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WOODEN SHIPS & IRON MEN
Aggressive Class Minesweeper: Laid down, 30 November 1951 by the Seattle Shipbuilding and Drydocking
Co., Seattle, WA; Launched, 19 February 1953; Commissioned USS Fortify (AM-446), 16 July 1954; Reclassified as an Ocean Minesweeper,
MSO-446, 7 February 1955; Decommissioned, 31 August 1992; Struck from the Naval Register, 9 March 1994; Laid up in the Naval
Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth, VA; Sold, 4 December 2000 to Baltimore Marine Industries, Baltimore, MD for
scrapping.
Specifications: Displacement 775 t; Length 172'; Beam 35'; Draft 12'; Speed 14 kts; Complement 8
Officers, 70 Enlisted; Armament, as built, one single 40mm gun mount, two .50 cal machine guns, final configuration, bow gun
replaced by one twin 20mm gun mount,20mm removed when SQQ-14 installed, two .50 cal. machine guns remain; Propulsion, four
Packard ID1700 diesel engines, replaced by four Waukasha Motors Co. diesels, two shafts, two controllable pitch propellers.
These new minesweepers were smaller and built primarily of wood , with bronze and stainless (non-magnetic)
steel fittings to minimize their magnetic signature. All of the 1950 era MSOs had UQS-1 mine-locating sonar, later updated
with SQQ-14 sonar. MSOs were capable of sweeping for moored, bottom contact, magnetic and acoustic mines.
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| November Quebec Tango November |
WOODEN SHIPS AND IRON MEN a book by CDR David D.Bruhn USN RET.The history of our MSO's from 1953
to 1994. To learn more about this excellent minesweeper book please visit CDR Bruhn's website at the link below.
David Bruhn
Ship's Ballcap $14.95
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