03 October 2006

Red Sea wolfpack

Now there's something you don't see every day, Chauncey - a tender with four fast boats alongside. The date is April, 2003, and the place is Crete; the ships are USS Emory S Land (AS 39) and four of the submarines that were involved in strikes on Iraq in the opening days of the war.

There were actually five boats in port that day; three there for extended visits, and two that just stopped in long enough to load stores and head out again. (Note the tug at the extreme left of the photo.) The latter two passed each other in the bay, one outbound, the other inbound.

6 comments:

Dave S. said...

That's an awesome picture. More warpower in that shot than most countries have in their entire Navys!

I'm trying to decide if it would be cool or just a pain in the ass to be on the crew of that last boat on the left. Having to walk across all those brows and other topsides just to get to yours. I think it would be cool, at least for the first few times.

Anonymous said...

Mega Munch,

It was a pain, there were brows between the tender and the Providence, the Providence and the Sea Wolf (I Think), and between the Sea Wolf and the 3rd boat, but they had to park a LCM (or maybe LCU) between the 3rd and 4th boats, with 2 ladders. One of the two boats to stop in as the fourth boat was the Toledo.

Uncle Petey

RM1(SS) (ret) said...

From the tender outboard, it was Providence (719), San Juan (751) and Newport News (750). The two boats that made brief visits were Toledo (769) and Boise (764); no idea which of the two is in this picture.

Anonymous said...

OK, Seawolf was 2001 deployment. Sorry.

Pete

Unknown said...

I thought red sea wolfpack was the 719 Providence - 764 Boise - 750 Newport News and 765 Montpelier

Unknown said...

The Red Sea Wolf pack consisted of SSN-710, 719, 720, 722, 724, 750, 751, 764, 769, and 773.