Raw Intel

This will be a wonderful capability some day, but when, and at what price? Without timely and accurate intelligence, regardless of source, an operator cannot maneuver his fleet or employ his weapons. Whether we want to find, fix, and finish terrorists from the sea, or engage in long range maritime scouting against a belligerent Navy, a sufficient quality and quantity of "multi-int" capable air platforms is essential. The SECDEF realized in 2008 that a shortage of airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms was hurting our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Following some prodding, the Air Force finally shifted into gear and began to build…

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

Haven't tried the game, but the trailer is awesome: Haven View the full article

The Korean crisis is turning into a case study on escalation control. With the arrival of Bill Richardson to North Korea on Thursday, North Korea decided on Friday to wave their deterrent, again, in our direction. North Korea warned Friday that another war with South Korea would involve nuclear arms and spread beyond the peninsula, upping the ante as a prominent U.S. politician and a top U.S. nuclear envoy each visited Pyongyang and Seoul to defuse tension. Uriminzokkiri, the communist state's official Web site, also said in a commentary that war on the Korean Peninsula is only a matter of time, stoking already high tensions after the North shelled a western So…

Standard launching announcement; Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today announced the launch of the second Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) at the Navantia shipyard in Spain. The launch represented a major milestone in the shipbuilding process and was attended by the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs. Australia is acquiring two amphibious ships for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The LHDs are the largest ships ever built for the Royal Australian Navy and will provide the ADF with one of the most capable and sophisticated amphibious deployment systems in the world. The Canberra Class LHDs are bi…

The Economist in the last six months published a series of interesting articles on the challenges of anti-submarine warfare. As long time readers may have figured out, I love - from a professional perspective - ASW. Neglected and unloved by most, but to me a passion. Though few really cared outside fellow fetishists, I was actually damn good at it - for an officer. It is all math and a little bit of instinct built by experience, but since I got too old to play tactical and was needed elsewhere - and then after leaving AD totally out of it - I've had to nibble what I can off of open source. For those of you who share this passion, one thing we are always looking for is …

In his day he was reviled in ways that George W. Bush could commiserate about. He was denigrated as just an actor, a lightweight, an extremist and many other insults. And yet now he is revered by most including many on the left. His crime at the time was an Unapologetically American attitude, and it served him, and us, quite well. He stood up to the most existential threat this planet has ever faced, nuclear Armageddon. It is hard to convey to kids who don't even know what the Soviet Union was that there was a serious concern that we could actually destroy the planet. Not in the wimpy Al Goreacle-d way they are whingeing about now, but actually snuff out the human race …

For those interested in the DADT debate, I have posted a piece I wrote almost five years ago and my opinion is the same. DADT is a "gay" rule. It is silly to have gay service members simply pretend they are not. View the full article

First - I am not happy that Galrahn scooped me on this message ... but hey, no one's spies are perfect ... ahem ....... but, this is not a shock to the front porch. 2. SENIOR INSPECTOR COMMENTS: USS FREEDOM (LCS 1) IS EVALUATED AS A "NO-GO" AND IS NOT RECOMMENDED TO PROCEED WITH THE SCHEDULED SPECIAL TRIAL (ST). FREEDOM'S CREW AND CONTRACTORS WERE NOT PREPARED FOR THE INSPECTION. BOTH ENTITIES WERE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE CONDUCT OF INSURV MATERIAL CHECKS. EXECUTION OF THE SOE WAS VERY POOR . THERE WAS CONFUSION BETWEEN CONTRACTOR AND CREW RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF EQUIPMENT CHECKS. THE INSPECTION EXPERIENCE LEVEL FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE CREW IS LOW AL…

Loaded to the K-MAX (click to view full) With its 5,145 lb empty weight (2.3 metric tons), the K-MAX UAS cannot quite convey the same sense of graceful lightness as its Hummingbird Boeing competitor, coming at slightly less than half the weight. Belonging to a different weight class shifts the Lockheed Martin/Kaman helo to a different mission focus, with a clear emphasis on battlefield cargo resupply. K-MAX has a useful load of 6,855 lb (3.1 tons) vs. 2,500 pounds for the Hummingbird. Up to 6,000 lb (at sea level) can be attached to the cargo hook which is attached to a curved trolley system. Payload at 10,000 ft is still rated above 5,000 lb. (more…) View the fu…

Man I miss this guy. When I was in the Army and people asked me what I do, I used to say "I work for Ronald Reagan". He was glinting in the sun today and so I risked the ire of the airport cops to stand in the road and take this shot. He led from the front, and along with the Iron Lady and John Paul II stared down and shut down the Soviets, We could use some of that today. View the full article

Introduction Every spring semester, the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky launches a 24-hour policy crisis simulation. Thirty-five or so students are divided into 6-8 teams, each led by a faculty member or program graduate. Simulation Control, normally involving myself and one or more graduates or faculty members, manages the sim with a combination of remote and direct contact. The University of Kentucky School of Journalism coordinates with the Patterson School during the simulation, independently operating at least two news websites that cover the events in-sim. This year's simulation involved thirty-three students, …

Lets see, the US has rejected the Iranian nuclear proposal, Russia's Kommersant paper quotes an 'informed Israeli' source that Netanyahu flew to Russia to inform them about an impending Israeli attack on Iran. Interesting rumor, because if true it wouldn't be Netanyahu's first secret trip out of town this week, if the rumors are to be believed. Ramadan ends on September 19th. When the sun sets on Eid-al-Fitr, it will be the night after a new moon, so it will be a very dark night over Tehran. Gates comments about Iran this week didn't hint to urgency, rather it sounded to me like he was trying to be an arms salesman to the region. Maybe it's all part of a conspirac…

From almost day-one of the LCS saga, the turrets-like response to any criticism to the capabilities of this sub-optimal platform has been, “Swarm attack, swarm attack, swarm attack, boobies, pee pee†– or something like that. When the never-was-has-been that was NLOS was deleted from the PPT, about the only reasonable thing that could fill the literal gaping holes was the Griffin missile. After all, we all know in hushed tones the limitations of sensor to shooter of the single … yes single .. 57-mm “main†gun and they had to get something. An OK something now is always better than a perfect thing that may never arrive. The key is to know you just have an OK an…

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

The Chinese navy has long been accused of not showing enough transparency. While that has certainly really improved in the recent year, there are still plenty of areas that's hard for a blogger like myself to follow. Certainly, most of the surface combatants are easy to track, since many photos are released of them. Most of the subsystems and weapon systems on these ships are also quite transparent with some version of them offered for exports. There are some many news reports giving even more information on various naval ships and their subsystems. So which programs are noticeably absent from all these photos and news releases? The most obvious answers would be the…

I've been in a grumpy, snarky mood all week - why stop now? I always thought that San Francisco was a bad place for Starfleet Headquarters - so Brussels is not bad by comparison. Look. NATO Headquarters Brussels. When Anders Fogh Rasmussen drives to his office in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels in the morning, he gazes longingly at a large construction site across the street. The site, where construction cranes jut into the sky, will eventually be the home of the new, 250,000-square-meter (2.7-million-square-foot) NATO headquarters. Price tag: more than a billion euros. In 28FEB13 Dollars - that comes to over $1.31 billion. That is a lot for an organization …

Professor Bruce Fleming has some observations and thoughts over at The Chronicle of Higher Education; Should we keep the academies? Maybe there's a place for them, if we can eliminate their worst flaws. The academies attract a certain type of student: hard-charging, military-oriented, with expectations of both physical and mental challenges. But the academies squander that rich resource. If we want to preserve the academies, and can accept the fact that they don't produce better officers than the cheaper routes of ROTC and Officer Candidate School, it should be possible to find a serviceable hull of a military educational institution under all the barnacles. American ex…

What was that about not being able to fight once knocked down in plate armor again? View the full article

For previous installments, see Parts I, II, and III Ingredients of Counter-Deception How could a U.S. Navy battleforce then—or now—avoid defeats at the hands of a highly capable adversary's deceptions? The first necessary ingredient is distributing multi-phenomenology sensors in a defense’s outer layers. Continuing with the battleforce air defense example, many F-14s were equipped during the 1980s with the AN/AXX-1 Television Camera System (TCS), which enabled daytime visual classification of air contacts from a distance. The Navy’s F-14D inventory later received the AN/AAS-42 Infrared Search and Track system to provide a nighttime standoff-range classificati…