by admin on November 28, 2014
For the past seventy years, U.S. surface combatants have been focused on defending aircraft carriers from either airborne or submerged threats. This all-important defensive mission has–for better or worse–defined America’s Surface Combatant Fleet–the fleet’s platforms, weapons and (most importantly) it’s mindset. The Surface Fleet’s overarching protective requirement has permeated everything about the surface combatant fleet. […]
by admin on October 2, 2014
The American habit of cramming the functions of four to five legacy ship classes into a single, bespoke multifunction hull is–for now–over. With the U.S. fleet operating only a handful of core classes, and looking at one-for-one replacements of existing platforms (at best), the U.S. Navy is now free to get back to focusing on […]
by admin on August 5, 2014
The Taipei Times, in a friendly gesture, used my story on China’s recent mine warfare exercises in the South China Sea to advance some wider discussion mine warfare in China’s near seas. Here’s my bit: Craig Hooper, a former teacher at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, has reported that the Chinese navy conducted […]
by admin on July 29, 2014
Less than a month after I highlighted the real potential for mine warfare in the South China Sea (here), the Chinese Navy has, for the first time, publicly announced mine warfare drills in the South China Sea. From Xinhuanet: The Chinese navy has conducted a mine clearance drill in formation in the South China Sea […]
by admin on July 10, 2014
Mine Warfare in the South China Sea is inevitable. Look at the players. On one side, we have China, a country boasting an enormous, sophisticated arsenal of mines with a resurgent Navy holding a set of offensive Mine Warfare doctrines that are simply begging to be tested. On the other, we have Vietnam, the Philippines […]