VS-41, Sea Control Squadron 41 was a

training squadron Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. It ...

of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

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 that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

(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 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

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 was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

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 conventional 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 Mis ...

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, a ...

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 torpedoes are designed to attack high-performance submarines. In 1989, an improvement p ...

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 (American English, en-us), or aerial refuelling (British English, en-gb), 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 ...

"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 30 September 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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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