sunset of naval netlaying after WWII

Some changes to the US Navy after WWII were both readily apparent and abrupt. The carrier-based warplane replaced battleship gunnery as the most potent offense at sea. Smokescreen-laying, an important art for destroyer captains in 1939, was more or less moot ten years later due to the near-universal fitting of radar on warships. And so on.

The decline of naval defensive nets after WWII was neither fast, nor with a simple explanation. In the US Navy the discipline sort of just quietly went away, slowly, over a period of about 15 – 20 years…yet, the decline was unmistakable even as soon as WWII’s end in 1945.

Little is said as to how or why naval nets vanished, or what happened to the US Navy’s many net warfare ships after WWII. So perhaps this will be of value.

(USS Pinon (AN-66) hauls in a German anti-submarine net at Cherbourg, France following the city’s liberation during WWII.)

(An inert Polaris ballistic missile being launched in 1963 from a buoyant test cylinder tended by USS Butternut (AN-9), a WWII veteran net ship.)

(The Dominican Republic navy’s Separación, which had been USS Passaconaway (AN-86) during WWII, during the 1990s.)

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CTMS-1TBI tank: post-WWII use

The CTMS-1TBI (nicknamed the “Dutch Three-Man”) is one of WWII’s forgotten tanks. It took no real part in the war but had a surprising career afterwards, considering it’s obsolescence.

This tank was a private design of the Marmon-Herrington company of Indianapolis, IN. In 1940, the Netherlands ordered 194 of these tanks. All were intended for use in the Netherlands East Indies colony, where they were supposed to form twenty-seven cavalry platoons, replacing horse units in the Dutch Java Army.

(This official US Army Tank & Automotive Command photo of WWII shows a measuring rod next to the CTMS-1TBI, illustrating optimal shot placement.)

M33 helmet: post-WWII use

The M33 helmet (more formally, Elmetto Mod.33) was the standard helmet of the Italian army during WWII. It was designed in the early 1930s to replace WWI-era helmets. Made of 1.1mm heat-treated steel, the M33 was said to offer triple the protection of the French army’s then-current Adrian helmet (Italy expected France to be it’s enemy in any future war). All in all, the M33 was effective, comfortable, and economical for Italy to manufacture during WWII. It was a quality helmet.

(Italian troops in WWII wearing the M33 helmet.)

Unlike Germany’s M40 stahlhelm or Japan’s M30-32 Tetsu-bo, the Italian M33 had a generic, nondescript shape and thus it carried no “political baggage” after WWII ended in 1945. It went on to have a long postwar career with the new Italian army, and also saw some overseas usage after WWII.

(Italian army 1970s-vintage camouflage cover and foilage net on a M33.)