Postcards from the bottom of the continent
March 16th, 2010 | Carriers Foreign navies Life at Sea Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
The carrier Carl Vinson was accompanied by Chilean attack craft on a transit through the Straits of Magellan on Monday // MC2 Ashley Van Dien / Navy
Thanks to a highly capable team aboard the carrier Carl Vinson and its “shotgun” escort, the cruiser Bunker Hill, we have a highly motivational set of photos of the ships’ transit this week through the treacherous Straits of Magellan, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Check out a panorama from Carl Vinson’s bridge, and this panorama that looks like it’s from vulture’s row, and this shot of QMSN Erich Hoffman actually plotting the ship’s transit, and this shot of Bunker Hill in the straits, and here’s another one of Vinson with some Chilean fast-attack craft and here’s a great one of an HH-60H Seahawk from HS-15, the “Red Lions,” in an otherworldly sunset on the carrier’s flight deck.
Although Scoop Deck has never had the pleasure of going through the straits, it’s a narrow run that can include unpredictable winds and currents, according to our amateur understanding, which makes it all the more interesting when big capital warships go through. They have no choice, though, because carriers are too wide for the Panama Canal.
Commonwealth navies links
March 12th, 2010 | Coast Guard Foreign navies Life at Sea Royal Navy Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
Much as Commonwealth nations often cooperate in missions at sea -- as these Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and U.S. Navy warships (including the classic Spruance-class destroyer Fletcher, center) operated together in 2002 -- so too do today's links work together to create a clearer understanding of the news // Navy
Tea-drinkin’, “cheers”-sayin’, Bovril-eatin’, short pants-wearin’, pirate-fightin’, boomerang throwin’ links, helping you say ‘g’day’ to naval developments around the world:
- The Royal Navy doesn’t need carriers after all, a former Defence Staff chief said this week, and instead it should build more small ships to grow its fleet.
- England’s Prince Philip, Duke of Edinborough — Queen Elizabeth II’s arm candy — met an instructor of Royal Navy sea cadets this week and asked her if she worked in a strip club. Continued The Daily Mail: “The 88-year-old royal then appeared to think better of the suggestion in the current weather and joked that such an occupation would be ‘too cold.’
- The Australian navy is reeling from a new round of revelations in a sex scandal that Scoop Deck first told you about all the way back in July.
- Up in Marinette, Wisconsin, the littoral combat ship Fort Worth is about 30 percent complete, says shipbuilder Lockheed Martin.
- Russian President Dimitri Medvedev acknowledged problems in his country’s armed forces, which comprises mostly conscripts, although one analyst said the Russian navy could become an all-volunteer force.
- Costs for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program have risen again, our colleague Susan Schept reports.
‘Cold War’ in Arctic is heating up
March 9th, 2010 | Foreign navies Maritime operations Navy | Posted by Lance Bacon
China is now laying claim to the Arctic – bringing to six the number of countries vying for rights to the resource-laden region.
A new way to cover costs
March 5th, 2010 | Congress Foreign navies Maritime operations Navy Ships | Posted by Lance Bacon
Tell Congress to rest easy – there may be a new way to cover shipbuilding costs.
The Pakistan Navy in late February sealed the deal to buy the 30-year-old frigate McInerney for $78 million.
This is a real bargain for Pakistan, which is getting one versatile ship. The second ship of the Oliver Hazard Perry class, Mac has twice received the “Hook ‘Em” Award for excellence in Anti-Submarine Warfare, was awarded the Battle “E” during the first Gulf War, has served above the Arctic Circle and as part of SouthCom’s counter-drug operations. Most notably, the ship on Sept. 13, 2008, intercepted a 59-foot self-propelled semisubmersible carrying 7 tons of coke (the powder kind, not the drink) off the coast of Guatemala. Four Colombian drug smugglers were captured. The cargo had an estimated street value of $187 million – that’s two U.S. frigates in Pakistani dollars.
The ship will be inactivated by the U.S. Navy on Aug. 31, 2010 in preparation for the transfer to Pakistan. The frigate will patrol territorial waters from the Karachi port by the end of 2010.
The good news is that Islamabad is interested in buying five more Oliver Perry-class frigates. If they get the same sticker price and combine it with the McInerney sale, the Navy could almost purchase a new LCS. Or one-quarter of a Virginia-class sub. Or almost half of a JSF squadron. Or the screw for SSBN(X).
With the wholesale end-of-service-life retirements of Los Angeles-class attack subs, Ticonderoga-class cruisers, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and LSD-41/49 dock landing ships – not to mention the F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats – the Navy could be looking at some serious cha-ching. But why stop there: Fire up the ghost fleet and empty the boneyards. And if the countries that buy them get a little too big for their britches, then the bargain basement becomes target practice for our new fleet.
That’s what Scoop Deck calls a win-win.
NATO chief says cool out about Russian gator sale
March 4th, 2010 | Foreign navies | Posted by Phil Ewing
NATO's secretary general says not to worry about France selling Russia amphibious warships like the Mistral. // Marine Nationale
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has given his blessing, more or less, to the planned sale of French Mistral-class big-deck amphibious ships to Russia, according to this report, and has told his alliance members to calm down about the whole thing. Some NATO members, as well as prospective member and recent Russia invadee Georgia, are leery about the deal.
“The EU and NATO should sell armaments and military hardware to countries that do not pose the risk of regional tensions,” Latvian Defense Minister Imants Liegis said, as quoted by [Russian news agency] Itar- Tass. “Before concluding strategic deals, EU member countries should hold internal consultations on items that may call into question the security of other members.” Meanwhile, Georgia has requested that its “interests should be protected” if Russia buys the warships, as well as requesting NATO membership.
Still, many observers, in and out of Europe, are sanguine about this deal: Shipbuilding expert Tim Colton went as far as to suggest U.S. yards have missed out on good opportunities to make their own sales — or, alternately, that the U.S. has missed a sly way to sabotage the Russian navy.
“If France can sell LHAs to Russia, why can’t we?” his headline asked. “As you can imagine, this ticks off a lot of U.S. senators, who, having an average age of 63, are still fighting the Cold War. But think how badly the Russian Navy would get screwed up if it had to buy ships from Northrop Grumman.”
What do you think? Is Europe handing Russia a dagger that will end up in its own back, or is this all just a bunch of alarmist hype?
China’s anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden
March 3rd, 2010 | Foreign navies Maritime operations Pirates | Posted by Lance Bacon
Top Photo: A helicopter of the Chinese naval fleet patrols above the Gulf of Aden on Feb. 25 to ensure ships’ safety from pirates.
Bottom Photo: About 50 suspected pirate vessels approach a ship escorted by the Chinese naval fleet in the Gulf of Aden. The vessels harassed the 31 Chinese and foreign ships that the naval fleet was escorting. They were driven out soon after the fleet dispatched vessels and helicopters.
These photos were sent to Navy Times and accompanied by a blunt question: “Will historians look back at this as the first signs of declining U.S. influence worldwide resulting from the shrinking U.S. Navy?”
Any thoughts?
Iran’s new destroyer that isn’t
February 19th, 2010 | Foreign navies Ships The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, toured the new self-styled "destroyer" this week // Press TV
Lots of chatter online today about Iran’s new domestically built “destroyer,” as reports are calling it, keyed off a top item on Iran’s state-run, English language Press TV news site. The official story describes the new vessel, Jamaran, as a “guided missile destroyer,” armed with “a variety of anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles,” as well as “torpedoes and modern naval cannons.”
That sure sounds like a DDG, until you realize you’re talking about a ship of about 1,400 tons, copied from Iran’s existing Vosper-built, mid-60s vintage Alvand-class frigates. (You can read a lot about them and their role in Operation Praying Mantis — speaking of “operations” — at this site by Scoop Deck’s senior colleague Brad Penniston.)
To be sure, ship classifications these days are awfully wishy-washy — only in the U.S. Navy would an Arleigh Burke-class warship carrying 90 or more missiles be a “destroyer,” rather than a battleship — but doesn’t it seem a little far-fetched to style a 1,400-ton modified frigate as a “DDG?” It’s smaller — although, some might argue, more heavily armed — than a littoral combat ship.
Another senior colleague, Defense News naval correspondent Christopher P. Cavas, thought so:
“It’s a glorified corvette,” he said. “That’s a light frigate, at best. But in their navy, since they don’t have anything else, it’s a destroyer, so it must be really powerful. Colombia would put it on drug interdiction duties.”
Pearl Harbor links
February 10th, 2010 | Ballistic missile defense Carriers Foreign navies Maritime operations Ships The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
Much as liberty in Honolulu promised to divert the sailors of the carrier Ronald Reagan, so too do today's links offer a minor diversion from the snow impacting the window horizontally because it's being driven by 50-mph gusts of wind // Navy
Warm, clear-sky, soft ocean breeze, lei-wearin’, delicious-cocktail-in-a-coconut-drinkin’, battleships Arizona and Missouri-visitin’, Hawaiian shirt-wearin’ links, helping you say “aloha” to the latest updates out on the Web:
- Here’s a shocking bit of news: Russia is upset with the latest U.S. plans for ballistic missile defense of Europe. What’s next in this topsy-turvy world, a second debilitating blizzard in the National Capital Region? Nah, no way.
- Remember that deal in which France would agree to build at least one Mistral-class amphibious ship for the Russian navy, with the potential to license more copies to be built in Russia? Well, it’s happening.
- The cruiser Normandy, the frigate Underwood and the Nassau Amphibious Ready Group, carrying the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, all have been released from the Haiti rescue operation.
- After a few false starts and disappointments, momentum seems to be building Down East to bring the retired carrier John F. Kennedy up to Portland, Maine, for a second career as a museum ship — even though skeptics up there warned it’d be “a long row to hoe,” the Maine House just passed a resolution supporting the idea, saying it would “create jobs” and “wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything.” What you’re hearing now is the sound of 10,000 South Carolina taxpayers disagreeing.
- Via Galrahn, check out this story in The Times about Chinese military attitudes toward the U.S. — more than half of the people questioned said they thought “a cold war” would break out between China and the U.S. Well, if it prevents this from happening, a “cold war” might not be so bad.
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!
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.