A towed array for LCS?
January 25th, 2010 | Mine warfare Science and technology Ships Submarines | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors in the littoral combat ships' mission control centers -- where FC1 Ronila Ivory stood ready to fire Freedom's 57mm gun in November -- could begin listening for submarines if the ships get a towed array sonar // Lt. Ed Early / Navy
The littoral combat ships weren’t designed with an onboard sonar because the Navy wanted LCS to use the sensors aboard its unmanned vehicles — including a remotely operated boat and submarine — but that, apparently, could be changing: Naval Sea Systems Command’s Underwater Warfare Center at Newport, R.I. has a request for proposal (pdf) out this month seeking ideas from contractors about a variable depth sonar for LCS with a towed array, like the ones carried on cruisers and early Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
(Navy officials said that one reason they canceled DDG 1000 in favor of more DDG 51s was the Burkes’ better anti-submarine capabilities (pdf), even though the newer ones don’t have a towed array. Funny, that.)
As Scoop Deck waits for Navy officials to respond to requests for comment on this, it’s worth thinking through how an onboard sonar could change the way LCS could operate.
Fleet photos: Haiti edition
January 25th, 2010 | Aviation Life at Sea Maritime operations Photos The greenside | Posted by Phil Ewing
Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Katie Blankenship of the dock landing ship Fort McHenry carried a Haitian patient to a helicopter to be flown ashore for more medical help on Sunday. The sick bays aboard many of the Navy warships in the Haitian task force — including the hospital ship Comfort — were at or near capacity at the beginning of the third week of the rescue operation. // MC1 Rachael Leslie / Navy
Why has it been so difficult to get the port of Port-au-Prince working again? This photo shows why. Wrenched seaward by the quake, one of the port’s main cranes is mostly underwater, as are several of the cargo containers it had previously unloaded. Here’s another view; in the second photo, if you look closely, you can see the hospital ship Comfort out on the horizon. // MCC Daniel Pearson / Navy
Marines returned to the amphibious assault ship Nassau after a flight aboard one of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s MV-22 Ospreys, flown by VMM-162, the “Golden Eagles.” Nassau’s Ospreys began flying Sunday to look for suitable landing spots — the big, twin-engined birds need more room to operate than traditional helicopters. // Sgt. Alex Sauceda / Marine Corps
More management lessons from a carrier
January 25th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers leadership Life at Sea The greenside | Posted by Phil Ewing
Marines from VMFA 312, the "Checkerboards" and a sailor from VFA 32, the "Swordsman," were looking pretty hard-core aboard the carrier Harry S. Truman last year. // MC2 Felicito Rustique, Jr. / Navy
Although it might not seem possible from the perspective of ABH3 Joe Deckplate — they make you do a FOD walkdown, button everything up, set flight quarters and then the Marine 53s never arrive because they broke down — outsiders are perpetually fascinated by the Navy as an exercise in good management.
Scoop Deck saw this not long after it stood up, when a carrier visitor pulled out “10 tips to run your business like a carrier” after a visit to the Nimitz in the Pacific. It has happened again, this time on the East Coast: An “executive coach” came back from a visit to the Harry S. Truman underway in the Atlantic with three lessons. Here they are, with excerpts; you can see the whole thing online here:
- People Can Handle More Than You Think: If you ever have the opportunity to hire someone who worked in an operations role on a carrier, hire them. They probably had more responsibility for life and death situations at age 19 or 20 than most of us will ever have in our lives.
- Systems and Processes Matter: It takes a synchronized effort among hundreds of people on at least four different decks and eight locations to land or launch a jet or plane every 45 seconds in a 4.5 acre space for hours at a time.
- Motivation is Adrenaline: The people on the Truman work long hours (12 to 18 hour shifts) in arduous conditions (noisy, confined and sometimes smelly spaces that require a constant focus on safety). And yet everyone we met or encountered (which was well into the hundreds of people) was motivated, energetic, courteous and, for the most part, seemed to be having fun.
Are these the same lessons you’d draw from life at sea? What would yours be?
Seahawk sortie links
January 25th, 2010 | Foreign navies Maritime operations Military Sealift Command Pirates Ships Uniforms | Posted by Phil Ewing
An SH-60 Seahawk from HS-15, the "Red Lions" took off this week from the carrier Carl Vinson off Haiti, transporting cargo and passengers much the same way today's links bring updates to you // MC2 Adrian White / Navy
Sonar dippin’, Mk 54 torpedo droppin’, VERTREP cargo haulin’, Hellfire missile shootin’, humanitarian aid deliverin’ links, standing by to fly you to the carrier for your lunch with the admiral, where you’ll probably get a lot of interesting updates like these:
- The hospital ship Comfort has about 1,000 beds, 80 intensive care wards, 12 operating rooms and a burn-care unit, but the flood of patients from Haiti means the ship is already at capacity.
- A French amphibious ship, the Siroco, has joined the international humanitarian armada off Port-au-Prince.
- Sometimes all it takes is an email: After the cruiser Bunker Hill got a note from some people worried about a priest on an island off Haiti, the ship went to check on him and delivered more than 1,100 meals and 2,200 gallons of water.
- Here’s an unusual development in another ongoing Navy mission: The destroyer Porter came to the aid of a North Korean-flagged cargo ship this weekend after it was attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
- The plans are proceeding apace for the new Gulf Coast museum that organizers hope will include the cruiser Ticonderoga, the Navy’s first Aegis warship and first of the big dogs of the surface force.
- If you’re a chief or an officer and you’ve always wanted to look just like John Wayne’s Capt. Rockwell Torrey of “In Harm’s Way” — you’re in luck!
Yesterday gators, today cargo ships
January 23rd, 2010 | Life at Sea Maritime operations | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors with Task Force 48 at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay are moving lots and lots of stuff to and through the international armada off Haiti // MCC Bill Mesta / Navy
The commanders of the Navy’s rescue operation have deputized amphibious ships to make cargo runs from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where supply shipments are piling up on the airfield, to the shores of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Rear Adm. Patricia Wolfe, who is commanding the logistics operation at Gitmo, told bloggers Saturday that she had just loaded up the dock landing ship Carter Hall with tents and some 5,000 cots, she said, which its landing craft will carry ashore. Other ships are carrying humanitarian rations and even sailors from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2.
The Navy isn’t doing anything it doesn’t already know how to do, she said, but the biggest challenge is just “throughput,” as she called it — managing the sheer volume of all the boxes and cases and pallets. Wolfe had some fun facts ready to go about the quantities of stuff the Navy has moved either through Gitmo to Haiti or sent directly to Haiti:
- 32,400 gallons of bulk water
- 440,000 bottles of water to 50 different places
- 1,200 pounds of medical supplies
- More than 2,000 Meals, Ready to Eat
- Navy ships have treated 444 patients and performed 35 major surgeries
- There are about 8,000 total sailors on the ground in Haiti, offshore, or supporting the operation at Gitmo
A vision of the future
January 22nd, 2010 | Aviation Carriers Foreign navies Photos Science and technology The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
This notional illustration of a Chinese aircraft carrier appeared in an Office of Naval Intelligence report from last year // ONI
Here’s something to chew on over the weekend: An artist’s conception of what China’s aircraft carrier, probably now under construction, could look like when it hits the water.
LCACs airborne, land supplies in Haiti
January 22nd, 2010 | Maritime operations The greenside | Posted by Phil Ewing
An LCAC from ACU 4 came aboard the Bataan off Norfolk Jan. 14. Those same hovercraft began their first landings in Haiti on Friday. // MC2 Kristopher Wilson / Navy
Our man in Haiti, Mark D. Faram, was with the Marines and sailors aboard the first Landing Craft, Air Cushion hovercrafts that came ashore today, carrying supplies and armored vehicles. The Marines planned to use the four LAV-25s, from the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, to set up a perimeter around a new base camp, Mark wrote.
Meanwhile, the sailors from Assault Craft Unit 4 planned to spend Friday running regular shipments of supplies from the amphibious assault ship Bataan to the beach at Grand Goave.
The disappearing ghosts
January 22nd, 2010 | Environment Historical Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The battleship Iowa, seen here with Task Force 38 at sea in the Pacific in 1944, is one of the ships illegally contaminating a bay in Calfornia as part of the rotting "ghost fleet." // NavHistHerCom
Scoop Deck gets a sick feeling sometimes when contemplating the circumstances of the battleship Iowa, a naval superstar moored at the end of a row of rust-buckets in the grandly named National Defense Reserve Fleet — aka the ghost fleet — at Suisun Bay, Calif. It’s hard not to connect the ship with another legendary mariner, Edmond Dantès, wrongly exiled as he rotted away in the infamous Château d’If.
The plight of the Iowa was driven home again this week when a federal judge ruled Thursday that the ships in the ghost fleet are disintegrating so badly they violate federal and state environmental laws. The case isn’t over yet — the state of California and environmental groups want to force the Maritime Administration, which oversees the ghost fleets in California, Virginia and Texas, to remove the ships. For now, though, the judge’s ruling confirms that the contaminants seeping off the old ships are hurting the bay.
You can see the full story here.
There may eventually be a silver lining for the Iowa, which planners in California hope to convert into a museum ship… although, as we’ve written before, that can be awfully tricky.
In the meantime, because this will be a highlight on any future tour, here is a photograph of Iowa’s bathtub — the only one installed on a U.S. warship. The Navy put it there for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s convenience when he took the ship to the Cairo and Tehran Conferences in 1943.
Kremlinology on Capitol Hill
January 22nd, 2010 | Congress Ships Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
A hearing convened by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., seen here in 2007 aboard the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, could have foreshadowed NavSea's announcement this week // MCSN Jon Dasbach / Navy
On Thursday, the program manager of the San Antonio-class gators announced at the Washington Navy Yard that several of the ships have lube-oil problems, one of them has a defective engine and every ship built on the Gulf Coast needs to be re-inspected because their pipes weren’t welded to Navy specifications. It wasn’t what the reporters who had been invited to the briefing at Naval Sea Systems Command expected to hear — they thought the day’s session was just going to be about the bearing problems that sidelined the latest LPD 17, New York.
But if you had known what to listen for, you could have picked up on an early hint this week that Navy and congressional types were in the loop on this situation. It came at Wednesday afternoon’s hearing on Capitol Hill in the form of some lighthearted banter between a witness before the seapower subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and two of its members.
Haiti rescue links
January 20th, 2010 | Coast Guard Maritime operations Royal Navy The greenside | Posted by Phil Ewing
Just as the dock landing ship Carter Hall prepared to offload supplies and troops offshore, so too do today's links bring the latest updates about the humanitarian mission in Haiti // MC2 Kristopher Wilson / Navy
Heavy-lift helo flyin’, cargo pallets loadin’, well deck floodin’, LCU launchin’, force-for-good-bein’ links, anchored offshore and ready to deliver the latest updates on the biggest Navy amphibious operation since Inchon.
- The U.S. is sending a second amphibious ready group to join the one already on station off Port-au-Prince and delivering shipments of food and medicine. The amphibious assault ship Nassau, the amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde and the dock landing ship Ashland are to arrive in the Caribbean within a week.
- The quiet professionals of the Coast Guard are continuing to evacuate Americans, deliver supplies and help clear the port of Port-au-Prince.
- Typically the Royal Navy would be a part of such a major international response to Haiti, The Times reports, but budget cuts mean Great Britain doesn’t have its normal naval presence in the Caribbean.
- How important is the port of Port-au-Prince to getting serious quantities of relief supplies into Haiti? Galrahn’s got a great post that talks about that and many other things. Sample factoid: 13 C-17 shipments = 1 USNS Sacagewea.
- Doctors aboard the hospital ship Comfort are peeved they haven’t been able to give more aid so far.
- Our salty senior colleague Mark D. Faram, on the ground with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, has some great shots of the Marines setting up their supply drop in Leogane.