Is there a separate Facebook for officers?
September 22nd, 2009 | leadership Officers | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, has joined the millions who use social media.// MC1 Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst/ Navy
It was only a matter of time. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead has a Facebook page. He also has a Twitter account.
Will Ospreys work as the Navy’s new COD?
September 22nd, 2009 | Aviation Carriers Navy | Posted by Andrew Tilghman
In this week’s paper, we reported a story about how the Navy is thinking of making the V-22 Osprey the Navy’s next Carrier Onboard Delivery aircraft — colloquially known as the COD.
I had a chance to speak to a C-2 pilot this weekend, as I flew from Norfolk out to the carrier Harry S. Truman. The pilot noted some drawbacks for the Osprey — it has about half the range, it’s a little bit slower and it can’t pressurize its cabin.
The pilot said he’d love to see a completely new aircraft, specially engineered for the COD mission — but he agreed that’s probably not going to happen.
Over here at Navy Times, the biggest drawback we see to an Osprey COD would be depriving civilians of catapult-shot takeoffs and trap landings.
Brace for impact: Reagan arrives in Phuket (updated)
September 22nd, 2009 | Carriers Liberty Life at Sea Morale The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
An elephant ride, as enjoyed by these Essex sailors in February, is just one liberty option for sailors visiting Thailand. The carrier Reagan arrived in Phuket this week // MC2 Greg Johnson/ Navy
The Phuket Wan newspaper, of Phuket, Thailand, is quickly becoming an indispensable source for WestPac naval coverage — and you can’t help but like a newspaper that runs this headline:
US Warships Anchor! Phuket’s All Set to Rumble
So the fleet’s in, so to speak, and Phuket boosters are expecting a $1 million-per-day boost to the local economy from the wallets of the sailors during their visit. The ships are scheduled to be there until Sept. 27, and lest we forget, their crews have been warned about potential trouble with ladyboys.
Another local paper, the Observer, points out that no sailors will be spending time on Jet-Skis while in town. The penalty for doing so is apparently “severe.”
The regular blue-light blue team
September 22nd, 2009 | Aviation Life at Sea The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
Chief Master Sergant of the Air Force James Roy met with sailors aboard the amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde, which does not have vectored thrust, nor the ability to supercruise // MC3 Patrick Grieco/ Navy
The Air Force’s top enlisted leader, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Roy, paid a visit to the amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde this week as it was docked in Panama, congratulating crew members and airmen stationed nearby on the work they’re doing as part of the international PANAMAX exercise that takes place every year south of the border.
“This certainly isn’t my first time on a ship or in a chief petty officer mess,” Roy said. “In my previous job, I worked as a senior enlisted advisor to the U.S. Pacific Command Combatant Commander. I spent a great deal of time on ships in the Pacific. We are a joint fighting force in everything we do.”
In that spirit of jointness, Scoop Deck asked our shipmates at Air Force Times for Roy’s mil-speak abbreviated nickname — the Navy’s top enlisted leader, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West, usually goes by the nickname “MCPON,” spoken “mick-pon,” as in “Hey, have you seen that awesome photo of MCPON holding that samurai sword?”
But there is no such equivalent for Roy, we learned.
“Yeah, we just call him ‘chief master sergeant of the Air Force,’ which makes it a bummer to write out every time, ‘chief master sergeant of the Air Force,’” said Air Force Times staff writer Michael Hoffman, a former Air Force officer.
Not only that, the Air Force has no equivalent to the term “shipmate,” Hoffman said — no “wing-mates” or “squadron-mates” or “air power pals” or “cross into the blue buddies” or “aim high hombres.”
“Yeah, we’re not really into that,” Hoffman said.
Paint your own cammies
September 21st, 2009 | Life at Sea Uniforms | Posted by Andrew Scutro
A sailor with paint-spattered coveralls (right) compares his trousers to the new Navy Working Uniform. //Photo by Sheila Vemmer, Navy Times
Check out this photo taken aboard the cruiser Anzio in the Middle East. Good to know that if you can’t afford the new Navy Working Uniform (which was designed to hide grease and paint), a bucket of paint and a set of blue coveralls will do the trick.
So wait … the Navy spent $226 million to field a new uniform, just to have it look like another uniform it wants to hide?
Doubts about the Navy’s Euro-BMD mission
September 21st, 2009 | Ballistic missile defense Navy Science and technology Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Commentators online wonder if the Navy's Aegis warships, like the destroyer Decatur, are up to the task of protecting Europe from ballistic missiles // MC3 Kathleen Gorby/ Navy
There are still many questions to be answered about the Navy’s new mission of providing two or three Aegis warships to protect Europe against missile attacks by 2011. And in the few days it has taken to process President Obama’s announcement that he was changing the U.S. missile defense plans, people have started asking them.
Information Dissemination’s Bryan McGrath wonders if the Navy shouldn’t consider forward deploying the BMD cruisers and destroyers somewhere in the Mediterranean or the Black Sea, an idea that could create a whole new Navy outpost abroad, as in Japan.
Hot Air’s Dafydd ab Hugh rejects the principle that Aegis BMD is a “new” answer for ballistic missile defense, because it’s been around for years, along with the notion of using it instead of developing new land-based missiles: “It’s like saying we must kill development of the Joint Strike Fighter because intelligence reveals that the most imminent enemy air threat can be countered by deploying our existing F/A-18 Hornets… and by golly, we can’t do both,” he wrote.
And this comment at Floppin’ Aces has the most detailed objections yet on the Web to relying on the Navy to protect Europe. Here are some of the highlights:
♦Positioning ships and maintaining them on station indefinitely is problematic.
♦If Turkey is pressured into denying access to the Black Sea to our ships, what then?
♦Aegis is a very expensive system that involves more than 600 different contracting entities by itself. Ships are maintenance intensive, spending months in dry docks or at pier side, and require more personnel to operate than land systems. The rotation of crews for training and rest is another factor to be considered. At the very least, the USN will need to increase the size of its current fleet of Aegis equipped vessels and add the corresponding personnel to complement them. The process will take a great deal of money and a long, long time.
♦The financial cost of relying on a single system like Aegis will be staggering but the costs should that single system fail, could be incalculable.
What do you think — can the Navy pull it off?
All hands, be advised: Look out for ‘ladyboys’
September 21st, 2009 | Carriers Liberty Life at Sea Morale | Posted by Phil Ewing
Much as the sailors in this 1934 painting needed to keep their wits about them, so too will Reagan strike group sailors need to keep up their guard on a visit to Phuket, Thailand, officials say // NavHistHerCom
Sailors know it’s a dangerous world out there: Let your guard down for less than a second and you can be vacuumed into a jet intake, or blown off the flight deck and never seen again. Here’s something else to add to all the occupational hazards of Navy life: ‘Ladyboy’ attacks.
The Ronald Reagan carrier strike group is due to arrive this week in Phuket, Thailand, and the Phuket Wan newspaper reports that the coming influx of sailors will happen in the midst of a transgender crime wave. The city — already infamous as a destination for sex tourism — has been experiencing a spate of muggings allegedly perpetrated by its workforce of “katoeys,” and there is a concern that problem might keep too many American dollars out of the hands of local merchants:
A spate of muggings by katoey ladboys [sic] in Patong has raised concern for the safety of US sailors who arrive on Phuket to take shore leave next week.
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan spearheads a friendly ”invasion” of warships to boost Phuket’s economy over five days.
But another less friendly invasion of ladyboys from all over Thailand has already begun, the local police chief warned today.
What a weird story. Have you done a port visit in Phuket? What was it like? Keep it clean — this is a family blog.
Moms try to take the sting out of holidays at sea
September 18th, 2009 | Aviation Carriers Life at Sea Morale | Posted by Phil Ewing
The carrier Nimitz and its strike group will spend Christmas at sea this year after Navy commanders extended their deployment to eight months // Navy
There are few feelings worse than being far away from your family during the holidays, but that’s what the sailors of the Nimitz carrier strike group have to look forward to this year after the Navy extended their deployment to eight months. The ship relieved the carrier Ronald Reagan in the Gulf of Oman on Friday and launched its first sorties against targets in Afghanistan.
A group of Navy moms isn’t taking this lying down, however. Via the Twitter Feed of Excellence came word this morning that users at NavyForMoms.com plan to “adopt” the Nimitz strike group and send care packages to try to help make its deployed Christmas a little brighter. Judging by the discussion so far, this project is still in the early stages, but you can keep a look out here for the additional details.
From ‘greyhounds of the sea’ to surface boomers?
September 18th, 2009 | Ballistic missile defense Life at Sea Morale Science and technology Ships Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
The destroyer The Sullivans, one of three East Coast warships scheduled for the Aegis BMD upgrade, could be tasked with a BMD cruise in European waters // MC2 Daniel Barker/ Navy
The Navy’s cruisers and destroyers got a new mission this week after President Obama’s announcement about his changes to U.S. ballistic missile defense goals. Designed as multi-mission combatants with enough firepower to level a city or bring down an air force — at the same time — two or three of the Navy’s Aegis warships instead will serve as BMD barges, loaded up with SM-3 missiles and ordered to patrol the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Starting in 2011, two or three must be on station protecting Europe at any given time.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described his vision Thursday for why the Navy should get the assignment:
A single Aegis can carry a hundred-plus or minus a few, depending on their mission configuration, of the SM-3. So this is a substantial addressal of the proliferation of the threat that we’re seeing emerge.
It would also be a substantial change for an Aegis warship’s load-out, which usually is a smorgasbord of SM-2, SM-3, Evolved Sea Sparow, anti-submarine and Tomahawk missiles. And it would be an even more substantial change for the ship’s crew, which would have a deployment more like a ballistic missile sub than a surface ship. Instead of swashbuckling high-seas adventure and visits to exotic ports, the ships will steam a box.
Or will they? Navy officials on Thursday had no details for what the new Aegis in Europe commitment will look like. Maybe a BMD cruise in the Med would be nothing but luxury — a sunshine circuit of Rivera, Italian and Greek port visits.
What do you think? You’ve got to have at least three cruisers or destroyers sailing around Europe at any one time. How would you set up the deployments?
The Bourne Interdiction
September 17th, 2009 | Coast Guard Morale | Posted by Susan Schept
Matt Damon made a visit to Coast Guard Station New York Tuesday while filming his new movie, The Adjustment Bureau. The movie, about mysterious forces trying to keep two lovers apart, includes a cameo with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Photo by PO3 Seth Johnson/Coast Guard
