117 Comments
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Dec 19, 2023
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If only it was funny.

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Dec 19, 2023
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As are the Mullahs in Iran.

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All of the rust is an intentional covert radar signature manipulation tool. Signature isn't as expected and changes...

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Watch for rusting hulls and bottles of urine in CIC. That'd be good litmus tests.

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You forgot empty bags of Cheetos… come on man!

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"Sweepers, Sweepers, man your brooms. Give the ship a clean sweep down both fore and aft! Sweep down all decks, ladders and passageways! Dump all garbage clear of the fantail! Sweepers." Old school.

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Carney and Mason crews both deserve Presidential Unit Citations. Captain and TAOs of Carney should get Navy crosses. Damn the torpedoes...deploy the fleet. It is a mother-lovin' naval war (from Harms Way)

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Combat Action Ribbon more likely

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That too, but look at all the awards given away like candy in GWOT....no, more is called for, especially for Carney. If Ernest King and Frank Jack Fletcher can earn navy crosses for ASW in the Atlantic in WW I, then so can some officers on Carney (and maybe even Mason)

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Maybe, but a Bronze Star with a "V" would be more approporiate. Save the Navy Cross for the OOD who loses his leg when preventing a battleship from being sunk by Japanese bombers.

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Bronze star with V has been going for ages to guys how lift a guard switch and launch a T-LAM. Again, this is more than that...

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Remember Beau Biden got a Bronze Star for getting a paper cut in a war zone.

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LBJ got a Silver Star for even less.

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My father in law was a corporate pilot for Brown and Root, and used to fly LBJ around in his Congressional days (Mr. Brown and Mr Root pretty much owned Johnson then)...

At the ranch my father in.law would hang in the kitchen with the dogs and chat with Lady Bird

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Was thinking the same same thing.

But, in this era of, "Everyone Gets A Trophy", there is highly likely a reluctance to single out any Command for exceptional praise.

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Keep an eye on how this is a global move against us. Keep your powder dry and ready.

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In this Administration fighting COs will be lucky to get a Navy Commendation Medal.

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That would be a sight to behold...

"It will be interesting to see what our NATO allies will be surging to match." Hoping... Looking forward to the day we're surging Constellations for situations like this...

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My first thought was: It's about time and I hope it's real not just words from CHINFO.

My second thought was: Why aren't the Russians and Chinese too concerned about their ships being molested.

My third thought is: What's next? It seems to be more than a coincidence that we are being sequentially challenged in the Med, Venezuela, the Red Sea, the Philippines, etc.

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Attack the proxy, that’s how effective containment works. Iran’s arrogant Imams have again overplayed their hand at sea

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Coincidences almost never happen.

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I would be very careful about taking anything Larry Johnson says seriously as he routinely accuses Israel of murder, extermination, genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes. etc. in print and on Youtube. He also blames the Jewish lobby and their supposed control of Congress, finance and the media for this war. He rarely has a bad thing to say about HAMAS.

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Larry Johnson is a Putinist fool. He, along with Douglas MacGregor, spew lies for Putin. Nothing either of them say can taken as truth.

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Israel will finish it.

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There's a reason for a 600 ship navy.

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Lets hope the USG is ready to pay for all of this. Even a 5 inch round is expensive; $482 for a BL&P up to $1900 for more expensive rounds, to say nothing of the cost of an SM-2 (about $2m a round.) Of course, there will be a lot of downstream maintenance costs on all of these ships for deploying out of synch with plans that could be again deferred with predictable, poor outcomes.

We have a less than 300 ship navy in what is still a 600-ship Navy world.

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We are not paying for anything, just printing more money.

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Which means we are paying for everything through the diminishing value of the dollar. We are going over Niagara Falls without even the benefit of a decent barrel. Last night I dined out. A side order of hush puppies was $6.99 (for 6).

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Yup. We are headed to hyper-inflation. The Jimmy Carter 18-21% interest rates will look great in comparison.

Not going to end well....

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...but won't our COLA's make us all trillionaires?

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Can't wait to make my first billion.

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Only in 1922 Weimar Reichmarks.

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Were they good hush puppies?

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I don't know that I have ever had a bad one. Yes.

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I have Yankees can't make a decent hush puppy. Some southerners can't either.

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The difference is soft wheat flour. Soft wheat thrives in temperate, moist climates like that of the mid-Atlantic, so cooks in those areas have had access to its special flour for a long time. It's the flour.

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He must have read my mind - and my article from 2018! But did it formally happen? https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018/september/50-new-40-path-355-ship-navy

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Are you implying that the US Navy's senior leadership may say they are going to do something but then have no follow through? Huh.

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Unfortunately yes. They have done it a few at a time, but extending the class would much better ensure their continued combat readiness.

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I think you need to plan for a 50 year life even before laying the keel. That way you can come up with a routine maintenance and repair schedule including periodic visits to a drydock for upgrades. (Of course all bets are off if the ship is severely damaged in combat. ) I don't think you can easily plan for 50 years when you are in year 39 1/2.

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Certainly the earlier the better! That’s why I advocated for increasing the entire class to 50. Might be tough for the first few, but if you keep to a reasonable dry dock and upgrade schedule, it can be done. I’ll bet DDG 51 hits 50 before being decommissioned!

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That was my practice when designing a ship. That way, anything less than 50 is lagnaiappe.

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Only problem is, the Navy hates maintenance. Look at the fake modernization and extension plan they sold to Congress for the Ticos!! I think the only reason the CVNs manage 50 is because of the RCOH. DDGs arent gonna get that kinda love, and I bet the older Burkes are going to start showing their age and end up unsuitable for extensions. We'll never see 355, no matter how convincing their spiel is...

Honestly, Id go the other direction and build ships for a 20-25 year life. No need for extra space/margins/cost for upgrades that never come anyway. Plus that way the Navy can continue their minimal maintenance fetish...

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It's gonna be a hard rain gonna fall in Yemen no Bout a Doubt it.

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The rain should be falling on Iran.

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Iran seems to understand Economy of Force.

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We should give Iran Operation Praying Mantis II.

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Interesting data point on maintenance. Navy Reserve LCSRON2 got renamed to NR Commander Navy Surface Group South East to change the focus to supporting all ships in Mayport and keep the billets there.

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Focus is one thing. Follow through with funding and increasing readiness is another.

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Two thoughts. The first is the Navy should be proud of the fact that the DDG-51 class destroyers have been updated so they can operate in an environment that was not forseen in 1990.

The second thought is the Joint Force Commander should consider an attack operations course of action against the Houthis launch vehicles. From the number of weapons they are shooting into the Red Sea it seems to me that we will run out of multimillion dollar SAMs before they run out of their lower cost cruise and ballistic missiles.

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Knowledgeable wizards have noted that there are few fixed sites to be attacked, they are all mobile. The $$ delta is regretted, though of greater concern is our supply. How long to manufacture replacements?

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I worked in a Joint Test Force for seven years. We studied how well the US could conduct attack operations against theater missile elements. Our organization was stood up in 1994. At the end of our test we found... lets' just say attack operations was a challenge. What I am HOPING has happened is that DoD has not filed in the memory hole the lessons we learned from our joint test, and that we (DoD) can now detect, identify, track and attack movable targets.

As far as your other point, I don't know how quickly the companies that build SAMs can rebuild our stockpile, but I don't think it is very quick.

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Agreed. Hard mobile assets need to be taken out by mobile boots on the ground.

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Not our boots though. I'd prefer heavy use of drones. If the Hoots didn't have SA capability perhaps F-18's.

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Not sure how useful drones are with caves and tunnels not mention collecting data.

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I'm thinking more for destroying mobile targets. Nothing Navy can offer that addresses caves or tunnels.

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Saudi boots. Not ours.

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If too hard to hit mobile sites, then target the folks in charge of them. Decapitation from the battery commander to the brigade to the army commander (or the Houthi equivalents.) When it becomes too dangerous to be a "shooter" then the shooting will stop. And, be prepared for the inevitable real and bogus "collateral damage" victims to be exploited. Correct answer is "Don't shoot at us and we won't shoot at you."

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Sounds like an interservice operation to me. Expensive AA missiles are justifiable to protect ships for a limited time, but to address the source of the problem you want large quantities of cheap smart bombs delivered by airplane, and not necessarily naval air.

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Can you say "Arc Light"? I knew you could...

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How many JDAMs can a B-52 handle at once?

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The question should be"How many do we have left in the inventory?"

Covering a grid square with dumb bombs would be the kind of thing these primitives would gain a better understanding from

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Has anyone been discussing use of our Djibouti base against the Houthis, who are only 75 miles away, practically in the pattern?

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Boat Guy

3 mins ago

You mean the base right next to the HUGE Chinese compound?

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Prudent moves.

But, ROE matter- are we just sending more ships to shoot $2M missiles at Houthi launched drones and missiles? Or is this to provide enough firepower to saturate the launch sites and end the Houthi attacks on our warships/ all merchant ships/ friendly nations?

We must again ask why our "friends" the Saudis who share a border with Houthiland/Yemen are not front and center in countering the threat? And the Egyptians?

In 1990-91 we led a coalition of 42 nations to fight Iraq, with The Kingdom as a major beneficiary, and us being sort of their mercenary force. That is not a role we should repeat. Let the locals take care of local problems. If there is a pirate threat, that may justify our involvement in a narrowly focused piracy suppression mission, preferably with other seafaring nations sharing the burden.

But, we also need to avoid stumbling into Iran's briar patch.

Reality sucks when you have a 300 ship navy and still want to do 600 ship mission. Especially when those 300 ships have suffered from inadequate maintenance and ordnance stocks are less than optimum. (But, diversity is our strength....)

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Saudis care a lot about Houthis but might not care as much about Red Sea shipping. Maybe convince them that fewer oil tankers will fill up at Saudi ports due to Houthi actions. If it costs them enough money, maybe they will care.

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Burkes until the Crack of Doom, indeed! Now some tenders and forward drydocks to keep them maintained. And the people to properly man them all.

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Are you publishing your Christmas list to Santa???

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Partially. Also... P-8s, C-130 tankers, land-based Super Hornets, if not F-15EXs, a seaplane/amphibious for CSAR, restarted C-17 production......

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I truly miss the Sprucan’s. Never worried about subsurface threats when we were steaming and conducting CORDASW from our Knox class with the Spruance acting as OTC.

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[sarc] It is a good thing that submarines are not seen as transformational threats like unmanned drones. Torpedos are only slightly less old school compared to mines. [/sarc]

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Air and seapower are wonderful, but this is a job for special forces and Marines.

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Exactly. Maintenance needs to remain a priority. Work with Greece to establish a "quasi-NRF" / reload facility at Souda Bay.

BTW: Is a "gathering" of Burkes in the same arena of a pride of lions or a cover of quail?

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What is at Souda these days? While was in (72-74) all we had there was a fueling facility.

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