This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Navy

  • Jim Webb declines award

    Former Senator James Webb was set to be recognized as a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy until some of his fellow alumni got angry about the award because of some comments he made back in 1979, according to the Washington Post;

    But critics said the selection of Webb — a highly decorated Marine veteran, 1968 academy graduate and recent presidential candidate — was unacceptable because of his history of disrespecting women. They pointed primarily to an article published in Washingtonian magazine in 1979 in which he criticized women attending the academy and said that a dormitory there was a “horny woman’s dream.” The article, headlined “Women Can’t Fight,” was written by Webb after he left the military and while he was a popular academy professor.

    Yeah, my wife is still mad at me for some shit I said or did back in 1979, too. Women like to drag shit up from your past, for some reason.

    Anyway, Webb declined the award;

    “From conversations with the Alumni Association, including information passed down from top Navy leadership in the Pentagon, it is clear that those protesting my receipt of this award now threaten to disrupt the ceremonies surrounding its issuance,” Webb said. “I am being told that my presence at the ceremony would likely mar the otherwise celebratory nature of that special day, and as a consequence I find it necessary to decline to accept the award.”

    […]

    Retired Navy Capt. Wendy Lawrence, who graduated from the academy in 1981 and went on to become a helicopter pilot and astronaut, said Tuesday night that Webb made the appropriate choice in declining the award.

    “Unless you were at the academy at the time, it is hard to understand how damaging this article was, and how lasting the impact was,” she said. “Here it is 38 years later, and we are still talking about it.”

    Yeah, whatever.

    I’m no Webb fan, although I did carry a dog-eared copy of “Fields of Fire” in my rucksack for years, but, it is time for the perpetually outraged to get over shit that is 38 years old.

    Thanks to Chief Tango and Mick for the tip.

  • And All the Ships at Sea….

    Aircraft carriers are ‘vulnerable to attack’, per the news story. No! Really! Like, we don’t know that already? Yes, I know, that’s the USS Mahan, but I couldn’t find a bird farm photo in the bin.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-carriers-specialreport-idUSKBN16G1CZ

    From the article: “Trump’s expansion plans come as evidence mounts that potential enemies have built new anti-ship weapons able to destroy much of the United States’ expensive fleet of carriers. And as they have been for decades, carriers remain vulnerable to submarines.

    In a combat exercise off the coast of Florida in 2015, a small French nuclear submarine, the Saphir, snuck through multiple rings of defenses and “sank” the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and half of its escort ships. In other naval exercises, even old-fashioned diesel-electric submarines have beaten carriers.”

    The ignorance of this reporter and others is glaringly obvious in this story.  A task force is built to deal with these kinds of things.

    Ships at sea are and always have been vulnerable to attack and to damage, as is shown in the WWII damage report on the Enterprise CV-6.

    https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/w/war-damage-reports/uss-enterprise-cv6-war-history-1941-1945.html

    Go to page 51 in the report, photo #2 J2. This was shot during the Battle of (Midway).   Sorry, that should be the Battle of Okinawa. My bad.

    The 9-ton elevator door was blown skyward by kamikaze pilot’s suicide strike, after the bomb his plane was carrying exploded in the hangar deck. The elevator door is at the top of the explosion column in the still photo, which is a frame taken from a 16mm film being shot at the time.  While you’re at it, look at some of the damage Japanese bombs did to that old girl. Note in the damage report how many times Enterprise suffered damage throughout the battles in which she was involved and still hung in there, no matter what.

    The lesson is that the press seem to insist on being uninformed and/or misinformed, as an excuse for writing sensationalist articles like this.  Frankly, in a real war, I would expect diesel subs to be used because not every country has nuclear subs. Russia has five nuclear subs, but only one aircraft carrier.

    As indicated in the article, the Chinese are claiming they have missiles that can go 10 times the speed of sound, which is 761.2 mph (1,227.74 km/h). That means their missiles are, per their claim, able to move at 7,612 mph.. That’s their claim, no evidence that it’s true is available to date.

    Fastest missile speed to date  is BrahMos. between Mach 2.8 (3,400 km/h; 2,100 mph; 0.95 km/s) and Mach 3 (3,700 km/h; 2,300 mph; 1.0 km/s).  These are for ship, submarine, aircraft (under testing) and land-based mobile launchers. BrahMos is a cruise missile of Indian/Russian origins.

    Peak speed for ICBMs is 6 to 7 km/sec, which is 13,392 mph or 21,600kph.  Any faster, and the missile launches into space.

    Unless there’s something under development that can move that fast and track a Nork ICBM, what is our alternative?  Anyone have the answer? Anyone? Bueller?

    With Fatty Kim da T’ird getting jiggy on his side of the Chinese-Norkiland border, and the Chinese showing a bit of angst about it (because they don’t want to be bothered with him, either), it’s logical to ask if we, meaning the USA, have anything that can track and destroy an ICBM moving at 13,392 miles per hour.  Thugboy is leading up to the intercontinental stage of missile development and if he gets a hair up his ass, he’s going to launch ‘em. He won’t just be shooting at the South, or the Chinese or Japan. His aspirations go much further than that.  It would be no real loss if he accidentally took out some part of SoCalifornia, instead of Foggy Bottom.

    But to return to the story itself, the reporter misunderstands the purpose of war games, which is to test the vulnerability of your own armaments as well as those of your opponents.  His quivering, panicky prose indicates a lack of information.

    It may be that he likes to be that way.  It stokes his little adrenaline rushes, or something.  Perhaps he should watch ‘Down Periscope’ a couple of times.

  • More indictments for “Fat Leonard”

    More indictments for “Fat Leonard”

    A number of folks sent us inks to the news that the Justice Department issued a new indictment in the “Fat Leonard” bribery case. Eight more people, including an admiral are included in the latest round according to the Washington Post;

    Among those charged were Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, a senior Navy intelligence officer who recently retired from a key job at the Pentagon, as well as four retired Navy captains and a retired Marine colonel. The charges cover a period of eight years, from 2006 through 2014.

    The Navy personnel are accused of taking bribes in the form of lavish gifts, prostitutes and luxury hotel stays courtesy of Leonard Glenn “Fat Leonard” Francis, a Singapore-based defense contractor who has pleaded guilty to defrauding the Navy of tens of millions of dollars.

    The indictment lists page after page of bribes allegedly provided to the defendants including $25,000 watches, $2,000 boxes of Cohiba cigars, $2,000 bottles of cognac and $600-per-night hotel rooms.

    According to the charging documents, Francis also frequently sponsored wild sex parties for many officers assigned to the USS Blue Ridge, the flagship of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, and other warships.

    This brings the count of folks involved to 27 – 10 of whom have pleaded guilty already.

    Over time, the investigation has revealed the ease with which the 6-foot-3-inch, 350-pound defense contractor was able to penetrate the senior ranks of the 7th Fleet and recruit moles to work on his behalf.

    Court papers portray Francis as a master manipulator who persuaded Navy officials to feed him classified information about ship movements and confidential contract information that he used to undercut his competitors.

    Corrupt Navy personnel have also pleaded guilty to leaking Francis sensitive law enforcement files that he exploited for years to thwart dozens of failed criminal investigations into his company.

    We need to bring back firing squads to deal with these criminals.

  • USS Joseph Rosenthal?

    USS Joseph Rosenthal?

    According to SFGate some retired Marines are lobbying for the naming of a ship for the photographer of the iconic Iwo Jima flag raising, Joseph Rosenthal.

    “Joe Rosenthal took one of the greatest photographs in history, and yet he has been bypassed by history,” said Tom Graves, a member of the Marine Corps Correspondents Association who is spearheading the drive.

    Graves and members of the Marines’ Memorial Association in San Francisco have an online petition — www.ussjoe.org. They have over 1,300 signatures and plan to get thousands more before submitting them to the Secretary of the Navy.

    So far they have the support of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, and hundreds of Marines and veterans. Graves hopes to get the backing of many more political bodies, including the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

    Rosenthal, then a civilian war correspondent working for the Associated Press, took the picture of the Marines raising the flag atop Suribachi mountain on Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945.

    Thanks to HMC Ret for the tip.

  • Navy takes “corrective action”

    Navy takes “corrective action”

    Earlier this week we talked a bit about the Navy Special Warriors who displayed a Trump campaign flag on their vehcle while they were in a convoy in Kentucky last month. WTOP says that the Navy has taken “corrective action”.

    Lt. Jacqueline Maxwell released a statement this week that said “corrective measures were taken with each individual based on their respective responsibility.”

    It did not elaborate on what those corrective measures were.

    […]

    News reports said the Navy has repeatedly warned sailors against appearing to endorse political candidates while on the job.

    I have a hard time imagining any corrective action being taken against members of any unit that displayed an “Obama” logo eight years ago. I don’t condone the practice by any members of the military while in uniform, I’m just sayin’….

    Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

  • Russian fighters buzz US destroyer

    Virginian-Pilot publishes the Navy videos of the USS Porter, a Rota, Spain-based guided missile destroyer that was conducing operations near Greece last month when it was buzzed by Russian Su-24 attack aircraft and an IL-38 maritime patrol aircraft.

    Russian ships and aircraft have repeatedly come into close contact with their U.S. counterparts in recent years, but February’s incident was the first the U.S. Navy has publicly acknowledged since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

    Since the episode with the Porter, a Russian spy ship has been spotted operating in international waters off the East Coast of the United States.

    Thanks to Mick for the link.

  • Navy has readiness problems

    We’ve read how the number of Navy vessels has declined over the last eight years. We’ve also read that much of the Navy’s aircraft is not ready for battle. Now, the Daily Caller says that pregnancy is cutting into manpower issues as well;

    A record 16 out of 100 Navy women are reassigned from ships to shore duty due to pregnancy, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

    That number is up 2 percent from 2015, representing hundreds more who have to cut their deployments short, taxing both their unit’s manpower, military budgets and combat readiness. Further, such increases cast a shadow over the lofty gender integration goals set by former President Barack Obama.

    Overall, women unexpectedly leave their stations on Navy ships as much as 50% more frequently to return to land duty, according to documents obtained from the Navy. The statistics were compiled by the Navy Personnel Command at the request of TheDCNF, covering the period from January 2015 to September 2016.

    We were alerted for Desert Storm in late October and deployed in early January. In that time, our support platoon’s ambulance platoon had a number of drivers who popped hot on pregnancy tests to avoid deployment. They had to draw from other units to get back to readiness standards. I’m sure that the Navy has to deal with the same manpower problems when a sailor gets herself preggers.

    In January 2015, 3,335 women were pregnant aboard military vessels, representing about 14 percent of the 23,735 women then serving such duty, according to the data.

    But by August 2016 that number reached nearly 16 percent, an all-time high. The Navy reported 3,840 of the 24,259 women sailors who were aboard Navy ships were pregnant.

    According to the Daily Caller, according to the standard last year under Ray Mabus, the Navy was to make 25% of their vessels’ crews female sailors.

  • Special warfare unit members reprimanded for Trump flag

    Special warfare unit members reprimanded for Trump flag

    Mick sends us a link to the Virginian-Pilot which reports that members of a Virginia Beach-based special warfare unit was reprimanded for flying a Trump campaign flag from a vehicle in a military convoy that was going through Kentucky in January.

    The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that one of the videos was shot by a Shepherdsville, Ky., man while he was driving on Interstate 65 on his way to pick up feed for his goat farm.

    “I just thought it was just a bunch of military vehicles,” Steve Thompson told the newspaper Monday. “I was surprised because I figured you wouldn’t be able to fly anything on a Humvee other than an American flag.”

    While certain other flags may be flown, political flags are not permitted.