pmaidhof

And the photos do not do them justice, particualarly the VLCC's - blame the cameraman, not the camera. here's a tangent: Brad, are you familiar with the term "dope" in relation to the individual sight picture/windage adjustments made on a rifle to get to some consistent "battle sight zero"? The saying goes "it's not the dope on the weapon, but the dope behind it". Same-Same with me on that camera - a pink A-6! go figure. Now back to 1/6000 minis.

Pretty cool Dewayne, but these guys are 1/6000 while I believe the helos on the link are either 15-28mm. No I'm not exactly sure what 1/6000 is in "mm", but they are definitely much smaller than my 1:285 helos, which equate to 6mm. Not sure if they make a motor/engine so these tiny birds. Thanks though What do you think of my rotor creation?

I have been trying to integrate the Trilogy New Air Rules into this scenario. I have an A-50M EAW craft supporting a strike package of 12x Su-35 and 8x Su-25. The Flanker's mission is to sweep opposing CAP from the skies while the Grach's will conduct interdiction on ground units moving within the ground "theater". This is all in support of the para battalion dropping in one of the combat boxes. I'm waiting for an answer on a question posed regarding solve large missile attacks. AA-12 Adders and AIM-120's were all over the place last night. Also hope to expand the para battalion to brigade strength sometime later this week.

Jon, Please provide us with any "unclassified" news of the current battle, and how you feel it is working with the plotter. Thanks, Pete

What is this guy on the ROAD Program (Retired On Active Duty) Who wouldn't want to stay in HI.

Almost forgot the New Vanguard and New Vista Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC). FFG escorting a laden VLCC. OPFOR MEKO 140 keeping its distance from the escort.

USS Enterprise USS Long Beach CGN OH Perry FFG USN Carrier Strike Group Lite passing through a choke point Halcon PC (this guy is tiny!) MEKO 140 Corvette SH-60B conducting ASW aft of its host the Perry FFG. AV-8B flying impromptu top cover SH-60B closer... Oceanhawk on the beach - maintnenance sucks! A-6 lining up a MEKO 140. (Color is agahst! It is painted "Aggressor Gray"). Comments, critiques...

The next inbound package has 3x Victor I SSN, and 6x Kilo SS.

Yesterday's project was 5x MEKO 140 Corvettes, 5x Halcon PC's (they are really-really-really small), 5x SH-60, 5x A-6, 2x New Vanguard Very Large Crude Carriers (one laden, one ballast), 4x O.H. Perry, 1x CGN Long Beach, and 1x CVN Enterprise. Pic's maybe tonight. Next up are F-4 Phantoms, SH-2F Sea Sprites, RN Leander, Knox FF's and Belknap CG's. Also determining if using clear packaging rigid plastic to create "spinning" rotors for the 1:1250 helos. [Note: glad I just wrote 1:1250 cause I looked up the main rotor diameter of an SH-60B and it was 53' 08" and I was scratching my head when I calculated that would be under 3mm at a scale of 1;6000 - but it should be 1:1250 for the birds.]

Well, I think that it could have been done properly in about 1/2 hour. The attack on the CVE St. Lo, cause it apparently was the first, devastating, and even drove home multi-access attacks - enough that I was able to explain it to my other half. The episode that began after the premier could have been done in 10 minutes or less. Sonderverband Elbe. Didn;t they even state that the attack was all done in one day, like prior to 11am? They dragged that out for an hour! They showed the guy who clipped the bomber, and who was ejected from his Me-109 with a shatered arm over and over. Hope for better installments.

History Channel: Dogfights

De Gustibus Naval Gazing: A Top Gun Fantasy Comes True By Bret Stephens Aboard the USS Harry S Truman -- An hour before dusk, the air crew of the USS Truman -- several hundred men and women of every rank and job description -- gathers at the front end of the deck to walk its 1,100 foot length, looking for tiny pieces of debris. A stray piece of metal sucked into the intake of a fighter jet could cause catastrophic damage to the plane and the pilot and terrible damage to the ship. "We don't think of this as a dangerous business," says Rear Adm. Bill Gortney, an F-18 pilot who also commands the Truman's battle group of cruisers, destroyers and submarines. "It's just a terribly unforgiving one." On this particular evening, however, the rigors of Navy life seem briefly to melt away. From the foredeck I see a school of dolphins leaping from the water; off to starboard, whales are just breaking the surface. The deck is nearly clear except for a detachment of Seahawk helicopters that has returned from an anti-submarine warfare exercise. Activity will resume at a frenetic pace later tonight as the carrier undergoes qualification exercises. But for now the Truman seems remarkably serene and oddly small, a dot in the ocean tracing a southerly course 100 miles off the Virginia shore. To spend some time on an aircraft carrier is to be disabused of more than a few "Top Gun"-inspired fantasies. The pilots are low-key and self-effacing. The women in their lives, so to speak, are often their fellow pilots or, in the case of F-18 squadron leader Sara Joyner, their commanding officer. The sleek but unwieldy F-14 Tomcat that Tom Cruise pretended to fly (and that was once the subject of my adolescent day-dreaming) has been scrapped, to the immense relief of the entire profession of naval aviators and mechanics. I arrived here this afternoon from Norfolk Naval Station, courtesy of one of the ship's C-2 Greyhound transport planes. The Greyhound, which looks as if it sprang from the womb of Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose, is 50,000 pounds of flying metal that must set itself down on the pitching deck of a ship at 120 knots and come to a complete stop in two seconds and 200 or so feet. Our pilot made the "trap" on the first try. But tonight Adm. Gortney will watch from his seat on the bridge as freshly minted pilots ("nuggets," in Navy parlance) miss their traps and "bolter" off the deck to try again. As he does, he recalls his own "night in the barrel" as a young pilot, and his fighter jockey bravado softens perceptibly into fatherly concern for his men and women aloft in the darkness. The view of the ship from the bridge is an inspiring one -- as is just about every other sight on the carrier, above or below deck. From a weapons' hold below the waterline, ordnance officer Stephen Folsom matter-of-factly explains the methods by which guided and bunker-busting bombs, each weighing 2,000 pounds, are maintained, assembled and moved as needed to the planes above. By my rough count, the hold contains about 150 bombs -- and there are no fewer than 36 other such holds on the ship. I find myself entertaining the idea of offering the same tour to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It would serve him well as a lesson in humility. But while jets and bombs make for terrific tourist attractions, by far the most impressive aspect of the ship is the system that recruits 5,000-plus volunteers -- few of them older than 25 -- and teaches them to run the ship. It takes years to make a fighter pilot, and anywhere between seven to 18 months, sometimes longer, to train enlistees. "Continuity of culture" is the greatest challenge facing the Navy, says Herm Shelanski, the ship's captain. "Every year a quarter of the crew is brand-new. You don't just pick leadership and skills off a tree. You build it from the ground up." Of the sailors I meet, some are here to make a better life; others, a different life. Paige Young, 20, joined the Navy mainly "to get out of my town" of Gillette, Wyo. What surprises her most about Navy life? "The diversity of people," she says. She now works flight ops from the bridge. David Andre, an enlisted man in his early 30s, holds a master's degree in international relations. He joined for a taste of military life and now wants to apply for the officers' course. Cynthia Trammel, 22, had wanted to join the Navy ever since her father took her to air shows of the Blue Angels. She's responsible for an inconspicuous Gatling gun at the ship's stern that can fire 20mm tungsten rounds at a rate of 4,500 a minute against incoming missiles. "I've nicknamed her 'Myrtle,'" Ms. Trammel tells me. "She is demanding." The Navy operates 11 carriers like the Truman. No other navy in the world comes close. The Chinese, who would love to have one or more carriers of their own, recently sent their top admiral for a tour of the Truman. Adm. Gortney recalls that the Chinese were mainly interested in two things. The first was the ship's arresting gear, the heavy cables that trap landing planes. The second was the way the Navy recruits, trains, organizes and motivates its sailors. No doubt the Chinese will one day figure out the mechanics of landing planes at sea -- and of catapulting them off the deck. I wonder if they'll ever get the human element right. The men and women of the Truman are here as a matter of their own free will in order to defend our collective right to live freely. That's more than a matter of mechanics. It's a matter of spirit: the true source of the Truman's awesome power, and of its beauty, too. Mr. Stephens writes "Global View," The Wall Street Journal's foreign-affairs column.

Here you are Sir, enjoy it or post your comments please. Russian_Paratroop_Battalion_GCS.xls

Jan, et al. A few more limited experiments, I swapped out the rifle company with a competent M2 Bradley mechanized infantry company from SAW II. It came in at 17.99 or 2:1 odds on the CRT. That coupled with a 2D6 roll of snake eyes "2" resulted in "2A, 2D" changing the orders of the paras from "Hasty Defense" - past "Withdraw" - and onto "Rout" Which causes the surrender of the entire force. An extreme 8% chance of that happening, but it happened in one fell swoop today. Also looked into interdiction. For ground attack mode aircraft, it would need to be in sections of four aircraft. I started to test Su-25 Grach (Rook or FROGFOOT) with each's GSh-30-2 (2.65) and either 8x UB-32-57 rocket pods (0.44 each), or 8x FAB-500T (1.8 each)500lb GP iron bombs. Since it is not a combined arms attack the GCS must be x0.5. I went with the FAB-500T's combined with one GSh-30-2 ((((8x1.8)+2.65)x4)/2). In my one interdiction attack on the mech company moving along the link (road), I rolled 2D6 = 6 on the 2.8:1 row which resulted in an "Attrition Point". This calculates, during interdiction attacks only, as the defender's GCS rating taking a 0.5% loss. This caused the 17.99 mech company to be be multiplied 17.99 x0.995 so it became 17.90005. A "Distruption" adds a 30min delay on the defending unit. I did not have time to see what type of US CAP, or US air defense was available to the mech company. More to try at a later time.

Jan, et al. A few more limited experiments, I swapped out the rifle company with a competent M2 Bradley mechanized infantry company from SAW II. It came in at 17.99 or 2:1 odds on the CRT. That coupled with a 2D6 roll of snake eyes "2" resulted in "2A, 2D" changing the orders of the paras from "Hasty Defense" - past "Withdraw" - and onto "Rout" Which causes the surrender of the entire force. An extreme 8% chance of that happening, but it happened in one fell swoop today. Also looked into interdiction. For ground attack mode aircraft, it would need to be in sections of four aircraft. I started to test Su-25 Grach (Rook or FROGFOOT) with each's GSh-30-2 (2.65) and either 8x UB-32-57 rocket pods (0.44 each), or 8x FAB-500T (1.8 each)500lb GP iron bombs. Since it is not a combined arms attack the GCS must be x0.5. I went with the FAB-500T's combined with one GSh-30-2 ((((8x1.8)+2.65)x4)/2). In my one interdiction attack on the mech company moving along the link (road), I rolled 2D6 = 6 on the 2.8:1 row which resulted in an "Attrition Point". This calculates, during interdiction attacks only, as the defender's GCS rating taking a 0.5% loss. This caused the 17.99 mech company to be be multiplied 17.99 x0.995 so it became 17.90005. A "Distruption" adds a 30min delay on the defending unit. I did not have time to see what type of US CAP, or US air defense was available to the mech company. More to try at a later time.

mech infantry is usually good at that game and having friendly artillery smashing the LZ as soon as the ennemy troops landed help to prevent their reorganisation btw, iirc, the doctrine is to have the paradrop closely preceded by an air strike. I have been giving considerable thought to how to employ fighters/strike aircraft to achieve at least local air superiority, just prior to the fat, dumb, and happy An-12's come along - all within the the two or three paragraphs given to interaction between H4 and the GCS map. Should be doable in the form of assigning fighters to CAP over the specific box and conducting strikes on any known defensive positions within the box or on those mechanized infantry "quick reaction forces" which may be in adjacent or otherwise close-by combat boxes. Thanks for taking interest and joining the discussion.

Peter - You got me! I am not positive that this message board provides for attachments which the form 40 is done in excel. If one of the "staff pukes" shows me how, I will post it here. I will however email it to you tonight to take a look at. I have hesitated to do so over on yahoo AT because I did not want to proliferate potentially wrong information before someone else looked at it, saving myself the embarassment of wrong calculations.

I mashed together organization from FM 100-3 Infantry Based OPFOR, and various GCS ratings from High Tide and HNR 2003 to create a modern Russian/FSU type of paratroop battalion. The battalion consists of a HQ element, 3x paratroop companies, a mortar battery, a SAM platoon, and ATGM platoon, and finally an AGL platoon. This heavy weight weighed in at 18.63954 as veteran, and 15.53295 as competent - one of the stronger forces I have seen in my brief GCS experience. Being anti-social as usual during lunch in my pov, I braved the oppressive heat and worked out a sample air drop. I loaded the battalion up on 8x An-12A, which has a cruise range of 3078nm. Coming in at low altitude (only special forces type units can HALO/HAHO in GCS) and over a combat box or link designated as DZ capable, these daredevils landed and automatically become disordered. While disordered, it cannot attack. If attacked it defends in a hasty defence at 50% strength. If routed, it immediately surrenders. Once no longer attacked (enemy can still be in the box, just not attacking), it can attempt a regroup die roll on 1D6, 6 being an automatic failure. Units consult the Regroup Chart and find their regroup number based upon that units Quality Rating - in this case "competent". A result of <=3 regroups the competent unit. The ratings are 1/2/3/4/5 - Untrained/Inexperienced/Competent/Veteran/Elite. Even disordered, the unit, when adjusted for the relatively "flat" terrain (x1.1) defends at 8.5431225. For this play through I had a competent rifle company being the most local quick reaction force - and it had a 100% chance of earning an attrition point if it attacked, and only a 3-% chance of inflicting any damage on the battalion inspite of its disordered state. It looks like one would need to maintain a highly-mobile armored reaction force to counter-act the paratroops. If not, the company should not attack byut try to block the battlions advance on whatever the apparent objective is, while waiting for relief. I intend to flesh out the paratroop brigade, and also conduct an MV-22 insert of 2x USMC rifle company reinforced to be counter-attacked by an OPFOR mobile reserve Pretty cool.

CO firings on track to match 2003 record By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Jul 10, 2007 5:31:47 EDT NORFOLK, Va. — Commanding officer firings in 2007 are accumulating at such a rate that year-end figures could match 2003, when 26 commanders were fired — mostly for personal misconduct — sparking a fleetwide investigation into training and selection of commanding officers. In a brief for Navy career counselors at an annual convention held in Dallas in late June, Capt. Michael Reed, inspector general for Fleet Forces Command, presented the sobering report. Just six months into 2007, 10 commanding officers have already been relieved, Reed said, one less than for all of 2006. Of the 10, five were relieved for personal misconduct, three for poor performance, and two were in command during a “significant event.” If the trend continues, Reed told the attendees, 2007 could turn out to be as bad a year as the record-setting 2003. Reed cited personal misconduct as the primary cause for the 2003 firings, saying his office thoroughly analyzed all 26 incidents. “As I say, it’s sex, drugs and rock and roll — that’s what it is,” he said during the symposium. “And in almost every single case, somebody in the command knew about it.” Lt. Cmdr. Steve Thompson, media officer at Fleet Forces Command, said the inspector general’s office updates its CO firing report monthly and presents it to commanding officers, executive officers and command master chiefs as “a preventive step” and a warning of “what not to do,” he said. He said no actions like the 2003 investigation or other policy changes are planned. “There was an uptick, but overall, there is no problem,” he said. In the Dallas briefing, reasons for CO relief were categorized as: personal misconduct by the commander; poor command climate that led to low unit morale; substandard commander performance; and a “significant event,” such as a collision, grounding, aviation mishap or death. Reed said about 1 percent of commanders get in trouble, but the current trend could bump up that figure. “I’m worried we can easily get above that 1 percent threshold and get into 2 percent,” he said. “ Over the past four years, 26 COs were fired in 2003, 12 in both 2004 and 2005, and 11 in 2006. In his brief, Reed urged the audience to take action when they know something is wrong. Mark D. Faram contributed to this report. Find Navy Times article here.

Navy furious over LPD 17 By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Jul 10, 2007 11:15:46 EDT Northrop Grumman has received a scathing rebuke from the secretary of the Navy for its performance on the LPD 17 amphibious ship program. The company was criticized for poor construction standards and an inability to meet cost and schedule targets — factors that are causing the Navy concerns about future ship construction at Northrop’s shipyards along the Gulf of Mexico. “I am deeply concerned about Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ (NGSS) ability to recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, particularly in regard to construction of LPD 17 Class vessels,” Navy Secretary Donald Winter wrote in a June 22 letter to Northrop Chairman Ron Sugar, a copy of which was obtained by Defense News. “I am equally concerned about NGSS’ ability to construct and deliver ships that conform to the quality standards maintained by the Navy and that adhere to the cost and schedule commitments agreed upon at the outset by both NGSS and the Navy.” Ship Systems’ three shipyards, at Pascagoula and Gulfport, Miss., and New Orleans, have been struggling to recover from damage inflicted in August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. But Winter called the shipbuilder’s performance prior to Katrina “marginal,” forcing the Navy to take delivery of the USS San Antonio (LPD 17) “with numerous outstanding deficiencies.” Two of nine planned LPD 17s have been delivered to the Navy, but both ships were incomplete when they were accepted. The San Antonio, delivered in July 2005, is now undergoing an overhaul at a Norfolk, Va., shipyard that is intended to make the ship ready to deploy sometime late next year. The USS New Orleans was delivered in December 2006. “NGSS’ inefficiency and mismanagement of LPD 17 put the Navy in an untenable position,” wrote Winter, a former Northrop executive. “By taking delivery of ships with serious quality problems, the Fleet has suffered unacceptable delays in obtaining deployable assets. Twenty-three months after commissioning of LPD 17, the Navy still does not have a mission-capable ship.” Winter wrote that Northrop’s “persistent shortcomings” give him “grave concern” about other ships the company is scheduled to build, including the LHA 6 assault ship and the DDG 1000 destroyer. “The Navy does not wish to find itself in the same situation it faces with LPD 17 and 18,” he wrote. “It is imperative that NGSS deliver future ships devoid of significant quality problems and that it meet its cost and schedule obligations.” “Continued, focused management” is necessary to successfully deliver the remainder of the class, according to Winter. To ensure that, Winter informed Sugar that Delores Etter, the Navy’s chief acquisition official, “is planning quarterly reviews of the shipyard and all of the ships under contract at NGSS.” The Navy declined to comment publicly on the letter, which it said is an internal communication. Winter’s spokeswoman, Capt. Beci Brenton, provided a statement in which she said, “Secretary Winter has been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with industry for the past year and a half to improve the quality, timeliness and cost of the department’s acquisitions. He has publicly spoken about the need for the department to reclaim the lead in determining the fleet’s needs and requirements, while at the same time calling on industry to control cost and improve quality and timeliness through increased investment in their people, processes and facilities. “Ensuring the force of the future has the capabilities necessary to face a broad range of challenges is one of Secretary Winter’s top priorities.” In a June 29 response to Winter’s letter, Sugar wrote, “I share your concern regarding the need to fully recover and improve our shipyards, and produce completed LPD 17 class vessels of the highest quality with increasing efficiency. ... Irrespective of Hurricane Katrina, Northrop has much work to do to meet the needs of the U.S. Navy.” Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote said, “We’re not going to deliver LPD 19 or any subsequent ships incomplete.” Belote said the company continues to improve its processes in building the ships. “We’re making very good progress,” he said. A Key Shipbuilder The Ship Systems yards build most of the Navy’s surface fleet — about two of every three warships. In addition to the LPDs, the Gulf Coast yards build Arleigh Burke DDG 51-class destroyers, the LHD 8 and LHA 6 amphibious assault ships, and the Coast Guard’s Bertholf-class National Security Cutters. The Ingalls yard at Pascagoula, which builds the destroyers and assault ships and is building the USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19), was severely damaged by flooding throughout the facility. About $850 million worth of damage included the loss of most of the vehicles in the yard, damage to nearly every building, and the need to replace virtually the entire electrical system. About 1,500 of the yard’s 13,000 employees never returned after the hurricane. Finding and keeping skilled labor in the region remains a challenge, with housing shortages still rampant and many workers lured by higher wages in the building industry. Avondale, the other major Ship Systems shipyard where most of the LPD 17s are built, suffered much less physical damage, but its work force remains depleted as the New Orleans area continues to lack enough housing and basic services to support the former population. Avondale employed about 7,000 workers before the storm but today has a little more than 5,000. Katrina only added to a series of long-standing problems with the LPD 17 program, which encountered troubles almost immediately after the first contract was awarded in late 1996 to Avondale Shipyards. Although Avondale was purchased by Ingalls, which in turn was bought by Northrop, the problems persisted. The program has been beset by industrial problems, continuing design changes, quality control, severe delays and huge cost overruns. Costs for later ships in the class were estimated to run about $750 million each in the late 1990s, but the Navy now estimates the last ship will be about $1.8 billion. In addition to the long-standing problems with the LPD 17s, Northrop’s relations with the Navy were strained when the Navy opposed $140 million in federal aid granted by Congress last year to help rebuild shipyard infrastructure. The company also has had a tough time with the U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater program, where the National Security Cutter has been criticized for having potential structural weak points and a proposed composite-structure small cutter has yet to get approval. A Question of Intent Some viewed Winter’s letter as part of a series of criticisms he has leveled at shipbuilders over the past year. “The letter can be viewed as a continuation of Secretary Winter’s ‘tough love’ policy toward the shipbuilding industrial base,” said Ron O’Rourke, a naval analyst with the Congressional Research Service. “Winter understands that the Navy needs to execute its shipbuilding programs efficiently if it is to have a fighting chance of being able to implement its shipbuilding plan. “In addition, if Winter didn’t do something in reaction to both the LPD situation and the revelations of cost growth in the Littoral Combat Ship program, he would be at some risk of being viewed by others as a secretary who passively presided over messed-up shipbuilding programs. Stern speeches and letters like this one can help buttress his legacy as an effective manager during the 18 months or so he has left in office.” O’Rourke noted that Winter did not threaten Northrop with any specific sanctions, should they not meet expectations. “Some observers might see the letter as a reflection of the paucity of effective levers that the Navy has at its disposal in this situation,” the analyst said. The quarterly reviews of Northrop’s performance that Etter now is set to perform also caught O’Rourke’s attention. “I was actually rather surprised to learn that this wasn’t already happening with all the Navy’s shipyards and all its shipbuilding programs. I would have thought that such reviews had been instituted  long ago,” he said, given “the amounts of money in question, the high degree of program visibility, and the repeated concerns that have been expressed over cost growth.” One industry analyst sees in the letter a political agenda, as well. “It’s clearly intended as a pre-emptive measure to deal with increasingly hostile perceptions from a Democratic Congress on how the Navy is managing quality and schedule issues on its shipbuilding programs,” said Jim McAleese, of McAleese and Associates in McLean, Va. The absence in Winter’s letter of a mention of financial incentives or penalties struck McAleese as a positive note. “There seems to be a strong suggestion — by its silence on the issue — that the Navy is willing to provide financial incentives,” McAleese said. “It is widely recognized by Navy leadership that NGSS is limited in its ability to grow its work force because of the regional construction boom. This means the Navy will need to provide some flexibility and incentives to allow the shipyard to prioritize its work force to those ships with the most critical schedules.” Find Navy Times article here.

And the spending will not stop anytime soon after the pull-out - whenever that may occur. The Army and Marine gear is getting trashed. Replacing/upgrading these systems will be astronomical. As they say, "Freedom isn't free"

5 disciplined in Arleigh Burke grounding By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer Posted : Monday Jul 9, 2007 5:53:51 EDT NORFOLK, Va. — Cmdr. E.J. McClure, former captain of the destroyer Arleigh Burke, was administratively disciplined July 3 along with her executive officer and two other officers in a nonjudicial hearing convened in response to the ship running aground May 15. “Appropriate administrative actions” were taken against the four Arleigh Burke officers, said Lt. Cmdr. Herb Josey, public affairs officer for Naval Surface Force Atlantic. He did not disclose the nature of the actions due to privacy considerations. The commodore of Destroyer Squadron 2, Capt. Larry Tindal, was taken separately to an admiral’s mast in connection with the incident. He, too, was awarded “appropriate administrative action,” Josey said, again not revealing more because of privacy constraints. Tindal was aboard the Burke at the time of the grounding. He remains the squadron commodore. Rear Adm. Dan Holloway, commander of Carrier Strike Group 12, conducted both hearings. Holloway relieved McClure of command on May 21 for “loss of confidence in her ability to command.” She now works for the staff of Naval Surface Force Atlantic. Find Navy Times article here. The destroyer’s executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Allen Hobbs, remains with the ship. Two other officers who appeared at the hearing as a result of the grounding also remain assigned to the ship, Josey said. The Arleigh Burke ran aground May 15 as the ship was passing Cape Henry en route to Norfolk. Josey said the ship was not damaged and no one was injured. Josey said the investigation into the grounding was complete. A formal Mishap Investigation Report is pending. The Arleigh Burke is scheduled to ship out with the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group July 9 for a Middle East deployment.

Ships flagged for lack thereof Navy custom not observed by some By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer Posted : Sunday Jul 8, 2007 10:23:48 EDT NORFOLK, Va. — Eight ships of the 2nd Fleet caused a few internal fireworks July 4. A message from 2nd Fleet command to units of 2nd Fleet reminded all that “on President’s Day and on Independence Day every ship of the Navy in commission, not underway, shall full-dress ship.” It then tersely noted that the cruisers Cape St. George and Vella Gulf, destroyers Arleigh Burke, The Sullivans, Porter, James E. Williams, Forrest Sherman, and the dock landing ship Shreveport — all of which were in port for the holiday — were not dressed out for the occasion. An explanation for the lack of flags was required by July 5th at noon, according to the message. A ship under “full-dress” flies the national ensign from the flagstaff, as well as from each masthead, and flies a “rainbow” of signal flags from bow to stern, according to The Bluejacket’s Manual. The treatment lasts from 8 a.m. until sunset. Of the ships identified in the message, Arleigh Burke, James E. Williams and Forrest Sherman leave for deployment with the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group on July 9. Some of the ships were also either getting underway or in a repair period, according to Cmdr. Herman Phillips, public affairs officer for 2nd Fleet. Despite the public — if internal — dressing down, Phillips said no one is going to “general quarters” over the message. “It’s just a Navy custom to do that on holidays,” Phillips said. “Nobody is getting fired. Nobody is not going to make captain.” Find Navy Times article here.

Marines often trained using FARPs and operating AV-8B's from hard-ball roads such as Lyman Road aboard Camp Lejeune. description.

Enquiring minds would like to know.