the ship on the correct heading. Nor could she cope with the rough weather of the Black Sea. She was prone to rapid rolling and pitching in anything more than a flat calm, and could not aim or fire her guns in such circumstances.
The Viste Admiral Popov served as a costal defense ship until the begining of the 20th century, when she was laid up at Sevastopol as a stores ship. She was scrapped just before the outbreak of WWI in 1914.
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Operation Mongoose
 Soldiers of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, along with soldiers of Company A, 307th Engineers, attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, begin climbing towards their first objective carrying 180 pounds of explosives, during a combat patrol in the mountains of Adi Ghar, Afghanistan. Their mission, called Operation Mongoose was to search various caves throughout the mountain ranges of Adi Ghar for suspected Taliban and weapons caches and destroy them, preventing the re-emergence of terrorist activities in the area. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr.  Soldiers of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, start making their way down the mountain on their way to the next objective in the mountains of Adi Ghar, Afghanistan. U.S  Sgt. Davis Kasanof and Pfc. Jason Ketchum of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, prepare to enter a cave while 1st Lt. James Bourie provides security during Operation Mongoose. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr.  Pfc Jason Ketchum of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, low crawls into a cave during Operation Mongoose. U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr.  Soldiers of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, prepare to search a cave during a combat patrol in the mountains of Adi Ghar, Afghanistan, as part of Operation Mongoose. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr  Sgt. Victor Zavalza of Company A, 307th Engineers, attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, is assisted by Pfc. Jimmy Hill and Pvt. 2 David Wier as he stands on their heads and places C4 explosives in key areas of a cave they are about to explode during a combat patrol in the mountains of Adi Ghar, Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr.  Soldiers of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, establish comunications as they arrive to the mountains of Adi Ghar, Afghanistan, as part of Operation Mongoose. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr.  The explosion of a cave during a combat patrol in the Adi Ghar Mountains, Afghanistan, set off by the soldiers of Company A, 307th Engineers, attached to the 82nd Airborne Division from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, as part of Operation Mongoose. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Leopold Medina Jr.
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LOL! That had to be something to see!!
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