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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive
Contributed by Mike Smolinski

Fortify (MSO-446)
ex-AM-446



Call sign:
November - Quebec - Tango - November
Aggressive Class Minesweeper: Laid down, 30 November 1951 by the Seattle Shipbuilding and Drydocking Co., Seattle, WA; Launched, 19 February 1953; Commissioned USS Fortify (AM-446), 16 July 1954; Reclassified as an Ocean Minesweeper, MSO-446, 7 February 1955; Decommissioned, 31 August 1992; Struck from the Naval Register, 9 March 1994; Laid up in the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth, VA; Sold for scrap 4 December 2000 to Baltimore Marine Industries of Baltimore, MD.

Specifications: Displacement 775 t; Length 172'; Beam 35'; Draft 12'; Speed 14 kts; Complement 8 Officers, 70 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, replaced by four Waukasha Motors Co. diesels, two shafts, two controllable pitch propellers.

Click on thumbnail
for full size image		 Size Image Description Source
Fortify 210k - Courtesy Dick Lewis
102 Minesweeper Web Site
Detector 78k Detector (MSO 429) and Fortify
U.S. Navy photo from All Hands magazine		 Joe Radigan
Fortify, Engage & Impervious 246k Fortify, Engage (MSO 433), and Impervious (MSO 449) steaming with an unidentified minesweeper Tom Lawson
Fortify/Engage 26k c. Summer 1960
Fortify and Engage anchored at Hong Kong
Photo taken from Inflict (MSO 456) by Floyd Farrar		 Floyd Farrar
Fortify 46k c. Summer 1960
Stormy transit of the Formosa Straits
Photo taken from Inflict (MSO 456) by Floyd Farrar		 Floyd Farrar
Fortify 357k 4 May 1989
Chesapeake Bay		 © Atlantic Fleet Sales
Nobe Smith
Fortify 101k A view of a portion of the mothball fleet in storage near Portsmouth, VA, 18 October 1994. In the back of the basin is two patrol missile hydrofoil patrol boats of the Pegasus class, three ocean minesweepers, Fortify and two others, the fleet tugs Paiute (ATF-159), Papago (ATF-160) and the salvage vessel Recovery (ARS-43).
Defense Visual Information Center photo DNSC9501404by Don S. Montgomery		 Defense Visual Information Center
View the Fortify (MSO-446)
DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site.
Crew Contact And Reunion Information
Navy MSO Association Email Addresses
Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
102 Minesweepers (MSO) Oceangoing Minesweepers
Naval Minewarfare Association
Association of Minemen
Navy MSO Association
Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Mine Warfare Ship Photo Index Back to the Ocean Minesweeper (MSO) Photo Index
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This page created by Gary P. Priolo and maintained by Joe Radigan
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