Hot-dogging in the Chinese fleet?
April 26th, 2010 | Aviation China Maritime operations The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
China's newfound naval aggressiveness is all over the news these days, although its ships train regularly with their U.S. counterparts. The Chinese destroyer Qingdao sailed with the American destroyer Chung-Hoon. // MC3 Ben Gonzales / Navy
Back in the bad old days, Soviet pilots used to tease American carrier battle groups — that’s what we called ‘em — by edging close to their airspace, flying attack-style dives toward the carrier and trying other kinds of mischief. A generation of F-14 Tomcat pilots, in fact, spent kind of a lot of time staring out their canopies at the crews aboard Russian Tu-95 bombers, sometimes waving, sometimes shaking their fists, but always curious about the guys in the other plane. Those kinds of encounters still happen every once in a while, but they’re much rarer now.
It might not stay that way if the Chinese become the new bad boys of the oceans. According to a story today out of Japan, a tense near-miss this month between a Chinese helicopter and a Japanese destroyer may have happened because the Chinese helo pilot wasn’t obeying orders to break off, and decided to put the fear into the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force:
On the morning of April 8, the [Chinese] helicopter approached an MSDF destroyer … in the central area of the East China Sea. When the helicopter took off from a guided missile destroyer, it was about 4,000 meters away from the MSDF destroyer Suzunami. As the chopper flew closer to the Suzunami, the destroyer ordered it several times by radio not to fly any closer to the Japanese destroyers. However, the helicopter ignored the orders and continued toward the Suzunami. Ultimately the helicopter was only about 90 meters away from the Suzunami at a height of about 30 meters, lower than the destroyer’s mast.
According to another report, the crew of the Suzunami spotted Chinese air crew aboard the helo with cameras, and wondered if they weren’t filming the ship’s sensors and weapons.
We all laughed when Maverick and Goose buzzed the tower at Naval Air Station Miramar, but the idea that this Chinese pilot refused orders to break off his run doesn’t seem that funny. How soon until this happens with an American ship?
North Korea’s meritorious promotion program?
April 26th, 2010 | Foreign navies North Korea Officers The Pacific | Posted by Lance Bacon
Kim Myong-guk was promoted to general in 1994, but was demoted in January (picture at right). Now, he's a four-star again, and South Korea is suspicious ...
In January, former North Korean four-star Kim Myong Guk was seen wearing only three stars on his collar. Most analysts believed he had been held accountable for North Korea’s loss to South Korea in a naval skirmish off the west coast in November.
But North Korean television footage and photographs released over the weekend find the 70-year-old fielding that fourth star once more.
The JoongAng Daily, a daily paper printed in Seoul, reported Monday that the demotion-to-promotion turnaround was related to the March 26 sinking of a South Korean naval ship near the western sea border with the North.
“It is extremely rare for a general who wasn’t included in the major promotion to move up a rank in a separate move,” a South Korean government official was quoted as saying.
Kim was not among generals in major promotions of generals conducted twice earlier this month.
The South Korean government has not officially accused North Korea of sinking the 1,200-ton Cheonan, but a North Korean torpedo attack — possibly a three-person “human torpedo” — has been suspected as the cause.
In their own words: Fire Scout on the hunt
April 26th, 2010 | Aviation Maritime operations | Posted by Phil Ewing
A Fire Scout flying from the frigate McInerney helped spot some suspected drug smugglers by being quiet and keeping on station for a long while. // MC2 Alan Gragg / Navy
Earlier this month, a Fire Scout unmanned helicopter flying from the frigate McInerney helped with its first real-life drug bust at sea. You read the official version of events and you saw the video here on the Deck. Here’s something else you won’t find elsewhere: A first-hand account by the captain of the McInerney, Cmdr. Paul Young, about what went down. He was asked how doing a counter-narcotics patrol with Fire Scout was different from a standard Navy Seahawk:
YOUNG: It gave us longer on station time than with our SH-60, and it also gave us a level of covertness that we wouldn’t have had normally. What the drug runners tend to do, to try and detect law enforcement aircraft, is — they have these little speedboats they run in, so obviously when they’re running hard, it’s very loud, so they stop frequently and turn off the engines and just listen. If they hear aircraft, they start taking measures to jettison their contraband. We saw them stop on a couple of time during the pursuit, and Fire Scout was remarkably close to them. Even though they stopped, they didn’t hear it and they didn’t see it. Plus, it gave us longer on-station time — we would’ve had to recover an SH-60 to refuel it because it the pursuit was more than three hours.
The flip side to that coin is that an unmanned helicopter can’t fire warning shots or put a sniper round into a boat’s engine to keep it from getting away. So even though Fire Scout can watch and wait longer than a manned helo, Young said, there are still many good reasons to keep the traditional birds in the air.
SEALs tighten ties with India
April 26th, 2010 | Foreign navies leadership Maritime operations Navy SEALs Ships Submarines The Pacific | Posted by Lance Bacon
Members of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two prepare to launch one of the team's SEAL Delivery Vehicles from the attack submarine Philadelphia in 2005. Similar deliveries will likely be used in joint training with India currently underway. (Photo by Chief Photographer's Mate Andrew McKaskle)
Earlier this month, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead visited the naval forces of India to strengthen the maritime partnership.
Now, the SEALs are getting in on that action.
The Indian newspaper The Telegraph reported today that the cruiser Shiloh, destroyers Chaffee and Lassen, frigate Curts, attack submarine Annapolis, two P3C Orions and a 28-member special forces team haved teamed with the Indian Navy to practice anti-submarine warfare and special operations in the 14th Malabar exercise.
The United States is the only country with which India conducts large-scale naval exercises, and this is the first time we’ve sent SEALs to participate in the exercise, scheduled to run through May 2.
The Indian Navy has a destroyer, three frigates, a submarine, Sea Harrier fighters and various helicopters from its Western Fleet participating in the bilateral exercise.
A hand from your friendly neighborhood gator
April 26th, 2010 | Maritime operations Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC1 David McKee / Navy
Good thing the people of the United States pay hundreds of billions of dollars for the greatest fleet of warships in the world, and the skilled professionals who sail them — or these two guys would’ve had to call Boat U.S. Fortunately for them, they happened to run out of gas within reach of American seapower, and the crew of the amphibious transport dock Dubuque lent them enough fuel to get home to Newport Beach, Calif.
SecNav unveils Murtha’s amphib
April 23rd, 2010 | Ships The greenside Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Navy illustrators added the hull number "26" to a July 2, 2009 photo of the amphibious transport dock New Orleans underway in the South China Sea. // Navy
As readers of Navy Times and Scoop Deck already knew would happen, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on Friday named the Navy’s 10th San Antonio-class amphib for Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha. (Does that shot look familiar? It should.)
“Both in uniform and in the halls of Congress, chairman Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the Marine Corps and Congress. His unwavering support of our sailors and Marines, and in particular of our wounded warriors, was well known and deeply appreciated,” Mabus said in an announcement.
Mabus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Murtha’s family members were on hand for the naming ceremony in Murtha’s hometown of Johnstown, Pa. Hundreds of Web users were on hand to comment on the decision on the Navy’s official Facebook page, and not all of them were fans:
What do you think of the name?
The Army decision that could de-fang LCS
April 23rd, 2010 | ordnance | Posted by Phil Ewing
LCS's surface-to-surface missile will not be creating any big explosions any time soon. // Navy
We warned you about it — now it could be happening for real. Our compatriot Kate Brannen of Defense News reports today that the Army has recommended canceling its own Non-Line Of Sight missile program because the weapon has proved too expensive and too unreliable in its early iterations.That doesn’t just affect the ground-poundoisie: NLOS was also planned for use aboard the littoral combat ship, as its short-range surface-to-surface strike option. If the Army cancels it, the Navy could be in a bind.
The enclosures on both the littoral combat ship Freedom and its cousin, Independence, weren’t designed for just any small vertically launched missile — they were built, with tolerances down to fractions of an inch, for NLOS. So if NLOS as it exists goes away, that could mean Naval Sea Systems Command could get the program dumped in its lap, or that LCS could wait even longer for some other variety of surface-to-surface missile.
In the meantime, the ship will have to kill guys on Jet-Skis the old fashioned way.
Navy leadership’s official blog cleared to engage
April 22nd, 2010 | Blogs Liberty Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
"General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your blogging stations! The release of blog posts has been authorized. This is not a drill!" // MC3 Walter Wayman / Navy
Sometimes things happen that you never thought you’d see in your lifetime — Deep Throat’s identity revealed; Fidel Castro out of power (effectively) and now, an official, no-foolin’, Big Navy blog. Longtime Scoop Deck readers may remember that we told you about Navy Live, as it’s called, not long after the Deck itself was first stood up, back when the Navy’s official blog was just a shell and had a single post that said “test.” Well, it’s back, with a debut post by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and pix and links and everything.
Discussion of … important matters confronting the Navy and Marine Corps is the purpose behind creation of this blog. It will provide an opportunity for the senior leadership of the secretariat and the Navy to communicate directly with both the Navy and the public at large, without having to resort to the formality of a naval message or press release. Through the blog, we have the opportunity to begin a conversation in plain language about issues of the day and what the Navy and Marine Corps are doing about them, as well as solicit constructive feedback on our thoughts and policies. I look forward to our conversations!
There’s a comments page and everything, so you’ll be able to fire right back at SecNav and his top lieutenants as they add more posts. We have a comments page, too, which you should use to say how you think Navy leadership should use Navy Live. We’re through the looking glass here, people!
The Admiral to the end
April 22nd, 2010 | Historical leadership Navy Officers | Posted by Lance Bacon
In the April 26 edition of Time Magazine, ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer answers 10 questions from readers regarding her decades as a journalist.
Rome Ibera, of Dumont, N.J., asked “What has been your most difficult interview so far?”
Sawyer answered:
Admiral Hyman Rickover. He was in his 80s at the time. He’s the father of the nuclear Navy, and he famously tried to destabilize you when you were in his presence. I introduced [the segment] by saying how brilliant he was, and he said, ‘It’s not that I’m so smart. It’s that you’re so dumb.’ And that’s how we began.”
Indeed, Rickover remained “the kindly old gentleman” to the end.
New theory in sinking of South Korean ship
April 22nd, 2010 | Foreign navies North Korea SEALs Ships | Posted by Lance Bacon
A Kaiten Type I, located at the Tokyo Yasukuni War Memorial Museum.
It’s no secret that many in the South Korean military and government have cast a suspicious, if not accusatory eye at their neighbor to the north regarding last month’s sinking of a corvette that left 46 dead.
Moments ago, the South Korean newspaper Choson Ilbo reported that some military officials are now focusing their attention on “human torpedoes.’
These aren’t your typical suicide bombers. They trace their origins to the “kaiten” (lit. “the Heaven Shaker“), Japanese underwater suicide bombers put into action at the end of World War II. North Korea’s human torpedo units belong to the 17th Sniper Corps and are deployed in both the East and West seas at the brigade level, according to the report. The units are made up of elite, SEAL-type troops.
The unit is said to be trained to use semi-submersible vessels equipped with light torpedoes or other explosives, which are fired or placed on their intended targets at close range.
Park Sun-young, a lawmaker with the Liberty Forward Party, told the South Korean National Assembly a three-man team aboard a Seal Deliver Vehicle laden with explosives could have sunk the Cheonan.