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USS Kiowa (AT-72)
The third USS ''Kiowa'' (AT-72), later ATF-72, was a fleet tug, later fleet ocean tug, that served in the United States Navy from 1943 to 1972. Construction and commissioning ''Kiowa'' was laid down by the Charleston Shipbuilding & Drydock Company at Charleston, South Carolina, on 22 June 1942 and launched there on 5 November 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Hilda Howe Edwards. She was commissioned on 7 June 1943 as the fleet tug USS ''Kiowa'' (AT-72). World War II After shakedown off Key West, Florida, ''Kiowa'' proceeded to Norfolk, Virginia. She departed Norfolk on 26 July 1943 for operations off Newfoundland. ''Kiowa'' towed all kinds of ships and floating equipment, including towing targets for the new battleship during the summer of 1943, before arriving at New York City on 2 March 1944, to prepare for overseas operations. Departing New York three weeks later, ''Kiowa'' arrived at Falmouth, England, in the United Kingdom on 19 April 1944 as the Allies were in the final plan ...
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Guantánamo Bay
Guantánamo Bay ( es, Bahía de Guantánamo) is a bay in Guantánamo Province at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the largest harbor on the south side of the island and it is surrounded by steep hills which create an enclave that is cut off from its immediate hinterland. The United States assumed territorial control over the southern portion of Guantánamo Bay under the 1903 Lease. The United States exercises jurisdiction and control over this territory, while recognizing that Cuba retains ultimate sovereignty. The government of Cuba regards the U.S. presence in Guantánamo Bay as an illegal occupation on the basis that the Cuban–American Treaty "was obtained by threat of force and is in violation of international law." Some legal scholars judge that the lease may be voidable. It is the home of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp located within the base, which are both governed by the United States. Since the 1959 revolution, Cuba has onl ...
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Reduction Gear
A gear train is a mechanical system formed by mounting gears on a frame so the teeth of the gears engage. Gear teeth are designed to ensure the pitch circles of engaging gears roll on each other without slipping, providing a smooth transmission of rotation from one gear to the next. Features of gears and gear trains include: * The gear ratio of the pitch circles of mating gears defines the speed ratio and the mechanical advantage of the gear set. * A planetary gear train provides high gear reduction in a compact package. * It is possible to design gear teeth for gears that are non-circular, yet still transmit torque smoothly. * The speed ratios of chain and belt drives are computed in the same way as gear ratios. See bicycle gearing. The transmission of rotation between contacting toothed wheels can be traced back to the Antikythera mechanism of Greece and the south-pointing chariot of China. Illustrations by the Renaissance scientist Georgius Agricola show gear trains wi ...
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United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage (4,635,628 tonnes as of 2019) and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft . The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revo ...
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Tugboat
A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, such as in crowded harbour or narrow canals, or cannot move at all, such as barges, disabled ships, log rafts, or oil platforms. Some are ocean-going, some are icebreakers or salvage tugs. Early models were powered by steam engines, long ago superseded by diesel engines. Many have deluge gun water jets, which help in firefighting, especially in harbours. Types Seagoing Seagoing tugs (deep-sea tugs or ocean tugboats) fall into four basic categories: #The standard seagoing tug with model bow that tows almost exclusively by way of a wire cable. In some rare cases, such as some USN fleet tugs, a synthetic rope hawser may be used for the tow in the belief that the line can be pulled aboard a disabled ship by the crew owing to its lightness ...
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Machine Gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower, and are not considered true machine guns. As a class of military kinetic projectile weapon, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod, a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils. Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns, medium machine guns, heavy machine guns, general purpose machine guns and squad automatic weapons. Similar automatic firearms of caliber or more are classified as autocannons, rat ...
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M2 Browning
The M2 machine gun or Browning .50 caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed towards the end of World War I by John Browning. Its design is similar to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, which was chambered for the .30-06 cartridge. The M2 uses Browning's larger and more powerful .50 BMG (12.7 mm) cartridge. The design has had many designations; the official U.S. military designation for the current infantry type is Browning Machine Gun, Cal. .50, M2, HB, Flexible. It is effective against infantry, unarmored or lightly armored vehicles and boats, light fortifications, and low-flying aircraft. The gun has been used extensively as a vehicle weapon and for aircraft armament by the United States since the 1930s. It was heavily used during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Soviet–Afghan War, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. It is the primary heavy machine gun of NATO ...
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Antiaircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, subsurface ( submarine launched), and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defence. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War, the Soviet Union, and modern NATO and the United States, ground-based air defence and air defence aircraf ...
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Bofors 40 Mm Automatic Gun L/60
The Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 (often referred to simply as the "Bofors 40 mm gun", the "Bofors gun" and the like, see name) is an anti-aircraft autocannon, designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. The gun was designed as an intermediate anti-aircraft gun, filling the gap between fast firing close-range small calibre anti-aircraft guns and slower firing long-range high calibre anti-aircraft guns, a role which previously was filled by older outdated guns. The Bofors 40 mm L/60 was for its time perfectly suited for this role and outperformed competing designs in the years leading up to World War II in both effectiveness and reliability. It entered the export market around 1932 and was in service with 18 countries by 1939. Throughout World War II it became one of the most popular and widespread medium-weight anti-aircraft guns. It was used by the majority of the western Allies and some Axis powers such as Nazi Germany and Hungary. In the pos ...
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Gun Mount
A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, projected water disruptors, and technically also flamethrowers), gas (e.g. light-gas gun) or even charged particles (e.g. plasma gun). Solid projectiles may be free-flying (as with bullets and artillery shells) or tethered (as with Taser guns, spearguns and harpoon guns). A large-caliber gun is also called a ''cannon''. The means of projectile propulsion vary according to designs, but are traditionally effected pneumatically by a high gas pressure contained within the barrel tube, produced either through the rapid exothermic combustion of propellants (as with firearms), or by mechanical compression (as with air guns). The high-pressure gas is introduced behind the projectile, pushing and accelerating it down the length of the tube, i ...
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3"/50 Caliber Gun
The 3"/50 caliber gun (spoken "three-inch fifty-caliber") in United States naval gun terminology indicates the gun fired a projectile in diameter, and the barrel was 50 calibers long (barrel length is 3 in × 50 = ). Different guns (identified by Mark numbers) of this caliber were used by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard from 1890 through to 1994 on a variety of combatant and transport ship classes. The gun is still in use with the Spanish Navy on ''Serviola''-class patrol boats. Early low-angle guns The US Navy's first 3"/50 caliber gun (Mark 2) was an early model with a projectile velocity of per second. Low-angle (single-purpose/non-anti-aircraft) mountings for this gun had a range of 7000 yards at the maximum elevation of 15 degrees. The gun entered service around 1900 with the s, and was also fitted to s. By World War II these guns were found only on a few Coast Guard cutters and Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships. Low-angle 3"/50 caliber guns (Marks 3, 5, 6 ...
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Enlisted Man
An enlisted rank (also known as an enlisted grade or enlisted rate) is, in some armed services, any rank below that of a commissioned officer. The term can be inclusive of non-commissioned officers or warrant officers, except in United States military usage where warrant officers/chief warrant officers are a separate officer category ranking above enlisted grades and below commissioned officer grades. In most cases, enlisted service personnel perform jobs specific to their own occupational specialty, as opposed to the more generalized command responsibilities of commissioned officers. The term "enlistment" refers solely to a military commitment (whether officer or enlisted) whereas the terms "taken on strength" and "struck off strength" refer to a service member being carried on a given unit's roll. Canadian Forces In the Canadian Forces, the term non-commissioned member (NCM) is used. North Atlantic Treaty Organization For the ranks used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organizati ...
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Commissioned Officer
An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent contextual qualification, the term typically refers only to a force's ''commissioned officers'', the more senior members who derive their authority from a commission from the head of state. Numbers The proportion of officers varies greatly. Commissioned officers typically make up between an eighth and a fifth of modern armed forces personnel. In 2013, officers were the senior 17% of the British armed forces, and the senior 13.7% of the French armed forces. In 2012, officers made up about 18% of the German armed forces, and about 17.2% of the United States armed forces. Historically, however, armed forces have generally had much lower proportions of officers. During the First World War, fewer than 5% of British soldiers were officers (partly ...
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