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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Sturdy (MSO 494)
ex-AM-494



Call sign:
November - Sierra - Hotel - Uniform
Aggressive Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down 15 October 1954 as AM-494 at Boward Marine, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
  • Reclassified as an Ocean Minesweeper, MSO-494, 7 February 1955
  • Launched 28 January 1956
  • Commissioned USS Sturdy (MSO-494), 23 October 1967
  • Decommissioned 1 July 1972 at Charleston, SC and towed to Inactive Ship Facility, Norfolk, VA for storage
  • Struck from the Navy Register 1 September 1977
  • Sold for scrap 1 May 1987 by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service to C. B. Herter, Jr. of Hopewell, VA for $27,019.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 630 t.(lt), 755 t.(fl)
  • Length 172'
  • Beam 35'
  • Draft 10'
  • Speed 14 kts.
  • Complement 80
  • Armament: As built, one 40mm gun mount and 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, two shafts, two controllable pitch propellers.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Sturdy 93k Photo courtesy John L. Love Al Hines
    Sturdy 266k c. 1950/1960 era
    Navy Yard Charleston, SC
    Swerve (MSO 495), Adroit (MSO 509), Sturdy and an unidentified MSO in Dry Dock No, 2. The destroyer Manley (DD 940) and tank landing ship Tallahatchie County (LST 1154) are in the distance.    		 Robert Hall
    Commanding Officers
    01LCDR Albert Tilden Sprague, III, USN23 October 1957
    03LT Alan Grady Hodge, USN1960
    04LCDR Richard Edward Flynn, USN1962
    05LCDR Robert John Hiebner, Jr., USN1970
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves
    View the Sturdy (MSO-494)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    102 Minesweepers (MSO) Oceangoing Minesweepers
    Naval Minewarfare Association
    Association of Minemen
    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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