Raw Intel

U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, receives a mountaintop brief from U.S. and Afghan special forces on Camp Morehead, Afghanistan, April 23, 2012. DOD photo by D. Myles Cullen View the full article

Mark Steyn is painfully hilarious as always in his take down of the Secret Service and the general culture of entitlement to taxpayer money that is killing us. Unlike the government of the United States, I can’t claim any hands-on experience with Colombian hookers. But I was impressed by the rates charged by Miss Dania Suarez, and even more impressed by the U.S. Secret Service’s response to them. Cartagena’s most famous “escort†costs $800. For purposes of comparison, you can book Eliot Spitzer’s “escort†for $300. Yet, on the cold grey fiscally conservative morning after the wild socially liberal night before, Dania’s Secret Service agent of…

CENTCOM has asked for and will be getting some money for increased capabilities specific to Iran. In a “couple of cases,†Iran improved capabilities “faster than we anticipated,†he said. The Command requested the additional funds because “our growing reliance on our maritime forces requires an ability to project power against asymmetric threats, particularly in the confined and crowded sea lanes†of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, Major David Nevers, spokesman for the Central Command, said in an e-mailed statement. Funds were shifted from Pentagon biological and chemical weapons defensive programs and Navy and Air Force shipbuilding, …

Sea Shepherd appears to have executed another successful anti-whaling campaign in the Southern Ocean. "Japan's Fisheries Agency said the fleet was on its way home from the Antarctic 'on schedule', but admitted that at 267 the catch was way down on expectations. Whalers killed 266 minke whales and one fin whale, the agency said, well below the approximately 900 they had been aiming for when they left Japan in December." The Agency official goes on to blame bad weather and "sabotage acts by activists," as the reason for the lower than expected haul. At USNI's blog, LCDR Claude Berube, a Naval Academy professor and one of the subject matter experts on non-state maritime …

"Finally caught up with Matt. It was like trying to find Santa on Christmas Eve." - Uncle Ben, good friend (and reader) of Blackfive, on St. Patrick's Day in Chicago 2004 I may try to live blog St. Patrick's Day with my Irish Smart Device (photo below - patent pending...). Of course, the quality of posts may go down to Jimbo standards by the late afternoon... View the full article

China is officially announcing that its 2012 budget is increasing by 11.2% to about $106B. It is broadly agreed that this significantly understates total military spending. After about 25 years of double-digit growth China is now clearly the second biggest defense spender behind the US, with a budget that more than doubled in the last 5 years alone. There is more to it than just new kit though: some of that money is spent on improving quality of life for sailors to ease recruitment and retention, as China is facing serious demographic constraints and deep socioeconomic shifts. Associated Press | Bloomberg. The US DoD Inspector General is reviewing the F-35’s qualit…

All you old Cold Warriors ... remember those innocent "tattletales" that always seemed to want to collect "Electronic Intelligence" on our HVU? What's a few torpedo tubes between friends? This was in dry dock in St. Petersburg in the middle of last decade. I am pretty sure this was just a test and development ship - at least that is what a quickie search about the hull number says. I tend to believe that - because I really don't see how you could hide that for long. Remember what part of the world they were found in more than not? You see the underside of every hull eventually. Still though .... Innocent? Sure they were! Hat tip RS and other dudes in e…

This yahoo feels entitled to spout his nonsense, and I feel just as entitled to respond: Star of TV’s Parenthood , Dax Shepard , compared the pro-U.S. military film that stars actual Navy SEALs, Act of Valor to Adolf Hitler’s Triumph of the Wil l . On his Twitter feed the one time Ashton Kutcher prank boy from Punk’d wrote: “Saw ‘Triumph of the Will’ tonight, oh wait, I mean ‘Act of Valor’ great action.†Apparently the reaction to Shepard’s obnoxious tweet, comparing this week’s #1 movie starring active duty Navy Seals to a Nazi propaganda movie was immediate, as he attempted to walk back his comments. Shepard lamely cla…

Activists, in all their forms, are an interesting sub-species of non-state maritime actors. We’ve discussed the Sea Shepherds here extensively, who have the closest thing to a fleet of any of the non-state maritime actors. Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherds' older, but slightly more docile sister organization, has also engaged in aggressive tactics throughout its history. Greenpeace's most recent campaign is designed to stop Arctic drilling. The involvement of Lucy Lawless, actress-turned-boarding officer, demonstrates how these direct action organizations have embraced celebrity endorsers to promote their cause, which is no different than many other political or environment…

The transnational police agency Interpol has done tremendous work making sure that criminals cannot simply escape justice by moving out of one country's jurisdiction. But if the following is true, they may have become just another group afraid to cross the Islamists. Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist, stands accused of blasphemy in his homeland of Saudi Arabia for tweets he posted on Islam’s prophet Mohammed that many of his countrymen find insulting to Islam. In his postings on the occasion of Mohammed’s birthday last week, Kashgari imagined a skeptical discussion with the founder of Islam. Many Saudis are enraged, demanding that he be arrested and pu…

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, attend a ceremony at the Pentagon, Feb. 10, 2012. Mabus announced the naming of the U.S. Navy's newest next variant littoral combat ship, USS Gabrielle Giffords, at the ceremony. Giffords was critically wounded in 2011 by a gunman in Tucson, Ariz. DOD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley --------------------------------------------------------------------- While I'm glad that Congresswoman Giffords is doing better than expected, I'm not sure why the Navy would name a ship after her. She seems like a great l…

I'm not drinking my breakfast ... yet ... but I've read this twice and all I can think of is a need to say, "BINGO!" Booz Allen Hamilton, Norfolk, Va., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $20,000,000 modification to previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price pricing provisions contract (N00189-08-D-0022) to increase funded amount. The total contract value inclusive of all modifications is estimated at $184,103,663. The contract will provide leadership teams, providing expertise in change management, barrier identification and removal, and key enterprise performance metrics. The contractor will focus efforts on app…

Those who aren't convinced that UAS will change warfare permanently need to watch this video, posted yesterday: Pardon the cliche, but this technology is truly transformational. For some interesting commentary on swarms, check out John Robb. The naval applications are there, too. How could AEGIS, RAM, ESSM, CIWS, or any other envisioned air defense system defend against a lethal "suicide" drone swarm aimed at a ship, especially when they come in from all directions and mass before attack? Jamming might work to some degree, but there are countermeasures for countermeasures. What about swarming surface or undersea weapons? The fact that this technology was …

Rocket parts: check. Fishing plans: check. DVR programmed: check. Hmmmm .... what else ... Full story here. Before everyone laughs about tricky rivers ... all those who remember Naval Base Charleston raise your hand! View the full article

Raise your hand if you might have tracked either of these ..... The Transshelf semi-submersible open dock vessel has delivered two decommissioned Victor III class nuclear submarines from a Russian Pacific Fleet base in Kamchatka to the Zvezda shipyard in the town of Bolshoi Kamen in Russia’s Far East for scrapping. View the full article

I do this just enough to irritate some of you - but it is my blog and I can tap in to my academic background now and then if I want - so there.Drudge has this at the lead this AM, but there is more than the 1.5% that you need to focus on.Facts and numbers are important, they are critical to cut through all the smoke, dazzle, and white noise of a political season. Here is the executive summary you need to let soak in. Via the governments Bureau of Economic Analysis: 2011 GDP Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2011 (that is, from the 2010 annual level to the 2011 annual level), compared with an increase of 3.0 percent in 2010 . The increase in r…

For those interested in the seamanship aspects of the Costa Concordia disaster, this may be interesting: Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo. Narration by John Konrad, CEO gCaptain.com and USCG Licensed Master Mariner Unlimited. View the full article

Yesterday around 6.00 CET pirates in a fishing vessel attacked the MV Flintstone 93NM north east of the island of Socotra. The pirates in their dhow where seen coming and the crew of the Flintstone went into hid in a special compartment of the ship. Meanwhile the Dutch Vessel Protection Detachment, consisting of marines, prepared for the arrival of the skiff that came from the dhow, that was being used as a mother ship. At first the VPD fired flares at the coming ship, in which they could see several weapons including a RPG. When this RPG was aimed at the Flintstone the marines answered with direct fire, forcing the skiff to return to the dhow. What I don't un…

The DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report (PDF) is out, and I noted that Wired is focused on the LCS report (PDF). The reason the Wired article on LCS reads like it's reaching for straws to find news in the LCS report is because the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report on LCS lacks new information. The DOT&E report basically details exactly what ADM Pandolfe told everyone at Surface Navy Association conference - in January of last year (in 2011). Hard to get worked up about issues openly discussed over a year ago. What I did find interesting about the report is that the report heavily focuses on the MIW module problems, but only one aspect of the module - the airborne pieces e…

An MH-60S Knight Hawk helicopter passes the USS Chafee while delivering supplies to the USS Carl Vinson during a vertical replenishment mission with the USNS Bridge in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 2, 2012. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class James R. Evans View the full article