“Midshipmen are persons of integrity: They stand for that which is right.

They tell the truth and ensure that the full truth is known. They do not lie.

They embrace fairness in all actions. They ensure that work submitted as their own is their own, and that assistance received from any source is authorized and properly documented. They do not cheat.

They respect the property of others and ensure that others are able to benefit from the use of their own property. They do not steal.”

Words of guidance and inspiration.  An ethos and a personal challenge embraced by the very best this nation has to offer that have gone to war against America’s enemies.  A creed that any parent who values the concepts of honor and service would be rightfully proud to have a son or daughter commit to.

Yet, there are again noisome murmurs from those who hold the institutions of the US Navy and the United States Naval Academy dear that this Code of Honor has been violated.  It is not as if the shadow of scandal has not darkened the grounds along the Severn before.  There have been acts of misconduct by Midshipmen and by Staff on many occasions before.  Some of those acts have been criminal, and have brought dishonor upon the perpetrators, and on the Academy.  They were, however, largely acts by individuals or groups of Midshipmen or staff that deserved and received punishment and/or expulsion as appropriate.

Of late, however, the murmurs have reached shouted crescendo.  The reason for that goes far beyond the deeds of sometimes unworthy Midshipmen whom the process of training and evaluation at the US Naval Academy theoretically winnows from its ranks.   The voices raised loudly in objection are directed at the one absolutely indispensable aspect of the Naval Academy that is supposed to distinguish that institution from other places of higher education.

That indispensable aspect is the Naval Academy leadership.  These are Commissioned Officers in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, whose responsibilities it is to teach, guide, mentor, evaluate, and serve as an example for the future Officers from whose ranks, as was so eloquently stated, “come the great Captains who hold the Nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds”.  And that leadership has again failed miserably.  In doing so, they have forfeited their credibility.  For those who take their responsibilities of leadership seriously, this might seem unfair to hear.  But it is axiomatic that one’s reputation is defines in large measure by the company kept.

Rather than presenting an example of leadership and an embodiment of the Honor Code, those entrusted with the shaping of Naval Officers at the US Naval Academy have proven unworthy of the young men and women they are purported to lead.  They themselves cannot be said to live by the Honor Code that is the benchmark of their charges.  That leadership has consistently failed to display the integrity that is supposedly expected of the Midshipmen.  That leadership chooses the expedient and advantageous over that which is right, and over the truth.  Fairness is pushed aside for political correctness.  Tolerance of cheating and of drug use has been deemed acceptable.   And such actions, sanctioned officially or unofficially, make a mockery of that Honor Code.

Fairness is incompatible with a double-standard for admissions on the grounds of “diversity” or any other grounds.   Yet, it is not only condoned, but encouraged.  The resulting “diversity” is proudly touted, but the methods by which such is accomplished are carefully hidden behind closed doors.  To expose the double standard to widespread scrutiny would invite the scorn which it deserves.  Fairness indeed.

The racial discrimination against two USNA Color Guard Midshipmen this past autumn was exponentially compounded by repeated attempts to rationalize such despicable action to the Midshipmen and the public by senior leadership, including the Superintendent of USNA and the Commandant of Midshipmen.  Trouble is, not only were the actions themselves shameful and indefensible, and displayed horrendous judgment and/or lack of backbone, but later remarks by those Officers regarding the incident were extremely difficult to believe, and seemed intentionally obfuscating.  So much for integrity.

Now comes the tale of the varsity football player, who has a history of honors violations and enough demerits to fill a seabag, who fails a drug test.  His test detected levels of THC, the residue of marijuana usage.  Fail a drug test, the Academy’s rules say, and you’re out.  Zero tolerance.  Ask any Navy Officer or enlisted Sailor, they live by the same rules.  So, this miscreant Midshipman, a star halfback on a Division I football team, is gone.  It is a shame, as he had a chance that others would give their arms and legs for.  And he blew it.  He tells the Superintendent that he didn’t know he was smoking pot, that it was in a cigar or some such unlikely tall tale.  The Superintendent, Vice Admiral Fowler, must have been furious.  Right?  The gall of that Middie, insulting the good Admiral’s intelligence like that.  He must be out on the express train.

Not so fast.  This Midshipman, a 3/c, has been retained.  It seems that Vice Admiral Fowler decided to buy the Midshipman’s story of unknowingly ingesting enough marijuana to register positive on a drug test.  In defense of this flabbergasting decision, from “spokesman” Joe Carpenter we get this incomprehensible drivel offered as justification:

“This does not mean that there is a policy of mandatory separation — only that the service member be processed for separation. However, the Navy’s illegal drug policy requires the commander to ascertain if a service member knowingly consumed an illegal drug. This aspect is one of several issues that must be established for the commander to determine if the Navy’s drug use policy was violated by a service member.”

This Midshipman, with a history of conduct that proves he cannot be trusted, is being “believed” by the senior Officer at Annapolis, while telling a tale that a brand new Second Lieutenant or Ensign wouldn’t fall for.  In doing so, Vice Admiral Fowler overruled virtually every recommendation from this young man’s seniors.   This Midshipman is a minority.  Did skin color play a part?  I would hope not.  But judging from the track record of Admiral Fowler et al, it certainly seems possible.  He is a minority in another way.  He can run off tackle and score against a Division I defense.  Which helps to propel a financially profitable football program to national prominence.  Did that have anything to do with the decision?  You would have to ask the Admiral.  But you should believe what he says at your own peril.  And, as in the case of the Color Guard scandal, Midshipmen are being leaned on to keep mouths shut regarding the football player’s positive drug test and the decision to retain.  Whether such leaning is justified or not is impossible to tell.  The credibility of the Officers insisting on the Annapolis Omerta is in tatters.

Though I would be proud to have a son or daughter commit to the Honor Code and to the culture of service and discipline that represents the best of the US Naval Academy, I would not desire to have that son or daughter in such a “leadership” climate so fermented, discriminatory, politically motivated, dishonest, and lacking in courage as this one.  Indeed, I would have grave reservations about that son or daughter serving under an Officer who was shaped by that climate.

So the crescendo of shouted voices over such events at the US Naval Academy is not without warrant.  There is a rotten, pervasive failure of leadership at Annapolis.  And it begins at the top.  Though, regrettably, such a failure is fostered by Navy leadership farther upstream. Vice Admiral Fowler should have been relieved of his duties after the shame of the USNA Color Guard fiasco.  He wasn’t.  The reason he wasn’t is that his actions and decisions are part and parcel of the ugly business end of pushing forward the CNO’s priority of “diversity”.  The Superintendent and the CNO have repeatedly decided against doing what is right in favor of doing what is politically advantageous.  It is a line, once crossed, that is increasingly easy to rationalize crossing.  That is the symptom of the epidemic of political correctness brainwashing that has eroded our confidence, our readiness, and our security across DoD.   And it needs to end.

There are those who will question the grounds on which I am qualified to make such assertions.  I am an Officer, a combat veteran, a citizen, and a taxpayer.  For what it’s worth, similar opinions are legion among those observers of these events who have served in, or are still serving in, the US Navy and Marine Corps.  They are citizens and taxpayers, too.  More importantly, though my children mentioned here are hypothetical, theirs aren’t.  They, and the rest of the American people, are the parents of the next generation of the US Navy’s leadership and of its bluejackets.

That, Vice Admiral Fowler, Admiral Roughead, and Secretary Mabus, should give pause to each of you.  The future of the United States Navy, and the security of our great nation, rides on the very shoulders of those whom your failures have affected most.   The Honor Code starts with you, the Navy’s and Academy’s senior leadership.  The Honor Code should be the watchwords of a Navy whose first and overwhelmingly most important goal is to be ready to fight and win our nation’s wars.  A Navy whose Officer leadership and quality of the Sailors on its deckplates have achieved “diversity” based on merit and skill, not through forcing through unfair, politically-driven, and discriminatory measures based on skin color, gender, or enthnicity, or a time clocked in a 40-yard dash.

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Marine Corps, Navy, Uncategorized | read comments (27)

Since being labeled dinosaurs by a former Navy Surgeon General, the MERCY and COMFORT have been reactivated for emergencies 3 times in addition to deploying on numerous HA/DR missions. Pretty impressive feat for dinosaurs, don't you think? photo by Jim Dolbow

Christopher Munsey wrote in the 9 August 2004 edition of Navy Times an article entitled, “Navy medicine moves closer to combat zone:  Hospital ships likely to retire, surgical teams head ashore in new plan to treat wounded.”

According to Munsey:

The Navy’s retiring top doc says combat medicine is better done on the battlefield than on a ship at sea.

As a result, hospital ships like Comfort and Mercy soon will be retired. And the recent trend toward smaller, more flexible and more mobile hospitals on land will continue.

Vice Adm. Michael L. Cowan, the Navy surgeon general and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, said the most visible symbols of Navy medicine, the hospital ships Comfort and Mercy, likely will be retired in the coming years.

“They’re wonderful ships, but they’re dinosaurs,” he said.

Crewed by Military Sealift Command civilian mariners, Comfort deployed for what became Operation Iraqi Freedom in January 2003.

About 1,200 medical and support personnel from National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Md., and other East Coast clinics staffed the Comfort’s 1,000-bed hospital last year. The ship’s hospital treated coalition wounded, prisoners of war and Iraqi civilians…

… “They were designed in the ’70s, built in the ’80s, and frankly, they’re obsolete,” Cowan said.

As an alternative to Comfort and Mercy, options are still being studied to include trauma treatment spaces aboard the Navy’s next generation of amphibious ships, he said.

The eventual move away from big hospital ships at sea is mirrored by a trend toward smaller, more flexible and more mobile hospitals on land, Cowan said.

Thank God the COMFORT and MERCY survived the cutbacks and were not prematurely retired.

The absurdity of them being labeled obsolete was dispelled less than 5 months later when the USNS MERCY was activated in response to the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004.

Moreover, according to the commanding officer of the USNS MERCY’s Medical Treatment Facility,  “When the Indonesian military leader in Banda Aceh thanked Mercy there were “tears in his eyes,” proving that a “hospital ship can be the best diplomat of the 21st century.” (p. 96 of Waves of Hope:  The U.S. Navy’s Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia h/t Information Dissemination

Fast Forward to Haiti today.  Could the Port-au-Prince airport have handled all the additonal flights needed to ferry the medical capability, personnel,  and supplies etc brought to the relief mission by COMFORT?  I doubt it.

Posted by Jim Dolbow in Uncategorized | read comments (4)

“Just the facts, Ma’am” – Sgt. Joe Friday….

An update from the USS Bataan’s website:

USS BATAAN, At Sea – The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHA-5) received two MEDEVAC helicopters at approximately 8:15 p.m. Jan. 19, with three injured Haitians receiving immediate medical care from the Bataan medical team.

U.S. Navy and Coast Guard search-and-rescue crews responded to two separate distress calls in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

An MH-60S Knighthawk from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 22 medically evacuated two patients with potentially life-threatening injuries just before a Coast Guard HH-65A Dolphin carrying a third patient arrived aboard Bataan.

FACT: This is 24 hours after arriving off of Port-au-Prince.

Meanwhile, the USNS COMFORT received their first patients while steaming enroute to Haiti according to Robert Little of The Baltimore Sun:

The Navy’s Baltimore-based hospital ship arrived close enough to Haiti to take aboard its first patients Tuesday night – providing urgent care to two severely injured quake victims transported from an aircraft carrier near Port-au-Prince.

Doctors were treating a 20-year-old man suffering from a spinal fracture and bleeding in the brain and a 6-year-old boy with a fractured pelvis.

The patients were brought aboard well before the ship reached its destination and hours after the crew had finished its latest round of training exercises.

I will let you decide.

Posted by Jim Dolbow in Uncategorized | read comments (6)

Today is a day of blogging unity on the subject of the Haiti earthquake that struck just before 1700 EST on 12 January 2010. As to the unity part it’s being orchestrated by the folks at BloggersUnite which a site that brings unity to bloggers on a subject to harness their collective power in an effort to make the world a better place. Today in particular is a collaborative effort to bring awareness to how we can help those in need while bringing a personal perspective to the ordeal. I’m not the only blog, in fact, as of this writing I’m one of 215 registered blogs to the cause of the day. Follow the link above or click the BloggersUnite banner (below) to find out more.

For those who don’t know what I do I work for the United States Coast Guard and currently reside in our Atlantic Area Command Center- in a nutshell the unit I work for owns (read: has top oversight) most the boats, planes, and people working in the Haiti area (the Coast Guard ones at least). From my vantage point I can tell you that what you see on the news and hear on the radio about the effort to help are, in my view, less than half of what’s actually being done (there just aren’t enough media to go around I guess). Coordinating relief efforts from around the world is no simple task, in fact, the U.S. Coast Guard takes the task of ensuring everything is being done from its end so seriously that it has activated what’s called an Incident Management Team (IMT) to keep track of the hundreds of Coasties we’ve sent to help on a 24/7 basis. I noted last week that the Coast Guard was the first to arrive and I foresee us staying for quite some time… we just work that way. And though I’m more than proud of our men and women of the USCG we’re only a small part of the massive military might (check this out for a good list of who’s there) that’s deploying to help one of the poorest nations on earth- but the governments of the world can’t do this alone. This is were you come in.

Where do you start? Well as default starting places be sure to check out WAMU.org and/or The White House’s Haiti Relief Effort sites. Both list reputable donations sites and are easy to navigate. You can also check out the official site of USAid for more options on helping. And if you’re still worried about the sites you can give to feel free to check out the very trusted site of Consumer.gov for some safe options.

Update: Another super great option for donations is Team Rubicon. Yes, it’s outside the norm- but reliable from what I’ve been told (all former military and medics). With these options though you should note that the no matter what organization you choose they’re all asking for the same thing- your help via cash donations (like G.W. Bush says “Just send your cash…” (far from his best speech- but it IS true)).

I hope if you find this list and thought useful you’ll share it, or at the very least click on one of the donation links to do you part. And please note that it’s so easy to give that even I did it!

Ryan Erickson is a semi-regular contributor to USNI and can be found daily at ryanerickson.com; this post was written as an original piece for ryanerickson.com and cross-posted to USNI.

Posted by Ryan Erickson in Coast Guard | read comments (0)

17 Jan 1930. USS Lexington (CV-2) completed a 30-day period in which she furnished electricity to the city of Tacoma, Wash., in an emergency arising from a failure of the city’s power supply. The electricity supplied by the carrier totalled 4,251,160 kilowatt-hours. From Historylink.org:

In the 1920s, Tacoma received most of its electrical energy from dams on the Nisqually and Skokomish Rivers. Supplemental energy came from the Dock Street steam plant (1922). A drought in 1929 severely cut the power from the hydroelectric sources. The shortage became so critical that Superintendent Ira S. Davisson (1860-1951) had to cut power to Cascade Paper Company. Cascade laid off 300 employees. Fort Lewis turned the lights out in the barracks at 4:00 p.m.

The “Lady Lex” arrived at Tacoma’s Baker Dock in the rain to the sounds of a brass band and the applause of City Light customers. The Lexington’s boilers supplied a quarter of Tacoma’s power for about 30 days, leaving on January 17, 1930. That month, the skies opened and rain filled Tacoma’s reservoirs.

Tacoma enjoyed a special relationship with the carrier until its loss at the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942. (ed: CO’s POSTEX report here – SJS)

Eighty years later…

Jan. 15, 2010. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) operating off the coast of Haiti during humanitarian relief efforts. Carl Vinson and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 are conducting humanitarian and disaster relief operations in Haiti in response to the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake disaster. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Barker/Released)

Posted by SteelJaw in Navy, Soft Power, history | read comments (3)

Team,

I started this blog when I assumed command of US Fleet Forces Command because I wanted to get feedback from the deckplate on the current state of the fleet as well as different perspectives and ideas on particular topics. I have been very happy with the comments you have provided me and your feedback has really helped shape my thinking.

Now that I am approaching my six month mark in command, I would like to change the format of this blog in a manner which I hope will benefit us both – but particularly increase what you get out of the time you devote to reading and responding to my posts.

For the past six months, I have asked questions that can pretty much be mapped to one or more of my three primary concerns as Commander, USFF: to provide forces ready for tasking to our Combatant Commanders, to sustain those forces (including our people) so that we may fight today’s wars, tomorrow and get our ships, submarines, and aircraft to their expected service life, and to ensure our force deploys confident in their readiness to execute their missions through adhering to the tried and true standards that have benefited our Navy throughout our history.

Based on the picture of Fleet conditions I’ve developed over the past six months, I intend to transition away from predominately asking questions to letting you know my thoughts and informing you of the decisions I’ve made. The value of your comments will not diminish, quite the contrary, but hopefully this will give you a better opportunity to understand what is on my mind and the actions I am taking.

That said, one area I have significant concern with is the confusion between “taking risk” and lowering standards. As Navy made hard decisions over the past six years to meet growing Combatant Commander force demands, come off the manpower glideslope, and fund recapitalization after the “procurement holiday” of the 1990s; we began to use phrases such as “taking risk.” Taking risk was often used to describe the actions that must be taken to “do more, with less.” What really occurred in some instances was we did more, but we did it less well and we lowered our standards.

As we recapitalize the fleet, meet Combatant Commander demand, and properly invest in the sustainment of our ships, submarines, and aircraft, we cannot lower the tried and true standards which have served our Navy for over 230 years. Recent incidents – HARTFORD, JAMES E WILLIAMS, and flight discipline lapses – are just some examples that illuminate areas where we must re-educate, reinvigorate, and reinforce the bedrock importance of our tried and true standards that run the gamut from how we operate, to how we maintain, to our conduct, and the concept of accountability. As a Fleet Commander, fewer resources means that there are things we will do less, but that must not result in doing things less well. More to follow.
All the best, JCHjr.

Cross posted from U.S. Fleet Forces blog

Posted by Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr. in Navy | read comments (12)

Back in 2008 when the CNO stood up the Navy Irregular Warfare Office, the first director selected was RADM Mark W. Kenny. Having just recently retired, I thought it noteworthy he has found a job in the private sector.

Northrop Grumman Corporation has named Mark W. Kenny vice president of Irregular Warfare (IW) Programs. Kenny will lead a team of professionals to provide the rapid fielding of advanced capabilities and integrated systems to the combat, intelligence and special mission environment.

Some will focus in on the issue of former flag officers moving directly into industry to oversee development of systems and platforms directly related to their previous command. I think that is an issue always worth discussing – pro and con – but that wasn’t what got my attention.

Kenny will be based at Northrop Grumman’s Washington D.C. office, and will lead the company’s new National Irregular Warfare Center, located at the Aerospace Systems’ East Coast Production and Flight Test Center in St. Augustine, Fla. Kenny will leverage several ongoing initiatives, including Improvised Explosive Device defeat and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force programs that solve multiple Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and asymmetric challenges.

Northrop Grumman is unlikely to hire someone like Mark Kenny unless they smell a RFP coming in the Navy IW space, which is entirely possible given the Navy’s IW command was just stood up in 2008. I went through the FY 2010 budget and didn’t see any major plans other than existing ATD R&D for the Marine Corps and the stuff from the relatively new ONR IW office, so maybe something will pop in the FY 2011 budget?

The Navy Irregular Warfare Office was established to “institutionalize current ad hoc efforts in IW missions of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and the supporting missions of information operations, intelligence operations, foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare as they apply to [CT] and [counterinsurgency].” The office works closely with U.S. Special Operations Command, and reports to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for information, plans, and strategy.

But there has been a lot of debate what irregular warfare means to the Navy. In June of 2009, Rebekah Gordon of Inside the Navy quoted Vice Adm. Barry McCullough in an article called “McCullough: Current Fleet Meets Many Irregular Warfare Missions”

McCullough said his worry is that the Navy’s irregular warfare capacity has become too narrowly focused on Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, an umbrella for expeditionary capabilities such as explosive ordnance disposal, riverine and naval construction units known as Seabees.

“While their contribution to irregular warfare is great, and they’re very capable and a very professional force, that’s not the sole focus of irregular warfare inside the Navy,” McCullough said.

For example, he said, while aircraft carriers are often cited as the prime example of a conventional warfare capability, the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) played a pivotal role in supporting relief efforts following the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. The Arleigh Burkeclass destroyers have also been used in recent irregular warfare capacities, such as the Bainbridge (DDG-96), which aided in the capture and killing of pirates off the coast of Somalia following the hijacking of an American cargo ship.

“That covers the spectrum of warfare,” McCullough said. “That’s not what those ships were designed for, but it just goes to show you the inherent flexibility of naval platforms.”

A few thoughts. I have to date been very unimpressed with the US Navy approach to irregular warfare when it comes to sea based threats, but I don’t think that can be attributed to Mark Kenny. With less than two years – virtually all of his energy would have been spent standing up a new command from a cold start – which btw would rank for me as a premier qualification to stand up a new IW shop inside Northrop Grumman.

The Navy – more than the Army or Marines but just like the Air Force – relies almost exclusively on technology solutions for ISR against Irregular Warfare adversaries. Want a scary answer? Ask the CO of a ship returning from CENTCOM AOR how many ships were visited during VBSS operations during their 6 month deployment. If the ship was in the northern Persian Gulf, the number will be very high. If the ship is in the Gulf of Aden, the number will be remarkably small. Interesting how relatively few problems have been reported off the Iraqi coast vs the Gulf of Aden over the last decade, and I’d bet a nights bill at the Trident Room a statistical comparison for VBSS operations comparing those two regions over the last decade frame would skew remarkably high in the north Persian Gulf.

And yet it is the small boats in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean causing the problems. Kenny has a ton of experience with UAVs and underwater solutions when it comes to IW. I think that is a good thing as UAVs have proven highly successful in supporting IW operations in the war zones, and submarines have unique capabilities that should be exploited in irregular warfare. With that said, neither UAVs or submarines are the answer for IW challenges we see at sea, particularly when the outlook of IW at sea isn’t good.

Submarine guys tend to be highly creative though, so it will be interesting to see what the Navy does with Irregular Warfare and how Northrop Grumman’s new IW group sees industry solutions to the Navy requirements.

Posted by galrahn in Uncategorized | read comments (0)

A good story about the USN and shipbuilding!

From the Associated Press:

Class of Navy Destroyers Sails Into Record Books

BATH, Maine —  Cruising through the darkness in rough seas, the USS Ross encountered a rogue wave that smashed into the destroyer’s bow, sending a shudder along the entire ship that knocked sleeping crew out of their bunks and damaged the sonar housing.

As alarms sounded, sleepy sailors scrambled to shore up the leak.

“We cracked the hull and kept on going like it was nothing,” retired sailor Jonathan Staeblein, of Hagerstown, Md., recalled. In fact, the 510-foot destroyer was never out of service for repairs during any deployment in the three years he served aboard as an electronic warfare technician.

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers such as the USS Ross and USS Cole, which survived a terrorist suicide bombing in Yemen, have proven to be durable workhorses in the U.S. Navy.

Over the 22 years since construction of the first one began at Bath Iron Works, the ship has steamed into the record book: The destroyer’s production run has outlasted every other battleship, cruiser, destroyer and frigate in U.S. Navy history. The only warship in production for longer was the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, said Norman Polmar, a naval historian, author and analyst.

USS Dewey DDG-105

Thanks to a decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Arleigh Burke destroyers will continue being made for at least a few more years. The defense budget signed by President Barack Obama in December includes money for the first of at least three more ships. There’s talk of many more being built.

At Bath Iron Works, along the banks of the Kennebec River, there are three of the ships in various stages of production.

“They’re fast and they move. And they’re a lot of fun to drive,” said Lt. Cmdr. Robert J. Brooks, executive officer of USS Wayne E. Meyer, a Bath-built destroyer commissioned in October.

Retired Rear Adm. Michael K. Mahon, the Navy’s former deputy director of surface warfare, said the ships run no risk of being outdated any time soon.

“It’s the envy of the world,” said Mahon. “Every surface warship officer in every navy in the world would love to command an Arleigh Burke.”

The original warship was under development at the height of the Cold War, when Bath Iron Works was abuzz with shipbuilders pounding, grinding, welding, plumbing and wiring ships at a furious pace to meet President Ronald Reagan’s audacious goal of a 600-ship Navy. Shipbuilders toiled long hours working elbow-to-elbow in a haze created by welders inside steel hull segments that were sweltering in the summer and cold in the winter.

The number of Bath shipbuilders peaked at 12,000 by the time the USS Arleigh Burke was commissioned on July 4, 1991.

Some Bath shipbuilders have spent virtually their entire careers doing nothing by making Arleigh Burke destroyers.

Gil Rines, a welder, joined Bath Iron Works as construction was beginning on the first ship. Since then, he has raised two children and become a grandfather. The shipyard changed hands and is now owned by General Dynamics. The number of shipbuilders has dropped to 5,500.

But one thing remained a constant: The shipyard kept churning out Arleigh Burke destroyers, more than 30 of them. The same ships are also built at Northrop Grumman’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., which has churned out more than 20.

“It’s a great ship. That’s why the Navy stuck with it,” said Rines, a third-generation shipbuilder.

The 9,500-ton ships can easily top 30 knots while simultaneously waging war with enemy ships, submarines, missiles and aircraft. Their combat system, called Aegis, uses powerful computers and a phased-array radar to track more than 100 targets — the exact number is classified.

They’re also the only surface warships in the Navy’s arsenal that can be sealed off to withstand a biological, chemical and nuclear attack.

The latest improvements are software upgrades and SM-3 missiles that allow the Aegis system to be used for ballistic missile defense. An Aegis-equipped cruiser built by Bath Iron Works shot down a failed satellite in 2008. Several Aegis destroyers and cruisers are now equipped with the upgraded system.

The Navy originally envisioned building 29 of the ships, but has since extended the line to 62 ships through 2011. With the continued production, there will be at least three more, keeping shipbuilders in Maine and Mississippi busy while the Navy decides whether to build more Burkes, or to build something else.

The Navy’s decision is partly budget-driven. Burkes are less costly to build than the next-generation stealth destroyer, which the Navy and defense contractors spent 10 years designing.

Burkes currently cost about $1.2 billion apiece; the stealthy, and much larger, DDG-1000 Zumwalt will cost more than double that. In the end, the Navy decided to truncate production to just three Zumwalts.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, gives credit to the Navy for scaling back the costly Zumwalts and focusing on the tried-and-true Burkes.

The DDG-51 Arleigh Burke, he said, is now in a rare class of military systems that’s so durable and versatile that it continues for generations and generations, like the C-130 Hercules cargo transport, an airplane that first went into production in 1957.

“The fact that the Navy can’t come up with something better than the DDG-51 isn’t necessarily bad news,” he said. “It may be commentary on how good the DDG-51 is.”

Modernization Features of DDG-51 class (from N86)

*******************************************************************

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Maritime Security, Navy, Uncategorized | read comments (11)

In an article entitled “New peril in war zones: Sex abuse by fellow GIs”, this gem from the New York Times:

BAGHDAD – Capt. Margaret H. White began a relationship with a warrant officer while both were training to be deployed to Iraq. By the time they arrived this year at Camp Taji, north of here, she felt what she called “creepy vibes” and tried to break it off.In the claustrophobic confines of a combat post, it was not easy to do. He left notes on the door to her quarters, alternately pleading and menacing. He forced her to have sex, she said. He asked her to marry him, though he was already married. He waited for her outside the women’s latrines or her quarters, once for three hours.

“It got to the point that I felt safer outside the wire,” Captain White said, referring to operations that take soldiers off their heavily fortified bases, “than I did taking a shower.”

So the female Captain is portrayed as a victim.  However, did not the Captain “began a relationship with a warrant officer”?  One who was “already married”?  Are these not serious breaches of discipline?  Indeed, violations of the UCMJ punishable in Courts Martial?

Make no mistake as to my point here.  If the WO in question committed sexual assault, he should be locked up and the key thrown away.  No excuse for it, ever.  But the point has been made here once before that the way to deal with the problem is to ENFORCE DISCIPLINE, and not to waste valuable training time with nonsensical feel-good stand-down sessions and mandatory training requirements that make good copy but accomplish nothing.  Hammer those guilty of wrongdoing.  Yes, that includes both those who commit such acts as sexual assault, and those whose breaches of conduct and orders create an even more fertile (no pun intended) environment for such occurrences than exists already.  Admiral Harvey has the right idea.

So, what jumps out at you from the good Captain’s story above?  She began a relationship.  With a married man.  She is the senior soldier in said relationship.  From the temper of the story, the relationship was professionally inappropriate.  But wait, there’s more:

She had dated the warrant officer when they arrived in Fort Dix, N.J., for predeployment training with the 56th Stryker Combat Team. The newly revised article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice says that “a current or previous dating relationship by itself” does not constitute consent.Once at Camp Taji, a sprawling base just north of Baghdad, she grew troubled by his behavior…

She admits she continued the relationship once in theater.  So, let’s count up the score.  She should have been charged each time under Article 92 for violating the infamous General Order #1.  She violated Article 133, having a sexual relationship with a married man, and could be charged numerous times under 134.  She should have been at a Special Court Martial.

But apparently she wasn’t.

After their deployment ended in September, the officer pleaded guilty and resigned from the Army in lieu of prosecution, Colonel Smith said. Captain White said that she was satisfied with the legal outcome of her case…

And in the course of this investigation, was Captain White not found to have committed any wrongdoing?

If she was, why wasn’t she dismissed from the service?  And if she was found not to have, why not?  She clearly admitted as much.  Have we gotten to the point of being so politically correct, or fearful of those who are, that we no longer enforce ANY rules or regulations that uphold good order and discipline?  Do we expect this situation to do anything but get worse when all senior leadership is willing to do is ignore those factors that exacerbate an already serious problem?

Why does the flavor of this instance taste much like that of Major Hasan?  Where’s the leadership?  When it comes to enforcing discipline against those who might lodge an EO complaint, it seems we have a new motto:  “Even when we know, we’ll pretend we don’t.”

Stand by for the consequences.

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Uncategorized | read comments (20)

Staggered, Bloodied but Unbowed

After the morning’s attacks Enterprise had suffered significant damage, but still able to put up a fight defensively and conduct air ops. The number two elevator, aft most on the flightdeck, was temporarily stuck in the down position, leaving a large, square hole just forward of the arresting gear. Forward, just aft of the forward elevator, the forward hangar bay was a riot of flame, smoke and destroyed aircraft. Burning avgas was siphoning down into the forward elevator pit. Two decks below that was more smoke, fire, severed electrical cables, sprung hatches and a grotesquely sweet smelling mixture of oil, seawater and blood, camouflaging decks scattered with jagged metal and shattered bodies. Smoldering storerooms were separated from avgas and bomb bunkers by watertight bulkheads that had, thus far, remained intact.

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Posted by SteelJaw in Aviation, Navy, history | read comments (9)