Iran’s massive armada
July 26th, 2010 | Ships The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
The destroyer Roosevelt trained to deal with a swarm attack at sea. In case of a real conflict with Iran, there would be 99 more of those small attackers, according to a new report. // Navy
The Navy wants to eventually build a fleet of 313 warships, but that won’t matter if the proverbial balloon goes up and unpleasantness occurs between the U.S. and Iran, according to a new report: Iran says it has 100 vessels for every American ship, making it effectively invulnerable at sea.
Quick back-of-the-envelope math: Today’s Status of the Navy page lists the U.S. battle force at 290 ships (the “Status” numbers tend to be a bit sketchy, but let’s accept this one for now). Two hundred ninety times 100 equals 29,000! That means that Iran has the largest navy in history by an enormous margin — so many combat vessels that you could walk their decks from Bandar Abbas to Doha without getting your feet wet. So many vessels, in fact, that Iran’s real strategy in case of war is probably just to sortie them all at once, so that they physically block deep-draft ships from using any of the navigable water in the Persian Gulf.
This is ridiculous, you say. Yes, you’re right.
EOD on the front lines
July 23rd, 2010 | EOD Navy NECC | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
On any given day, the Navy’s EOD sailors are deployed in just about every geographical command – and it’s not just Iraq or Afghanistan where explosive ordnance disposal technicians are putting their expertise to save lives and limbs. This week, one-quarter of the nearly-2,600 member EOD force is deployed, according to Navy Expeditionary Combatant Command, with EOD mobile and naval mobile diving and salvage units teams and platoons operating in Southern, Central, European, Africa and Pacific commands. EOD sailors also are participating in the biennial “Rim of the Pacific” exercises off Hawaii, joining in maritime security operations, disarming underwater mines and other explosives and tackling the challenge of command and control at sea and ashore in a more dispersed, joint battle space.
Despite the busy pace of operations and big demands for their expertise in an inherently dangerous business, EOD sailors aren’t fleeing the Navy. Top commanders say retention remains strong in the community. In West Coast-based EOD Group 1, for example, the Navy retained 90 percent of Zone A sailors and 89 percent of Zone B sailors, according to NECC figures. EOD Group 2, based in Virginia, has seen similar rates, a spokesman said. Those rates are 50 percent higher than what the Navy saw in 2008, when Zone A retention ran about 66 percent.
Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 5 sailors wait for a helicopter pickup during a cast-and-recovery training off the aircraft carrier George Washington July 19 in the western Pacific.//Navy/MC3 Adam K. Thomas
“Our retention rates have been very good,” Capt. Dale Fleck, the EOD Group 2 commodore, said in a July 21 teleconference interview with reporters. Sailors “enjoy it. They want to be here. They receive very good training. While the majority of them have had multiple deployments, we have had very good retention rates. It’s very important to actually keep them in the community and give them the experience.”
Sailors realize the critical value of what they bring with their experience, Capt. Ted Lucas, commodore for EOD Group 1, said from San Diego in the media teleconference with Fleck. “Sailors are doing a necessary thing they believe in,” Lucas said. “We are a combat force,” trained to face threats when they deploy and diffuse explosives, improved explosive devices, weapons of mass destruction and underwater mines, he added. “We are a central force (that) enables combat operations and maneuver.”
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician 2nd Class Nathan Albrich climbs a ladder to an HH-60H Sea Hawk during training July 20 in the western Pacific, with George Washington in the background.//Navy/MC3 Adam K. Thomas
The work is varied, even in places like Iraq, where EOD technicians teach and train Iraqis as the country builds up its local bomb squads. In Iraq and Afghanistan, EOD sailors on a daily basis diffuse or detonate roadside bombs and improvised explosives that are the biggest enemy threat to U.S. and coalition forces. “We are very proactive in making sure we are up with the threats and enemy tactics,” Fleck said. “When we respond to an incident, whether it be an IED that has already been detonated or one that has been found, we perform render-safe and an analysis of the scene and the materials that are involved.” That information and intelligence is quickly shared among the joint forces and incorporated into existing training.
“Our trainers…keep up to speed with everything that is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lucas said. “They are analyzing all different sources of information.” Sailors “get the most up-to-date training,” he added.
The rise in high-tech robotics isn’t about to push the sailor clear out of the community, the commanders said. “Our most critical asset is our sailor,” Lucas said. “We are a force not really platform-centric. Our sailors are our best asset.” Fleck agreed. “We are not ships and airplanes. The EOD operator is a highly-trained technician and who has skill sets,” he said. Without the human factor, “the mission cannot be performed.”
On their way out
July 23rd, 2010 | Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The frigate Hawes may be leaving the fleet, but its components will continue to live on, helping to make the Navy's remaining frigates run. // MC3 Matthew DeWitt / Navy
The Navy announced its plans this week for the ships it will decommission over the coming year, and if you belong to the yikes-the-fleet-is-shrinking-not-growing camp, it’s a nice compromise: None of the 11 Navy and Military Sealift Command vessels are to be scrapped or sunk as targets. Yet.
Two interesting notes, however: Big Navy seems to be hedging its bets on one major unit, the amphibious assault ship Nassau, because it isn’t sure whether it’ll be required by law to keep Nassau in service until its replacement, the America, is commissioned. (That’s scheduled to happen in 2012, but builders have a mixed record of delivering unique big-deck gators on time, so Nassau might need to serve even longer.) Engineers will assess the prospects of a service-life extension for Nassau, just in case, and if the Navy does cut the ship next year, it’ll go into mothballs.
Also, although the Navy plans to decommission the frigate Hawes this December, it won’t be refurbished so it can be sold to a foreign navy. Instead, the Navy’s announcement makes Hawes sound more like a junk-ship, set aside so that engineers can scavenge it for parts for the remaining frigates. It’s not the most glorious end for a U.S. warship, but in these times of scrimping and saving and life-cycle management, the fleet could definitely be doing worse.
North: Hey, quit it! U.S., allies: Nuh-uuh!
July 23rd, 2010 | North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Air Force's F-22 Raptor super-jet will make its saber-rattling debut in war games scheduled for this month with South Korea. // Airman 1st Class Anthony Jennings / Air Force
The Deck stands corrected: I wrote yesterday that North Korea probably wouldn’t be bothered by the imminent U.S. and South Korean military exercises called “Invincible Spirit,” but maybe you can get through to the Dear Leader and his underlings, after all. The North has threatened a “physical response” to the forthcoming war games, calling them “another expression of hostile policy against” North Korea.
Pish posh, answered the U.S.; if the North liked Asian geostrategic stability, it should’ve put a ring on it. The war games — including the carrier George Washington, its air wing, escorts, Air Force F-22 fighters and the South Korean military — will go forward.
Who are the WestPac war games for?
July 22nd, 2010 | China North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC3 Charles Oki / Navy
The carrier George Washington docked in Busan, South Korea on Wednesday for “a port visit to promote goodwill and ambassadorship to the United States’ longstanding ally,” according to the Navy. Its crew members wasted no time in paying their respects at the wreckage of the South’s patrol ship Cheonan.
Oh, and just for grins, the carrier, its air wing and its escorts will train with South Korean naval and air units in an exercise called “Invincible Spirit,” in case any regional powers are curious about the oceangoing might of the U.S. and its allies. Here’s the thing: Does North Korea really need a “demonstration” of what a carrier strike group can do?
There isn’t a military commander anywhere on this planet who isn’t familiar with the destruction the U.S. can deliver from the sea. But as we’ve written before, there’s almost nothing you can do about North Korea short of a full-scale attack, and despite what you might read in the kookosphere, that is not in the offing. Conclusion: the North gets a free seapower show off its coast, but will that actually change its behavior? Here’s a hint.
So who is “Invincible Spirit” actually for? South Korea and Japan, maybe, to demonstrate that the U.S. continues to stand by them. Regional American commanders, maybe, who have got to be frustrated by all the hardware at their fingertips that they cannot use, even in the face of a flagrant provocation. And what about China? Does GW’s mission show that the Navy isn’t yet convinced that sending carriers to WestPac makes them into “sitting docks?”
What do you think?
Cause and effect
July 22nd, 2010 | Photos SEALs | Posted by Phil Ewing
Cause:
MCC Stan Travioli / Navy
Effect:
MCC Robert Fluegel / Navy
A SEAL sniper in Virginia Beach, Va., demonstrated last week what could happen to your head — as represented here by a watermelon mounted on a dummy — if the United States of America doesn’t like you.
Will the sonobuoy drop no more?
July 22nd, 2010 | Aviation ordnance | Posted by Phil Ewing
Tomorrow's MH-60R Seahawk helicopters -- like this one from HSM 71, the "Raptors," -- may not carry sonobouys anymore. // MC3 Walter M. Wayman / Navy
Even as Big Navy is pushing for the fleet to re-master the lost art of submarine-hunting, one of its longstanding ASW tools could be going away, according to our friends in the big-time at Defense News: Commanders are considering pulling the sonobuoys from MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, or scaling back the number they will carry.
“Sonobuoys!” — the word takes one back to the bad old days of tense engagements over the North Atlantic, like the time that Soviet Tu-95 Bear used them to find and attack a renegade ballistic missile sub in the documentary “The Hunt For Red October.” But these days, American helos don’t use them that much, our colleague John Reed wrote, preferring to use their dipping sonar instead.
The sonobuoys won’t disappear altogether: The Navy may just keep fewer of them on board helicopters and use a smaller, six-unit launcher. And there’s no talk, as yet, of them disappearing from P-3 Orion patrol planes or their replacement P-8 Poseidon jets.
The universal language
July 20th, 2010 | Foreign navies Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC1 Brien Aho / Navy
How can you tell that today’s Blue-Green Team is as super-joint and super-multinational as its leaders always claim? It has exported its PowerPoint practices to all our international partners: Here we see a Peruvian marine giving a brief aboard the amphibious transport dock New Orleans and… yes … he is going over an organizational wire diagram!
The cult of China’s carrier-killer
July 20th, 2010 | Blogs Carriers China | Posted by Phil Ewing
Another American "sitting dock," the Harry S. Truman, at sea. // MC2 Kilho Park / Navy
In the same way that disaster-flick auteur Roland Emmerich just cannot see enough world landmarks be destroyed, so too are there a few hard-core people out there who cannot purge their visions of an American aircraft carrier being sunk. Author Patrick Robinson vaporized his “USS Thomas Jefferson” in a nuclear strike; director Michael Bay had his Decepticons obliterate the Theodore Roosevelt; and Naval War College professor Cmdr. James Kraska blew up the George Washington with the pretend-carrier-sinker’s latest weapon of choice: China’s hyper-missile of death.
Although it’s highly classified, of course, we all know the characteristics of this super weapon by now, don’t we? It lances out of space like God’s terrible, swift sword and shatters America’s influence in the world Pacific, leaving America as geopolitically relevant as Andorra — or such are the fears. Analysts have assigned such power to China’s carrier killer, and treat its dominance as such a fait accompli, that you get stories like this:
As a portrayal of its military prowess, the United States has sent one of the bigger aircraft carriers called USS George Washington to the area. Cold War period warship could carry over 6000 crewmembers and dozens of aircrafts. These large pieces of floating metal used to be quiet effective during the Cold War era, but Short of charging their nuclear warheads at once, given today’s high-precision anti-warship cruise missiles, aircraft carriers such as the USS George Washington are considered ideal sitting docks for target practicing when they move too close to other countries’ borders.
Also, stories like this.
Well, that settles it — guess we’ll have to disband the Navy. You can’t fight fate. Just one quick question, though: How many ships has this missile actually hit?
‘SNOOZEPAC’ blow-back
July 20th, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
The heavy guns continue to sound over the 'SNOOZEPAC' scandal // Australian Defence Forces
This ‘SNOOZEPAC’ situation has erupted into a full-blown mil-blogging scandal, the biggest online tempest since Michael Yon revealed the location of the White House — or whatever that whole dust-up was about – now that my distinguished colleague Dan Lamothe of Marine Corps Times has gotten into the act. Media blogs Romenesko and Media Matters have also picked up the story.
Quick precis: Last week, we had a post here on the Deck linking to “Inside the Headquarters,” the blog of the Military Officers Association of America, in which blogger Gina DiNicolo excoriated the annual Rim of the Pacific exercise as a “snoozer,” more a venue for cucumber sandwiches and paper umbrella cocktails than serious training for combat. I don’t know DiNicolo personally, but we e-hacks definitely know her work: She was the first person to hint last year that Big Navy was itching to send the littoral combat ship Freedom on an early “trial deployment,” which, as we all know, it did.
Here’s the twist: Turns out that in her non-blogging life, DiNicolo is a Marine Corps civilian contractor, and was working as a civilian public affairs support person for RIMPAC even as she was writing about “SNOOZEPAC,” she told Dan. When the bosses out in Hawaii saw her “snoozer” post, it sounds like they blew a gasket and fired her.
This blogging-getting-people-fired thing has happened many times before, as Dan writes (it launched the career of megablogger Heather Armstrong) and he concludes that the whole thing is a little silly. No question about that, but in this era in which the Pentagon is fumbling to reach into the social networking spaces where tomorrow’s young recruits spend all their time, what kind of message does it send to fire bloggers for speaking their minds?