Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

Damn. Defacto calling the USN a menace to navigation is pejorative.

A Chinese newspaper on Monday castigated the U.S. Navy for being more of a "dangerous obstacle" than a protective force while sailing through Asia-Pacific waters -- the written rebuke coming as the Navy chief ordered a wide investigation of the Pacific Fleet following two recent collisions that left at least seven sailors dead.#
China Daily#published the editorial saying the U.S. Navy, despite its claim to protect the "freedom of navigation" in the South China Sea, is becoming a "hazard" in the region after two significant collisions.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08...an-waters.html

[AdamG]

WSJ NEWS ALERT: U.S. Navy to Relieve Admiral of Command After Collisions

Note: destroyers are not bumper cars.

Meanwhile, back on the water...

If your ships physically can't leave Pearl or the West Coast, if your crews can't assemble in port, if your C4 systems are hacked then you don't get those pieces to use on the game board. Apples and oranges goes beyond the physical, know what I mean?

The spate of incidents has given rise to speculations that there might be more than human error involved.
“There’s something more than just human error going on because there would have been a lot of humans to be checks and balances,” Jeff Stutzman, an ex-information warfare specialist in the Navy, who now works at a cyber threat intelligence company, told McClatchyDC.
"When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can't tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn't have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar,"#he said.
Itay Glick, the founder of cyber security firm Votiro, told news.com.au that the possibility of cyber interference was the first thing that came to his mind when he heard about the incident.
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Glick told the website.
“Both USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald were part of the 7th Fleet, there is a relationship between these two events and there may be a connection,” he added.

http://www.ibtimes.com/hacking-may-h...ium=most_read4

[AdamG]

Electronics Technician 3rd Class Kenneth Aaron Smith
Interior Communications Electrician 3rd Class Logan Stephen Palmer
Electronics Technician 3rd Class John Henry Hoagland III
Electronics Technician 3rd Class Dustin Louis Doyon
Electronics Technician 3rd Class Jacob Daniel Drake
Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Timothy Thomas Eckles Jr.
Electronics Technician 2nd Class Kevin Sayer Bushell
Interior Communications Electrician 1st Class Abraham Lopez
Electronics Technician 1st Class Charles Nathan Findley.

Search suspended. Photos here.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1B40CZ

[AdamG]

Try to tell people that even in peacetime, .mil can be a lethal job and they look at you funny. A traffic accident in convoy on interstate or negligent discharge or inattentiveness on demo range will kill you as dead as an IED.

The Navy began, as it often does, with accountability: On Wednesday, it fired the three-star admiral whose command in the Western Pacific suffered at least four big accidents this year, two of which may have killed a combined 17 sailors.

Commander Of Navy's 7th Fleet Dismissed After Series Of Ship Mishaps
An officer aboard the destroyer USS Stethem also was lost overboard near the Philippines on Aug. 1.

That compares with 11 service members killed in Afghanistan — details are available from the Military Times and icasualties.org.

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/545297...an-so-far-in-2

[AdamG]

The collision on Monday between a Liberian tanker and a US warship, the latest in a series of incidents in Asia, has provoked questions about possible Chinese involvement.
A former Royal Navy officer said that the movements of the Guang Zhou Wan, a Chinese vessel, could be significant in explaining the fatal crash off Singapore that left at least one sailor dead. A further nine are missing.
Tracking data indicates that the tanker that collided with USS John S. McCain was followed by the Chinese vessel, which appeared to steer out of the way before the incident.
“You get the impression that fleet forces command are going to be looking at wider potential problems — hacking, crew training, how they are navigating, validating of ship-watch standards,” said the former British officer, who declined to be identified.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...de29e471d3b184

[AdamG]

In office for only 26 days, the 76th Secretary of the Navy visited San Diego on Tuesday, vowing to rush emergency teams to hurricane-ravaged Texas, hike the firepower of the embattled littoral combat ships and solve the problem of warship collisions in the Western Pacific.

Former Wall Street tycoon and Marine aviator Richard V. Spencer also asked Congress to revamp the Budget Control Act of 2011 to restore billions of dollars to the military, hiking the quality of life for troops while prepping them better for combat against increasingly capable foes.


“I think if I had a message to the American taxpayer, I’d like them to pay attention to the Budget Control Act, which has really wreaked havoc on the military,” Spencer said. “We really need to work together to get the resources necessary to provide the quality of life and readiness for our services.”

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...825-story.html

[AdamG]

The military is examining whether compromised computer systems were responsible for one of two U.S. Navy destroyer collisions with merchant vessels that occurred in recent months, Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, said on Thursday.
Naval investigators are scrambling to determine the causes of the mishaps, including whether hackers infiltrated the computer systems of the USS John S. McCain ahead of the collision on Aug. 21, Tighe said during an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Investigators are not, however, considering the possibility that the USS Fitzgerald collision, which took place on June 17, was the result of hacking. #

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/14/...y-cyberattack/