From the monthly archives:

August 2010

The LCS Decision: Lockheed Spins DOD Buzz (UPDATED)

by Craig Hooper on August 30, 2010

If you want to see the latest odd twist on the Littoral Combat Ship contest, go read this piece over at DOD Buzz. It is a beautiful example of Lockheed-generated spin–spin so desperate and contrived I wonder if something happened recently to make the wheels come off the LCS-1 bid. DOD Buzz reports, all in […]

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The LCS Decision: LCS-2 Will Win

by Craig Hooper on August 20, 2010

Yes, the decks are stacked against my guess, but…I’m gonna put my chips on the table here. I think the LCS-2 will win the LCS sweepstakes this fall. By the end of September, even! First, all that internal volume in LCS-2 has a quality all it’s own. If we plan to use the LCS as […]

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Meet the 23rd Secretary of Defense:

by Craig Hooper on August 17, 2010

Just a wild and unsupported guess, but you heard it here first…Should Gates leave office to run for the presidency or something, the next SECDEF will be Ray Mabus. Seriously, If SECNAV Mabus were a stock, I’d buy, buy, buy… (And as an extra bonus, here’s a neat picture of the next SECDEF chatting with […]

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Plotting the CH-53D demise: Cost-cutting or not?

by Craig Hooper on August 14, 2010

America’s 40-year old CH-53Ds still do good work–a set of 4 CH-53Ds just returned from a 6 month deployment in Africa. Israel’s CH-53D variants self-deployed from Israel to Romania to, oh, prep for an audacious bit of raiding many thousands of miles from home. So they’re still operationally relevant. But it was a sad to […]

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And they say San Francisco isn’t a Navy Town, part II

by Craig Hooper on August 12, 2010

A mere week or so after the CNO stopped by, SECNAV Ray Mabus is heading in to chat about energy security next Tuesday (8/17). Mabus, a product of the Zumwalt Navy, is the public half of the Navy Department’s Mabus/Work “Dream Team” and is doing northwest pharmacy a great job being the face of the […]

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In Press: BBC Transcript and a Navy Times story hit web

by Craig Hooper on August 12, 2010

Just as Iran claims that it is reverse-engineering their Bladerunner 51 and transforming it to carry missiles and torpedoes, BBC’s File on 4 put the transcript of my discussion of the Bladerunner threat online. Previous commentary here and the transcript is here. Unless Iranians are stuffing their re-makes full of explosive, I really don’t see […]

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According to the Globe and Mail, Canada’s government worries that the HMCS Protecteur and the HMCS Preserver, their two 40-year-old single-hull oilers, are going to pose an environmental anti-access threat to Canadian Forces: “These vessels are single-hulled, which violates most international environmental standards,” states a February, 2010 briefing note provided to Treasury Board president Stockwell […]

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And they say San Francisco isn’t a Navy Town:

by Craig Hooper on August 5, 2010

CNO Admiral Roughead is taking his campaign against “frufru coffee” to boutique coffee-loving San Francisco today. (Coffee levity aside: The Admiral is speaking to the World Affairs Council of Northern California, so if you’re anywhere near the Marine’s Memorial Hotel in San Francisco at 6:00 PM, stop by and see the show.) It would be […]

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The Navy’s LCS-1 RIMPAC photo album (photos taken from June 17 to July 31 2010) does a really good job of documenting life aboard the Little Sipper Freedom Class. Ahh, the easy routine of life at sea: Yeah, yeah, I know the ship has to iron out alongside replenishment issues, but…I suspect Freedom is worthless […]

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