CV32

Sure can. CAS - Close Air Support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support Or, whacking the enemy who is shooting at friendlies. BAI - Battlefield Air Interdiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_interdiction Or, whacking the enemy who is about to shoot at friendlies or be shot at by them. SIOP - Single Integrated Operational Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integr...perational_Plan Or, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".

From Navy Times Gulf video ‘fabricated,’ Iran says The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Jan 9, 2008 10:13:31 EST Iran on Wednesday called video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian Revolutionary Guards boats confronting U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz “fabricated,” an English-language state-run television station reported. State TV did not give the name of the Revolutionary Guard figure and did not offer more details about how the official knew the footage was “fabricated.” The Pentagon on Tuesday released a four-minute, 20-second video that included audio showing small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. In the recording, a man speaking in heavily accented English threatened, “I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes.” The Iranian boats appeared to ignore repeated warnings from the U.S. ships, including horn blasts and radio transmissions, according to the video, which was shot from the bridge of the destroyer Hopper. From the Hopper, after spotting the approaching Iranian boats, a U.S. Navy crew member says over the radio: “This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. Intend no harm.” The audio and video recordings were made separately but were pulled together by the Navy. Often uneven and shaky, the video condenses what Navy officials have said was a 20-minute or so clash. The top Navy commander in the Persian Gulf has said the Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up the Navy convoy as it passed near but outside Iranian waters on Sunday. The Iranian fleet “maneuvered aggressively” and then fled as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff said. No shots were fired. In Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has suggested that the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. Spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini played down the incident. “That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party,” he told the state news agency IRNA. On Wednesday, Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar reiterated that the incident was not unusual. “The identification of vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian navy units is a natural occurrence,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Najjar. “Islamic Republic of Iran Navy units always put questions to passing vessels and warships at the Strait of Hormuz and they need to identify themselves. This is in accordance with the normal procedures.” Najjar called Western news reports that the boats threatened to blow up the U.S. warships as “mischief.” “[iranian] Navy units ... asked them to identify themselves. They responded accordingly and continued their path,” IRNA quoted Najjar as saying. President Bush on Tuesday denounced the incident as a “provocative act.” “It is a dangerous situation,” Bush said during a White House news conference. “They should not have done it, pure and simple. ... I don’t know what their thinking was, but I’m telling you what my thinking was. I think it was a provocative act.” Cosgriff also has disputed Iran’s claims that the incident was a routine encounter, saying Iran’s “provocative” actions were “deadly serious” to the U.S. military.

From Jane's Iran may have lined up S-300 SAM systems By Doug Richardson 09 January 2008 Iran is set to receive Russian S-300 (SA-10 'Grumble') surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar stated on 26 December 2007. Mohammad-Najjar gave no details of the order or the timescale for deliveries, but according to Iranian state radio he said: "The S-300 system will be delivered to Iran within the framework of a contract agreed in the past. The timing of the delivery will be announced at a later date." The report was confirmed by Iran's Fars News Agency, which gave no further information. Russia's Interfax news agency identified the systems to be provided as S-300PMU-1, stating that deliveries would begin in 2008 under a contract signed several years ago. The announcement followed a meeting in Tehran in mid-December of a Russian-Iranian commission on military-technical co-operation, which reviewed existing agreements and discussed the possibility of further collaboration. Early in 2007, Sergei Ivanov, then Russian defence minister, denied reports that Moscow and Tehran were negotiating the sale of long-range SAM systems. Responding to a report in Russian newspaper Kommersant, Ivanov stated that the publication's sources of information were "completely untenable" and insisted that no S-300 sale had been discussed with Iran.

I understand 'grog' was quite normal maybe 100 years or so ago, but not now, and that the RN itself discontinued the practise ? (Unofficially, of course. I expect standard 'grog' aboard Canadian naval ships is perhaps Molson or Labatts? )

Thanks for the link, Paragon.

From DefenseNews Top admiral details U.S.-Iranian encounter By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Jan 8, 2008 10:37:01 EST Five Iranian high-speed attack craft accosted a trio of U.S. Navy warships Sunday in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. 5th Fleet commander said, prompting evasive maneuvers by the U.S. ships and reportedly bringing them close to opening fire. No one was hurt and the Iranian boats withdrew before any shots were fired, but Pentagon and White House officials stressed Monday that the incident was dangerously provocative in the choke point through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. The cruiser Port Royal, the destroyer Hopper and the frigate Ingraham were in international waters on their way into the Persian Gulf around 8 a.m. local time Sunday when the Iranian encounter occurred, said Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, speaking to Pentagon reporters via a satellite video uplink Monday afternoon. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps attack boats approached the U.S. ships’ starboard bows, Cosgriff said, and broke left and right into two groups on either side of the Americans, even passing between the warships as they steamed in formation. The boats passed between 200 and 500 yards of the U.S. surface group, and Iranian sailors from two boats dropped “white, box-like objects” that floated in the water ahead of the Ingraham, Cosgriff said. But the U.S. captains ordered evasive turns and the three warships passed clear of the objects in the water. Cosgriff confirmed that the Iranian sailors also sent a hostile radio message to the U.S. crews that translated approximately to, “we’re closing with you, and your ships are going to explode.” As the U.S. warships and Iranian boats maneuvered near each other, U.S. commanders warned the Iranians with radio messages and blasts of the ships’ horns. At least one ship’s captain reported he was about to open fire when the Iranians broke off, Cosgriff confirmed. The incident was over after about 30 minutes, Cosgriff said, when the Iranian attack boats returned in the direction from which they had come. The encounter was “needlessly provocative,” he said. “I am concerned with unnecessary and irresponsible maneuvering by the part of those patrol boats, in international waters in an area traversed by numerous ships every day. When they act that way it raises the risk of a miscalculation on their part that somebody might take it too far when we are stepping through our procedures,” Cosgriff said. He added that he was “very proud” of the way the U.S. crews behaved in the situation. Cosgriff didn’t speculate what the white boxes were or say what weapons he thought the Iranian boats were carrying, although he did state specifically they were not armed with anti-ship missiles. All told, the encounter was “more serious than we’ve seen,” Cosgriff said, and pointed out that the three U.S. ships had passed an Iranian warship during their transit of the Strait of Hormuz and that encounter had been “correct.” The Pentagon and the White House both criticized Iran over the incident, but their language seemed designed to keep from further escalating tensions in the Gulf. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell called the incident “perplexing,” and a White House statement said it was “provocative” and called for the Iranians to stop. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking aboard the amphibious transport dock New Orleans during a visit to San Diego, called the incident “troubling.” “This is a very volatile area and the risk of an incident and of an incident escalating is real,” Gates said. I can’t imagine what was on their minds. ... I think that it is a reminder that there is a very unpredictable government in Tehran. And it would be nice to see the Iranian government disavow this action and say that it won’t happen again.” Gates also said that “based on all the information that is available to me, this is a one-sided provocation.” The Revolutionary Guards Corps is a semi-autonomous paramilitary arm of the Iranian government that has been officially declared a terrorist group by the U.S.; it was blamed for supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents, and in March 2007, its naval arm captured 15 British sailors and marines in the northern Persian Gulf. Iran exploited the troops in a propaganda coup before releasing them to the U.K. two weeks later. The Strait of Hormuz encounter took place two days before President Bush’s planned trip to the Middle East, underscoring the issue of U.S.-Iranian relations that Bush hoped to address with leaders in Israel, Kuwait, Egypt and other Arab states. William H. McMichael contributed to this report.

What is the HCDB? The HCDB is an acronym for what is now known as the Harpoon Commander's Edition Database, the official database that ships with AGSI's newest naval warfare simulation product, Harpoon Commander's Edition (HCE). The HCDB is available for download from the Downloads section of this website. Extract the zip file into your main HCE directory. It will overwrite your current 'commondb.res' file. To maintain multiple databases, be sure to rename your existing 'commondb.res' file. A *.txt file is also included in the zip which details the latest update. The design philosophy of the HCDB is to maintain, wherever feasible, backwards compatibility with legacy scenarios. The platforms (ships, submarines, aircraft, installations, and weapon systems) contained in the HCDB cover (generally speaking) the 1980-2015 era, but this is not a hard and fast rule, and there are some exceptions, including platforms from the Vietnam era and some platforms that are purely hypothetical. Please note that while the HCDB has been distributed with HCE, copyright to HCDB database content is held by Brad Leyte (aka CV32). HCDB database content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and transmit the HCDB and all or parts of its content, but not derivative works based on it without the express written permission of the author Brad Leyte. You may also adapt the HCDB database to your own needs under the terms of fair use. By doing so, you agree to fully attribute Brad Leyte as the author of the HCDB database. The HCDB database may not be used for any commercial purpose whatsoever without the express written permission of Brad Leyte. A common sense explanation of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License is found here. The legal code of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License can be found here. Like any database, the HCDB is always a "work in progress". Requests for new platforms are always welcome, and stand a good chance of inclusion if (1) they adhere to the design philosophy described above, and/or (2) they are required for upcoming new scenarios. (This FAQ will be further developed as time goes on in order to keep everyone abreast of design or philosophy changes in the HCDB).

From DefenseNews Posted 01/07/08 12:51 Iran Denies Threat Against U.S. By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Iran on Jan. 8 rejected U.S. charges that its naval forces threatened to blow up American ships in the Strait of Hormuz, amid renewed tensions ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to the region. U.S. defense officials said five speedboats from the naval forces of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards menaced three U.S. warships in the strategic waterway on Sunday, radioing a threat to blow them up. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the incident as "provocative" and "dangerous" amid fears such an encounter could spark a major confrontation between the two foes. But Iranian officials expressed bewilderment over the U.S. version of events, saying the encounter was a routine question of identification that ended with nothing special to report. "What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification," Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guards naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency. "No special engagement took place between the Guards and the foreign side," he said, adding that the Guards’ naval forces had a right to monitor and identify "any vessel entering Persian Gulf waters" to the northwest. State television quoted an unnamed Guards source in the region as saying: "No threatening message was transmitted." A U.S. Defense Department official had quoted the Iranian radio transmission as saying: "I’m coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes." Crew aboard two of the five speedboats also dumped floating boxes into the path of one of the vessels during the encounter, but it passed them without any shots being fired, U.S. officials said. "It was provocative, and that kind of provocation is dangerous. I would sincerely hope that the Iranians would refrain from any such activity," Rice told the BBC’s Arabic service in an interview. Iran is "the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see," she added in an interview to the Jerusalem Post and the Ynet Web site. The incident came just days ahead of Bush’s departure Jan. 8 for a crucial trip to the Middle East, a visit that Iran has already slammed as unnecessary meddling in the region He aims to boost the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but will also reiterate to U.S. allies in the region that Washington continues to view Iran as a threat. Iranian media and analysts, expressing suspicion over the U.S. version of events, described it as a propaganda stunt to tarnish Iran ahead of Bush’s talks. "This action is routine and it is quite normal for ships to ask other ships to identify themselves. But because of Bush’s visit to the region, the incident took on a particular scale," said conservative analyst Amir Mohebian. The Strait of Hormuz is a vital conduit for energy supplies, with about 20 to 25 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies passing through from Gulf oil producers. It was Iranian Revolutionary Guards who in March last year seized 15 British sailors and Marines in Gulf waters and held them at a secret location before releasing them in Tehran two weeks later. "The biggest danger is that things snowball as a result of a calculation error, for example if the Iranians complacently think that the other side will not dare react to their provocations," said one western diplomat in Tehran.

They won't. What I understand we're aiming for in the AI behavior is that they will continue to close only if they have weapons remaining. For example, a Backfire may be carrying a mixed armament of long and short range missiles. It will (hopefully) shoot the long range missiles and then close the distance to shoot the short range missiles, and then RTB.

Iranian ships 'harass' U.S. Navy, officials say CNN report here

Congratulations, Ralf ! Very well deserved.

Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out .. again.

Finally fixed. Will appear in the next release version of the HCDB.

Hehe, not quite, Pete. The Moskva (ex Slava)is a Slava class guided missile cruiser. One of the pitfalls of Russian ship renaming antics. Still getting pretty long in the tooth, though.

From Jane's " ... The aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, two large Udaloy-class anti-submarine warfare ships - Admiral Levchenko and Admiral Chabanenko - and an auxiliary ship left Severomorsk, Russia's main northern naval base, for the Mediterranean on 5 December 2007, where they were to be joined by a Black Sea Fleet missile cruiser, Moskva, and a tanker. A total of four major warships and seven other vessels of Russia's Northern, Black Sea and Baltic fleets, as well as 47 aircraft, including 14 strategic naval aircraft and 10 helicopters, were to take part in the mission."

From Flight International DATE: 04/01/08 SOURCE: Flight International Australia to review Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet purchase By Emma Kelly Australia's newly elected Labor government is to review the country's air power capability, in a controversial move that could see the previous administration's A$6.6 billion ($5.8 billion) order for 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets dumped, and the planned purchase of up to 100 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters also face a fresh assessment. Australia became the first export customer for the Super Hornet (US Navy F/A-18F pictured below) last March, with its two-seat fighters scheduled for delivery from 2010 as replacements for the Royal Australian Air Force's General Dynamics F-111s. The aircraft are also intended to provide a stop-gap capability until the planned introduction of Australia's JSFs from 2013 at the earliest. The F/A-18F deal drew considerable opposition at the time, with claims that the then-defence minister and now opposition leader Brendan Nelson rejected expert advice before advancing with the order. Critics say the procurement was also conducted without strategic justification or comparative analysis, and insist it would be cheaper to extend the F-111's service life, or replace the Super Hornet and JSF purchases with an order for Lockheed's F-22 Raptor. However, one industry source notes that US Congress has so far blocked Japan's requests to buy the F-22, and says development of an export variant could cost up to $1 billion. Australia's new defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon will launch a thorough review of the previous government's military spending as soon as possible, with this to include an examination of the RAAF's air combat options. He has also committed to develop a new defence policy White Paper to provide strategic guidance for capability and force structure planning. Boeing declines to comment on speculation about the Super Hornet deal's possible cancellation, or on reports citing a possible $300 million charge for terminating the deal. "We are under contract, and the Australian aircraft are already in the production process," the company adds. [No shortage of controversial topics in recent news. Here's another! ]

Is the file zipped ?

Hehe, well now, instant coffee or instant oatmeal isn't quite immediate either.

A valid question. Are we ok with Kim Jong-Il keeping the nukes ? (Have you seen his haircut ? ) We seem to be all freaked out with the prospect of Ahmadinejad having them, but clearly, the DPRK has a greater history of aggression.

Even if we assume that Musharraf really is trying to be the good ally in the GWOT, he is still just one man and a leader with a finite political life. Can we accurately predict what Pakistan's political landscape will look like when Musharraf is gone ? Because when he is history, the F-16s, and the AIM-120C5 AMRAAMs, the JDAMs, the Enhanced Paveway LGBs, etc, etc, will still be there.

From DefenseNews Posted 01/02/08 21:43 Top Senator Blasts U.S. Sale of F-16s to Pakistan By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, WASHINGTON A senior U.S. senator lashed the administration of President George W. Bush on Jan. 2 for its decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, calling it a sign of a “dangerously misguided” policy toward Islamabad. The Pentagon announced late Dec. 31 that it had approved the nearly 500 million dollar deal for 18 F-16s for Pakistan, with the deal awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp. Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic Party presidential hopeful, branded the move as “reckless,” and said it contradicted new Congressional legislation designed to block such moves. The decision to go ahead with the sale “shows how dangerously misguided President Bush’s policy is,” Biden said in a statement. “How can the White House even think of green-lighting such a sale at such an incredibly sensitive time?” he said, referring to the political turmoil in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who hoped to become prime minister. “This is the time we should be putting the pressure on the government and military to fully investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and to hold free and fair elections — not let them off the hook,” Biden said. Although the terms of the sale were not yet public, he noted that the recently passed Defense Appropriations bill “bars any assistance to Pakistan for weapons sales that are not for counter-terrorism purposes.” “If any U.S. aid is involved, the sale is illegal,” he said. “If the sale involves no U.S. assistance, it is technically legal but fundamentally misguided.” [biden often (ok, maybe just sometimes) has sensible things to say. And I must say I have trouble disagreeing with him here].

From DefenseNews Posted 01/02/08 11:04 Analyst: Kim Jong-Il Still Undecided on Giving up Nukes AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, SEOUL North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has still not decided whether to give up his nuclear weapons despite a disarmament pledge under an international deal, a senior analyst said Jan. 2. Nam Sung-Wook, a North Korea expert at Korea University who advises South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-Bak, said he expects Pyongyang to stall on the disarmament deal after missing a year-end deadline. “National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-Il seems not to have made a decision yet to abandon nuclear weapons,” Nam told SBS radio. Pyongyang will “drag its feet in negotiations with the U.S. over what it can get in return, probably until late February,” he added. Lee, who has promised a firmer line with North Korea, takes office on Feb. 25. The next day, in what Nam described as an “unprecedentedly friendly event” between the two countries, the New York Philharmonic is to perform in Pyongyang. Nam declined to elaborate to AFP on his remarks. Under a landmark six-nation agreement the North was supposed to have disabled its main atomic plants and declared all its nuclear programs by Dec. 31 in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid and diplomatic benefits. But the year-end deadline slipped, with the North yet to complete the disabling work and no signs of an upcoming declaration. The U.S., Japan and South Korea — members of the negotiations along with Russia, China and the North itself — expressed disappointment at the missed deadline. Lee, of the conservative opposition Grand National Party, says he will link future aid to North Korea more closely to progress in nuclear disarmament. Nam described the communist state’s New Year policy message as “positive” in that it lacked its usual criticism of Lee’s party. [Think it through, man. Do you really want to be 'persuaded' to give em up? ]

I assume the Perrys' radars were active ?

Seems this is a matter of personal methodology. I've never had a problem with it.

Herman, they're conducting rescue operations and you want em to keep on trucking ? A tad bloodthirsty, aren't ya ? Seriously, though, I have observed the behaviour you report. But I have also observed the group continuing to move after a short period, sometimes upon re-attack.