Trump's Navy

[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/

[AdamG]

Off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, U.S. and South Korean Navy ships prepared for an event they hope will never happen: a North Korean land and air attack against their neighbors to the south.
The annual bilateral training exercise called Maritime Counter Special Operations Force involved a U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan and a U.S. destroyer, the USS Stethem, as well as South Korean ships.
ABC News' Martha Raddatz was aboard the Reagan in the Sea of Japan for the exercise this week, as the Trump administration grapples with an increasingly hostile and technologically advanced North Korea.
Rear Adm. Marc Dalton, commander of Navy's carrier strike group in the Pacific, said the U.S. commitment to defending itself and its allies is "enduring."
"This exercise is an example of how we train with our allies in order to be ready to respond to a range of crises," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=50595652

[AdamG]

The crew was unprepared for the situation in which they found themselves through a lack of preparation, ineffective command and control, and deficiencies in training and preparations for navigation.”

Navy Collisions That Killed 17 Sailors Were ‘Avoidable,’ Official Inquiry Reports https://nyti.ms/2z34Xz5

[AdamG]

Rut ro.

Seven out of 11 U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers are underway simultaneously for the first time in several years, USNI News has learned.
Three are on operational deployments in the Western Pacific with full air wings and carrier strike groups — USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71).
Four more are out for short training missions as part of training operations or workups ahead of deployments. USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) are operating in the Eastern Pacific. USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and the Navy’s newest carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) are operating in the Atlantic.
A Navy official confirmed the basic details of the carrier moves on Monday, to USNI News.
The Reagan, Nimitz and Roosevelt strike groups are all operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations. Reagan is operating in the Sea of Japan near the Korean peninsula while Nimitz is returning to its homeport at Naval Station Kitsap-Bremerton, Wash. after a deployment to the Persian Gulf to conduct air strike against ISIS targets. Roosevelt deployed from San Diego, Calif. on Oct. 7 set to replace Nimitz as part of the continued U.S. operation against ISIS.

https://news.usni.org/2017/11/06/7-u...ously-underway