Raw Intel

This is HMAS Sydney (FFG 03) firing a SM2 on June 18th test off Hawaii. This weapon system appears to be perfectly capable today. The United States Navy still operates many frigates that could, yet cannot, use this weapon system. I believe we may have been right to retire the missile when we did, but we have also been lucky we have not needed it. USS Halyburton (FFG 40) and now USS Carr (FFG 52) have been operating in the Mediterranean Sea near Libya, and Libya may indeed one day find a way to shoot ASMs at ships offshore if this war continues much longer. If they do, having a functional SM2 sure would be handy for protecting the ship... Just saying. …

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…

Want to see the next bubble? Over at FT, they have it for you - if you want to see it (click image for larger). According to the report , between 1990 and 2006 — the year in which issuance of Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) peaked — assets with the highest credit rating rose from a little over 20 per cent of total rated fixed-income issues to almost 55 per cent . Think about it. More than half of the world’s debt securities were, for all intents and purposes, considered risk-free . In 2006, that was nearly $5,000bn of assets. The financial crisis had a lot to do with triple-A ratings being slapped on to subprime securities which didn’t warrant t…

Chinese-made FN-16 man-portable air defense systems have appeared in service with soldiers of the air defense battalion of Ukraine’s 160th Mechanized Brigade, photographs published by the brigade’s press service confirm. The brigade’s press service published the imagery alongside a statement describing the unit’s around-the-clock mission. “Fighters of the anti-aircraft missile battalion keep the sky under […]View the full article

British participation in the Libya operation makes comments like this even more on point: It’s not just the Harriers and HMS Ark Royal. The loss of the Nimrod R1 patrol aircraft and the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft will make British participation in operations like the Libya NFZ much more difficult. That wouldn’t be such a problem were it not clear that the UK was very interested in participating in such operations. View the full article

Paul made this observation in an email; If this is for real, it makes the Tomcat look petite He's got a good point. Look at the size of the people relative to the aircraft. More importantly; check out that weapons bay. Unlike other internal weapons bays for internal air-to-air missiles - the J-20s is massive. Give it a look. Looks deep. That almost seems less a weapons bay than an old school bomb bay with plenty of room for all sorts of toys. How far back does it go behind that huge access door that is down? Perhaps, because it is a single, vice a folding door like the F-22, it just seems big. But ... the J-20 is a big bird. Ar…

From Mark Goldblatt at the Corner. Why do I have a sinking feeling that expecting the Libyan rebels to overthrow Qaddafi is like expecting the Coyote to catch the Road Runner . . . and that we’re about to become the Acme Corporation? I am still laughing since I read that. View the full article

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…

Were they ever? I will stick with my quote that they are the best friend about $5 B a year will buy, except you can't buy friends. We have some tough decisions to make and whether we keep paying a bunch of corruptocrat weasels who have never played straight with us is first and foremost. I don't have an answer yet, and I don't think there are any good ones. View the full article

Maybe it's Baghdad Bob. Sump'n. Here is a problem; a free press relies on honest information from government sources and industry in order to produce stories. The press also should make sure and have the right reporters focus on the right areas. When you have government sources living in PPTland, industry in full Bu11sh1t Bingo mode, and the press is full of restaurant and theater critics - I guess you git howlers like this from The Australian. They carry three helicopters and special forces units with armoured vehicles that can roll off a ramp into action, while fast gunboats can be launched from the stern. All at once? On bank holidays too? Does it …

The Salamander underground comes through. The report to Congress on Fire Scout referenced earlier this week can be found here. You have to skip the first 11 pages of letters to Congressmen and Senators to get to the meat. Head to the link above, give it a read and then come back. Let's discuss. Here are my Top-3. 1. Since Milestone C, the program has conducted extensive flight testing collecting 1,500 MQ-8B flight hours between March 2007 and March 2011 . Contractor developmental test pilots executing developmental test plans flew 1,250 of those hours. These developmental tests were not operationally realistic, and yielded little insight into the oper…

An F-35 Lightning II maneuvers overhead during its first flight at Eglin Air Force Base, April 23, 2009. The jet is a fifth generation, single engine, stealth capable strike fighter and can perform close air support, tactical bombing and air defense missions. If you've been paying attention to the battle for US air dominance, you might be, like me, a little wary of the comparisons and the rhetoric. Since there are numbers flying all over the place with regards to cost (mostly from PR firms), I thought we ought to take a look at what the REAL cost of an F-35 is...and we'll look at it in the same terms that the DoD/USAF use to evaluate the bids. First, we need to ta…

Heard the one about the UFO seen from NewFoundland? Check out the picture in the story. One might think the Canadians were watching the new French M51. Seems odd to me though. While the time would match up, that is a heck of a distance to get such accurate photography. In other news, North Korea looks to be preparing for their next ballistic missile launch. Not surprising, they traded artillery fire last night. Have you noticed Somali piracy has slowed down quite a bit in the new year? It must be coincidence the level of violence inside Somalia has risen considerably during the same time. They are different issues, but there are interesting patterns and relations …

This book is by a very interesting character whom I met (is whom right there?) when I joined the ad sales staff at madison.com, home of the two Madison papers. Not long before that there was a campaign to support the site that used some awesomely Soviet style, propaganda looking imagery including a red star (this is a very tame example, they had some much more Daily Worker ones). The funny thing was they denied it was at all based on that and claimed it was art deco or some BS. I wasn't buying it and hammered them on my blog on their own site. When I started working there, I went to see the marketing director, a guy named Jon Friesch, who(m?) I assumed was a left wing but…

What are the odds of this actually happening. Russian officials on Thursday said that the country will be completing the construction of a new class nuclear-powered destroyer by 2016. Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky told RIA Novosti that the prototype of the new class destroyer, which is designed to be used at sea, would be finished in around five years, adding that the warship had a 90 percent chance of being powered by nuclear energy. Vysotsky spoke at the 5th International Maritime Defense Show, IMDS-2011, in St. Petersburg, Russia, after Roman Trotsenko, President of United Shipbuilding Corporation, had previously stated that the company wa…

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Just saw some new photos of Varyag. Looks like they are close to finish painting the island. Not only that, I would saw that the structure of the island has now been modified to it's final form. I am just waiting for the sensors to be installed on the island. I have attached a photo of the mock up in Wuhan for comparison. I think that they should eventually look the same Picture of the full scale mock up in Wuhan for reference: View the full article

Today's guest is Robert C. Rubel, Dean, Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College. Is China the real Mahanian maritime power of the 21st century? Alfred Thayer Mahan’s book The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783 was published in 1890 and became a global best seller. The book itself had an influence on history, being read and acted on by Theodore Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm, among others. Of late, the Chinese seem to have developed an attachment to it also. Whether it will exert similar influence on their naval policy remains to be seen, but the question posed by Information Dissemination reveals the continuing reverence that is paid to Ma…

Here is a title that isn't shocking to anyone on the front porch; U.S. Navy Officials Suppressed Bad LCS-1 Test Results Mike Faybey's article at AviationLeak is worth a full read, so is POGO's say about it. Nothing really shocking in some respects, especially the testing information - but what is more interesting is what this tells us about the culture. There are two things that I think are the most important in the article. They are things that perhaps the general public does not fully get a grasp of, and sadly those inside the lifelines know so well that they are an accepted part of the atmosphere. First, like we discussed with Chris Cavas on Midrats last…

Nothing official yet - but from multiple sources including Norman Polmar, it looks like the push to chance the mission of USNI to make it an advocacy organization has been defeated. As a matter of fact, I will quote the good Dr. himself; All, The USNI Board of Directors has today decided unanimously to withdraw the proposal for a change in the Naval Institute's statement. [color= rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" > Yea!!! Does any more need to be said? On a variety of levels there are a lot of lessons for this battle and at some point a good POSTEX needs to be done - but for now, thanks to all who helped make this happen - and now lets enjoy…