This is a US Navy Landing Ship Medium (Rocket) R-188 converted from a LSM and it's INSANE. The various WW2 fire support landing craft conversions are my new favorite technical other then armoured trains.
Posted by IronWarhorses@reddit | shittytechnicals | View on Reddit | 35 comments
Miserable-Quality621@reddit
“Fuck everything that way”
ryanfrogz@reddit
I think one of these appeared in Apocalypse Now! I love the fuckoff big gun on the front.
Electrical-Camel-420@reddit
My grandfather was a radio operator on one of these ships! I had never even heard of them until we found his old navy scrap book after my grandmother passed…. He always told us he was never near combat…. Turned out they were close in fire support and fire/rescue for marine and army landings in multiple campaigns with some crew wounded …. Brilliant way to toss something together to fill a need
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
got photos??? i'm gonna be doing a video on these things.
Electrical-Camel-420@reddit
I’ll take a look. I’m not sure which family Member ended up with his scrapbook but I’ll try!
Erikrtheread@reddit
If you liked this, go read up on admiral Eugene Fluckey. He mounted a rocket launcher on a submarine and used it to attack japanese factories.
No, seriously, go read his war memoir ~~Thunder Below~~. It's a great book.
Chowmeen_Boi@reddit
Does anyone know how effective these early missle systems were?
Erikrtheread@reddit
If memory serves correctly, it was very effective as a lot of smoke and noise and show of force, but actually aiming them at anything was kinda ridiculous so material damage was minimal.
I have the memory of a goldfish though so wait for someone who knows.
That's just for this particular system, though; rockets in general were quite effective during the war.
goodguy847@reddit
How many guns do you want this thing to have?
Yes.
mattjopete@reddit
r/murica
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
you haven;t even seen the next version of this thing which is even MORE insane. Autolaoding rocket launchers AND 4 mortars.
cemanresu@reddit
If there is room to add more guns, there aren't enough guns
Agent_W4shington@reddit
N+1
entropymanaged@reddit
Always one more.
EasyRhino75@reddit
Omg gun stolen from a destroyer escort
TheManUpstairs77@reddit
Yea where tf did they get that lol. Not even just the gun itself, but the entire turret and what looks like the traverse assembly.
turnedonbyadime@reddit
It was left to them in an inheritance. Mind your own God damn business and don't worry about it
Ro500@reddit
5”/38s were standard on many LSMs, whether in a turret like this or an open air mount.
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
from what i understand there wasn;t any such thing as a "standard" armament on these. they got the guns from wherever they could. about the only standard of the armament was they always had 20mm and rocket launchers. but everything else was on a first come first serve bases.
TraditionalPea1678@reddit
That’s a crap ton of rockets 😬🚀🚀🧨
SeanDukeOfTyoshi@reddit
This is one landing craft that has autoloading 5” rocket launchers… Like the fuck? A ready rack of 30 3” rockets wasn’t enough?! You need large rockets and 60 of them to be fired by 25+ other launchers?
throwaway1491571@reddit
This guy did a great article on these ships. https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2024/12/15/rise-fall-of-the-wwii-beach-bombardment-rocket/ Some of them even served into the Vietnam war where they were up rivers doing multiple fire missions at once. Really interesting stuff.
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
WOW THANKS!
TacTurtle@reddit
Rocket Scow on the attack!
crzapy@reddit
This is the Orkiest thing. Dakka boat with extra rockets.
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
literally! they even mounted the big cannon turret on the rear where it was mostly useless on the beach approach.
Potato-Engineer@reddit
That's because there was a Spathi designer somewhere on the team.
Step 1: Run Away.
Step 2: Shoot!
AuspiciousBoron@reddit
you see this boy at while landing in world at war's 2nd mission
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
Nute Gunray to Darth Sidious: "How many guns my lord?"
Darth Sidious: "MOUNT THEM UP, ALL OF THEM"
haha69420lol@reddit
Has more firepower than a cruiser in a single minute
IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)
the rockets took over 2 hours to reload. the first time. the second time it was at least 4 hours.
Stavinair@reddit
Wtf
Great_White_Sharky@reddit
Obligatory r/shippytechnicals
KOTYAR@reddit
I'm getting sick just thinking of cleaning that thing
frankdatank_004@reddit
This needs to be added into WT to surpass the SKR bias!