HG S2 (Intel Bot)

Americas

DARPA’s Operational Fires (OpFires) ground-launched hypersonic missile system has successfully executed its first flight test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Lockheed Martin built the system, which includes a Northrop Grumman rocket motor, and conducted the test.

Lockheed Martin won a $23.4 million contract modification to exercise options for the engineering, design, and technical services in support of the MK 41 Vertical Launching System electronic systems and computer programs. The deal combines purchases by the US and the governments of Japan, Spain, Canada, and Chile under the Foreign Military Sales program. Work will take place in Maryland, New Jersey, Washington and California. Estimated completion will be by July 2023.

Middle East & Africa

US President Joe Biden wants a Middle East Air Defense. This has been discussed in the recent weeks, leading up to US President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration is urging Arab nations to team up with Israel to counter Iranian missiles. The “MEAD,” as Israels Defense Minister Benny Gantz calls it, has already been operational and has successfully intercepted aerial threats. The alliance has reportedly brought together Israel and Arab states in the Middle East around a shared table in order to defend their countries from Iran and its proxies, which have increased their attacks, some of them deadly, in recent years.

Europe

The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has notified Congress of a potential foreign military sale (FMS) of AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAMs) to Norway. The estimated $950m FMS has been approved by the US State Department and includes associated equipment and support. As part of this deal, the Norwegian Government has requested up to 205 AIM-120 D-series AMRAAMs, 60 AIM-120C-8 or D-series AMRAAMs, and four AIM-120D AMRAAM guidance sections.

Asia-Pacific

The US State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) of Blanket Order Contractor Technical Assistance Support and related equipment for an estimated cost of $108 million. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) has requested to buy Blanket Order Contractor Technical Assistance support consisting of unclassified spare and repair parts and assembly for tanks and combat vehicles; logistical technical assistance; US Government and contractor representative technical and logistical support; and other related elements of logistical and program support.

The US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has notified Congress of a potential foreign military sale (FMS) of MK 54 lightweight torpedoes to South Korea. The FMS has an estimated value of $130m, which includes delivery of related equipment. Approved by the US State Department, the proposed sale includes 31 MK 54 all up round lightweight torpedoes along with recoverable exercise torpedo, storage and issue facility, torpedo containers, air launch accessories for rotary wing along with classified and unclassified torpedo spare parts.

Today’s Video

WATCH: AIM-120 AMRAAM Air-To-Air Missile Live Launch

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Reviewed by Lt Col Geoffrey R. Brasse, U.S. Air Force

Authors frequently engage in military history storytelling through eloquent discussions about battles, outcomes, victories, and defeats. These stories often focus on the personalities of the military leaders, with few details about those participating in the conflict. Former foreign correspondent and corporate writer Robin Knight, in his book Leaders: Profiles in Courage and Bravery in War and Peace 1917-2020, focuses on individual contributions to war history from a single educational source, The Nautical College, Pangbourne in Berkshire County, England. Founded in 1917 to improve cadet training for service in the Merchant Marines, many graduates found themselves as commanders and captains at the outbreak of World War II. Knight asks what motivated this group of students to exhibit significant personal courage and leadership in the face of great risk and why future generations continued to have distinguished careers.

Knight begins by defining courage as choosing to overcome one’s fear. He then highlights the courage exhibited by four Pangbourne graduates and recounts the events of their lives following Pangbourne that led to their recognition and receipt of national honors. In an era of war, with most young men participating in the war effort, these individuals stood apart with honor, humility, a sense of duty, and compassion for their fellow man. Surviving a failed bomb disarming and directing the treatment of the wounded before oneself serve as gritty examples of the successes and failures that highlight each person’s humanity. 

Following the opening dialogue, Knight uses skillful writing to coalesce meticulous research from oral history, published and unpublished memoirs, and historical documents into a detailed account of the lives of decorated Pangbourne graduates by service and conflict period, including their accomplishments in sports. The book is organized as groups of standalone stories connected by wars and is not a traditional history novel.  The value of Knight’s work is as a reference to the men and women who served behind various military commands or actions, supported by vignettes describing their character and accomplishments. The book is easily searchable to use as a reference with connections to further research opportunities in the bibliography. Compiling the stories, Knight makes the case that these imperfect men forged their values in school, and each faced their fears or challenges head-on. Researchers on British leadership, British private schools, and Allied military war decisions will find this book limited but valuable.

Considering Knight is a Pangbourne alumnus, the book does carry the feel of an alumni written book to promote their alma mater. The book’s organization is closer to an obituary page, highlighting each person’s life without strongly connecting the stories. Organizing the stories by battle, ship, or year may have allowed the reader to appreciate the history and human connections together instead of as stand-alone events. One example is the siege of Malta, referenced several times in different stories without any connection to other school graduates. As his third literary work related to Pangbourne, Knight has substantial documentation and details covering a century of alumni. His love for the school and its history helps the reader feel the character and struggles of many graduates, making it an enjoyable leisure read.

 Lt Col Geoffrey R. Brasse, U.S. Air Force, is part of the Military Faculty at Joint Forces Staff College.

Leaders: Profiles in Courage and Bravery in War and Peace 1917-2020. By Robin Knight (UK: Uniform Press, 2021).

The post Leaders: Profiles in Courage and Bravery in War and Peace 1917-2020 first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation.

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With the expected losses due to enemy action and mechanical failure, how do we plan to rescue aviators out of the water in the western Pacific?

What few subs we have will be fully employed elsewhere and really shouldn’t show themselves in a lot of those waters. We don’t have a lot of surface ships with helos either to spare.

As the USMC desires to make every island possible a fighting position, how do you supply them when their airfields – such that the are – are cratered by the PLARF conventional S//M/IRBM at D+1?

If your major airfields are unusable due to enemy military action or host nation political uncertainty ... how do you conduct long range ASW and reconnaissance as the Chinese fleet goes to sea and our satellites are blinded? What about tankers who use the same fields that our CVW are reliant on now that the same green-eyeshade pod-people got rid of organic tanking too (again, no - buddy tanking does not count).  

How limited is your ability to fully use your special forces if you cannot deliver and extract them in a theater dominated by shallow seas and countless islands, bays, coves, and rivers?

Why is your tool box limited to a flathead screwdriver and a hammer?

My entire adult life I have lamented the lack of seaplanes/flying boats in the toolkit of the US military. 

We had that capability in the past, but politics, green eye shade efficiency-cultists, and leaders of limited imagination but unlimited ambition stripped it away decades ago for the worst reasons possible. Some of our friends, like Japan, never did. Some opponents, like China, are rediscovering the logic of having such a versatile asset.

It is time again to discuss a huge gap in the US Navy’s toolbox; the seaplane.

Peter Ong at Naval News has a good update at a good – though not optimal – hope;

 “In terms of amphibious MC-130 demonstration, USSOCOM is actually going through some market research, currently, to see if we can identify any potential amphibious capacities to meet some of the SOF Requirements that are existing.  And currently AFSOC is also doing an experimental demonstration where they are planning on putting some float assemblies on a C-130 platform.  They use digital engineering as a major factor of reducing some of that risk and making some of those changes, and they have gone through some hydrotesting and some aero testing on a subscale factor.”

Good.

Better.

Best.

Yes, we should give a nod to the C-130 option, but should just buy what works NOW and works exceptionally well, the Japanese ShinMaywa US-2. 

If Japan can buy US built F-35s whole and in part, we can buy a few dozen US-2.

…and give them a great livery while we are at it.

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Americas

Boeing won an $18.6 million delivery order to procure the long lead components and parts in support of MH-47G rotary wing aircraft. The MH-47G aircraft provides US Special Operations Forces (SOF) heavy assault, rotary wing aircraft support. This contract action supports a requirement for replacement of the aging fleet of remanufactured MH-47G aircraft that has airframe components dating back more than 45 years and maximize commonality with the US Army’s CH-47F Block II aircraft. The Boeing MH-47G is a special operations variant of the CH-47 Chinook multi-role, heavy-lift helicopter. It is in service with the US Army Special Operations Aviation Command. The majority of the work will be performed in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. US Special Operations Command headquarters, Tampa, Florida, is the contracting activity.

Canada has awarded a contract to International AirFinance Corporation for the conversion of two A330-200 airliners into Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft. The value of the deal is $102 million and the planes will be delivered in winter of 2023. “The Government of Canada is committed to providing the Canadian Armed Forces with the equipment they need at the best value for money. We look forward to accepting these two aircraft as they represent an important first step in eventually replacing the capability currently provided by the CC150 Polaris fleet,” Defense Minister Anita Anand said.

Middle East & Africa

General Dynamics Information Technology won a $908 million deal for the US Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa information technology and enterprise network services. Work will take place at various locations in Germany, Italy, Turkey, the United Kingdom and other locations throughout Europe, and is expected to be completed by July 13, 2027, with an optional three-year ordering period ending July 13, 2030, and the ability for performance at the order level through July 13, 2032.

Europe

Airbus is proposing the H175M helicopter for Britain’s New Medium Helicopter (NMH) requirement and has announced the first UK-based members of H175M Task Force. The team members are: Babcock International, Martin-Baker, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) and Spirit AeroSystems.

The State Department of the United States has approved to sell Estonia the M142 high mobility artillery rocket system – known as HIMARS – and related equipment for an estimated cost of up to $500 million. According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the Estonian government had requested to purchase up to six M142 HIMARS launchers and equipment related to them. The total estimated cost is USD500 million. The M142 HIMARS is a light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s for the United States Army.

Asia-Pacific

North Star Scientific Corp. won a $14.4 million order, which provides for the production and delivery of 41 high power amplifier (HPA) units: six HPA units for System Configuration Set-11 E-2C aircraft; nine HPA units for E-2D crypto modernization and frequency remapping aircraft retrofits; 11 spare HPA units; and 15 HPA units for the government of Australia.  Additionally, this order provides for the production and delivery of 19 HPA units and vibration isolating tray assemblies with integral air plenums: 14 that are Multi-functional Information Distribution System – Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS-JTRS) compatible, and five that are MIDS-JTRS Link-16 compatible. As well, as provides engineering and engineering data support for HPA units kitting, installation, and testing. Work will take place in Hawaii and California. Expected completion will be in July 2024.

The United States is set to deploy eight MQ-9 unmanned air vehicles to Kanoya Air Base, Japan this month after the mayor of Kanoya reluctantly accept the deployment. Mayor Nakanishi Shigeru told the city assembly that he had little choice after the Japanese Defense Ministry presented measures to deal with possible accidents that may arise.

Today’s Video

WATCH: H175M in action

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A little more than 15-years ago after 93-years on our little planet, one of the greatest US Navy tactical leaders passed away.

He and his crew had an incredible record during WWII that I would encourage you to review in full here ... but after the Navy decided that they were running out of Navy Crosses to reward the man then all of 31-yrs old, he earned the Medal of Honor for events in his 11th Patrol.

Attention to citation:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of USS BARB during her Eleventh War Patrol” along the east coast of China from 19 December 1945, to 15 February 1945. After sinking a large ammunition ship and damaging additional tonnage during a 2-hour night battle on 8 January, Commander Fluckey, in an exceptional feat of brilliant deduction and bold tracking on 23 January, located a concentration of more than 30 enemy ships in the lower reaches of Nankuan Chiang (Mamkwan Harbor ). Fully aware that a safe retirement would necessitate an hours’ run at full speed through the uncharted, mined and rock-obstructed waters, he bravely ordered, ‘Battle Station—Torpedoes!” In a daring penetration of the heavy enemy screen, and riding in 5 fathoms of water, he launched the BARB’s last forward torpedoes at 3,000 yards range. Quickly bringing the ship’s stern tubes to bear, he turned loose four more torpedoes into the enemy, obtaining eight direct hits on six of the main targets to explode a large ammunition ship and causing inestimable damage by the result of flying shells and other pyrotechnics. Clearing the treacherous area at high speed, he brought the BARB through to safety and 4 days later sank a large Japanese freighter to complete a record of heroic combat achievement, reflecting the highest credit upon Commander Fluckey, his gallant officers and men, and the United States Naval Service.”

After receiving his Medal of Honor, Fluckey gave a signed card to each member of the crew that read as follows:

As Captain it has been an outstanding honor to be your representative in accepting the Congressional Medal of Honor for the extraordinary heroism above and beyond the call of duty which you and every officer and man in the BARB displayed. How fortunate I am, how proud I am, that the President of the United States should permit me to be the caretaker of this most distinguished honor which the Nation has seen fit to bestow upon a gallant crew and a fighting ship…the “BARB.”

Sincerely,

Eugene Fluckey

He was 32 at war's end and served until 1972 as a Rear Admiral.

What a life.

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Americas

Lockheed Martin won a $70.9 million contract modification, which increases scope to provide Reliability and Maintainability Improvement Program implementation and the Anomaly Failure Resolution System backlog in support of establishing improvements to the reliability, availability, and maintainability to the F-35 and continued improvements to the F-35 total ownership costs for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Foreign Cooperative Program partners, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work will take place in Texas. Estimated completion will be in July 2025.

General Dynamics-OTS won a $7.8 million contract action for the 40mm MK47 MOD0 Advanced Lightweight Grenade Launcher (ALGL) Weapon System sustainment parts, spares, and associated sub-assemblies for US Special Operations Command, Special Operations Forces, and other warfighting commands. The MK47 is a portable 40mm grenade launcher suited for light infantry vehicles and tripod applications. Work will take place in Saco, Maine. Expected completion will be by December 2023.

Middle East & Africa

Nigerian automotive manufacturer Proforce Limited has unveiled a lightweight combat vehicle for Nigeria’s infantry and special operations forces. Named the PF Fury, the new vehicle was introduced to the public during the Nigerian Army Research and Development exhibition earlier this month.

Europe

A former UK Royal Navy Hunt-class mine-countermeasures vessel is to undergo a regeneration and upgrade at the Harland & Wolff-owned Appledore shipyard in southwest England ahead of a new career with the Lithuanian Navy. The UK Ministry of Defense revealed on July t13 hat Harland & Wolff (Appledore) had been awarded a $65.4 million contract to return ex-HMS Quorn to service under the M55 Regeneration Project.

Britain’s Royal Air Force Typhoons have been conducting combat air training with Rafale fighter jets from the French Air and Space Force, flying from their base locations around the Eastern Mediterranean. Carrying out bilateral air-to-air combat training over the Eastern Mediterranean, the fighters were supported by air-to-air refuelling from an RAF Voyager.

Asia-Pacific

Local media has reported that the country’s H-20 long-range stealth bomber will soon conduct its first test flight. The test flight has been linked to comments by a senior official about the maiden flight of an aircraft of “historic and strategic significance”.

Today’s Video

WATCH: JThe Xian H-20 Bomber | Approaching the first test flight

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In an age of long range sensors and precision guided weapons, do we have the option to, with the exception of the most important, "bypass and haulass" through the Pacific's constellation of small islands between Hawaii and the Western Pacific and Australia like our ancestors did? 

Generations of American planners have just assumed that the Pacific WWII granted the USA was a birthright. We fought wars and guaranteed peace with certain assumptions that, in real time, are fading away in the presence of a rising power who is serious, focused, and knows what it wants.

It wants the Pacific and it seems we are helping them take it without a shot being fired;

Kiribati President Taneti Maamau's "surprise" announcement to abandon its membership from the region's premier policy and political body at the 51st Forum Leaders' meeting this week has heightened concerns the Micronesian nation is moving closer to China.

"I know they are cooking something with China," Tong, who led the atoll islands from 2003 to 2016, said.

"I think it would have started with the reopening of the Phoenix Island Protected Area."

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is the largest designated marine protected area in the world, spanning almost 400,000 sq km in the South Pacific Ocean, midway between Australia and Hawaii.

Sources have told RNZ Pacific that a possible deal may include exclusive access to Chinese vessels to the Protected Area.

Tong believed the move by the Maamau government suggested that it hoped to "gain from being isolated from the region" by striking a deal directly with China.

"It's totally unexpected. I did not think it was in our nature, in our character, to do something quite so radical like that," he said.

The Kiribati Government is under financial pressure due to the economic impacts of Covid-19 and the current drought.

They will take in peace with greed and corruption what in war they will use for obstruction and denial. They know that we cannot respond quickly at the far reaches of the western Pacific if we have to "clean up" the central Pacific first.

Remember what we discussed 14-months ago?

Here's the terminal end of the great circle route from San Diego to Australia.

Where does that great circle routs go by Kanton?

Yep. 28 nautical miles. 28.

You cannot classify geography or math. That is why the Chinese are interested in it. I can't blame them. If I were Chinese, I'd do the same exact thing. 

They know the USA can't rush to the aid of anyone from Taiwan to the South China Sea if they have to clean up what used to be their backyard first.

Time and distraction. Defense in depth. None of this can be classified. They are open to all.

The fun follow on question: what would they do with it?

We warned you.

h/t Zach.

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Funny, but I don't quite remember this twist from the shower scene in Starship Troopers;

Via the irreplaceable Kristina Wong;

The training slide offers a “vignette” instructing soldiers on what to do if they encounter a female soldier who identifies as male according to the Department of Defense’s personnel tracking system known as Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), but has not surgically transitioned and still has “female genitalia.”

The slide, titled “Soldier/Unit Training Barracks, Bathrooms, and Showers,” reads:

Vignette: Following his transition from female to male (which did not include sex reassignment surgery) and gender marker change in DEERS, a transgender Soldier begins using male barracks, bathroom, and shower facilities. Because he did not undergo a surgical change, the Soldier still has female genitalia.

The slide instructs soldiers: “Soldiers must accept living and working conditions that are often austere, primitive, and characterized by little or no privacy. … Understand anyone may encounter individuals in barracks, bathrooms, or shower facilities with physical characteristics of the opposite sex despite having the same gender marker in DEERS.”

We live in a strange place where politics trumps biology and cowards lead the brave ... but this is what we voted for - so lie back and think of England. 

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Americas

The US Navy and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) are wrapping up a five-year joint effort to develop high-power microwave technology capable of knocking out adversary electronics. The High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike (HiJENKS) weapon is undergoing a two-month test at Naval Air Station China Lake, California.

The Royal Canadian Navy will have to continue relying on allies and a private firm to refuel its ships at seas after a project to build a new fleet of supply vessels was hit with more delays. The service was supposed to receive its first joint support ship next year, but that delivery is delayed because of pandemic-related work issues and technical challenges.

Middle East & Africa

KBR Wyle Services LLC won a $9.6 million contract modification, which exercises an option to provide F/A-18 program management, engineering, financial and logistics support for the governments of Finland and Kuwait. Work will take place in Kuwait and Maryland. Expected completion will be in August 2023.

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has announced plans to unveil this month a new air-launched missile that can operate at a standoff range of up to 186 miles. The Ice Breaker, which the Israeli company said will make its public debut at the July 18-22 farnborough Airshow, is part of a missile family that includes the Sea Breaker.

Europe

Germany has received its first batch of anti-spoofing, anti-jamming military-code GPS equipment, in the first non-US sale of this equipment, manufacturer BAE Systems announced. The advanced M-code GPS receivers will be used for ground-based missions, BAE said in a statement

Asia-Pacific

BAE Systems won a $40.5 million deal for M88 recovery vehicles. The M88A2 Hercules (heavy equipment recovery combat utility lift and evacuation system) is a self-supportive armoured recovery vehicle used in battlefield rescue and recovery missions. Work will take place in Pennsylvania. Estimated completion date is April 30, 2024. Fiscal 2020 Foreign Military Sales to Taiwan funds in the full amount were obligated at the time of the award.

Today’s Video

WATCH: Just Unveiled: RAFAEL’s ICE BREAKER – 5th Generation, Air-Launched Long-Range Attack Weapon System

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The Commodore Dudley Knox Medal Presentation Luncheon at the Army Navy Country Club (Arlington, VA) on Thursday, 25 August 2022. We will be honoring historians Donald Bittner and Norman Friedman! Details to follow!

The post 2022 Knox Medal Presentation — Save the Date first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation.

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Reviewed by Jeff Schultz

John J. Domagalski’s Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead delves into the gut-wrenching experiences of an aging light cruiser caught up in the early Pacific War as part of the US Asiatic Fleet. Almost lost to enemy air attack and badly damaged during the Battle of the Flores Sea, the Marblehead’s crew fought desperately to keep their ship afloat which ultimately saved the day. 

Domagalski is a historian with multiple books and articles to his credit, often focusing on the Pacific War. The book consists of thirty-three chapters broken into several larger sections such as “War Clouds”, “Pacific in Flames,” “Fire from the Sky,” “Escape,” and “The Long Journey Home,” along with an epilogue, bibliography, endnotes and index. The text uses a large amount of eyewitness account excerpts woven into the narrative, supported with a photo section and a few helpful maps. This is one of the more seamless ship-based biography with the right amount of balance between the narrative and the many primary source pieces which flesh out the arcane elements coherently. 

Domagalski argues in this ship’s memoir that Captain Arthur Robinson’s resourceful crew made the difference, from the commanding officer down to the mess stewards, all of whom took part in the “herculean task” to save their ship. Everyone contributed in this all-encompassing team effort which permitted the ship to recover from the terrible beating it took from Imperial Japanese Navy “Betty” bombers on Wednesday, 4 February 1942, which nearly sank the vessel with two direct hits and a near miss which badly damaged the hull underwater. Several other ABDA cruisers were lost to enemy action in the East Indies campaign, including the USS Houston, HNLMS De Ruyter and HMS Exeter due to the Japanese control of the skies which makes this story all the more remarkable.

Marblehead was part of the Omaha-class of postwar light (“scout”) cruisers launched in the 1920s with four smokestacks which gave them a distinctive appearance reminiscent of the smaller “four piper” destroyers of the Wickes and Clemson classes. Top-heavy, with a suboptimal armament layout, the Omaha’s did not prove successful against more modern Japanese designs they encountered. Poorly equipped to deal with modern air threats, the ship lacked a suitable anti-air capability which was only remedied in later refits which allowed the ship to take part as support vessel for August 1944’s Operation Dragoon.

Domagaski follows the light cruiser from prewar to war’s end, along the way providing a brief glimpse of the US Asiatic Fleet which served mostly in China until forced to withdraw to the Philippines as war loomed. In this way the book is not only the Marblehead’s story but also that of the larger Asiatic Fleet which makes it more than merely a narrow look at one ship.

Admiral Thomas Hart, the commander of the Asiatic Fleet at war’s beginning, plays an important part in the story, which Domagalski wisely interweaves with the Marblehead’s exploits, is a critical figure that like the light cruiser, was a product of the prewar Navy who had one last war to fight. Hart’s combat career ends after the East Indies debacle but he continued on in administrative roles much as the repaired light cruiser did in the South Atlantic, serving the larger Allied cause in a secondary theater. 

Domagalski spends considerable time discussing the damage control efforts. This part of the book in particular is a tribute to the brave crew, a number of whom were killed or wounded in the air attacks. While the two direct hits caused considerable damage, the underwater near miss caused a disproportionate amount of trouble for the crew much as the heavy rudder damage which initially prevented anything other than circles. It was not until much later that the rudder could be properly repaired, so local ingenuity reduced the problem along with using engines to help steer the ship in the correct direction as an expedient solution.  

Aside from considerable suffering, there were some bright spots in the journey, such as when Marblehead escaped potential destruction in the cramped port of Tjilatjap on Java’s south coast, then later escaped again from British-held Sri Lanka, leaving for South Africa before Admiral Nagumo’s carriers raided the area for considerable loss and finally the sheer fact that the ship held together as it sailed alone limping over a great distance on its way to Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Among the vignettes featured is that of Dr. Corydon Wassel, USN who performed incredible feats which would be recounted by President Roosevelt in a “fireside chat” of 28 April 1942 later to the delight of a mass radio audience begging for heroes in the dark early days of the war. He took charge of ten US Navy wounded from USS Houston and Marblehead who had been offloaded as too badly wounded to continue a sea journey, but refused to abandon them; shepherding them using sheer force of will and luck via Dutch trains and ambulances plus a fortuitous British motorized column. Eventually they had a timely escape aboard the Dutch merchant ship Janssens from the endangered port of Tjilatjap and on to Australia after a harrowing encounter with strafing Japanese Zeroes, earning the Navy Cross for his brave actions. The Marblehead’s intrepid skipper Captain Robinson and several other sailors also earned the same prestigious decoration.

Domagalski’s Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead paints an engrossing tale of an obsolescent ship’s survival amid great odds set against the brutal early fighting of the Pacific War. This book will appeal to a wide audience not only as high wartime adventure but simply as a story of gritty perseverance when the odds are heavily against.

A past contributor, Schultz teaches history at a community college in Pennsylvania. 

Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead. By John J. Domagalski (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Military, 2022).

The post Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation.

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Well, yesterday another Midrats alumnus, Dr. James Kraska has a tightly written overview of some takeaways for him, and as always with Kraska's work ... his observations deserve close consideration.

The setback for Russia was apparently tied to the oldest of military challenges—force sustainment during combat. The capture of Snake Island may help Ukraine to position anti-ship cruise missiles south of Odessa to weaken the Russian stranglehold on the port city.

The Attack

The resupply ship that never reached Russian forces on the island is believed to be the Russian naval tugboat Spasatel Vasily Bekh. The ship had a loaded displacement of 1670 tons. Part of the Black Sea Fleet, the Vasily Bekh was launched in 2016 and commissioned in 2017. The tugboat is designed to provide towing services for ships in distress, firefighting at sea and ashore, freshwater and electrical supply to other vessels, and to evacuate injured personnel. It carried a complement of 20 crewmembers with capacity for 36 more people and could carry tons of supplies.

Coming after the sinking of the Black Sea flagship Moskva on April 14, the strike on the Vasily Bekh underscores the Russian Navy’s inability to establish sea control in the western area of the Black Sea. The Moskva was the largest Russian warship damaged by enemy fire since 1941, when the Luftwaffe damaged a Soviet battleship in Kronshtadt. The Russian withdrawal from Snake Island also demonstrates the importance of combat logistics. While Russia maintains internal lines of communication that can feed the Russian war machine inside Ukraine, the Russian element that occupied Snake Island had to be supplied from the sea, raising questions about the rules for targeting ships supporting the armed forces in war.

If you want to know the sobering reality of war at sea - especially how we have done it in our entitled mindset of decades of dominance at sea, read close his legal outline of  "Targeting Combat Logistics" next.

I don't know about you, but it immediately makes me want to ask some very hard questions to people who I don't think are ready for them.

Then I want you to play that out for the USA vs. China west of Wake. Heck, make it globe-wide.

Later in his article, a few conversations I've had with Claude Berube and my co-host from Midrats came to mind - about Letters of Marque. 

Where does Ukraine's government stand on Letters of Marque ... because as this war drags on ... there are some interesting options for them ... and depending on how that plays out, for any - ahem - nation that may find itself at war at some time in the future with the People's Republic of China;

Russia’s plans to leverage greater support from merchant ships also implicates the law of naval warfare. Russian-flagged merchant ships are liable to capture by Ukrainian naval forces, and they may be converted to use after adjudication of prize in a court of admiralty jurisdiction.

The Russian merchant fleet has 1,155 ships and 7.7 million deadweight tons and could serve as an effective force multiplier for the Russian military services. China’s merchant fleet is among the top ten largest in the world, with 87 million deadweight tons and 4,881 ships. Decimated by uncompetitive costs of operation resulting from the Jones Act, the U.S. fleet is shockingly small and shrinking. The number of U.S. oceangoing commercial ships in the U.S. merchant fleet fell from 282 vessels to 182 ships since 2000. This means that while Russia and China can supplement their auxiliary naval forces with national-flagged merchant ships, the United States would find that option more challenging.

This situation is ironic because unlike Russia and China, which enjoy internal lines of communication, U.S. requirements for force replenishment depend on a massive logistical flow to Asia and Europe. American forces operate forward, along the first island chain running from Japan to the Philippines, and on NATO’s eastern border in Europe. Sustainment of these forces likely would require merchant shipping. Like Russia, the United States may also resort to contracts with merchant carriers to provide force sustainment. These merchant ships would also be liable to capture by the enemy during armed conflict, and they may be attacked and destroyed if they resist capture.

Yes, there are a lot of maritime lessons in this mostly land-centric war. The longer this goes - if you are willing to open your mind a bit - the more interesting the implications that may evolve for the US national strategy - or at least in the classified annexes.

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Americas

L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace won a $23.5 million modification, which extends services and adds hours for continued depot level maintenance, logistics, and sustaining engineering services in support of the C-12 Navy aircraft and the C-12 Marine Corps Reserve aircraft. The Beechcraft C-12 Huron is based on the Super King and 1900 series platforms and serves with the United States military as a utility transport among other roles. Work will take place in Louisiana, Japan, Bahrain, Cuba, North Carolina and Maryland. Estimated completion will be in January 2023.

Boeing won an $18.7 million modification, which exercises options to procure the following aircraft armament equipment for F/A-18E/F production aircraft: SUU-79C/A wing pylons for 10 aircraft, SUU-80A/A low drag pylons for 4 aircraft, and ADU-773A/A adapters for 22 aircraft, as well as provide sustaining engineering. Work will take place in Arizona and Missouri. Estimated completion will be in August 2028.

Middle East & Africa

The Biden administration is reportedly discussing the possible lifting of its ban on US sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, but any final decision is expected to hinge on whether Riyadh makes progress toward ending the war in neighboring Yemen, according to four people familiar with the matter.

BIRD Aerosystems has announced that the company has completed an installation of its AMPS-MV Airborne Missile Protection System, which includes the MACS sensor, on UN Air Operations Mi-17 helicopters. The AMPS-MV systems is to protect the UN Air Operations VIPs when flying in Africa. This follow-on order comes after several previous installations of Bird’s products on UN Air Operations aircraft in recent years.

Europe

F-15Es and F-35As from Royal Air Force Lakenheath are now in Souda Air Base, Greece for Exercise Poseidon’s Rage. The exercise will take place from July 11-22 and Hellenic Air Force’s 115 Combat Wing will be the exercise’s host. This exercise is the first concurrent deployment of F-15Es and F-35As from USAFE to the same forward operating location. It is also the first time the F-35A from Lakenheath is deployed to Souda.

Asia-Pacific

The Taiwanese Air Force has demonstrated its new T-5 Brave Eagle advanced jet trainer at Chihhang air base in Taitung. The aircraft is a product of the country’s push to prioritize indigenous development of advanced military equipment amid increasing pressure from China. Developed by the state-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation, the T-5 Brave Eagle is suitable for air-to-air and air-to-ground combat training missions.

Today’s Video

WATCH: Taiwan bolsters defense as China increases military presence | DW News

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We were warned a few months in to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

We were warned again five years later when we were trying to source what was needed to support the uplift in forces in Afghanistan while Iraq still had high demands. 

Our allies pretty much went Winchester in the 2011 operations against Libya.

We can barely partially source small and medium sized conflicts ... we are not ready for a larger one.

That is a simple fact that seems too painful for people to clearly look at. 

Like the US Navy excels in damage control by design and training, in theory the US military writ large excels in logistics.

What good is the culture and practice if you lack the inventory to move, the production to create ... and even if you did, the strategic sealift and airlift to bring the weapons to the fight?

In peace and in bushwars you can get by with shortages as you can always scrounge around to fill gaps (I have fun stories from AFG, but maybe later), but in a great conflict - there is no untapped resource. You either have it or you don't.

At peace, "experts" will sell you comfortable theories about "short, decisive wars" and "72-hr war-winning CONOPS" that never pan out once the first ITL button is pressed. 

Over at FT, John Paul Rathbone and Steff Chavaz join the chorus trying to wake everyone up;

In May, when Washington ordered 1,300 Stinger anti-air missiles to replace those sent to Ukraine, the chief executive of Raytheon, the defence company that makes them, replied: “It’s going to take us a little bit of time.”

Paris, meanwhile, has sent 18 Caesar howitzers to Kyiv — a quarter of its total stock of the high-tech artillery — but it will take French company Nexter around 18 months to make new ones.

The Ukraine war has exposed the skimpiness of western defence stockpiles — especially of unglamorous but crucial supplies such as artillery shells that have been the mainstay of fighting. Lack of production capacity, labour shortages and supply chain snafus — especially computer chips — mean long lead times to replenish them.

The shortages, defence officials and analysts say, reveal the west’s complacency about potential threats since the end of the cold war, now shown up by the desire to shore up Ukraine with military support. Fetishes for high-tech weaponry and lean manufacturing have obscured the importance of maintaining stockpiles of basic kit, they add.

...

“It’s like the first world war’s great shell crisis,” said Shea, recalling a 1915 scandal when massive artillery use in trench warfare depleted British stocks, a shortage that led to high troop casualties and the resignation of prime minister HH Asquith.

Ponder this as well. The maritime domain has not been as tested as the land component the last few decades. As such, we can assume that our magazine inventory is even more "exquisitely" designed. 

In closed door sessions, I hope that Congress is demanding answers and hard numbers in this area ... and then will fund to fix them.

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Americas

Sikorsky Aircraft won a $32.6 million order, which procures one CH-53K containerized flight training device based on low-rate initial production Lot 4 configuration in support of CH-53K phase II training system efforts. The CH-53K  King Stallion is a new-build helicopter that will expand the fleet’s ability to move more material, more rapidly throughout the area of responsibility using proven and mature technologies. There are four System Development Test Article CH-53K with Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One (VMX-1). The squadron completed Initial Operational Test and Evaluation of the aircraft in 2022. There are 46 aircraft on contract, including four heavy lift helicopters for the government of Israel. Designed to lift nearly 14 tons (27,000 lbs/12,247 kg) at a mission radius of 110 nautical miles (203 km), in Navy high/hot environments, the CH-53K is capable of lifting almost triple the baseline CH-53E lift capability. Work will take place in Virginia, Connecticut and Florida. Estimated completion will be in December 2024.

A B-2 stealth bomber recently tested dropping a production unit of the B61-12 Joint Test Assembly using the Radar Aided Targeting System (RATS). The capstone test was carried out at the Tonopah Test Range on June 14. The 72d Test and Evaluation Squadron also took the opportunity to test the RATS Application Tool. The software allows pilots in the cockpit to verify that the RATS is operating correctly prior to weapon release.

Middle East & Africa

Elbit Systems announced the launch of a new range of vision systems for military helicopters, integrating sensor array, an artificial intelligence (AI) powered mission computer, and a Helmet Mounted Display (HMD) system. The technology is designed to enable helicopter pilots to see through the body of the aircraft, offering real-time, clear, coloured wide field of view during day and night operations.

According to Defense News, the Turkish government has officially launched a competition for the local development of a turbofan engine that will power the country’s national fighter jet in the making, the TF-X. Reportedly,  two Turkish engine makers, Tusas Engine Industries and TRMotor, have replied to the RFP.

Europe

The Norwegian Defense Material Agency has awarded a $15.2 million contract to German firm Hensoldt for upgraded Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF) technology. Under the contract, the company will deliver Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radars and LTR400 DNG transponders to the Norwegian military.

Asia-Pacific

France and India have agreed to co-develop a new engine for the Indian Multi Role Helicopter (IMRH) project. The 13–16 tonne IMRH is being conceived as a replacement for Mil Mi-17 utility helicopters, which form the mainstay of the Indian military’s heavy-utility rotorcraft fleet. IMRH will be capable of carrying out a wide variety of missions, including transporting troops, conducting assault operations, air maintenance and anti-submarine warfare.

South Korea will establish a strategic command by 2024 to oversee the country’s preemptive strike strategy and the assets to execute it, the Defense Ministry said. During a July 6 seminar led by President Yoon Suk Yeol, the ministry discussed key defense policies meant to counter the threat of North Korean nuclear missiles, including the Kill Chain strategy and well as more efficient efforts to develop defense capabilities.

Today’s Video

WATCH: Indian AMCA VS Turkish TF-X Fifth Generation Stealth Fighter

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Americas

The US Navy’s MQ-8C has tested the Single System Multi-Mission Airborne Mine Detection (SMAMD) system for the first time. Testing took place at Eglin Air Force Base in May, according to Naval Air System Command. “The team successfully demonstrated that the prototype SMAMD System effectively operates as designed aboard the MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter in relevant real world environments,” said Capt. Thomas Lansley, Fire Scout program director. “This cutting-edge technology could really enhance Fire Scout’s capability going forward.” Carrying out the tests in day and night, the team gathered data on drifting, tethered, and moored mines throughout beach zone to deep waters.

The F-16 Block 30 employed by 7 US Air Force guard units and 2 reserve units are now capable of firing the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). This was made possible by a team from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command Test Center (AATC).

Middle East & Africa

The Qatar Emiri Naval Forces (QENF) received a landing ship and three landing craft in a ceremony held at Anadolu Shipyard’s Tuzla facility, the Qatari Ministry of Defense and the Turkish company announced. The vessels were identified as the 80 m landing ship tank (LST) Fuwairit (QL 80), the two 40 m landing craft mechanised (LCMs) Ishat (QL 40) and Broog (QL 41), and the 15.7 m landing craft vehicle and personnel (LCVP) Al-Aaliya (QL 15).

Europe

The United States is sending to Ukraine up to $400 million in additional military equipment and supplies, including four more medium-range rocket systems and ammunition, as the embattled nation tries to repel Russia’s advances in the Donbas region. Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity on Friday, the official said the new US arms package would include four additional HIMARS and more ammunition, bringing the total number of these systems to 12.

Ukraine purchased 2,900 RGW 90 Matador portable anti-tank weapons manufactured by the German company DND, a subsidiary of Israeli Rafael Systems, according to German media). The RGW 90 Matador (also called Panzerfaust 3 in the German army) is a man-portable anti-tank rocket launcher weapon developed between 1978 and 1985 and first entered into service with the German army in 1987.

Asia-Pacific

Israel’s Elbit Systems announced on July 5 that it has been awarded a contract to provide direct infrared countermeasures (DIRCM) and airborne electronic warfare (EW) systems worth up to US$80 million for a country in Asia-Pacific. It will supply its C-Music DIRCM systems, as well as Infrared-based Passive Airborne Warning Systems (IR-PAWS) for different types of aircraft.

Today’s Video

WATCH: U.S. Navy MQ-8C Fire Scout Takes Off and Flight

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 It is a beautiful place today when you drive by it, but then you notice a curious red dragon facing a wood.

The Welsh soldiers were just seven months out of training when they entered into combat at Mametz Wood. Many had never fired a round in combat, and used broomsticks rather than rifles at drill practice.

In sharp contrast they faced the elite Lehr Regiment of Prussian Guards - highly-trained professional soldiers who were deeply entrenched in the dense woods.

Their trenches were dug into chalk and thick wire stretched through the battleground, while the wood was heavily fortified with machine guns.

Mametz Wood was the objective of the 38th (Welsh) Division during the First Battle of the Somme. The attack was made in a northerly direction over a ridge, focussing on the German positions in the wood, between 7 July and 12 July 1916 . On 7 July the men formed the first wave, intended to take the wood in a matter of hours.

Lord Thomas of Gresford recently highlighted the role of the Division in the House of Lords, describing the loss of men in the battle as a "huge tragedy for the whole of Wales".

He said 1,000 men from the Rhondda Regiment went in to battle that day, but only 135 men answered the roll call the following day. ... 3,993 killed or injured there.

The poet Robert Graves fought in the battle and, having gone back into the wood once the battle was finally over, wrote:

"It was full of dead Prussian Guards, big men, and dead Royal Welch Fusiliers and South Wales Borderers, little men. Not a single tree in the wood remained unbroken."

Take some time to follow the links above and read up on this little snapshot of the sacrifice from WWI years before the USA threw its hat in the ring - especially this one about what a walk in the woods is like today.

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There is a lot of money floating around the USA's defense budget and yet in the post-Cold War period no one feels we are making progress. On the naval surface side of the house, the promised future seems to underperform (LCS), be stillborn (DDG-1000), never arrive (CG(X)), or become limping testimony of institutional arrogance (FORD).

On the land side, any attempt to move beyond Cold War era platforms fail to transition past prototype from self-propelled howitzers to amphibious assault craft. 

In the air, we cancelled F-22, overestimated F-35, and are to the point we are restarting the F-15 line in an echo of Navy's restarting DDG-51 last decade.

Why?

We did this to ourselves. In 1986 Goldwater-Nichols was signed along with the cult-of-the-Joint that followed and the now accretion-hobbled post-Cold War acquisition system that is more interested in process - and itself - than actually producing things that displace water, make shadows, and can engage an enemy.

Our natsec nomenklatura on balance is motivated by something - incentivized by something - but providing usable kit serving to support national security needs of our nation is not it.

Desert Storm in 1991 was won by the pre-Goldwater-Nichols military. Since then, we were defeated by a pre-modern culture in Afghanistan, Iraq is still a wreck in progress, and our enemies seem comfortable in calling our bluffs - some successfully, some not.

We are not hopeless or completely unable - mass has use and we are in most areas still the big kid - but we are underperforming and allowing our comparative advantage to fade year after year in to parity - when we should be moving from strength to strength.

It doesn't have to be like this - but we seem happy to allow it to be.

The same institutions and mindsets that failed to see the obvious collapse in Kabul not even a year ago, failed to see Russia's advance in to Ukraine this winter. No one is accountable. Everyone thinks they did a good job.

...and yet, the national security apparatus at the dawn of the second half of 2022 wants you to believe that this time, in the face of China's rise, they will get it right.

They use "pacing" to describe a threat that is gaining, passing, or lapping our own. They come up with their buzzwords and promises each POM cycle as if they have always gotten things right before - and as they had in the 30+-yrs they have owned our system - that they have all the time in the world to get their contracts, generate their white papers, pad their resumes, and prepare for their just reward.

We should defer to them. We should acknowledge their authority. We should be thankful they are in power.

Since the "do more with less" of the Perry years of the 1990s, through the Age of Transformation of the Rumsfeld era, to the distractions of petty domestic political games and reputation-covering of the last decade and a half, we find ourselves losing our status of the primary power in the Pacific to a nation all the Smartest People in the Room™told us was a peaceful rise, a way to get rich, ... a fair partner in the international system ... you know the drill.

We accepted the promise of a future that was never delivered, are less secure than we were, and then the same people, processes, and organizations who got us here demand that we should quietly accept their continued leadership.

Bullshit.

The future is here, we were lied to, the nation's security is weaker than at any point since the 1980s, and the worst people have gotten rich in the process.

In an ideal world, Congress would already have Goldwater-Nichols replaced with something more aligned with this century and not the last; our moribund, corrupt, and incompetent acquisitions system pulled up root and branch and replaced; the institutional ball-gag and intellectual lobotomy of Joint would be gone - but alas - we don't live in Salamanderland.

We have what we have, and smart people are doing their best to bring attention to the crisis at our feet from a lack of Congressional action and Executive Branch imagination.

The future is here and time is short.

One of the best natsec minds out there, Mackenzie Eaglen, put out over the weekend a must read. If I could make her Empress I would, but instead all I can do is help spread the world. Head on over and read her article in Real Clear Defense in full. Here are the bits I hope people learn by heart;

The U.S. military’s conventional deterrence and global leadership will also extinguish if time is continually wasted on uncertain wishes for an equally uncertain tomorrow. Unlike the financial state or strategic posturing of American military forces, there is one variable of which neither Congress nor the Executive has control—one that burns away irrespective of perception: time.

Two generations of leadership consumed two generations of possible, incremental gains in capability and achieved nothing but broken promises and IOU's. Heck, "we" even had to trick the system and fool ourselves to get the Super Hornet in production by acting like this new airframe was just an update to an existing one.  That was the exception. 

Never forget, there is a lot of money to be made on extending development times, prototyping things that can never be brought in to production, or allowing the good idea fairy to go on a drunken requirements rampage without adult supervision. There is also a lot of money in killing potential advances - like the X-47B - from going in to production to keep the high-margin developments in place without endangering paranoid communities until certain year-group leader's retirement dates arrive.

Cynical? Sure. Based on fact? Yes.

As the military enjoys the luxury of manufactured peace until 2027 based on optimistic assumptions, Pentagon leaders are simultaneously giving away permanent combat power and capability today as troops wait for the vaunted tomorrow to bear fruit.  

Defense planners are moving far too fast in giving away what cannot be clawed back and far too slow in estimating when Beijing might move forcibly against Taiwan. This is both an invitation for aggression and a recipe for failure.

Why is our primary warship class in 2022 derived from a platform designed before Goldwater-Nichols/JCIDS/Joint grew deep roots? Did we learn nothing from the premature decommissioning off the OHP FFG and SPRUANCE DD for the promise of LCS and DDG-1000?

Accepting a unilateral drawdown of trained manpower, capacity, training, and posture throughout the next decade will result in a self-inflicted stasis, in which our weapons and warfighters become more like antiques than armed forces—expensive yet impractical.

The Pentagon and Congress have for three decades delayed modernization critical to the sustainment of credible U.S. combat power. Backs against the wall now, policymakers must not cede American military supremacy to a “dusty death,” but rather revise the pace of productivity by accepting that the armed force cannot survive on “buying time” to gain capability, but rather buying capability to gain time.

No more Charlie-Brown and Lucy with the football. There is no time to "divest to invest" and we should have enough self-respect to stop deferring to people, institutions, and processes that have failed us for generations.

As Jerry Hendrix mentions in his recent article over at National Review; the Chinese are serious in their plans while we are ... doing what exactly?

China is willing to suffer pain to surpass the West and revenge its “century of humiliation.” We can expect that China’s new supercarrier will go to sea often to test its new capabilities and then begin putting its new aircraft and pilots to their paces. China already has two more Type 003 supercarriers under construction and is on pace to produce one every 18 months for the foreseeable future. We struggle to build a new carrier every four years. With its construction capacity, China will soon have the upper hand in sea control and power projection in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

In addition to the changes outlined above and in previous posts, let me remind you of other acts I have been asking for the last few years when "The Long Game" became the next away game; 

1. No weapon system presently under production will be allowed to stop production until its replacement is under production itself.

2. Acknowledge we have lied to ourselves for decades actual magazine requirements in war (use "new" lessons from the Russo-Ukraine War for the tender to save face - whatever works) - and accelerate/restart production of everything from ASW weapons to strike weapons of all types.

3. Acknowledge that we do not have enough weapons - specifically anti-air and land attack - weapons on our warships. Every war proves this and recent experience tells us this.

4. If I take away your access to satellite VOX & DATA and you cannot navigate and fight, you are not a wartime asset and your funding sent somewhere useful.

5. Accelerate capacity for repair away from fleet concentration areas, preferably afloat. Maximize production of sealift and begin the process to replace the C-5M.

6. If your combat unit does not have organic, robust unmanned ISR under the command of your unit's commander, you are worthless in the war to come and you will have such a capability by FY25 or you will be disestablished.

7. Pass the Salamander Bill: no General of Flag Officer shall, for a period no less than 5-yrs from retirement date, receive compensation of any kind or anything of value from any publicly or privately held company that does business with the federal government, nor shall they serve in any non-paid positions with same.

Yes, #7 is important. If you have not realized why in 2022, you are part of the problem.

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Americas

General Dynamics Land Systems won a maximum $145.5 million deal for multiple spare parts in the Abrams Main Battle Tank, Stryker Family of Vehicles, Light Armored Vehicle Family of Vehicles, Cougar, Buffalo and RG-31. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 US Code 2304(c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The M1 Abrams entered service in 1980 and currently serves as the main battle tank of the United States Army and formerly the Marine Corps.  Work will take place in Florida. Estimated completion date is July 29, 2029.

Booz Allen Hamilton won a $15.5 million contract modification to exercise Option Year Four for analysis support services for III Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Installations Pacific (MCIPAC). Work will be performed in Okinawa, Japan, and is expected to be completed July 7, 2023. The MCIPAC Regional Contracting Office, Marine Corps Base Camp Butler, Okinawa, Japan, is the contracting activity.

Middle East & Africa

The Algerian People’s National Army (ANP) unveiled the T-62 tanks that it has converted into fire-support vehicles during the parade marking the 60th anniversary of the country’s independence on July 5. The parade included 10 of the conversions, which involved replacing the tank’s original turrets with the Russian-made Berezhok turret that has been used to upgrade many of the ANP’s BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles. This involved fitting an additional armoured collar around the T-62’s turret ring to accommodate the smaller diameter of the Berezhok.

Europe

Ultra Electronics Ocean Systems won a $42 million deal supporting the production and delivery of Acoustic Device Countermeasure (ADC) MK 2 and ADC MK 2 training devices used on surface vessels and submarines. This contract has a five-year ordering period from fiscal years 2022 to 2027, and potential deliveries of Foreign Military Sales units and services in support of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Work will take place in Massachusetts, Virginia and North Carolina. Estimated completion will be in July 2027.

Germany’s federal government approved the draft 2023 federal budget, as well as finance plan 2022?26 and the Bundeswehr special fund announced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Military spending for the next four years reflects the benchmarks decided by the federal cabinet in March, having been revised upwards by only a few million euros. Core defence spending in 2023 will amount to $55.4 billion, a 0.6% nominal decrease from 2022 but a EUR2.76 billion increase compared with the estimate in the finance plan approved in June 2021. The core allocation to defence is set to remain flat in nominal terms until 2026.

Asia-Pacific

Royal Thai Navy spokesman Vice Adm Pokkrong Monthatphalin announced that the service has selected the Israeli Hermes 900 after closing an international bid. The contract is worth around $110 million and the contract is expected to be signed this month. According to the news report, vendors from China, Turkey and United States also bid in the competition.

Today’s Video

WATCH: Elbit Systems / HERMES 900 MCA DEMO

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Americas

Lockheed Martin won a $22.6 million contract modification, which adds scope to procure 22 Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System shipsets for Distributed Aperture System for Technology Refresh-3 developmental and operational testing, Block 4 testing, the Electromagnetic Environmental Effects aircraft, and a spare sensor set provision in support of F-35 Lightning II next generation capabilities. Work will take place in Texas. Estimated completion will be by July 2023.

MH Systems won a $24.7 million deal for the purchase of aircraft painters manpower support. This contract provides for the augmentation of 402d Aircraft Maintenance Group organic forces for depot paint and de-paint operations for current and incoming workload for C-5, C-17, C-130, F-15, Global Hawk and JSTARS weapon systems. Work will take place in Georgia. Expected completion date is July 17, 2027.

Middle East & Africa

Qatar has given Lebanon’s cash-strapped armed forces $60 million, the foreign ministry in Doha announced. “The announcement comes within the framework of the State of Qatar’s firm commitment to support the Republic of Lebanon,” the ministry said in a statement. Lebanon defaulted on its debt in 2020, the local currency has lost around 90 percent of its value on the black market, and the UN now considers four in five Lebanese to be poor.

Europe

The Finnish Border Guard has awarded a contract to Meyer Turku for two new liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered offshore patrol vessels (OPVs). The new vessels will be an improved variant of the OPV Turva, which was commissioned into FBG service in 2014 as the world’s first LNG coastguard ship.

The contract will provide post-design services for armoured platforms including Bulldog, Warrior, Challenger 2, Challenger 3 when in service and other vehicles. According to a contract award notice, the Land Equipment Vehicle Support Team, part of the Ministry of Defence, intends to award a single-source contract for up to 5 years plus two option single years (total maximum contract duration including options is 7 years) to Rheinmetall BAE Systems (RBSL) for provision of Post Design Services (PDS) activity for current in-service armoured platforms.

Asia-Pacific

The Indian Army has issued a tender to local defense firms for 30,000 night sights for its US-made rifles. The sights will be installed on the country’s American SiG Sauer assault rifles to support soldiers patrolling its borders with China and Pakistan. The new device must reportedly have an adjustable illuminated Bullet Drop Compensator reticle pattern to enable target detection up to 600 meters.

Today’s Video

WATCH: C-5 Galaxy – the story of a flying whale

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Americas

The Iowa Air National Guard has repainted an F-16A static display in a gold paint scheme. This scheme replicates the F-16C that was painted in gold back in 1996 to commemorate the 185th Fighter Wing’s 50th anniversary back then. The original F-16C #85-1565 is now a QF-16 and will eventually be destroyed during live-fire training exercise.

Northrop Grumman won a $337.9 million deal, which provides researching alternatives, investigating and documenting new capabilities and anomalies related to H-1 avionics and weapons; and the development, integration, verification, validation, and testing of H-1 Integrated Avionics Systems, as well as identifies maintenance capabilities, upgrading and/or updating test equipment and other support equipment required to support the systems. Work will take place in California. Estimated completion will be in June 2027.

Middle East & Africa

The Israeli Air Force has wrapped up its investigations into an AS565 naval helicopter crash that killed both pilots on January 3. Investigators found that aluminum parts deep inside the helicopter’s engine had corroded and a turbine blade had broken off while leading to a fire. The manufacturer does the inspection of the components and this component is not part of routine checks stipulated by the helicopter’s manufacturer.

Amentum Services won a $16.9 million modification for maintenance, supply and transportation logistics support services for Army Prepositioned Stocks-5. The Army Prepositioned Stock program is a cornerstone of the Army’s ability to rapidly project power and send a clear signal of U.S. commitment. Sets of equipment, such as all the tanks and wheeled vehicles of an armored brigade combat team, are strategically prepositioned in climate controlled facilities worldwide. Work will take place in Kuwait. Estimated completion date is January 2, 2023.

Europe

Jane’s reports that France, Germany, and Sweden have agreed development of a new fixed-wing medium-lift transport aircraft. The French Ministère des Armées reported the agreement, saying that the three countries launched the Future Mid-Size Tactical Cargo (FMTC) programme during the Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace (AAE)-hosted French Presidency of the Council of the European Union (PFUE) European Wings event.

Asia-Pacific

A KF-21 fighter prototype was spotted undergoing ground tests at Korea Aerospace Industries’ facility near Sacheon airport, South Korea.  Located south of the country, Sacheon Airport (HIN) houses the headquarters of Korea Aerospace Industries, which develops and manufactures the upcoming 4.5 generation fighter jet. The 3rd Flying Training Wing of the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) is also based in the vicinity of the airport.

Today’s Video

WATCH: KF-21 Boramae undergoing ground test (higher quality)

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Reviewed by Jeff Schultz

Marc Lohnstein’s The Netherlands East Indies Campaign 1941-42: Japan’s Quest for Oil covers a typically unheeded early Pacific campaign, fought for the resource rich Dutch East Indies, which showcased a dysfunctional Allied coalition effort conducted under fraught circumstances exacerbated by prewar decisions but which fought desperately until overwhelmed.  

Lohnstein is a historian, assistant curator of the Royal Home for Retired Military Personnel and Bronbeek Museum in Arnhem, and a writer who focuses on Dutch colonial topics.This 96-page Osprey monograph is divided into several sections: “Origins of the Campaign,” “Chronology,” “Opposing Commanders,” “Opposing Forces,” “Opposing Plans,” “The Campaign,” and “Aftermath” along with a bibliography, and index; well-supported by many photos, detailed color maps, orders of battle, and a selection of color plates. 

Lohnstein argues the Imperial Japanese naturally looked for a replacement to fuel its truculent war machine once President Roosevelt ceased delivery of American oil. The Dutch East Indies arose as the clear answer, part of the grandly euphemistic “Southern Resource Area.” Risky, yet well-executed Japanese attacks followed, which the Allied nations failed to stop, making defeat inevitable as Imperial Japan reached the Australian periphery. 

Geography and colonialism played outsized roles in this particular campaign. The massive, scattered East Indies archipelago consisted of thousands of islands, which the Dutch already admitted they could not defend effectively in 1927. An enemy could choose where to strike and bypass troop concentrations in favor of easier pickings elsewhere. As such, even attempting to coherently defend the islands was dubious. Java, the central administrative and population nexus, was the key to the defense with both air and naval bases. Consider further that the manner in which the Royal Netherlands East Indies forces were raised was as a relatively small internal security force drawn from Europeans and friendly locals in charge of overseeing a much larger and potentially hostile population, similar to the German colonial Schutztruppe concept. External threats took second place to bureaucratic exigency in the Java defense scheme with predictably catastrophic results. The purpose of the Dutch colonial forces and often ad hoc nature of the other Allied forces sent to reinforce them speaks volumes as to the difficulties they faced against a well-trained, better supported, and aggressive foe.

Lohnstein also addresses Allied difficulties which are not widely understood, what on paper seemed like a clear chance to unify the available combat power under the temporary ABDACOM (American British Dutch Australian Command) could never realize the potential due to lacking command, language, doctrinal, equipment woes and pervasive hubris. Tokyo was badly underestimated and dismissed by Allied planners instead of treated as a real threat. The British put more importance on Malaya and supposedly impregnable Singapore, much as the Dutch wanted to protect their possessions while the Americans and Australians tried to support their allies with often ill-equipped, battered or inexperienced forces. The Japanese accurately expected the Dutch colonial forces to fold under pressure, and Allied troop quality remained a worrisome factor as evidenced by events in Malaya, Singapore and the Philippines as the myth of an unstoppable enemy grew. By March 1942 the Dutch fought on with whatever Allied forces could not escape from Java until defeated.

Lohnstein thankfully spends time discussing the equipment fielded by the belligerents, developing the key differences, such as Allied units often lacking support weapons, equipment, or spares. Sparse Allied armor was heavily outnumbered, not to mention Allied air units were outmatched, while the coordination between Japanese ground, air and naval units exceeded anything they faced. Leadership also favored the Japanese, who fielded aggressive commanders willing to improvise against Allied leaders who often struggled to control their units, maintain communications or otherwise react coherently to threats. The Japanese lack of sufficient naval vessels forced them to get creative and take chances, which worked in the early campaigns although remaining a challenge going forward, as Tokyo never had enough assets to meet the needs of a far-flung empire. The captured oil facilities never really produced as hoped due to a lack of tankers and predatory Allied submarines which denied the full benefit of their conquests. 

Lohnstein presents the Japanese forces as more varied than some might realize, with paratroopers playing an important role seizing critical facilities at Menado, Palembang and Timor. Additionally, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy suffered from a bitter interservice rivalry throughout the war, regardless of their early successes. The Japanese doctrine of capturing airfields, then gaining air superiority over intended targets which led to successful amphibious landings is well profiled as a key to their early successes; not only due to their superior aircraft and pilots but the relative paucity the Allies could bring to bear with regard to lacking pilot skill level and air defenses plus obsolescent aircraft and ships. The Japanese also committed brutal atrocities during the campaign and later as the occupiers. The prevailing view of Europe as first priority, which led to the British assignment of the American-made Brewster B-339 fighters to the Far East, came to haunt London as the impressive warships of “Force Z”, HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales, were sunk in a stunning demonstration of modern airpower. Similarly, the outdated ABDA fleet collapsed under sustained aerial and surface attack, while nimble Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes bested the outclassed Allied fighters that rose to stop them. Among the ABDA naval assets were the remnants of the once proud U.S. Asiatic Fleet, which ceased to exist thereafter.

Marc Lohnstein’s The Netherlands East Indies Campaign 1941-42: Japan’s Quest for Oil provides much-needed depth for an interesting, yet ill-fated early Allied coalition attempt that failed miserably to stop Imperial Japan but paved the way for later more successful coalition efforts as a valuable case study. It will appeal to Pacific War enthusiasts, leaders, veterans and anyone seeking a cautionary tale about lack of preparations for the next war, overconfidence, and valiant efforts against an inexorable tide.

A past contributor, Schultz teaches history at a community college in Pennsylvania. 

The Netherlands East Indies Campaign 1941-42: Japan’s Quest for Oil. By Marc Lohnstein (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

The post The Netherlands East Indies Campaign 1941-42: Japan’s Quest for Oil first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation.

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There are many fine traditions in the naval service, especially in the Anglosphere. One of the best was summarized by Admiral Nelson, RN.

When in doubt, attack. That bias for action in the face of a threat is an admirable trait, especially when contrasted with a more common human reaction – to freeze. 

As we have evolved as a species, other reactions developed past these Upper-Paleolithic instincts of Homo Sapiens. Indeed, in the modern evolution of Homo Bureaucraticus, scapegoating and blame-shifting, have sadly become more common through natural selection. In Ottomanesque bureaucracies, game recognizes game, and such responses are rewarded and passed along generation afte generation, eventually being a characteristic trait of a sub-species. 

Megan Eckstein kicks the work week off with a broad ranging, complicated, and important development in the story of the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), whose two-year anniversary will arrive at the end of next week.

I see it as two interrelated stories; our Navy’s institutional failure of the fundamentals (Part I), and a gentleman’s response to an attack on his honor (Part II)

We’ll do a “Part-I” and “Part-II” format.

Before we dive in to Part-I, let’s review a few entering arguments which have anchored many conversations here over the last 18-yrs that apply here.

1. The Navy’s investigatory and legal system is no longer fit for purpose. It is hopelessly compromised by a culture infected with undue influence, sloth, and self-focus.

2. No one can trust a “Big Navy” investigation. The smart will lawyer-up early with outside counsel, keep meticulous records with secure backups, trust few, and suspect anyone who directly or indirectly will benefit from their downfall. It isn’t always about right and wrong, the longer it goes on it brings out the worst aspects of our adversarial legal system – it is about what can be blamed on whom not in the service of justice, but in service to the career goals of those conducting the investigation and prosecution.

3. We have too many Flag Officers with too few real Flag Officer responsibilities. As such, we have a warped culture where large numbers of ambitious people are underemployed and seek authority yet wish to avoid responsibility as demanded by our present system of incentives and disincentives. 

Part I: C2 Matters

I hope Megan does not mind me pulling so much from her article, but especially for those who have served in staff positions, the core to this story if the C2 diagram (Figure 1) in para 6 of Enclosure (3) of OPNAVINST 3440.18 Dated 13 Nov 2018.

To start out, no, I have no idea what the doctrinally correct definition of a “Bridge Line Command” is. 

I spent 9-yrs of my 21-yr Navy career as a staff officer on USA and NATO Staffs with untold hours working on C2 diagrams and relationships. I have never heard of that term, and a little googlefu cannot find in defined anywhere and only see it referenced directly or indirectly to 3440.18. If you can find anything better, please let us know in comments. 

Additionally, para 6 ends with the phrase “command bridge line” that is also a term I am not familiar with. I can only find one other Navy use of it in a NAVSEA document referring to communications. I will assume it is related to para. 3 of Encl.(3) but the list there is not fully congruent with the strange dashed box in Figure 1 of Encl.(3) … so, we’ll just put it to bad staff work.

So, yeah … how this ever got approved is beyond me, but it is what we had … and bad staff work usually manifests itself with poor results in the field … and here we are.

So, there is no definition of what the solid lines are in the diagram vs the dot-dash line … there are all sorts of inadequacies with the diagram itself and I’m not going to pick it apart anymore, but the important part is on the previous page in paras 1 and 2:

1. The chain of command is provided graphically in figure 1 of this enclosure. As the in-hull incident commander, the ship’s CO controls all damage control efforts on board the ship. The CO is assisted by a fire department senior fire chief or officer and naval supervising authority project superintendent (if applicable).

2. The area or unified area commander will remain in constant contact with the in-hull incident command. All requests for additional resources, special equipment, or technical expertise will be passed through the area commander. The area commander will man all bridge lines.

This is rather clear, “…the ship’s CO controls all damage control efforts on board the ship.” So is, “All requests for additional resources, special equipment, or technical expertise will be passed through the area commander.” … and the Area Commander reports to the Primary Commander (Fleet Commander).

So, I believe the “Area Commander” here would be CNRSW and the “Primary Commander” would be C3F.  BTW, why does Commander Navy Region Southwest hardly get any mention here? Seriously, I have no idea.

Now that we have this. Behold this mess;

The initial response to the July 2020 fire that destroyed the multibillion-dollar amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was uncoordinated and hampered by confusion as to which admiral should cobble together Navy and civilian firefighters, according to new information from the then-head of Naval Surface Forces.

The discombobulation in those early hours meant sailors may have missed a small window to contain the fire in a storage area. One admiral who said he lacked authority to issue an order pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier. And when that admiral — now-retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown — found the situation so dire that he called on other another command to intervene, it refused, Brown said in an interview.

...

Brown, as the type commander for surface ships, said he should have played a supporting role the morning the fire broke out.

...

So Brown called ship commanding officer, Capt. Gregory Scott Thoroman, who said he and the crew had left the ship and were on the pier. The investigation into the fire noted the crew pulled out of the ship twice during the firefight that morning.

Thoroman should have been coordinating with the base’s Federal Fire Department and the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, collectively forming the incident command team, according to a 2018 Navy instruction laying out fire prevention and fire response responsibilities for ships in maintenance.

...

With the Navy’s organization falling apart, he called the Expeditionary Strike Group 3 commander, Rear Adm. Phil Sobeck, around 11 a.m.

“Phil, you can tell me to eff off, because I’m not in your chain of command, but you have to get down to that pier and provide leadership and guidance because they’re all sitting at the end of the pier watching the ship burn,” Brown said he told Sobeck. “And he goes, ‘Admiral, I’m getting in the car, I’m on my way.’”

...

Brown directed his staff to contact U.S. 3rd Fleet around 12:30 p.m., but 3rd Fleet’s position was, “The ship’s in maintenance, it’s not our problem.”

Who accepts responsibility? Who avoids it and why? As a friend mentioned earlier today to me, “Quite sure Kimmel did not say “not my job.””

After the staff-level call failed, Brown set up a call with 3rd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott Conn, for the two three-stars to hash it out directly.

“I said, hey, Phil’s down there, but we have to formally establish a new command structure. And he told me he wasn’t going to do it because the ship was in maintenance and it’s not his problem. And I said fine.”

...

He then called the then-Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino.

“I told him what I had done, what I was seeing: the C2 degrading on the pier, there’s no focus of effort, people are off doing their own things. And I told him that I had asked Scott to take command and he said no. And I said ... ‘Phil now works for me, and I’ve got it.’”

“Absolutely, Rich, you got it, put the fire out,” the admiral replied, according to Brown.

At the time we were all wondering what was going on. Chaos, that's what.

A bias for action. This is one of our better traditions. In times of crisis, often those who should be responsible do not rise to the occasion, endangering not just themselves and their command, but everyone around them. It is not unheard of for this to be part of a cascading set of failures to act. Below the primary failure no one will do anything absent that direction as they either lack confidence or perspective to see the failure, and those above who should take charge don’t for similar reasons or just plain ignorance.

What did VADM Brown do here as CNSF? No, he was not in the chain of command, but he was a leader who saw a failure to lead and he stepped up to try to get those who are responsible to act, and absent their actions, fill the gap as best he could as a supporting entity outside the chain of command.

Did anything he did make things worse? Did they make them better? Was any other leader showing what we ask our leaders to show – a bias for action? What does our Navy reward? What does it punish?

Part II: Honor Demands

Let’s look a bit at how I framed Part-II at the start of the post, “a gentleman’s response to an attack on his honor.” It should go without saying, but as we live in a tender and reactive age, “gentlemen” can be seen as non-gender specific, but also very specific to men. Interpret that as you wish.

Duty. As an officer in the United States Navy, who do you owe your duty to? There is both a simple and a complicated answer to that. Let’s start with the Oath;

The Oath of Office (for officers): "I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the _____ (Military Branch) of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

The Constitution first of all, that is pretty much a “Ref. A” answer. We have that document and rafts of judges up to SCOTUS to give us the “Ref. B.” Serious, yet complicated in its simplicity. That is the easy part. Then “the duties of the office.” There is that concept again, “duty.”

In the military context, that definition is rather broad and open to interpretation, but I like the definition the State of Connecticut uses;

…the performance of military service by a member of the armed forces of the state pursuant to competent state military orders, whether paid or unpaid for such military service, including training, performance of emergency response missions and traveling directly to or returning directly from the location of such military service.

In practice, things get complicated from there. Loyalty is talked about a lot, yet abused more often. Are you loyal to people, or institutions? Yourself? Your family? “Ship, Shipmate, Self” is something we throw around a lot, and is a useful entering argument, but it is not a one-way relationship. As in all well-functioning systems, the relationship is interlocked and multi-relational. 

Most will find themselves in situations small and large where they find out that their assumptions about the systems they are a part of are no longer valid. The agreements, spoken and unspoken, that enabled decades of hard work and success, are broken. They are not working. Perhaps they never did.

Then what does one do? Where one may have spent decades taking the burdens of an organization you love on to yourself personally, when doe that act of love become more of an acceptance of abuse? When does a man reach a point where the honor of love is replaced by the dishonor of accepted abuse?

Part-II is about a man who found himself in a place many have found themselves in before. An organization he invested his life in, built his reputation on, and most likely loved – turned on him. He sees if not an upcoming assault on his honor, then at least an injustice, a bearing of false witness, and at a minimum an attempt to make flesh an untruth hewn from the body of his reputation.

Some will advise a man to take such things as part of the job, to not make a fuss for … the sake of the institution. Some will counsel to appeal within the system, that regardless of its malperformance to date, one must trust the system regardless and work within it. 

There is another school of thought that forces an answer to a hard question; what do you owe to an institution if that institution breaks its bond with you? What honor is there to give the gift of trust to an untrustworthy organization? If one party breaks spoken and unspoken agreements, what rule under heaven obliges the other party to act as if the break never occurred?

There is a time to accept that you are in a place you never desired to be. That even though you did all you could possibly do in the scope of your authority and responsibility, other entities are shaping your reality. They are stronger, larger, and on paper at least, more powerful. When they have you bracketed you can simply carry on as before in the knowledge that this is the fate you have been delt, or you can decide that fate is what she is, but there is a way to embrace it with a higher honor based on a higher ethic to embrace that fate on your own terms. Call flank-speed, full left rudder, and engage the attacking force head on.

That, in a fashion, is how I read the strange Kafkaesque place Vice Admiral Rich Brown, USN (Ret.) finds himself in. 

Brown said he is sharing his story with Defense News now as he faces a secretarial letter of censure. He was named in the investigation as contributing to the loss of the ship, but was cleared by what’s known as a Consolidated Disposition Authority in December. He said he was not interviewed for the investigation into the fire.

Capt. J.D. Dorsey, a spokesman for Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, told Defense News “the secretary is still in the process of reviewing the command investigation and has not yet made any final decisions on actions beyond what the CDA has imposed.”

...

Brown didn’t dispute the Navy’s accounting of the rest of the five days of firefighting as laid out in the investigation, but said the investigation’s accounting of how the command and control fell apart during a crisis is incomplete and the investigation itself was “fatally defective” without interviewing him or including a full picture of what will be a key lesson learned.

...

The retired three-star said one of the reasons he wanted to share his perspective about the fire is because the same command and control flaw played a role in the 2017 collisions of destroyers Fitzgerald and McCain and the 2020 fire on Bonhomme Richard. Brown led the McCain investigation and participated in the Fitzgerald investigation, and he said one of the recommendations he made at the time was to reinstate a Cold War-era command structure that had two chains of command: one for ships in maintenance and the basic phase, led by a one-star admiral focused on ensuring they built up their readiness, and one for ships in advanced training and deployments, led by a one-star focused on employing their warfighting capability.

Brown said this setup could have prevented the Fitzgerald and McCain tragedies, and that he had urged the Navy to revamp the command and control setup in 2017.

“I was told, ‘It’s not going to happen; there’s one chain of command.’ That’s what they all kept saying to me, there’s one chain of command, and that’s the operational chain of command, which the [type commanders] are not in.”

...

Had the Navy made Brown’s recommended change in 2017, Bonhomme Richard would have been clearly under Brown’s control in 2020 and he could have taken more aggressive measures when the fire broke out.

Brown said the Navy must learn from this disaster and make the proper reforms to prevent another ship from being destroyed — and the right lessons can’t be learned or the right reforms made if the Navy is working off an incomplete and inaccurate investigation.

...

Brown said, despite the major role he played while the ship was on fire, he was never interviewed. Conn emailed him about a potential interview and to ask five specific questions related to the roles and functions of the type commander. Brown answered the questions, but said Conn never followed up to arrange a formal interview.

Brown said he had no indication he would be named as contributing to the loss of the ship until the report came out.

“I am convinced that there was undue command influence on that investigation at the end, because when you look at the findings of facts, in the findings of facts behind my name, they just don’t make any sense. And why won’t they talk to me?” he added.

...

Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Sam Paparo serves as the consolidated disposition authority for this incident and sent Brown a short letter in December stating that “I have determined your case warrants no action.”

Brown said he thought the issue was resolved until his lawyer in early June warned him Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro would be sending a letter of censure.

“I just don’t know what facts changed in the last six months,” he said.

...

Asked what he hoped would happen by talking to the media, Brown said the Navy has a pattern of punishing three-stars for political expediency without examining root causes and making reforms.

Though he planned to let it go before, “now I don’t think I can, because I think the Navy is destined just to make the same mistakes again and again, especially the surface navy, because we don’t have the [command and control] right.”

The more I think about this story, the more it becomes clear that VADM Brown is taking the only possible path honor, at least as I see it, demands. However, in defending his honor, he is creating a greater good to our Navy and the nation it serves.

The Navy bureaucracy and Admiralty of the last few decades continues to fail its Navy and nation. There are exceptional individuals in both, but as a body the system of incentives and disincentives as they have developed are not just underperforming in selection in aggregate, they are damaging the institution, ill-serving its Sailors, and as a result providing an sub-optimal force to defend the maritime and aerospace requirements of the republic.

The Bonnie Dick burned two years ago. In 53% of the time we took to fight WWII, Where are we? We have arrested a junior Sailor who still has not gone to trial. We still do not know what happened and if the Navy has taken pro-active steps to ensure it does not happen again.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Bad investigations protect the guilty, hide the truth, and poison the future. Accountability thrown on the innocent reeks of the vilest institutional decadence. 

Bravo Zulu Vice Admiral Brown. Bravo Zulu.

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