China’s Navy: Threat or Not…Yet?

August 14, 2013

As Japan and China teeter on the brink of another confrontation (this time over how to appropriately recall war dead), it is time to offer a reality-check of Chinese Navy capabilities (you know, for policymakers!). To do that, one of the best public resources I know of is a late-2010 Institute for National Strategic Studies […]

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When Naval Shipyards Split the Baby: What Makes It Work?

August 12, 2013

With the Navy’s stunning elimination of the DDG-1000 composite deckhouse and the subsequent handoff of all Huntington-Ingalls DDG-1000 work to Bath Ironworks, a bigger story has gone un-discussed–what makes the Navy’s preference for shipyard work-share–a model that helped the Virginia Class Submarine become a major procurement success–actually work? For the uninitiated, the Navy’s work-share concept […]

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Where will VT Halter’s Egyptian Fast Attack Craft Go?

August 9, 2013

The fate of VT Halter’s four Egypt-bound Fast Attack Craft vessels is up in the air. If Egypt’s current government continues to discomfit the United States, these small, capable surface combatants just might even end up in the US Navy, serving as a second, smaller repeat of the Kidd-Class (for those who don’t know, the […]

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The F-35B Gives Asia’s Mini-Carriers Teeth

August 8, 2013

Love it or hate it, the F-35B is positioned to be–at least until a small combat-ready VSTOL UAV arrives–a critical piece of the Pacific Arsenal. It is no mistake that the start of F-35B sea trials and the launch of Japan’s large flat-topped destroyer Izumo (DDH-183) came the same week.  The fate of the two platforms are […]

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Navy Needs New Tenders

August 7, 2013

Defunded during the business-minded nineties, humble tenders enable every single one of CNO Greenert’s key tenets–“Warfighting first! Operate Forward! Be Ready!” To be perfectly blunt, there are no ships in the Navy today that do a better job of supporting the CNO’s orders than the aged, 35-year old USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) and […]

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Managing a Temporary Cut in Carrier Numbers

August 5, 2013

Let’s talk about cutting carriers!  With SECDEF Hagel discussing the reduction of Carrier Strike Groups from “eleven to eight or nine” and Chris Cavas providing some good analysis over at Defense News, it is time to discuss how the Navy might gracefully manage through what (I suspect) will be a temporary decline in carrier funding. […]

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Marine Corps: Logistical Tales of Fail!

August 2, 2013

What is it that makes the Marine Corps tankers dash into battle without tank ammo?  Is it a logistical failure or just, you know, panache and derring-do? It’s a regular happenstance.  In 1958, during the Lebanon Crisis, the Sixth Fleet landed the BLT 2/2 and 3/6 off Beirut, eventually taking control of the airport, port […]

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4th Fleet’s Bleak 5th Anniversary

August 1, 2013

Fourth Fleet, the Fleet responsible for operations in South America, celebrated its fifth anniversary this month.  The party must have been bleak: Budget cuts hit SOUTHCOM and 4th Fleet hard — initially, all surface-ship deployments to Central and South America, both for Operation Martillo and the Southern Partnership Station, were canceled or cut short for […]

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Return of the Navy’s Tiny Tactical Torpedo: The Cutie II

July 31, 2013

Look what’s back!  The tiny torpedo!  After a long gestation period, the old and much-maligned World War II-era Cutie torpedo is getting to sea, fresh and reinvented for a different decade…And that’s great! Even though the “Countermeasure Anti-Torpedo (CAT)” (or, as I call it the CUTIE II) is being placed on big surface ships as […]

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Keep AirSea Battle Simple

July 28, 2013

Chris Cavas assembled a good summary of AirSea Battle this week….Despite all the hype and it’s grand-sounding strategic template, AirSea Battle is a simple concept that aims, in large part, to better enable Air Force and Navy collaboration to support prosecution of naval warfare.  It’s about efficient and seamless utilization of resources.  A simple alignment of […]

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