Fullbore Friday
give credit where credit <spit> is due
A little different topic this Fullbore Friday as ... I want to make you mad.
I won't be subtle or clever here ... thanks to a simple tweet from The Other Sal, I am just going to hit you right in the forehead with it.
Here we are at the dawn of 2022 and all over the spectrum of American maritime "thought leaders" from the SECNAV, CNO, Congress, and ostensibly pro-Navy institutions - we have excuses, squid-ink cover stories, and simple defeatism flavored with a machoistic lust for decline.
Decline is a choice, and bullsh1t to all that.
We are a maritime and aerospace power by geography, economy, and national interest even if those who are trusted to maintain and leverage that comparative advantage fail to act on that.
Until we get the leaders we need, we few - we happy few - will just call them all out from the cheap seats.
So, with that lead-in ... here you go; who gets a "Fullbore" this week - and the first one of the New Year? No question ... and it isn't even close ... The People's Liberation Army Navy.
The Communist Chinese - who are not a natural maritime and aerospace power (they are a land power) - desire to knock us off our perch and they are not playing around.
Just look at the battleforce warships the PLAN commissioned in 2021.
- 2 Type 075 Helicopter Carriers
- 3 Type 055 Destroyers
- 7 Type 052D Destroyers
- 9 Corvettes Type 056A and
- 1 Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) Type 094
BEHOLD!
...and what has the United States Navy commissioned?
- 1 DDG (USS Daniel Inouye (DDG 118) )
- 2 LCS (USS Oakland (LCS 24) and USS Mobile (LCS 26) )
That is it from what I can see. We could have had one more LCS and two SSN commissioned, but those have shifted to the right in to 2022 ... maybe.
Show me what I missed in the main battleforce navy.
Please.
Anyway, Fullbore to those entrusted with building the PLAN. They have a solid plan, solid funding, and ... well ... just look at the numbers.
Give credit where credit is due.
Mad, I am....
And I am seeing a LOT of articles full of notions coming out of Proceedings these days about what we could do, what we should do, stuff and things.
Even Lehman's article about how we made it through after 'Nam was a huge disappointment. (Though the interview on the podcast was much more encouraging)
Ships rusty, double slamming deployments to appear 'unpredictable,' hyperfocused on non-warfighting training and webinars. I don't get it Sal. I just don't. Hell, recently it was national news when the 11th elevator on Ford was accepted as working by the Navy. An elevator!
I'm with you on accountability. Optempo, Afghanistan withdrawal, building a fleet that isn't needed and NOT building a fleet that is needed. Lehman mentioned the added delay in projects due to having to clear them with the Joint folks.
I sit here in a port city, one that used to build boats. One that decommissioned boats after WWII. One that, the last I can remember, built a smallboy for Saudi Arabia in the 70's with solid gold faucets. ( I know in Seattle, Todd built a couple after and has an LCS in drydock) Bremerton used to build ships.
I look at the landscape and think of what it would take to do a post Pearl Harbor emergency build and cannot see how it would be done today. And even if we got the steel and facilities, we would NOT have all sorts of fancy electronics available for them. We would be right back down to Mk 1 eyeball through a sight, pounding out rounds, torpedoes and depth charges in primitive fighting styles very quickly. Hope we kept the plans for Liberty ships and got oral histories from the surviving builders to help us along.
Awareness and accountability seem to be missing Sal. Even as a deckplate sailor, I see the need to clean some house up in the chain. Better to do it now than to have to court martial the cleaning later.
Elected leaders are more focused on diversity and inclusion. America no longer has the guts to be a fighting force. The defense acquisition process is boggled down with bureaucratic B.S. Military branch "class desks" are filled with people from academia that have no clue of how the military complex works or operates. People in this country actually believe we can live in a utopian society. It won't matter when we're all dead and gone because we couldn't fight back.