Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

PENTAGON: Despite his campaign pledge of a 350-ship fleet, President Trump’s first budget cuts Navy shipbuilding and aircraft procurement below what was enacted in 2017, documents released today reveal. Despite Trump’s criticism of President Obama’s defense plans, this budget sticks with Obama’s shipbuilding plan for 2018: eight ships. And it actually buys eight fewer aircraft than Obama planned.
So we were overly optimistic last week when we predicted Trump would add at least one warship (a $1.8 billion Aegis destroyer) and possibly two (a $550 million Littoral Combat Ship) to the Obama plan. Instead, it adds zip, zero — nada.
Even the mix of types is exactly the same as under Obama:
one aircraft carrier (the future CVN-80, Enterprise);
two attack submarines (Virginia-class SSNs);
two Aegis destroyers (Arleigh Burke-class DDGs);
one Littoral Combat Ship or — if the new class can be started in time — a frigate;
and two support ships (a T-ATS tug/salvage ship and a “T-Interim,” presumably what was previously called the T-AO(X) oiler).
We have heard persistent rumors that OMB director Mick Mulvaney added a second Littoral Combat Ship at the last minute after a working group warned him that buying only a single LCS would shutter one of the two shipyards involved. “There’s a discussion right now on whether or not we add some additional Littoral Combat Ships,” Mulvaney told the Hugh Hewitt Show on May 4th. “We did not add any of those as part of this $21 billion dollar request…The Navy doesn’t want them.”

http://breakingdefense.com/2017/05/n...t-procurement/

[AdamG]

Navy Gets 4K More Sailors, Eight More Ships in Budget Request

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...t-request.html

[AdamG]

American, Singaporean and Malaysian armed forces on Monday are searching for 10 U.S. sailors missing after an early-morning collision between a Navy destroyer and a tanker near Singapore--the second collision involving a Navy ship in the Asia-Pacific region in two months.
The Navy says five sailors were hurt in Monday's collision between the USS John S. McCain and the 600-foot Alnic MC, an oil and chemical tanker. The four who required additional treatment were taken by helicopter to Singapore, where the McCain had been headed.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08...nt-damage.html

[AdamG]

The U.S. Navy has relieved the USS Fitzgerald's commander and two other senior leaders of their duties — and it's also praising the crew for saving their ship after the destroyer collided with a large Philippine-flagged container ship off the coast of Japan on June 17.
"It was also evident from this review that the entire Fitzgerald crew demonstrated real toughness that night," the Navy said. "Following the collision these Sailors responded with urgency, determination and creativity to save their ship."
Inadequate leadership and flawed teamwork contributed to the crash, the Navy said after releasing the findings of its investigation into the crash. It also blamed poor seamanship by the crews of both the guided-missile cruiser and the ACX Crystal, whose gross tonnage was triple that of the U.S. ship.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...ith-cargo-ship

? http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...776#post208776

[AdamG]

The U.S. Navy announced a pause in its global operations and patrols and has begun a broad investigation after the destroyer USS John S. McCain on Monday collided with a merchant vessel, leaving 10 sailors missing, the second such incident in months.
The response by the U.S. military signals the Navy believes it needs to examine whether there may be institutional problems behind the deadly collisions, and that it may need to retrain some of its personnel in seamanship.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/navy-be...ing-1503329812

[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]

Lasers-n-railguns, oh my.

DAHLGREN, Va. – The Navy dedicated and named its electromagnetic railgun lines in honor of two public servants who envisioned, nurtured, and laid the foundation for the U.S. Navy’s Electromagnetic Railgun Program at a ceremony held in their honor, Feb. 22.

Posters and plaques commemorating the naming of the railgun lines for Adm. James Hogg (ret.) and Dr. Hans Mark were unveiled at the event and will be on permanent display to honor their efficacy and vision as the Navy continues working to push this revolutionary warfighting capability forward.

http://www.navsea.navy.mil/Media/New...s-at-ceremony/

The Navy proposed spending $299 million in Fiscal Year 2019 on laser systems to protect ships against current and anticipated future threats, as part of a rapid prototyping, experimentation and demonstration initiative.
For nearly a decade, the Navy has considered laser technology a more cost-efficient and effective tool to protect ships from emerging threats such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and small patrol craft that could swarm a surface ship, according to a Congressional Research Service report, Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Hypervelocity Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress.
The Navy wants to move development of lasers a step closer to deployment, according to budget documents released by the Navy earlier this month.

https://news.usni.org/2018/02/26/las...ns_usnavy_330m

[AdamG]

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in Vietnam on Monday for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, dramatically underscoring the growing strategic ties between the former foes at a time when China’s regional influence is rising. The imposing grey silhouette of the USS Carl Vinson could be seen from the cliff tops just outside the central Vietnamese city of Danang, where the 103,000-tonne carrier and two other U.S. ships begin a five-day visit.

https://in.reuters.com/article/usa-v...-idINKBN1GH0SF

[AdamG]

The F-35B Lightning II landed aboard the amphibious assault ship Wasp on March 5, the first time the aircraft has deployed aboard a U.S. Navy ship in the Indo-Pacific.
Assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Okinawa, Japan, the F-35B will aid the Expeditionary Strike Group in a routine patrol to strengthen regional alliances and provide rapid-response capabilities.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...-on-navy-ship/

WASHINGTON — As the production rate of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 joint strike fighter goes up, the company is wrestling with quality escapes involving the jet’s low observability features, which now amount to about half of all defects on the aircraft, the company’s vice president of the program revealed Monday.
Last week, Vice Adm. Mat Winter, the head of the government’s F-35 Joint Program Office, slammed Lockheed for what he sees as its too-slow progress on eliminating so-called “quality escapes”— errors made by Lockheed’s workforce that could include drilling holes that are too big or installing a dinged part.
While those errors are minor, the rework done to bring the plane up to requirements is driving up the amount of money and time spent producing an airplane, Winter said.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018...m-head-states/

[AdamG]

The U.S. Navy's Newest Nuclear Sub Uses an Xbox Controller for Key Operations
http://time.com/5205721/uss-colorado...x-controllers/

[AdamG]

Beijing insists it has no hostile intent, but its sabre-rattling in the busy South China Sea, and around Taiwan, has touched a nerve in the region and in Washington.

In a “freedom of navigation” operation on Friday, a US Navy destroyer came within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island China has built in the South China Sea, provoking condemnation from Beijing, which claims most of the strategic waterway.

Zeng said it was not possible to single out any one trigger for the air force drills, saying there could be a number of political or diplomatic motivations behind such an unusually large mission.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplo...er-south-china

[AdamG]

As images of sick or dying children flooded global media all week, the U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS Winston Churchill churned toward the Mediterranean to join a flotilla of allied warships, including another U.S. destroyer, the USS Donald Cook.

It was a ruse.

While both vessels carry as many as 90 Tomahawk missiles -- the main weapon used in the Friday evening strike on Syria -- neither ship in the end fired a shot. Instead, according to a person familiar with White House war planning, they were part of a plan to distract Russia and its Syrian ally from an assault Assad’s government could do little to defend itself against.

As the president addressed the nation at 9 p.m. Washington time, on Friday, a barrage of 105 U.S., U.K. and French missiles converged on Syria. They came from the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean, homing in from three directions to overwhelm whatever missile defenses Assad’s regime might deploy. Russia’s more advanced air defense system didn’t engage the allied weapons.

According to the Pentagon, the allied weaponry included 19 new “Extended-Range” stealthy Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Attack Munitions launched by two B-1B bombers based out of Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, and six Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the Virginia-class USS John Warner submarine. The bomber-launched missiles, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., had never been used in combat.

The cruiser USS Monterey fired 30 Tomahawks and the destroyer USS Laboon fired seven Tomahawks from the Red Sea. The destroyer USS Higgins fired 23 Tomahawks from the North Arabian Gulf, according to McKenzie.

The weapons also included French SCALP-EG cruise missiles and British Storm Shadow standoff missiles launched by Tornado and Typhoon jets. Nine SCALP missiles were fired at what the Pentagon said was a chemical weapons storage complex at Hims-Shinshar, along with two SCALPS, nine Tomahawks and eight Storm Shadows.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...attacked-syria