Thursday, December 26, 2013

#97) Canadian Professor Seeks ASROC, Mk 111, and Mk 114 FCS Information From Libravets

Today I received an interesting request from a History Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada:
Thanks very much for putting the Librascope Memories website up! I wish other organizations that were involved in Cold War technology had such sites.
I am doing some historical work on ASROC and the Mk 114 FCS in the 1950s/60s. It is always better to correspond with real, live people who were there. Are there any Libravets that could assist me?
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
Sean M. Maloney, PhD
Associate Professor of History
Royal Military College of Canada
My reply -

Hello Dr. Maloney,
Yes, there are Libravets that can help you. To reach them, I suggest you allow me to post your inquiry on our Blog at http://librascopememories.blogspot.com, so that our many Libravet subscribers will see it. Shall I ask them to simply e-Mail you if they can help?
Happy Boxing Day,
Carl

Professor Maloney's response -

Dear Carl:
Please do! I'll elaborate:
I am trying to understand the technical relationship between the ASROC launcher/missile and the Mk 111 Fire Control Group and then later the Mk 114 Fire Control System. I was watching The Bedford Incident (1965) and I was wondering if such a scenario was really possible given the number of steps and people necessary to launch an ASROC back then. I figured that the best way was to go to the source: the guys who made it. Can anybody enlighten me on what these processes and procedures were back then?
Again thanks to all of you who were involved with making these technological advances such a success. There is no doubt in my mind that we would not be where we are today without all of the personal effort and innovation all of you contributed fifty years ago.
Sean

If you would like to contact Professor Maloney, you may reach him at: Sean.Maloney@rmc.ca. You may also leave your Comments below. The Professor's personal website is at www.seanmmaloney.com

3 comments:

  1. I was a Mk 114 fire control tech 1990-1993 you can ask me any question kcvalciuc@yahoo.com

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  2. The Bedford Incident.. Wally Cox as sonar fire control tech sitting at the console on the bridge.... and not in the sonar shack. if the captain had given his permission for a live fire and the gunners mate in the ASROC shack had switch set to live fire instead of test and elevation/train on, and the console has a green board (all lights green on the console), a live fire could have happened. There was an accidental live fire from some ship while in port while going through the daily maintenance tests (no explosion because rocket warhead set to safe). Captain of base sent the ship out of port.

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  3. I was the fire control tech (STG-2)on the USS Towers DDG-9. I fired 2 ASROCs from our MK 111 fire control system in the 3 years I was on board (1963-1966). Another Bedford Incident. The ASW officer was from the south. He had a thick accent. He counted downed. When he said four it sounded like fire. Fire one I said. We still hit our target but after words, the Captain mentioned something about a trigger happy fire control technican.

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