USS Antelope (PGM-86/PG-86) was an in the United States Navy.
Construction
Antelope,a high-speed, aluminum-hulled, motor gunboat, was laid down on 1 June 1965 at Tacoma, Washington, by the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company. She was launched on 18 June 1966; sponsored by Mrs. Paul V. Snow, the wife of the Deputy Counsel of the Naval Ships Systems Command. She was reclassified a patrol gunboat on 28 March 1967 and simultaneously redesignated PG-86 and commissioned on 4 November 1967 with Lieutenant Jon Jared Gershon in command. The patrol boat was not named for the antelope, but for the small town of Antelope, Montana, which sent a delegation of 22 people to Tacoma, Washington, for the commissioning ceremony.
Service history
Following fitting out at Tacoma, Antelope moved to her first home port, San Diego. After shakedown training and operational tests she entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for post-shakedown availability. She then spent most of the remaining months of 1968 in operations along the west coast. Late in the year, she prepared to conduct CNO Project CS-48, evaluating new gunfire control equipment.
The gunboat completed this assignment in April 1969 and then entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for an overhaul. On 2 November she left San Diego and proceeded to the Marianas Islands in company with and . The ship arrived at Apra Harbor, Guam, her new home port, on 26 November. The next day, she began a restricted availability at the ship repair facility there. During the week, numerous improvements were made to her installed systems before she headed for South Vietnamese waters on 19 January 1970.
Vietnam service
Reaching Cam Ranh Bay on the 28th, Antelope began SEAFLOAT operations on the Cua Lon River consisting of "night harassment and interdiction gunfire; area fire preparatory to, and suppression fire during, troop sweeps; and mobile naval gunfire support for friendly forces under ambush." On the last day of January, her guns assisted three inshore patrol craft. Two weeks later, after she had bombarded both ends of the Rach Bien Nhan Canal, Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) swimmers went ashore and learned that her gunfire had destroyed 19 bunkers, 11 buildings, and 26 cisterns.
On 15 February, Ready relieved Antelope, freeing her to return to Cam Ranh Bay for upkeep. On 23 February, the gunboat got underway for a brief stint of Operation Market Time duty. Such service entailed stopping, boarding, and inspecting all vessels that she encountered. She returned to SEAFLOAT on 28 February, and on 2 March, while supporting sweeps ashore by troops, received about 10 rounds of small-arms fire. A week later, while shelling bunkers, she sighted and destroyed two sampans "fleeing down a canal."
Next came more Market Time duty, this time in the Gulf of Siam. There, besides serving as the command center for Coastal Division 11, she sent inspection parties on board over 350 sampans and junks between 20 March and 2 April. On the latter date, the ship resumed Operation SEAFLOAT. Three days later, she was ambushed on the Cua Lon River by a rocket patrol which fired six rockets at the ship from less than . Antelope immediately opened fire with all her weapons, She suffered no casualties or serious damage to the ship.
From 10 through 13 April, the gunboat left the rivers and entered the South China Sea to support a force of Montagnard troops landing. During the operation, her boat evacuated 115 men. Thereafter, the warship conducted gunfire support missions until 17 April, when she ended 31 consecutive days underway and headed for Cam Ranh Bay and brief upkeep.
On 25 April, Antelope returned to SEAFLOAT duty. About an hour past midnight on 4 May, an explosion on her starboard side amidships jarred the gunboat. Investigation soon revealed a hole in her main deck, probably caused by "... a satchel charge catapulted from the north bank of the Cua Lon." However, no casualties or interior damage from the blast resulted. Five days later, while the vessel was descending the river to enter the South China Sea, opposing forces fired at least six B-40 rockets at her. Her gun crew returned the fire. Antelope suffered no hits or damage. Again, on the 11th, while fighting off a launch bomb attack from an ambush site on the bank of the Bo De, she drove the communist troops from their weapons and sent a landing party ashore which captured eight bomb launchers, four launch bombs, and several B-40 rockets.