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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Superior (MSF 311)
ex-AM-311



Call sign:
November - Quebec - Whiskey - Xray
Admirable Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down 18 February 1944 by Associated Shipbuilders, Seattle, WA
  • Launched 11 May 1944
  • Commissioned USS Superior (AM 311), 1 November 1944
  • Decommissioned in February 1947 at Orange, TX
    Naval Vessel Register of 1 January 1949 lists plan for decommissioning and placing in reserve as December 1945
  • Reclassified as a Fleet Minesweeper (Steel Hull), MSF-311, 7 February 1955
  • Struck from the Naval Register 1 July 1972
  • Sold 26 June 1975 to Offshore Services for $55,250 who planned to convert her to a tug, but failed
  • Scrapped.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 945 t.(fl)
  • Length 184' 6"
  • Beam 33'
  • Draft 9' 9"
  • Speed 14.8 kts.
  • Complement 104
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose mount, one twin 40mm gun mount, six single 20mm gun mounts, one depth charge projector (hedgehogs), four depth charge projector (K-guns) and two depth
    charge tracks
  • Propulsion: Two 1,710shp Cooper Bessemer GSB-8 diesel engines, National Supply Co. single reduction gear, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    USS Superior (AM 311) 230k
    Superior 146k Near Seattle wearing camouflage 32/22D on 27 October 1944. The vertical colors are dull black and light gray
    National Archives photo 19-LCM-AM311-1    		 Ships of the U.S. Navy in WWII “Dazzle” Camouflage
    Superior 238k Commissioning Booklet Ed Zajkowski
    Superior
    ex-Superior
    Superior 104k c. September 1974
    Lying in a backwater of the Neches River just south of Beaumont, TX as an engineless hulk    		 James Swank
    Commanding Officers
    01LT Norman Robert Hanson, USNR1 November 1944
    02LTJG John Francis Jennings, USNR9 March 1946
    03LT Joseph Kirby Maxwell, USN15 December 1946 - 26 February 1947
    Courtesy of Wolfgang Hechler, Ron Reeves and R. A. Moody
    View the Superior (MSF 311)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
    Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Mine Warfare Ship Photo Index Back to the Fleet Minesweeper (MSF) Photo Index
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