"The strategic stability of the entire nation in the Pacific is being sacrificed to avoid upsetting the system of political and union corruption, patronage, cronyism, and incompetence that characterizes the state, local, and federal civilian controlled projects in that one-party state."
Yup, that pretty much jibes with my personal observations when I was stationed at Pearl. That was in 1970. Things have only gotten worse.
Common thread (WRT shipyards, logistical fleet and Red Hill, etc.)? Problems known and ignored for decades. "Kick the can down the road" accountability... bad optics, poor visibility, no names. New transformational strategies??? Good optics, good visibility & lots of names. Logistics known and validated through decades of painful lessons learned... objectively ignored. New transformational strategies (for 1000's of unmanned vehicles) unvalidated and answers many years away... press ahead. Logistics for said new transformational "fleet"... I'm sure they'll get around to that... eventually. Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Part and parcel to selling off the SPR at moments before elections. When the inevitable bills come due in lives and treasure, they will be able to tell bigger lies with a straight face...
How have we, the west, gotten so utterly bent logistically? It’s not just a one off thing. It’s like our leadership is absolutely determined to do everything wrong.
Speaking of fuel supplies, from an Australian perspective, we’re critically vulnerable to blockade. We export oil and gas, but we don’t have ANY refinery capacity! We import diesel! And when oil briefly dropped to zero a few years back, our government announced that we would take advantage to create a “Strategic Fuel Reserve”... that was located in the United States.
If a major war breaks out, with a competent adversary striking fuel supplies and transport first? Our entire economy shuts down in less than three months, unless the fuel can get escorted here.
How the hell are we supposed to support allied forces if we can’t even supply ourselves!?
AUS Strategic fuel reserve in the US that depends on PACFLT to fuel itself from HI in order to defend the great circle route from North America to Australia.....this is what happens when people plan without a map.
The new LMFAO's or repurposed LCS's will have to be stealth configured as providing them escorts would just eat up the tankered fuel en route. Safe bet they could do this in 7-10 years at not more than triple the original contract price. But the capacity of an LCS is small. 35 won't do. Build 35 more.
Seriously, is anybody here actually surprised? Makes ya' wonder if Del Toro fought or rolled over. After all, bringing fuel to Hawaii contributes to climate change. Fighting climate change is his #1 priority.
Hopefully he sees this and has the courage of his convictions to respond to us little people with his version of the facts.
People lie for many reasons. My experience is that politicians tend to lie more than the average person because of the personal gain they believe will be theirs if they are able to get away with the lie. All of their lies violate their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution. In this particular case, the very large potential to lose the next Pacific war due to a lack of chandlery and fueling assets in Hawaii and points west approaches a level of misfeasance/malfeasance of office that is close to treason. I once heard it said that first class executives hire other first class personnel to work for them, but that second class executives hire third rate personnel.
Right now, I don't care which past administration ran the train off the track. The much larger problem is that SecNav is actively ignoring a problem that may result in the deaths of thousands of service personnel as well as encourage the CCP to encroach even further east in the Pacific and into South America and Central America. Apparently the Secretary has yet to figure out that whenever the U.S. retreats, the PRC takes a step forward. Failing to maintain and expand our fueling capabilities in the Pacific is a big step backwards.
Well the "empty calories" Republican leadership in DC will most certainly jawbone the darn thing to death, raising up their indignation and then what follows will be another bowl full of nothing.
It's almost like China and Russia collaborated with Biden officials to implement policies for our Military (to THEIR advantage). Surrender to the Taliban. Don't leave any intel foothold in the region. Leave $80B of perfectly good equipment to be used against us. Eliminate the oil storage in Hawaii as if there are no consequences...What's next? Design a ship that doesn't work and has to be decommissioned within 5 years? Oh...wait...
When the U.S. Navy ran naval shipyards we had a wealth of technical experts. It was a side effect of the process of designing and building warships “in house.” We created military and civilian personal who knew how to design and build complicated industrial systems. Folks moved out of the shipyards into the Navy at large, bringing with them the skills and knowledge accumulated over time.
As the Commander noted, the current status of the tanks is untenable. They are leaking and poisoning people. If something is not done, they will poison everyone.
If the Navy Chief in 1920 were presented with a technical problem, he would have leaned on his technical experts. He would have had experts, and they would have been Navy men. Now, we don’t have technical experts, we have consultants. Instead of SeaBees rolling up their sleeves, and hitting the drawing boards with an attitude of “can do,” we have the beltway consulting class tell us “can’t do,” or worse, “a new, innovative and transformational way of storing fuel.”
We need a navy that can do navy things without hiring outside help.
Between the Battle Fleet, the MSP, and the NDRF the US has 21 tankers....21. That's just on paper. Some of those are in maintenance availabilities or not ready to sail for other reasons. Some may not even be in the INDOPACIFIC AOR. Once the missiles start flying do you think that less than 21 ships is enough to sustain a peer-to-peer naval war? Especially, when they have to bring fuels from the west coast of North America to inside the first island chain?
I am talking straight up oil tankers to store fuel, not distribute it. Yes, more "oilers" would be good. I'd like more details on the new smaller one they want for DMO.
And you could anticipate the environmental impact assessment to, site planning process, lawsuits, milcon budgeting will lead to breaking ground in the year 2050. In which case, the facility will not longer be needed because the entire fleet will be powered by unicorn farts and pixie dust.
No, the tanks leak into the drinking when the incompetently designed and incompetently operated fuel system dumps thousands of gallons of fuel into open pool of water under the tanks that is drawn on for drinking water. Which was apparently created to provide water for concrete during construction and some incompetent fool decided to hook into the drinking water supply decades later. Then when they dumped thousands of gallons of fuel into the drinking water supply they decided they didn't need to test the water because, you know, the thing.
Without detailed info, its not obvious at all... Steel, concrete. Anything can be 'fixed'. Might not be fiscally efficient, but repairs could be made if we need the facility, environmentalists be damned....
Protecting the environment is an aspect of good design. It’s not an “either/or.” You can have both. And let’s not forget the scale of the problem. The risk here is contamination of the drinking water upon which millions depend.
Well sure...and im not advocating for wanton environmental damage. Clearly we need to safeguard drinking water. BUT... At the same time, the military needs to be less subject to endless environmental litigation and EPA doctrine. If somthing is considered crucial to national defense, then they need a streamlined process to do whatever is needed without being held hostage in the court system and endless environmental statements...
Competent engineers can design projects that don’t harm the environment. This idea that we can’t defend the nation, and the environment is a lie; we can do both.
NMCBs never stopped CAN DO... they just got assigned projects that wouldn't cause local construction contractors to squawk too loudly about Seabees eating off of their plates.
Had a good friend I worked for when we were both retired from the USN and doing our asphalt thing for the County. He was a retired SeaBee CWO4 and former SWC(SCWS). Great guy. He did 30 years, just 4 promotions. He joined under DPPO as an E-6 Steel Worker during the Vietnam War, promoted to Chief and then up the ladder W-2 to W-4. It gave me great joy to rag on him that I'd had 11 promotions to his 4. But reaching CWO4 trumps everything up to O-5. When Rich (then an SWC) was stationed in Pensacola some 5 decades ago dredging needed to be done in the vicinity of the main pier at the Naval Air Station. There was no budget for contracting it out so Rich volunteered to do it. No dredging experience at all, but lots of can do. They found and refurbished some old dredging equipment and put it to use with as much stealth as possible for such a shoestring operation on the q.t. Rich recalled "losing some big pieces of the dredge over the side" during the dredging (It was a "learning experience" he said) but recovered enough to finish what the base wanted done. Imagine...doing that, perhaps, without all the permits...what a monumental testimony to CAN DO.
I worked with six retired Seabees at our County Engineering office. They have the best sea stories.
Fix or replace it. The problem is that no alternative is being presented. The DOD just hand waives the problem away, closes the base with no solution of how that task will be provided, and assumes the balloon will not go up until something is built to meet the need. With "leadership" like this, we hardly need enemies.
Is War with the United States Inevitable?…it appears that the policy of the United States toward Japan is based upon the idea of preserving the status quo and aims, in order to dominate the world and defend democracy, to prevent our empire from rising and developing in Eastern Asia. Under these circumstances, it must be pointed out the policies of Japan and the United States are mutually
inconsistent and that it is historically inevitable the conflict between the two countries, which is sometimes tense and moderate, should ultimately lead to war.
Change "Japan" to "China" and the same conclusion exists day. We are so screwed.
Closing of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility combined with the small amount of AO/AOEs in the Battle Fleet, MSP and NDRF, translates to an outright logistical surrender of the Navy's ability to sustain a fight west of wake. The Navy has done with the stroke of a pen, what the Empire of Japan failed to do in four years of bloody combat.
I was using basic product tankers to do the math the first time I looked at this and it was a steep number to replace the capacity. However, if you look at the capacity of a VLCC like the Alaska Class tankers that ESB/ESD are based on, it's only a smidge over 4.5 ships. Just get NASSCO moving off ESBs and back to Alaska class tankers.
Well that may very well be the path followed because it's going to take them 50 years to get through environmental impact assessment to come up with an alternative that sits on dry land and every lawsuit option has been exhausted.
Problem is that only four were ever built. One of the four is currently laid up. They also are too big to pull into port or UNREP off of. Thus, requiring smaller tankers and distributed lightering points to disburse fuel. None are in the MSP and none are classed as "military useful" by the DOT.
Ahh but your forget!!!! The Navy is big time into it her next gen, transformational what-cha-ma-thingy strategy that will be a total game changer. Thus the consequences of the Navy's negligent attention to the mundane and boring aspects of fleet logistics become a moot issue... so we're all good here.
I sense here a failure of inspiration that doesn't allow some people to warmly embrace the Weltanschauung of the new zeitgeist. Not you, Bill. It's the leadership team in DC. DC needs a better class of influencers and maybe some free Thorazine for influencees. Again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm51ihfi1p4&ab_channel=RHINO
I'd be satisfied if some of these "influencers" and "influencees" were not so enamored with the theoretical and were firmly grounded in the realities defined that suffer from the annual "rob Peter to pay Paul" treatment.
From some 30-40 year old meme..."Reality is for people who can't handle drugs". We are atrophied in so many ways now as a nation that it seems the only grounding we'll get is upon the shoals. The wake up from woke is going to be painful. I'll embrace it.
It seems like you're expressing a viewpoint about the state of society and the cultural shifts associated with the term "woke." Your statement reflects a perspective that suggests a concern about the impact of these changes on the nation.
It's important to recognize that opinions on these matters can vary widely, and discussions around them can be complex and nuanced. People have different views on how societal changes and cultural shifts affect our lives and communities. <<
No matter how many tankers ever get built, you cannot stockpile war-fighting amounts of fuel stores at sea. If there is no will to build new Red Hill facilities, then we need to spend money on building a hard core team of diplomats to get the best terms when we crawl to the negotiation table.
An advantage of this is that STS operations can be conducted anywhere the water is deep enough for a fully loaded VLCC but shallow enough for them to anchor. Use an anchorage and them move for the next op. Keep the enemy guessing about where and when so the ships don't get hit. Think about the advantage CVNs have over airfields ashore and then apply that to logistics.
How would the decisions being made by our top officials (top officials!) be any different if they were being made by Chairman Xi?
The Biden administration has an abundance of idiots, environmental wackos, and America haters in key jobs. But, given the infiltration of the Chinese into so many areas in our industry, academia and government agencies, are all these bad decisions merely the incompetence and arrogance of Biden buddies, or are some the result of Chinese "investments" and influence?
It is getting really hard to tell foreign enemies from domestic enemies.
How would the aircraft and ship building decisions of the Navy since 1995 be any different if the PLAN intelligence were directing them. Too-short ranged aircraft and no dedicated tankers? Check. Spend several decades not building effective surface ships and instead build a fleet of little crappy ships and 7 billion dollar cruisers without ammo? Check. Ensure the US stops building Nimitz carriers and instead build much more expensive carriers with systems that only work on paper? Check. Build submarines at less than replacement rates? Check.
during the cold war, the Soviets financed both our antinuke movement and the green guys. The CCP got the after action reports and have 10x the budget...
"As I’ve stated before. If you tell a lie; that is on you. If you ask me to join you in your lie; that is on you. If I agree to join you on that lie; that is on me."
That, boys and girls, is why I refuse to use anyone's "preferred" pronouns.
"The strategic stability of the entire nation in the Pacific is being sacrificed to avoid upsetting the system of political and union corruption, patronage, cronyism, and incompetence that characterizes the state, local, and federal civilian controlled projects in that one-party state."
Yup, that pretty much jibes with my personal observations when I was stationed at Pearl. That was in 1970. Things have only gotten worse.
You know it's bad when they couldn't even find a white hat or a Chief to bust.
Yup. Hawaii 1975-1982.
Common thread (WRT shipyards, logistical fleet and Red Hill, etc.)? Problems known and ignored for decades. "Kick the can down the road" accountability... bad optics, poor visibility, no names. New transformational strategies??? Good optics, good visibility & lots of names. Logistics known and validated through decades of painful lessons learned... objectively ignored. New transformational strategies (for 1000's of unmanned vehicles) unvalidated and answers many years away... press ahead. Logistics for said new transformational "fleet"... I'm sure they'll get around to that... eventually. Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Part and parcel to selling off the SPR at moments before elections. When the inevitable bills come due in lives and treasure, they will be able to tell bigger lies with a straight face...
How have we, the west, gotten so utterly bent logistically? It’s not just a one off thing. It’s like our leadership is absolutely determined to do everything wrong.
Speaking of fuel supplies, from an Australian perspective, we’re critically vulnerable to blockade. We export oil and gas, but we don’t have ANY refinery capacity! We import diesel! And when oil briefly dropped to zero a few years back, our government announced that we would take advantage to create a “Strategic Fuel Reserve”... that was located in the United States.
If a major war breaks out, with a competent adversary striking fuel supplies and transport first? Our entire economy shuts down in less than three months, unless the fuel can get escorted here.
How the hell are we supposed to support allied forces if we can’t even supply ourselves!?
“...determined to do everything wrong.” Exactly. The communists are not even sneaking around like they did back in WW Cold War. They are in charge.
"They are in charge." DING, DING, DING, DING, DING!!!!!!!
Truer words could not be typed.
AUS Strategic fuel reserve in the US that depends on PACFLT to fuel itself from HI in order to defend the great circle route from North America to Australia.....this is what happens when people plan without a map.
Question from the peanut gallery; Does Guam have sufficient resupply capacity? Assuming that capacity isn’t deleted by the first volley of missiles?
Does this mean the Navy is about to get 25 new PacFlt oilers??
That can't refuel in Hawaii? That's almost a sure bet that they're on the way!
I can pictute the oilers UNREPing the oilers now...
What AOs, exactly?
The Littoral Maritime Fleet Auxiliary Oiler.
(LMFAO)
Hey!
Folks are chattering how the decommissioned LCS's should be repurposed for something...
This is it!
The new LMFAO's or repurposed LCS's will have to be stealth configured as providing them escorts would just eat up the tankered fuel en route. Safe bet they could do this in 7-10 years at not more than triple the original contract price. But the capacity of an LCS is small. 35 won't do. Build 35 more.
Does this mean that the bow of the Indy's will be riding above the waves while the stern is awash???
Weren't those modular?? The ones with the Dense Unitized Maritime Bunkerage (DUMB) module??
Brilliant.
The 25 we should be building now in response to losing the facility Cdr....
They already do, to an extent. Look up T-AOT.
https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2223033/maritime-prepositioning-ships-t-ak-t-akr-and-t-aot/
There's not anywhere near enough of them, though.
Hahaha...no.
#%@$ !!!!!
I dub thee, "Cassandra."
Seriously, is anybody here actually surprised? Makes ya' wonder if Del Toro fought or rolled over. After all, bringing fuel to Hawaii contributes to climate change. Fighting climate change is his #1 priority.
Hopefully he sees this and has the courage of his convictions to respond to us little people with his version of the facts.
sue and settle
next up: Solar Frigates
That may be a step too far. WInd powered frigates, though. That would be transformational. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-psnCYdXOU
44 gun wind powered
https://seahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/USS-Constitution-1997.jpg
People lie for many reasons. My experience is that politicians tend to lie more than the average person because of the personal gain they believe will be theirs if they are able to get away with the lie. All of their lies violate their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution. In this particular case, the very large potential to lose the next Pacific war due to a lack of chandlery and fueling assets in Hawaii and points west approaches a level of misfeasance/malfeasance of office that is close to treason. I once heard it said that first class executives hire other first class personnel to work for them, but that second class executives hire third rate personnel.
Right now, I don't care which past administration ran the train off the track. The much larger problem is that SecNav is actively ignoring a problem that may result in the deaths of thousands of service personnel as well as encourage the CCP to encroach even further east in the Pacific and into South America and Central America. Apparently the Secretary has yet to figure out that whenever the U.S. retreats, the PRC takes a step forward. Failing to maintain and expand our fueling capabilities in the Pacific is a big step backwards.
I see that managing our decline is proceeding apace...
One one few things that DC can manage well.
"gifted" would be more fitting methinks...
Magnet School Gifted or Short Bus Gifted?
Oooh that one is going to leave a mark sir!!!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ece2f3c05c12f6fdf2c584b78e13d119cc3a149b73926697779f43bf0c696e7.jpg
My naval ratings were RD/OS and EW, all Deck Group so I qualify for that bus.
Well the "empty calories" Republican leadership in DC will most certainly jawbone the darn thing to death, raising up their indignation and then what follows will be another bowl full of nothing.
It's almost like China and Russia collaborated with Biden officials to implement policies for our Military (to THEIR advantage). Surrender to the Taliban. Don't leave any intel foothold in the region. Leave $80B of perfectly good equipment to be used against us. Eliminate the oil storage in Hawaii as if there are no consequences...What's next? Design a ship that doesn't work and has to be decommissioned within 5 years? Oh...wait...
"almost"
good catch...
When the U.S. Navy ran naval shipyards we had a wealth of technical experts. It was a side effect of the process of designing and building warships “in house.” We created military and civilian personal who knew how to design and build complicated industrial systems. Folks moved out of the shipyards into the Navy at large, bringing with them the skills and knowledge accumulated over time.
As the Commander noted, the current status of the tanks is untenable. They are leaking and poisoning people. If something is not done, they will poison everyone.
If the Navy Chief in 1920 were presented with a technical problem, he would have leaned on his technical experts. He would have had experts, and they would have been Navy men. Now, we don’t have technical experts, we have consultants. Instead of SeaBees rolling up their sleeves, and hitting the drawing boards with an attitude of “can do,” we have the beltway consulting class tell us “can’t do,” or worse, “a new, innovative and transformational way of storing fuel.”
We need a navy that can do navy things without hiring outside help.
I DO find it a lil hard to believe there isnt a way to fix this rather than closing the facility. But, its what I expected...
Keep in mind that was a lot of gas 80 years ago. Less so now. Big tankers we can move around may not be so bad. Key is big tankers, not little guys.
Between the Battle Fleet, the MSP, and the NDRF the US has 21 tankers....21. That's just on paper. Some of those are in maintenance availabilities or not ready to sail for other reasons. Some may not even be in the INDOPACIFIC AOR. Once the missiles start flying do you think that less than 21 ships is enough to sustain a peer-to-peer naval war? Especially, when they have to bring fuels from the west coast of North America to inside the first island chain?
I am talking straight up oil tankers to store fuel, not distribute it. Yes, more "oilers" would be good. I'd like more details on the new smaller one they want for DMO.
The problem is the tanks are leaking into the water table. Obviously, the way to fix the problem is to build a new facility.
Obviously, and yet they're not doing that.
And you could anticipate the environmental impact assessment to, site planning process, lawsuits, milcon budgeting will lead to breaking ground in the year 2050. In which case, the facility will not longer be needed because the entire fleet will be powered by unicorn farts and pixie dust.
By 2050 the entire fleet might be crewed by unicorns and pixies, so that might work
possibly... the way things are going today, I'm not sure I can keep up with dictionary revisions.
No, the tanks leak into the drinking when the incompetently designed and incompetently operated fuel system dumps thousands of gallons of fuel into open pool of water under the tanks that is drawn on for drinking water. Which was apparently created to provide water for concrete during construction and some incompetent fool decided to hook into the drinking water supply decades later. Then when they dumped thousands of gallons of fuel into the drinking water supply they decided they didn't need to test the water because, you know, the thing.
"open pool of water under the tanks "
Are you referring to a freshwater lens? There is no "open pool" of water under the tanks, just rock.
And, just because I find it interesting---
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/ciegag.0000583
Without detailed info, its not obvious at all... Steel, concrete. Anything can be 'fixed'. Might not be fiscally efficient, but repairs could be made if we need the facility, environmentalists be damned....
Protecting the environment is an aspect of good design. It’s not an “either/or.” You can have both. And let’s not forget the scale of the problem. The risk here is contamination of the drinking water upon which millions depend.
Well sure...and im not advocating for wanton environmental damage. Clearly we need to safeguard drinking water. BUT... At the same time, the military needs to be less subject to endless environmental litigation and EPA doctrine. If somthing is considered crucial to national defense, then they need a streamlined process to do whatever is needed without being held hostage in the court system and endless environmental statements...
Competent engineers can design projects that don’t harm the environment. This idea that we can’t defend the nation, and the environment is a lie; we can do both.
NMCBs never stopped CAN DO... they just got assigned projects that wouldn't cause local construction contractors to squawk too loudly about Seabees eating off of their plates.
Had a good friend I worked for when we were both retired from the USN and doing our asphalt thing for the County. He was a retired SeaBee CWO4 and former SWC(SCWS). Great guy. He did 30 years, just 4 promotions. He joined under DPPO as an E-6 Steel Worker during the Vietnam War, promoted to Chief and then up the ladder W-2 to W-4. It gave me great joy to rag on him that I'd had 11 promotions to his 4. But reaching CWO4 trumps everything up to O-5. When Rich (then an SWC) was stationed in Pensacola some 5 decades ago dredging needed to be done in the vicinity of the main pier at the Naval Air Station. There was no budget for contracting it out so Rich volunteered to do it. No dredging experience at all, but lots of can do. They found and refurbished some old dredging equipment and put it to use with as much stealth as possible for such a shoestring operation on the q.t. Rich recalled "losing some big pieces of the dredge over the side" during the dredging (It was a "learning experience" he said) but recovered enough to finish what the base wanted done. Imagine...doing that, perhaps, without all the permits...what a monumental testimony to CAN DO.
I worked with six retired Seabees at our County Engineering office. They have the best sea stories.
Fix or replace it. The problem is that no alternative is being presented. The DOD just hand waives the problem away, closes the base with no solution of how that task will be provided, and assumes the balloon will not go up until something is built to meet the need. With "leadership" like this, we hardly need enemies.
"Our newest class of ships of the line will be wind-powered and mount an astonishing 74 guns."
the PERT chart for the Nautilus was two grad school ORSA seminars. A thing of beauty...
From "Oil Logistics in the Pacific War":
Is War with the United States Inevitable?…it appears that the policy of the United States toward Japan is based upon the idea of preserving the status quo and aims, in order to dominate the world and defend democracy, to prevent our empire from rising and developing in Eastern Asia. Under these circumstances, it must be pointed out the policies of Japan and the United States are mutually
inconsistent and that it is historically inevitable the conflict between the two countries, which is sometimes tense and moderate, should ultimately lead to war.
Change "Japan" to "China" and the same conclusion exists day. We are so screwed.
Yep, it almost is word for word what you would find in Xi's speeches and the communiques coming out of the CCP Central Committee.
Closing of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility combined with the small amount of AO/AOEs in the Battle Fleet, MSP and NDRF, translates to an outright logistical surrender of the Navy's ability to sustain a fight west of wake. The Navy has done with the stroke of a pen, what the Empire of Japan failed to do in four years of bloody combat.
I was using basic product tankers to do the math the first time I looked at this and it was a steep number to replace the capacity. However, if you look at the capacity of a VLCC like the Alaska Class tankers that ESB/ESD are based on, it's only a smidge over 4.5 ships. Just get NASSCO moving off ESBs and back to Alaska class tankers.
Well that may very well be the path followed because it's going to take them 50 years to get through environmental impact assessment to come up with an alternative that sits on dry land and every lawsuit option has been exhausted.
Problem is that only four were ever built. One of the four is currently laid up. They also are too big to pull into port or UNREP off of. Thus, requiring smaller tankers and distributed lightering points to disburse fuel. None are in the MSP and none are classed as "military useful" by the DOT.
Ahh but your forget!!!! The Navy is big time into it her next gen, transformational what-cha-ma-thingy strategy that will be a total game changer. Thus the consequences of the Navy's negligent attention to the mundane and boring aspects of fleet logistics become a moot issue... so we're all good here.
I look forward to the fleet of autonomous UNREP tanker drones saving us. We salute you, AI sailors.
I sense here a failure of inspiration that doesn't allow some people to warmly embrace the Weltanschauung of the new zeitgeist. Not you, Bill. It's the leadership team in DC. DC needs a better class of influencers and maybe some free Thorazine for influencees. Again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm51ihfi1p4&ab_channel=RHINO
I'd be satisfied if some of these "influencers" and "influencees" were not so enamored with the theoretical and were firmly grounded in the realities defined that suffer from the annual "rob Peter to pay Paul" treatment.
From some 30-40 year old meme..."Reality is for people who can't handle drugs". We are atrophied in so many ways now as a nation that it seems the only grounding we'll get is upon the shoals. The wake up from woke is going to be painful. I'll embrace it.
#ChatGPTutor:
It seems like you're expressing a viewpoint about the state of society and the cultural shifts associated with the term "woke." Your statement reflects a perspective that suggests a concern about the impact of these changes on the nation.
It's important to recognize that opinions on these matters can vary widely, and discussions around them can be complex and nuanced. People have different views on how societal changes and cultural shifts affect our lives and communities. <<
No matter how many tankers ever get built, you cannot stockpile war-fighting amounts of fuel stores at sea. If there is no will to build new Red Hill facilities, then we need to spend money on building a hard core team of diplomats to get the best terms when we crawl to the negotiation table.
So the VLCCs just anchor offshore and the AOs go alongside to load. That is common in the commercial world.
https://www.thesignalgroup.com/newsroom/ship-to-ship-operations-sts-explained-product-update
An advantage of this is that STS operations can be conducted anywhere the water is deep enough for a fully loaded VLCC but shallow enough for them to anchor. Use an anchorage and them move for the next op. Keep the enemy guessing about where and when so the ships don't get hit. Think about the advantage CVNs have over airfields ashore and then apply that to logistics.
How would the decisions being made by our top officials (top officials!) be any different if they were being made by Chairman Xi?
The Biden administration has an abundance of idiots, environmental wackos, and America haters in key jobs. But, given the infiltration of the Chinese into so many areas in our industry, academia and government agencies, are all these bad decisions merely the incompetence and arrogance of Biden buddies, or are some the result of Chinese "investments" and influence?
It is getting really hard to tell foreign enemies from domestic enemies.
The foreign ones are working more closely and more openly with the domestic ones (of the elephant and ass families both) than ever before.
How would the aircraft and ship building decisions of the Navy since 1995 be any different if the PLAN intelligence were directing them. Too-short ranged aircraft and no dedicated tankers? Check. Spend several decades not building effective surface ships and instead build a fleet of little crappy ships and 7 billion dollar cruisers without ammo? Check. Ensure the US stops building Nimitz carriers and instead build much more expensive carriers with systems that only work on paper? Check. Build submarines at less than replacement rates? Check.
during the cold war, the Soviets financed both our antinuke movement and the green guys. The CCP got the after action reports and have 10x the budget...
"As I’ve stated before. If you tell a lie; that is on you. If you ask me to join you in your lie; that is on you. If I agree to join you on that lie; that is on me."
That, boys and girls, is why I refuse to use anyone's "preferred" pronouns.
Please, it's "Your Most Imperial Majesty".
:)
dumb comment.