Posted on 05/01/2006 7:07:24 PM PDT by SandRat
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Navy PING
Sailors look good in tan :)
The Cyclones are much larger boats than the old Swift Boats (PCFs). The Swifts were 50 feet long with a crew of 6. The Cyclones are 170 feet long, with a crew of 28, (plus potentially 8 Seals or Spec Ops)
ping
Any old WWII PT Boat skippers must be drooling at the thoughts of what they could have done with those in WWII.
Tracking Chinese submarine movements?
Bet they'd give anything to have a Thompson.
An old 870, with 8 rounds, full of bird-shot is just as good when the creeps are all around you. (with a 1911, with 11 rounds, to finish the deal)
USS TYPHOON is the fifth CYCLONE - class patrol coastal boat. From November 2001 on, the CYCLONE - class ships were temporarily operated under US Coast Guard control for homeland defense.
General Characteristics: Awarded: August 3, 1990
Keel laid: May 15, 1992
Launched: March 3, 1993
Commissioned: February 12, 1994
Builder: Bollinger Machine Shop & Shipyard, Lockport, Louisiana
Propulsion system:4 Paxman diesels
Propellers: four
Length: 170 feet (51.8 meters)
Beam: 25 feet (7.6 meters)
Draft: 7.5 feet (2.3 meters)
Displacement: approx. 331 tons
Speed: 35 knots
Aircraft: none
Armament: 2 25mm Mk-38 machine guns; 2 .50 cal machine guns;
2 Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers; 6 stinger missiles
Homeport: Little Creek, Va.
Crew: 4 officers, 24 enlisted and 8 Special Forces personnel
Because of their torpedo armament, PT boats could, and occasionally did, kill capital ships. This boat can't do that. It's big enough to be armed with at least Harpoon sized missile, which could kill at least cruiser or destroyer sized ships. But it's not.
It's also not as fast as a WW-II PT boat, which could do at least 40 knots. The Cyclone class is also larger, about twice as long. About the only armament the PC's have that the PTs didn't would be the Stinger missiles. At least the late war PTs. But then there those torpedos...
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