Raw Intel

Ark Royal moves on: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal has sailed into Scotland for the last time, as part of a farewell tour. The fleet flagship of the Royal Navy, which is being decommissioned after 25 years service, sailed down the Firth of Clyde. It is due to dock at Glen Mallan Jetty on Loch Long to unload its ammunition. The ship will stay in Loch Long for five days before sailing around the north of Scotland and on to Newcastle, close to where she was built. The Ark Royal left its Portsmouth base for a farewell tour of the UK on Tuesday. The aircraft carrier is being retired three years early as part of cost-cutting measures announced by the UK …

SSG Sal Giunta was awarded the Medal of Honor today. It has been since Vietnam that the medal has gone to a living recipient, and Sal Giunta was a perfect choice. He has been nothing but humble and self-effacing, pointing out that he was just one of many brave paratroopers that day. He is absolutely correct, but he is the one who charged the enemy and stopped them from capturing one of his compatriots. There was a reception held by the Bravo Bulls who represent the same company (Bravo/Battle) of the 2nd of the 503rd, 173rd Airborne since the Second World War. This unit has always been called on when we need to break glass in case of war and has always delivered. SSG Giu…

What is the view of the medium term future for the Navy? Join EagleOne and me on Sunday 14 NOV starting at 5pm EST as we discuss the way forward for the Navy in the coming decade with John Patch, CDR USN (Ret.), Associate Professor of Strategic Intelligence at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership. We will touch on Counter-piracy vs. Antipiracy, the relevance of the Carrier, the Littoral Combat Ship, Naval Surface Fire Support, the relevance of Amphibious capability, and other topics that may come up. Join us live if you can, and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room during the show where you can offer your own questions and …

A few days ago a warning went out regarding good weather over the next few days. Good weather in the region means piracy usually surges, and it is clear piracy has surged. This morning, another ship was hijacked - this time a Chinese vessel. Pirates hijacked a cargo ship with 29 Chinese sailors aboard in the Arabian Sea and told the shipping company they were taking it toward Somalia, Chinese officials and state media said Saturday. The attack came just two days after another 17 Chinese sailors returned home after being held by Somali pirates for four months. It also highlights the spread of piracy to areas outside the Gulf of Aden, a hijacking hot spot now p…

Another hijacking. Pirates have seized a Panama-flagged chemical tanker with a crew of 31 off the coast of Somalia, the European Union Naval Force for Somalia (EU Navfor) said on Thursday. The anti-piracy taskforce EU Navfor said that the 24,105 tonne MV Hannibal II was taken while sailing to Suez from Malaysia ferrying vegetable oil. "The master of the vessel reported that he had been attacked and boarded by pirates in an area some 860 nautical miles East of The Horn of Africa which is considerably closer to India than it is to Somalia," EU Navfor said in a statement. The naval force said the ship's crew consisted of 23 Tunisians, four Filipinos, a…

A South Korean politician has provided a small intel dump regarding the situation just prior to the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan. The Navy corvette Cheonan was warned on the morning it sank on March 26 that a salmon-class North Korean submarine and support ships had disappeared from their bases the day before, a lawmaker claims. Democratic Party lawmaker Shin Hak-yong on Monday said on the morning of the North's attack on the Cheonan, "warnings were given by the Second Fleet Command that a salmon-class North Korean submarine and support ships had been out to sea for unknown operations. Right before the Cheonan was attacked, all artillery guns on the nea…

It is very easy to look at this technology and be dismissive... but that our weakness isn't it? We are a technology society and look at the specifics of technology to form the basis for our judgments. It a technology doesn't conform to our conceptual expectations regarding capability, then 'it doesn't pass the smell test' and is usually dismissed with sarcasm. I expect there is plenty of sarcasm to be easy shared upon examination of this little piece of tech being fielded by Iran. Iran's state TV says the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard has received its first three squadrons of radar-evading flying boats. The report says the domestically made craft can b…

Tejas LCA (click to view full) GE’s F414 turbofan engine will power Tejas Mk2. (Oct 1/10) India’s fighter strength has been declining in recent years, as the MiG-21s that form the largest component of its fleet are lost in crashes, or retired due to age and wear. Some MiG-21s are being modernized to MiG-21 ‘Bison’ configuration, while other current fighter types are undergoing modernization programs in order to maintain the fighter force until replacements can arrive. On which note, an ongoing tender has Russian, French, American, Swedish and European manufacturers dueling for the MMRCA, a multi-billion dollar, 126+ plane light-medium fighter sale. This still leav…

The war in Somalia is at a pivot point. If you read the latest Report of the Secretary-General on Somalia to the United Nations Security Council (PDF), you will find things do appear to be getting worse, not better. There are no territorial advances by the TFG, while security and humanitarian problems appear to be deteriorating within Somalia. Civilian casualties are up as are the use of IEDs, but fewer AU troops are being killed. Noteworthy the report explicitly claims "Mortars also impacted regularly near the United Nations common compound and the UNICEF compound," which is a new development over the period of the report suggesting perhaps territory is indeed being conc…

According to this source (in French), the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is deploying for 4 months to the Indian Ocean to support operations in Afghanistan. "Agapanthus 10," as the mission is called, was presented at a press briefing of the Ministry of Defense by Admiral Jean-Louis Kerignard. The carrier battlegroup will consist of the aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle (R91), FS Forbin (D620), FS Tourville (D610), the naval auxiliary vessel FS Meuse (A 607), and the submarine FS Amethyst (S605). The air group on board the aircraft carrier will have 12 upgraded Super Etendard, 10 Rafale, 2 Hawkeyes, and helicopters. The operation is expected to begin in …

If the name CDR E. A. Westfall, CDR, USCG sounds familiar, then you are a regular listener to Midrats. He joined us back on Episode 26 of Midrats to discuss the nature of Command, and is the Commanding Officer of the USCGC ESCANABA (WMEC 907). Well, our good Skipper has had an interesting day mid-month. From CNN: A U.S. Coast Guard cutter was fired upon by suspected drug traffickers during a pursuit off the coast of Nicaragua, a Coast Guard spokesman told CNN. No Coast Guard personnel were injured in the gunfight, said Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil. The incident took place in the early morning of September 14, but information about the attack was not re…

So I was at Arlington last week to lay wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns for Soldiers' Angels. With SA, on our way out, I told the group I needed some alone time to visit someone. You can see me (below) taking the photo in the reflection of the tombstone for COL Thompson, but you can't see the tears streaming down my face. Every time I go to Arlington, I visit a friend. Or in this case, a man who bears much responsibility for who I am today. He's in section 30, 611. If you went to Mary Lincoln's tomb, he's directly across from her on a nice little ridgeline. Over at This Ain't Hell, the manager of the Blackfive Farm Team, has a post about Tro…

I am not sure if you have heard, but the Universal Pictures movie Battleship began filming last week in Hawaii. Based on the old board game Battleship, I admit I am skeptical. Noteworthy though, the movie has been given a budget of $200 million - which by any standard is an enormous amount of money for a movie. The other big entertainment news this week is that the Battle of Midway is heading back to the big screen too, this time in 3-D from the same folks who produced the recent award winning HBO mini-series "The Pacific." One of the themes on the blog has been the communication the Navy needs to have with the American people. How can people advocate for seapower…

For a certain generation of officers, your host included, there was one foundation event for many of all designators that shaped the way they looked at leadership - both uniformed and civilian - for their entire career. They learned early that bravery in combat and cowardice in life are not mutually exclusive of each other, and can easily inhabit the same person. They learned that facts were of little importance in the face of a politically driven head wind. They learned that when the going gets tough - the top cover they hoped their senior leadership would provide for them - would fade as fast as the Romanian Army at Stalingrad. They learned not to trust - they lear…

I'll let you guess which three. More than half the women quizzed (54%) said failure to put the seat down was their man's most irritating trait. Leaving wet towels on the bed was the second most frustrating habit (23%), followed by a propensity to leave dirty laundry on the floor (15%). Other annoyances cited included snoring, doing a bad job at a household chore for the fear of being asked to do it again, not replacing toilet roll, leaving toenail clippings and loose change around the home, drinking straight from the milk bottle and refusing to ask for directions when lost. View the full article

First of all, I was hit with a huge surprise yesterday morning when I saw pictures of the 5th 054A from HP shipyard. Normally, we see a nice progression of photos of the ship being built, but this one was almost ready to be launched by the time we got the first photos. On top of that, I had expected PLAN to stop producing 054 ships for a while after the 2nd batch of 4 were completed. After more extended look and checking my sources, it does appear to be authentically the 5th 054A from HP shipyard. They did a really good job of hiding this ship behind a civilian ship, so we did not know it was being built all along. By the time this ship was in plain sight, it was alr…

Just in case there was any doubt that head wanker Julian Assange was a self-promoting, narcissistic jackwagon, he is catching shite from people who should be allies. First a bunch of human rights groups said, "Hey dumbass, what part of stop getting civilians killed don't you understand?". Now he gets a letter from the head of Reporters without Borders calling him out for acting like a first rate bandito of ass. Dear Mr. Assange, Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organisation, regrets the incredible irresponsibility you showed when posting your article “Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010†on the Wikileaks website on 25 July together with 92…

As one who continuously observes naval deployments and patterns globally, I try to keep an eye out for news that seems odd, or doesn't add up. The news that Germany is basically stopping their contribution to Task Force 150 - the anti-terrorism international task force in the Gulf of Aden - seems very strange to me. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons why the Germans would stop participation in CTF 150, but the specific reason given is not one of them. Germany is withdrawing early from a US-led operation that patrols the sea off the Horn of Africa because the terrorist threat in that area is small, Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said Wednesd…

Facepalm. Just facepalm. Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore. “It’s the most frustrating thing,†the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.â€â€¦ [T]he Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble conta…

If you are a regular in the chat room during the live airing of Midrats or EagleOne's homeblog - then you know who Saturn 5 is. He even visits here now and then. Though most may not know it - he is also one of the few regular commenters from Turkey in the Navy milblogosphere. After my post earlier this week - I asked if he wanted to offer up a guest post here on the topic of Turkey today, Kemalism, and where things are headed - from the Turkish perspective. BZ to S5 - he dove right in with a quick response. Thanks S5! The rest of this post is from Saturn5.While the dust cloud around Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla last week is settling down, informed minds…