VS-41, Sea Control Squadron 41 was a training squadron of the

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 ...

for crews of anti-submarine aircraft and was established on 30 June 1960 as an "anti-submarine squadron". The squadron was nicknamed ''Shamrocks'' and based at the

Naval Air Station North Island Naval Air Station North Island or NAS North Island , at the north end of the Coronado peninsula on San Diego Bay in San Diego, California, is part of the largest aerospace-industrial complex in the United States Navy – Naval Base Coronado (N ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(USA).

Background

VS-41 was originally activated in 1960 to train the crews of Grumman S-2 ''Tracker'' anti-submarine aircraft for the

. Two squadrons equipped with the ''Tracker'' were based each on the anti-submarine carriers (CVS) of the Essex-class to counter the threat of the large

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

submarine fleet. In the mid-1970 both the CVS-carriers and the S-2 ''Tracker'' were phased out.

History

On 20 February 1974 VS-41 received the successor of the ''Tracker'', the Lockheed S-3A ''Viking''. The ''Viking''-squadrons were integrated into the former ''Attack Carrier Air Wing''s, which became ''Carrier Air Wing''s. During the latter half of the 1980s VS-41 was equipped with the upgraded S-3B. With the diminishing submarine threat after the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

VS-41 was redesignated as a "Sea Control Squadron" on 1 October 1993. In 1994 the squadron became responsible for the training of all U.S. Navy S-3 squadrons. The training included working with the computer systems that processed information generated by acoustic and non-acoustic target sensor systems; Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) and ESM systems suites. Identified targets should then be destroyed with conventionals bombs, cluster bombs, rockets,

AGM-84 Harpoon The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). The AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) and later AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Mi ...

AGM-65 Maverick The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground missile (AGM) designed for close air support. It is the most widely produced precision-guided missile in the Western world, and is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, air ...

air-to-surface missiles,

Mark 46 torpedo The Mark 46 torpedo is the backbone of the United States Navy's lightweight anti-submarine warfare torpedo inventory and is the NATO standard. These aerial torpedo An aerial torpedo (also known as an airborne torpedo or air-dropped torpedo ...

es, or Mark 54 depth bombs. The ''Viking'' could also drop mines. Additionally, all S-3B aircraft were equipped to carrying an

inflight refueling Aerial refueling, also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to another (the receiver) while both aircraft a ...

"buddy" store. VS-41 flew in excess of 10,000 hours per year, qualifying approximately 50 fleet pilots and 80 tactical coordinators (TACCO)and 80 sensor operators (SENSO) yearly. From 1960 to 2008, the training squadron logged more than 347,000 flight hours, made more than 48,000 carrier landings, and trained more than 35,000 personnel. On September 30, 2006, the squadron was officially disestablished at Naval Air Station North Island, CA. The squadron history or lineages should not be confused with the VS-41 "Tophatters" that flew the SBD-3 Dauntless torpedo bombers during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

from the deck of USS ''Ranger''.

References

VS-41 history on globalsecurity.org

External links

USN press release on the decommissioning of VS-41
{{US Navy navbox Sea control squadrons of the United States Navy

Background

History

See also

References

External links