Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

CAPITOL HILL – The Navy is short about 6,200 sailors to meet its at-sea requirements for its current force, and that gap could grow as the service adds new ships to the fleet, the head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command told a House panel on Tuesday.

Those sailors will, in part, be used to plus-up crew numbers on each surface ship after the Navy had previously gone to a lower “optimal manning” crew size to save personnel costs, Adm. Chris Grady told a combined hearing before the House Armed Services readiness and seapower and projection forces subcommittees.

https://news.usni.org/2019/02/26/fle...g-requirements

[AdamG]

The top American officer in Europe wants two more destroyers stationed in his area of responsibility and a “better pace” of carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups moving through the region, he said during a Tuesday hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said the two destroyers would supplement the four already forward stationed in Rota, Spain. The increased presence of large warships would send a message to allies and to Moscow that NATO is able to deter and counter “an evolving and modernizing Russian fleet.”

https://news.usni.org/2019/03/05/euc...o-deter-russia

[AdamG]

(Washington, D.C.) The increasing global reach of Chinese nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines, armed with JL-2 weapons reportedly able to hit parts of the US, continues to inspire an ongoing Navy effort to accelerate production of attack submarines, prepare long-dwell drones for deployment to the Pacific and continue acquisition of torpedo-armed sub-hunting planes such as the P-8/A Poseidon.

Seeking to overcome the Pacific’s “tyranny of distance” dispersed geography, and track China’s expanding fleet of submarines, the Navy is working with Congress to produce as many as three Virginia-class submarines per year, moving beyond the current plan to build two. In the air, the Navy has been moving to place its new Triton sea drones in Guam and has recently awarded Boeing a $2.4 billion deal to produce 19 more P-8A Poseidon surveillance and attack planes.

Given the Poseidon’s role as a high-tech surveillance aircraft, known for capturing video of Chinese phony island building in the South China Sea (land reclamation) several years ago, it takes little imagination to envision ways its advanced sensors, sonobuoys and weapons could function as part of a containment strategy against Chinese expansion - - and even operate as a deterrent against China’s growing fleet of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines (SSBN).

https://defensemaven.io/warriormaven...med-submarines

[AdamG]

President Donald Trump released his Fiscal Year 2020 budget priorities Monday, which includes several Navy programs he intends to fund in his $718-billion Department of Defense budget request.

The White House request includes adding a third Virginia-class attack submarine to the Navy’s planned FY 2020 purchase and a third Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. The request also steers money toward improving aviation readiness, ship readiness and recruitment and retention activities, according to the White House budget summary.

The addition of a third attack submarine to the budget was welcomed by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who chairs the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee and whose district includes one of two submarine construction yards.

https://news.usni.org/2019/03/11/whi...budget-summary

[AdamG]

Nuclear powers rarely go to war with each other, but that doesn’t mean they don’t threaten to do so. Indeed, military posturing is an integral part of what Forrest Morgan, an analyst for the RAND Corporation, called “crisis stability.” In other words, “building and posturing forces in ways that allow a state, if confronted, to avoid war without backing down.”

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On the other hand, the U.S. Navy’s submarine-launched cruise missiles are less effective — even counterproductive — for crisis stability … because they’re invisible most of the time. “SLCMs could contribute to the instability,” Morgan wrote. “[T]he opponent’s anxieties might be magnified by the ability of SSGNs [cruise missile subs] to posture in stealth nearby.”

But Morgan pointed out one instance when the Navy’s Ohio-class SSGNs actually did help stabilize a crisis back in 2010 — a feat mostly lost to history. “In July 2010, three SSGNs surfaced nearly simultaneously in Western Pacific and Indian Ocean waters, allegedly to signal U.S. displeasure over Chinese missile tests in the East China Sea.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...rn-china-46667

[AdamG]

Interviews and an examination of the Navy’s publicly announced reforms raise uncertainty over whether senior leaders have fully followed through on them after the 7th Fleet disasters in 2017.

https://www.propublica.org/article/n...ccain-davidson

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON—The Navy and its industry partners are “under cyber siege” by Chinese hackers and others who have stolen tranches of national security secrets in recent years, exploiting critical weaknesses that threaten the U.S.’s standing as the world’s top military power, an internal Navy review has concluded

https://www.wsj.com/articles/navy-in...ts-11552415553

[AdamG]

THE PENTAGON – As the Navy faces more complex threats to its manned ships from Russia and China, the service is moving quickly to field an unmanned “Ghost Fleet” — a new breed of armed unmanned surface combatants will add more sensors and weapons to the current fleet.

In Fiscal Year 2020, the Navy has budgeted $400 million for two of the proposed large unmanned surface vehicles in its research and development budget line. The Navy plans to continue buying two a year until FY 2024, for a total of about $2.7 billion.

https://news.usni.org/2019/03/13/nav...al-ghost-fleet

[AdamG]

For the past three months, the crew of the dock landing ship Fort McHenry has been stuck at sea, avoiding port because of an outbreak of disease. But Navy officials bristle at the mention of a “quarantine.”

They point out that only 25 of more than 700 sailors and Marines have been diagnosed with viral parotitis, an infection that triggers symptoms similar to mumps, with fever, dehydration and chills reported in about 3.5 percent of the service members on board the Florida-based warship.

Instead, they say that “Fort McHenry’s operational schedule has been modified while the ship’s medical team monitors crew health,” according to a prepared statement by the 5th Fleet that was recirculated by the Navy’s Chief of Information Office at the Pentagon.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...ime-and-germs/