Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

BEIJING: Beijing said on Saturday (Jan 20) it had dispatched a warship to drive away a US missile destroyer which had "violated" its sovereignty by sailing close to a shoal in the disputed South China Sea.
The USS Hopper sailed within 12 nautical miles of Huangyan Island on the night of Jan 17 without alerting Beijing, the foreign ministry said, referring to the shoal by its Chinese name.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...eignty-9879894

[Bill Moore]

I'm belly laughing the Chinese who think that the SCS is their sovereign territory. That is like me claiming Key West is my sovereign territory, regardless of what the law says. Maybe I should go there and try to chase away the Coast Guard boats. It is about time we make some those military bases in the South China Sea simply disappear.

[AdamG]

A brand-new U.S. Navy warship has not moved from Montreal since Christmas Eve and will spend the winter stuck in Canada due to cold and ice.
The USS Little Rock – unveiled in a ceremony on Dec. 16 in Buffalo, New York and attended by nearly 9,000 people – has not moved far since due to adverse weather conditions that kept the warship trapped at bay in Canada, the Toronto Star reported.
The warship known as a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) cost $440 million to build and stretches 387 feet in length and weighs 15 tons more than the Statue of Liberty. It is capable of traveling more than 46 miles per hour.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/22...d-and-ice.html

[AdamG]

I'm belly laughing the Chinese who think that the SCS is their sovereign territory. That is like me claiming Key West is my sovereign territory, regardless of what the law says. Maybe I should go there and try to chase away the Coast Guard boats. It is about time we make some those military bases in the South China Sea simply disappear.

I'd like to be pithy with a quote about living in *Interesting Times*, but that's culturally inappropriate.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/...ing-times.html

HONG KONG/BEIJING, Jan 23 (Reuters) - While the Pentagon plays down patrols close to Chinese-controlled reefs and islands in the South China Sea, Beijing is sounding the alarm about them, seeking to justify what experts say will be an even greater presence in the disputed region.
Chinese officials publicized the latest U.S. "freedom of navigation patrol", protesting the deployment last week of the destroyer USS Hopper to within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, an atoll west of the Philippines which Beijing disputes with Manila.
It was the second time in recent months that confirmation of a patrol came from Beijing, not Washington, which had previously announced or leaked details.
Bonnie Glaser, a security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said while the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had a policy of keeping the patrols regular but low key, China was willing to publicly exploit them to further their military ends.
"It is difficult to conclude otherwise," she said. "Even as it pushes ahead with these (patrols), I don't think the Trump administration has really come to terms with what it will tolerate from China in the South China Sea, and what it simply won't accept, and Beijing seems to grasp this."

http://news.trust.org/item/20180123063045-8mhe8

For those in the cheap seats or just tuning in, don't miss our (currently 39 page) mega-thread on the Spratly Islands drama.
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13460

[AdamG]

The US Navy’s second Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer, the future USS Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001), has successfully concluded its acceptance trials.

http://www.naval-technology.com/news...ptance-trials/

The U.S. Navy accepted delivery of a revolutionary uncrewed surface ship, one capable of traveling long distances and conducting missions all without a human on board. The Sea Hunter Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel—or ACTUV for short—could someday lead to fleets of unmanned warships plying the world’s oceans, doing everything from hunting submarines to acting as spy ships.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...uv-sea-hunter/

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Navy on Saturday commissioned its newest warship, the USS Omaha, a futuristic, $440 million vessel named for the Nebraska hometown of billionaire Warren Buffett, who was on hand for the ceremony.
The Omaha, a 418-foot-long littoral combat ship, was commissioned at its new home port in San Diego.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...ewest-warship/

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Navy is investigating at least a dozen U.S. sailors based in Japan, some serving aboard the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, for suspicion of buying, selling, and using LSD, ecstasy and other drugs, U.S. Navy officials said Friday.
The Navy also is probing whether U.S. sailors were using the internet to buy or sell drugs or were distributing them to local Japanese residents.
The Navy first learned about allegations of widespread drug sales on Feb. 6, when it received a tip about a petty officer third class using drugs, the officials said. He was subsequently detained and released, they said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-nav...pan-1518210550

[AdamG]

In 2017, the Navy saw two deadly ship collisions at sea. First, the destroyer Fitzgerald collided with a container ship near Japan in June, and then again two months later the destroyer John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker near Singapore.
Both incidents were, per comprehensive Navy investigations, due to human error. The findings quieted speculation that a network-based attack could have disabled onboard navigation or other critical systems — but the report didn’t end discussion of the possibilities of such scenarios.
As a result, top Department of Defense leadership ordered new training and safety procedures throughout the Navy; meanwhile, internally, Navy officials called for the service’s key IT and cyber elements to routinely be part of incident investigations in the future.

Navy leaders say the decision to include cyber elements in the incident investigation is a sign of the service’s greater emphasis on stitching together operational domains.
The goal is to better equip naval forces to take on emerging threats and a changing threat landscape, regardless of location or specific mission.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks...e-information/

Feb. 6 (UPI) -- BAE Systems announced Tuesday that it was selected by the U.S. Navy to provide equipment and support services for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic.
The contract will support the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic's Joint Warfare Support Division to "field, adapt, and optimize a variety of mission critical surveillance and sensor systems."

https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/201...7411517947621/