Turbine trouble, module madness and positive thinking
September 24th, 2010 | Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Freedom will need to swap out equipment and potentially do major maintenance in ports of opportunity, like Panama City, Panama, planners say. // MC2 A. C. Rainey / Navy
The littoral combat ship Freedom broke one of its main engines this month, our senior colleague Christopher P. Cavas reports, but the Navy is turning its frown upside down and using this as an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to excellence. (Or as they say at Naval Sea Systems Command: “Enabling a more potent force than what’s on the surface.”) Specifically, the Freedom’s crew and shore-side engineers are going to try to replace the starboard Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbine during a visit to Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme, Calif., not a shipyard, because it seems most similar to the kind of place where an LCS might really need to swap an engine. (To be sure, it does have large cranes and a giant space building.)
And while the ship is there, crew members are also going to pretend to replace a mission module. Presumably, they’ll take out some of their “tailored” surface warfare gear, and, because the Navy doesn’t have any actual modules ready to go — even though it “delivered” them all in 2008 — Freedom’s crew will use “models designed to replicate the space and weight” of the modules “to demonstrate the onload installation and fit of those modules,” Cavas wrote.
So you can say this for the LCS program: The Navy may have “delivered” all three of its LCS mission modules two years ago, and yet somehow have none operational for use on, y’know, ships, but at least some diligent engineer has been developing “models” to keep everybody sharp until the real things arrive. The only question now is, when will that be?
Join the Navy, get a free Caribbean cruise*
September 23rd, 2010 | Gator Navy Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC2 Jonathen Davis got the tough assignment of photographing his shipmates when they all went for a dip in the warm, blue waters of the Caribbean this week, as the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima paused off the coast of Nicaragua for a swim call. That looks really pleasant.
*Your “cruise” will not actually be free or take place on a cruise ship. Navy experience may not actually include visit to Caribbean.
Making it look easy takes a lot of hard work
September 23rd, 2010 | Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
Old school: PH3 Benji Foutz shot photos aboard the carrier Kitty Hawk in 2005. Getting good pictures in this situation is tougher than it looks. // PHAN Jonathan Chandler / Navy
Navy photographers have a cool, albeit difficult job. Quick personal anecdote: Earlier this month, I got the chance to shoot photos of Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets launching from the bow catapults aboard the carrier Enterprise in the Atlantic Ocean. Real photographer Sheila Vemmer and I stood — or, rather, kind of tried to hunker in place — just behind the jet blast deflectors, and gulped down gallons’ worth of JP-5 vapor as we snapped away like mad. My pix weren’t that good (you can see one after the jump) but with an experience like that, who cares?
To actually get good photos in that kind of an environment, you have to practice and sharpen your skills, which is what San Diego-area shooters did last weekend in a “shootoff” sponsored by the National Association of Naval Photography, according to this announcement:
“The shootoff, hosted by the National Association of Naval Photography, consisted of three days of photography mentorship, individual portfolio reviews, and briefs on different styles of photography. The event also featured demonstrations on new photo editing equipment before the class was released into the city of San Diego to find a unique perspective on events and people to photograph for a competition.”
We’ll be watching for those photos; if you took part, you can send your shots directly to the Inbox of Excellence and we’ll put the images here on the blog.
Did a SEAL submarine McChrystal?
September 23rd, 2010 | leadership SEALs | Posted by Phil Ewing
"OK, we're set -- if any of the pirates are still alive at the end of this, we'll call their operational practices 'outmoded' and say, 'why're you guys still stuck in an 18th century Mercantilist mindset?' Got it?" "Hoo yah!" // MCC Kathryn Whittenberger / Navy
A Pentagon probe has cleared retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his former senior aides of having uttered the ungentlemanly remarks that brought down his career, reports say. So who did make them, or at least some of them? A Navy SEAL officer, according to the New York Times:
The Army review has been turned over to a higher-level inquiry by the Pentagon’s inspector general, because the matter involves not only a four-star general but several subordinates outside the Army. The Army report, which has not been released, points some blame at a midlevel Navy special warfare officer who served as an aide to General McChrystal, according to Army, Pentagon and other military officials. But that officer was never interviewed by the Army’s investigators, and so was blamed based on the comments of others. The officer has told Navy officials that he did not make the offending comments, according to Pentagon officials.
The Army report, if accurate, would be the latest evidence that Rolling Stone hasn’t been exactly forthright in its description of the aides who made the “bite me” and “clown” comments. The magazine has called them “the general’s closest and most senior advisers,” but according to Army Times’ own Sean Naylor, who is pretty wired in the spooky world of special operations, the quotes came from “his most junior staff — men who “make tea, keep the principal on time and carry bags — who had no reason to believe their words would end up in print.”
At least it’s a new idea for the next recruiting campaign: “Navy SEALs: We can take out a four-star general without firing a shot.”
Mission of Mercy
September 22nd, 2010 | Military Sealift Command | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC2 Chad A. Bascom // Navy
The hospital ship Mercy is back in San Diego this week after a humanitarian cruise in the Pacific, according to an announcement from Military Sealift Command, which means a fresh shipment of fun facts about this aspect of global good-doing, courtesy of MSC spokeswoman Laura Seal:
Patients treated: 103,242. Pairs of eyeglasses and sunglasses distributed: 58,000. Miles sailed: 24,000. Dental care patients: 12,000. Hours’ worth of “information exchange” on first aid, nursing, cardiology orthopedics, nutrition, disaster response, water and food safety and public health promotion: 24,000. Number of community service projects ashore: 62. Months deployed: Five. Countries visited: four — Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
Number of beers and fish tacos consumed by the ship’s crew and medical team since their return home: No one can truly say.
New desktop wallpaper: Carrier edition
September 21st, 2010 | Carriers Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
Even if all these oft-discussed spending cuts do happen, your tax dollars still will buy you a lot — like outstanding images to use as wallpaper for your computer desktop. If you want the full, “its power is unlimited” look, click the shot above of the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the beautiful blue Pacific. If you want a simpler image with more room for all your icons and such, try the Harry S. Truman, below, underway alone in the Arabian Sea.
Click for high-res // MC2 Kilho Park / Navy
There’s nothing else she can say
September 21st, 2010 | Congress Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Citizen Gaga: The pop songstress rallied this week in Maine in support of repealing "don't ask, don't tell," but her efforts may not be enough. // AP
No question that being an international art-pop phenom brings in a lot of money, but apparently not enough for Lady Gaga to order her own destroyer from Bath Iron Works. Despite Gaga’s rally in Portland this week, Maine Sen. Susan Collins says she’s leaning against permitting a repeal of the ban on open military service by gays and lesbians to move forward in the Senate. But if Bath won’t be building a neon Popsicle-orange USS Gaga (complete with disco-ball radars, a zebra-stripe mast and a topside dance floor in place of a flight deck) neither will the U.S. Navy, Collins seems to be saying.
Collins says she supports repeal of the law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but she wants more time for debate and “more amendments” for the Christmas tree defense bill that congressional Democrats are using as their vehicle for this thing. Unless congressional leaders or the White House can make Collins or other Republican moderates happy by this afternoon, a block backed by Republican Sen. John McCain will likely remain in force and this round of “Repeal or No Repeal” will be over for now.
That might not last for long. According to reports this week, a majority of Americans now favor permitting open service, and according to anecdotal evidence from today’s young-people service members, having gay and lesbian shipmates is effectively a non-issue.
UPDATE: Just as it appeared, Democrats could not come up with enough votes to end McCain’s filibuster, proof that even Lady Gaga’s clout in Washington has its limits.
What do you think? Is the Navy ready for a repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell?’
Incurable smallness
September 20th, 2010 | Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The coastal patrol ship Monsoon guarded Baltimore's Domino Sugar factory in August. But Big Navy can't seem to find more uses for small ships than fleet week visits like this one. // MC3 Sean Gallagher / Navy
Why does the Navy hate small ships? It says it needs them — in glossy report after glossy report, the top leaders of the fleet say the Navy needs to operate in shallow water, close to shore, yadda yadda yadda. But what does it do? Decommissions an entire class of coastal minehunters; marginalizes the surviving mine countermeasures ships; and, most recently, discovers that it must sideline its coastal patrol ships because, all of a sudden, they’re old and worn out.
The “small,” 3,000 ton littoral combat ship the Navy says it does want “isn’t small to anyone but us,” said Cmdr. Don Gabrielson, the first captain of the Freedom, who remembered looking from his bridge wing over the superstructure of the frigate at the next pier. And the other two main shipbuilding projects of the next decade, DDG 1000 and the Flight III DDG 51, will be 15,000 and likely around 10,000 tons, respectively. What gives?
One theory: High-end, wham-o-dyne, latter-day battleships are just cool. If you had the choice between a 9,000-ton Aegis destroyer with 96 missiles and, let’s say, a 600-ton patrol corvette, it’s easy to grasp the appeal of the former. But is this cultural bias hurting the Navy’s ability to maintain its long-term relevance, or at least take the maritime security or mine-countermeasures missions those aforesaid glossy reports often predict?
What do you think? Should the fleet get serious about thinking small?
Auto dog
September 20th, 2010 | Carriers Chow Life at Sea Morale Photos Ships | Posted by Sheila
Navy Times writer Phil Ewing and I learned a nickname for a popular machine on board the carrier Enterprise recently — the “Auto Dog,” aka the soft-serve ice cream machine. The term has been in the fleet for years, but it was new to me, and it took me almost a full 24 hours to realize exactly why the machine got this nickname. Ewing got it right away, and enjoyed a swirly dish of apple pie “dog.”
Congratulations, chief
September 20th, 2010 | Chiefs Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
First came the chief’s list, and now the inevitable follow-up: Tons of photos of new chiefs pinning on their anchors and donning their combination covers for the first time. It can be an emotional experience, as Chief Information Systems Technician Joseph Valencia shows in this outstanding shot by MC2 James Evans. More here, here, here, here and here.
Special bonus photo: remember the Navy photographer whose shot of the fast attack submarine Annapolis in the Arctic was a Time magazine photo of the year last year? She is now Chief Mass Communications Specialist Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst, and got a special hoo-ya.