Posts tagged as:

Pacific

The Fight For DDG-1004 Has Begun

by admin on March 9, 2015

Love the DDG-1000 or hate it, supporters of America’s multi-billion dollar “battleship-as-destroyer” program have largely been–up to now–quiet on the sidelines of Washington’s unseemly post-Sequestration budget scrum. In the vast array of American defense programs desperate to avoid closure, an old survivor like DDG-1000 (previously known as the arsenal ship, the DD(X), etc., etc.) has […]

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As the U.S. Navy strives to become a lean-and-mean “warfighting-first” fleet, Pentagon cost-cutters will, by FY 16, reduce the American Navy’s modest rescue, salvage and tug fleet by half–and the mad warrior-accountants may even go farther, entirely eliminating the tug and salvage/rescue fleet and privatizing the whole tug and rescue/salvage mission. Eliminating half the Military […]

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Navy Strips CVN-79 Of Close-In AAW Enablers

by admin on December 5, 2014

Did anybody notice how the Navy responded to the CSBA report, “Commanding the Seas: A Plan to Reinvigorate U.S. Navy Surface Warfare“?  It seems the Navy’s CVN-builders are less than enthusiastic about Bryan Clark’s call to fundamentally shift the Fleet’s air-defense protocol. The CSBA report, as we have been discussing here and here, urges a […]

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Appreciate China’s Big New Seaplane

by admin on August 7, 2014

A good deal of polite Western snickering met the announcement that China was on the verge of building large seaplanes–an “old technology”, scoffed the haters, whose “heyday came and went with the demise of the Pan Am Trans-Oceanic Clipper”. But at least one Chinese aviation commentator dispensed a bit of wisdom for the doubters: “The […]

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Back in early 2013, the Washington Post reported that China had acquired data and plans for several programs, including plans for the Littoral Combat Ships. If that is the case, what is a Navy to do when the “opposition” has all the blueprints? With cyber espionage becoming an increasingly appreciated risk, then there must be […]

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The current global crop of “conventional” frigates (which I loosely define as a multi-purpose combatant of somewhere in the vicinity of 2,000-4,500 tons), has reached something of a developmental dead end. These ships cannot be improved–or, in the case of foreign models, brought into compliance with U.S. Navy standards and then improved–without a huge investment–An […]

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Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Greenert’s call to put “Warfighting First” has focused attention on the Navy’s overall lack of offensive firepower. The Surface Navy, in particular, is wringing their hands over their community’s now ingrained (and almost congenital) Praetorian Guard “protect-the-carrier-or-big-deck-amphib” defensiveness, and there’s now an effort afoot to remedy things. That’s good. […]

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So, last week the Small Surface Combatant Task Force announced a call for ideas on a small future surface combatant, complete with substantial pricing and production information and–if a boat-load of pricing and production data wasn’t enough–operational concepts as to how the ship will fit and fight with the fleet. Goodness. Where does one sign […]

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U.S. Marine Corps: Fight Your Connectors!

by admin on April 30, 2014

There is a long-standing idea out in the world of “amphibious assault” that connectors (those things that are supposed to move from a ship to a beach and back) should be pure logistical creatures. With Operational Maneuver From The Sea, the idea of fighting in the space between the ship and shore is almost a […]

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Is the recent release of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) 1.1 RFI a sign that the U.S. Marine Corps finally going to get serious about procuring modern amphibious vehicles? I have something of a personal stake in this, after urging the USMC to reconsider the early 2013 abandonment of the Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) back […]

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