USS PRESTIGE MSO 465

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WOODEN SHIPS & IRON MEN

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Aggressive Class Minesweeper: Laid down, 15 April 1952 at Wilmington Boat Works Inc., Wilmington, CA; Launched, 30 April 1954; Commissioned USS Prestige (AM-465), 11 September 1954; Reclassified as an Ocean Minesweeper, MSO-465, 7 February 1955. Grounded in Naruto Straits, Inland Sea, Japan 23 August 1958. Abandoned as a total loss..

Specifications: Displacement 630 t.(lt), 755 t.(fl); Length 172'; Beam 35'; Draft 10'; Speed 14 kts; Complement 6 Officers, 74 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, two .50 cal. machine guns remain; Propulsion, four Packard ID1700 diesel engines, 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. MSOs were capable of sweeping for moored, bottom contact, magnetic and acoustic mines.

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

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