by Craig Hooper on October 4, 2010
Just a quick shill alert! My oiler article, “Running on empty” which has been floating around various viagra sales places in DC since February–has finally been published in the U.S. Naval Institute. Here’s the intro: Pressed by a brutal operations tempo, evolving strategic challenges, and a shifting Fleet structure, the Navy’s aging oilers can no […]
by Craig Hooper on October 4, 2010
by Craig Hooper on September 28, 2010
The indefatigable Peter Frost from the Newport News Daily Press sunk his teeth into the Virginia Class sub-skin failures (which we have been covering here, here and here), leading to a nice article that, earlier this week, bounced the ball down-field a good bit. Sharing a story with the grand-old-man of naval observation, Norman Polmar, […]
by Craig Hooper on September 25, 2010
UPDATE: Interested news media can contact Craig Hooper at craig.hooper@nextnavy.com. Earlier this week, the Virginia Class Program Office indulged in some nimble footwork to minimize the scope of their emergent hull treatment debonding problem. First, they told observers that only three of the first four Virginia-class subs suffered the most serious hull treatment failures–the USS […]
by Craig Hooper on September 24, 2010
So Austal CEO, Bob Browning, is leaving Austal. As of November 15. What does it mean? As somebody who has written about Bob Browning before–here and here–I can’t resist the opportunity to speculate as to what Bob is up to. In press, the only real hint comes from al.com, that says: Browning, who lives in […]
by Craig Hooper on September 21, 2010
UPDATE: Interested news media can contact Craig Hooper at craig.hooper@nextnavy.com. Don’t bother asking the Virginia Program Office (PMS-450) when they noticed the Special Hull Treatment was prone to debond, because they don’t know. The Program Office’s story changes by the month. Here’s their story as of July 15, 2010–the Virginia Program Office to Inside The […]
by Craig Hooper on September 6, 2010
UPDATE: Interested news media can contact Craig Hooper at craig.hooper@nextnavy.com. After the Pentagon’s top weapons tester at DOT&E released a scathing report on the Virginia Class sub’s tendency to shed it’s sound-dampening hull coating, Alan Baribeau, the Naval Sea Systems Command’s talking head for the Virginia Class program office, told Inside the Navy (sorry, no […]
by Craig Hooper on July 7, 2010
For years, the Virginia Class has been portrayed as a shipbuilding success story. The subs have been, for years, touted as a model program–one that got the “Submarine Production Procurement Price” down and delivered needed boats to the fleet, are the efficiency chickens coming home to roost? A June 30 memo from J. Michael Gilmore, […]
by Craig Hooper on March 27, 2010
Phil Ewing over at Navy Times makes an interesting catch: Navy engineers in March began looking into how the fleet should prepare for an attack by one of the most feared and controversial weapons of the modern age: an electromagnetic pulse. So, even though the U.S. is working to cut nuclear weapons, we’re also preparing […]
by Craig Hooper on March 12, 2010
Rhetoric supporting the new carrier launch system, EMALS, was on full display during CNO Roughead’s March 11 testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. He said: “…Among the new technologies being integrated in these ships is the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which will enable the carrier’s increased sortie generation rate and lower total […]