Raw Intel

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

Via The Economist; read all the way to the bottom. When you think about it - their population is 4x ours and their economy has been growing 2-3+ more than ours for over a decade; is was only a matter of time barring a bad black swan. Not all is smooth sailing for China; but 2025 is not that far down the road. Ponder. View the full article

I can't help myself; it is time again to revisit the crew of The Swan of the East; the SMS EMDEN. Everyone should know the story of The Ayesha by Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke; Taking no one with me, I got into the steam launch and went out to the schooner to learn whether she was at all seaworthy. The captain and a single sailor were aboard her. Of the former I inquired casually whether he had any ammunition aboard, for I did not wish him to suspect the real purpose of my coming. He said there was none, and a brief inspection of the ship led me to believe that she was still seaworthy. Consequently I sent my officers and men aboard the "Ayesha" to get her into…

DID would like to wish all of our readers a Happy New Year! So, what milestones does India’s Ministry of Defence want to highlight from 2011? Dynamint Nobel is still working on its classic Panzerfaust, whose modern versions have proven quite popular. The lightweight versions are strong urban warfare weapons, and the next step is integrating them with remote weapons stations for roles like harbor defense. Switchblade UAVs to launch from subs? While the could retain their kamikaze capabilities, the reality is that sub-launched UAVs are going to be 1-shot items at first. Why not adapt an existing UAV designed for that? Aviation Week Intelligence Network re…

[From 40 Commando in Afghanistan in 2008...] For those that have ever met and/or partied with these guys know that this is what what you can usually expect... Christmas for the Commandos in Afghanistan was always going to be different - but no one could have predicted just how different. One minute they were singing carols at dusk beneath a mellow sun in the baked bare wasteland of Helmand province while wearing festive Santa hats, the next they were firing mortars after their Christmas Day service came under attack from the Taliban. So rapid was the reaction of Royal Marines of 40 Commando that within less than a minute of the first "contact" from the Taliban's machine g…

This wins the prize for complete inability to admit the blisteringly freaking obvious point that al Qaeda is an Islamist terror group, they are at war with us and we are at war with them. This member of the Defense Department wastes bushels of oxygen evading the simple fact that our enemies are religious fanatics of an easily-identifiable flavor, identifiable because they shout their "god's" name as they hack the heads off living men and women. It is sad reminder that our "leaders" would rather bury their heads in sand, that our enemies tread wearing the iron sandals of violent Islamist extremist ideology, than be shunned by the "right"-thinking left as politically incorr…

DigitalGlobe Inc., a commercial satellite company, said Wednesday that it took a photograph of China’s first aircraft carrier during a sea trial in the Yellow Sea, off the Chinese coast. View the full article

Presented for comment. Confirmed by multiple sources, this is the very latest from OMB to the DoD regarding aircraft carriers and FY13: The navy has proposed an additional 2-year schedule slip to its newest carrier, CVN79, which would extend the funding profile from the original 8 yrs to 12 yrs. The Navy would initiate the 4-yr construction process in FY15 after 8 years of advance procurement activities. Given the challenges of implementing the BCA caps, OMB allows the additional 2 year slip to CVN-79. However, the Navy should request authorization to commence regular CVN-79 construction in FY13 and continuing through FY18. The CVN-79 funding profile does not change,…

VAQ-129 aboard Reagan over the Veteran's Day weekend. Hat tip DW. View the full article

Ungh. He strikes; again. "What our task force is here to do is really to understand what the impacts of climate change, especially in the arctic, will have on Navy's operations, said Rear Adm. David Titley, Navy oceanographer and director of task force climate change. "We look at climate change simply as changing geography, and we work on, above and under the water and the ocean every day, so we need to understand as that environment is changing, how that will impact our naval operations. So, really it's all about readiness for us." Where exactly have poorly researched, fraud infused, socio-religious, neo-paganism made its way in to the readiness matrix again…

It never fails that in or around Veteran’s Day, someone decides to show the world what a total jackass they are. And this year doesn’t disappoint. Meet Sufolk University law professor Michael Avery. Professor Avery is a member of the law school staff. He’s a Harvard grad who also studied at Moscow University from ‘68 to ‘69 (and that tells you volumes). He once gave a talk in Cuba (with Fidel Castro in attendance) entitled "The Hypocrisy of US Policy Towards Terrorism." Another member of the law school staff sent an email around asking for support for deployed troops (including a law student from the school who is deployed) to include pretty basic stuf…

An interesting discussion going on at AskReddit about the comparisons.... Let's say we go back in time with a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), since the numbers of members and equipment is listed for our convenience in this Wikipedia article , could we destroy all 30 of Augustus' legions? We'd be up against nearly 330,000 men since each legion was comprised of 11,000 men. These men are typically equipped with limb and torso armor made of metal, and for weaponry they carry swords, spears, bows and other stabbing implements. We'd also encounter siege weapons like catapults and crude incendiary weapons. We'd be made up of about 2000 members, of which abou…