Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s new class of 20 guided-missile frigates could cost an estimated $950 million per hull, the Naval Sea Systems Command FFG(X) program manager said on Tuesday. That total is more than double the current cost per hull of both variants of the Littoral Combat Ship.
Speaking at the Surface Navy Association 2018 symposium, NAVSEA’s Regan Campbell said the new class of small surface combatant would set a so-called threshold requirement for a net average cost of $950 million for the 2nd through 20th hulls in the FFG(X) next-generation frigate program following a down select to a final shipbuilder in 2020. First-in-class for the new frigate is expected to cost more than the $950 million average.
That number is almost twice the about $460 million per-hull cost of the existing Lockheed Martin Freedom-class (LCS-1) and Austal USA Independence-class (LCS-2) Littoral Combat Ships currently under construction.

https://news.usni.org/2018/01/09/nav...ouble-lcs-cost

and with tongue-in-cheek,
Littoral Combat Ship Actually Figurative Combat Ship

[AdamG]

USN Office of Naval Intelligence determined that the Argentine submarine San Juan suffered from an internal explosion back on November 15th 2017 and that the death of the 44 crewmembers was instantaneous.

Image of report posted on link below.

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/ne...0111-0025.html

[Granite_State]

https://news.usni.org/2018/01/09/nav...ouble-lcs-cost

and with tongue-in-cheek,
Littoral Combat Ship Actually Figurative Combat Ship

Wow. So much for the FFG(X) band-aid. And I doubt any heads roll over this ongoing disaster, as the taxpayer continues to get gouged. We're a long way from pour encourager les autres...

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON (CNN) —
The US Navy announced Tuesday that the former commanding officers of the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain -- the ships involved in two deadly 2017 collisions that killed 17 sailors -- will face criminal charges including dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide.

http://www.wcvb.com/article/ex-navy-...286826?src=app

[AdamG]

The USNS Herschel “Woody” Williams is neither fast nor heavily armed. And while she may look like a commercial cargo ship, the Navy's new vessel is also one of the most useful ships in the entire U.S. military.
Called an “expeditionary mobile base,” the Woody Williams can do just about any job, whether that means supporting a fleet of minesweepers or potentially hosting F-35B Joint Strike Fighters. The Williams was recently christened by builder General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) and is set to join the fleet soon.

One major maritime blog called the USNS Woody Williams “unsexy,” and to be honest it’s not a unfair statement. Call it the cargo pants of boats. The 785-foot long, 164 foot-wide, 90,000-ton ship is based on the civilian Alaska-class oil tanker, also built by NASSCO, and despite the gray paint job it still looks like it. This is where the similarity with an oil tanker ends, however.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/mili...-us-navy-ship/

[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