Women allowed to join Bulgaria’s vanishing sub force
October 29th, 2010 | Foreign navies Navy Submarines | Posted by Sam Fellman
The U.S. isn’t the only country integrating women into its submarine force.
But the Bulgarian Navy’s new policy comes with a knotty Catch-22: Female sailors are suddenly welcome in the submarine service right as lawmakers decided to scrap the country’s only submarine.
The sole submarine is all-but-extinct Soviet Romeo class diesel named the “Slava,” Bulgarian for “Glory.” The rust-covered boat has been inoperable for at least 10 years.
Women, making up 14 percent of the Bulgarian armed forces, will be able to apply for submarines and the national guard now, as part of a larger military reform effort, the Agence France-Presse reported today. The changes came after two female military cadets, barred from the National Guard, sued the Defense Ministry for discrimination in August.
A rough week for Her Majesty’s navy
October 22nd, 2010 | Foreign navies Royal Navy Submarines | Posted by David Larter
Tugs move in to assist the Royal Navy nuclear submarine Astute, after it ran aground in shallow water off the Isle of Skye. // AP Photo by Danny Lawson
By any measure, the Royal Navy has had a rough week.
In the span of three days, the Brits cut their flagship carrier, the Ark Royal, reduced their fleet to its smallest size in centuries and, now, has run its nearly $5.5 billion nuclear submarine Astute into the mud near Scotland’s Isle of Skye.
Reports broke early this morning that Astute had run aground. Agence France-Presse reports:
A British nuclear submarine ran aground off a Scottish island on Oct. 22, the defense ministry said, adding that there were no immediate signs of any casualties or environmental damage.
HMS Astute – which only entered service in August and is billed as the Royal Navy’s most powerful hunter-killer submarine – got into trouble near the Isle of Skye.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that the rudder of the 3.5-billion-pound (3.94-billion euro, $5.5 billion) submarine had become “grounded”.
“Whilst conducting a personnel transfer HMS Astute grounded her rudder in the vicinity of the Isle of Skye. She was initially unable to free herself and we are waiting for the next high tide,” the spokesman told AFP.
“No part of the Astute’s nuclear propulsion system is damaged or in danger of being damaged. We can confirm there are no injuries to personnel and there is no environmental damage.”
A YouTube video was posted this morning that shows the Astute, raised up in the water and slightly listing:
This isn’t the first time a British sub has run aground near Skye. In 2002, the HMS Trafalgar ran aground resulting in $9 million of damage.
Oh yeah, he just went there
October 20th, 2010 | China Foreign navies Navy The Pacific | Posted by David Larter
Shinzo Abe said in a speech Oct. 15 China's military ambitions were akin to the Nazi idea of "lebensraum." Franck Robichon / EPA
In contemporary rhetoric, one popular way to demonize political adversaries is to compare them to Hitler. That’s just what conservative former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did at a speech at the Hudson Institute think tank on Capitol Hill last Friday. Relations between China and Japan have been rather tense of late, and the war of words seems to be heating up.
Abe likened China’s naval expansion to Hitler’s idea of “lebensraum” or “living space.” It was Hitler’s belief that Germany needed and, by their superior nature, deserved space in which to grow and settle. According to Abe’s remarks:
Since the 1980s, China’s military strategy has rested on the concept of a “strategic frontier.” In a nutshell, this very dangerous idea posits that borders and exclusive economic zones are determined by national power, and that as long as China’s economy continues to grow, its sphere of influence will continue to expand. Some might associate this with the German concept of “lebensraum.”
There has been speculation that the impetus for China’s naval buildup was the 1996 crisis in the Strait of Taiwan. Whenever I think back on this incident, I recall the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the path that the Soviet Union took in its wake. The Soviet Union in 1962 and China in 1996 both suffered the indignity of capitulation in the face of the overwhelming naval power of the United States, and both countries threw themselves into building up their navies. We all know how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I have no way of knowing how the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party would view this analogy. Perhaps the party’s leaders, despite their fear of meeting the same fate as the Soviet Union, are unable to resist the call of the People’s Liberation Army for a military buildup. In any case, we can state with conviction that China has nothing to gain from an excessive expansion of its military.
If you are rusty on your mid-90s history, you can read up on the Taiwan Strait crisis here.
You can read Abe’s full remarks here.
Never trust Brit sailors with your pets
October 19th, 2010 | Foreign navies Life at Sea | Posted by David Larter
Bostie the deceased budgie perches atop Leading Seaman Mark Priestman on the Royal Navy frigate Westminster. // SWNS.COM/SWNS
Apparently pet birds and warships don’t mix.
Sailors on the British frigate Westminster discovered a parakeet (also called a budgie) fluttering around the ship while underway for an exercise near Plymouth. They named the bird Bostie and fed their new friend a meal of nuts, bread and water.
Then things took a dark turn, as the Guardian reports:
When a routine alarm sounded the budgerigar appeared to suffer a heart attack. Attempts to revive him failed and the crew gave their feathered friend a burial at sea.
A Royal Navy spokesman said: “The executive officer found the budgie on board and it kept the crew entertained for about two hours. It was very tame and we believe it may have been an escaped pet. Unfortunately, a general alarm sounded and it proved to be too much of a shock for the bird. We believe he suffered a heart attack. It was a sad moment for the crew and they decided to bury him at sea.”
Lieutenant Commander Nick Wood had spotted the tame budgie sitting on top of a communications box onboard. He said: “I’ll miss Bostie. He was only in our lives for a brief time, but he made our day.”
Ok, a few things:
- What exactly were these attempts to revive the bird? Did the sailors try some minuscular form of CPR?
- How did they perform this “burial at sea?” Did they wrap him in the Union Jack and gracefully slide the expired bird into the waves? Or did they just toss him in the English Channel?
- Did they perform due-diligence in researching best practices in parakeet care? Even a cursory Google search would reveal that budgies don’t like sudden loud noises.
If only Bostie had found his way to the Irish Sea, where several U.S. warships are now conducting Exercise Joint Warrior 10-2 with the Brits. American sailors have a much better record caring for avian stowaways, as evidenced by the saga of Fod, the errant screech owl that found his way onto the carrier Harry S. Truman in 2008.
The end of British seapower, taken off the deep end
October 19th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers Foreign navies Photos | Posted by Bill McMichael
The U.S. carrier John C. Stennis and the British Invincible-class carrier Illustrious, launched in 1982. // Airman Robert Baker
Our departed colleague Phil Ewing recently linked to a sobering Telegraph report on the enormous budget pressures facing the British fleet. Today’s Wall St. Journal takes a much cheekier view of the problem — specifically, as it relates to Britain’s apparent desire to continue funding two new STOVL-capable carriers, one already under construction, that won’t have new Brit-ready Joint Strike Fighters available to populate their decks for some years after they’re ready to go.
Check out Five Uses for Spare Aircraft Carriers. Alternative No. 1, turning them into floating youth clubs, would appear to be the best option, as No. 2, “Alternative to Heathrow third runway,” might pose some difficulties for commercial airliners attempting to land.
‘Once thing is certain: We can’t ignore them’
October 8th, 2010 | Foreign navies Video | Posted by Phil Ewing
Forget about all this modern-day Navy news — let’s take a trip back to the bad good old days, when American ships were tangling with Soviet ships all over the world, and you, as a naval person, needed a brief on just what we were up against. This is “Soviet Sea Power Today,” another classic from Periscope Films, and here’s part 2 and part 3.
Can the Navy close the flying boat gap?
September 28th, 2010 | Foreign navies Ships The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
One of Iran's new squadrons of Bavar 2 flying boats prepared to sortie in an official photo. // Iran Defense Ministry via AP
Zounds! That dastardly Chief Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Ali Jafari — he’s done it again! First he built a navy with 100 vessels for every one U.S. warship, then he built an indefatigable 60-knot attack craft and now, worst of all, he’s fielding entire squadrons of flying boats! That’s right: If American aircraft try to chase them, they can set down on the water and become boats — but if an American ship tries to chase them, they can take off and become aircraft! Gee willikers! These guys are always one step ahead!
Oh, and it gets worse for the helpless U.S. Navy: In this promotional video, the IRGC describes its new flying boats as capable of hitting “100 knots per hour” and of being “undetectable by any naval or aerial radar.” (A ‘knot’ already means a nautical mile per hour, but skip that for now.) So how many flying boats does the U.S. Navy have to go up against this new threat? A big goose egg, that’s how many. But America’s radio-controlled “hydrofoam” hobbyists may have the solution. When Naval Sea Systems Command gets an urgent needs statement about this capability — and it will — it should start by checking this baby out.
The machine gun-armed Bavar 2 kamikaze flying boats apparently were not designed for survivability: They have open cockpits and exposed motors for their three-bladed pusher propellers — but they could, in theory, become the air component in the swarm attacks we’ve so often discussed. The IRGC seems to be betting that it can sortie more boats — flying and traditional — against a hostile warship than that warship has missiles and ammunition.
Could it work? What do you think?
One of Iran's new Bavar 2 flying boats in action. Doesn't it look exactly like one of these radio-controlled hydrofoam toys? // Iran Defense Ministry via AP
ASW has never been so adorable
September 28th, 2010 | Foreign navies Video | Posted by Phil Ewing
“We kill people, but we have to be nice about it” — so goes a U.S. military saying I’ve heard from Norfolk, Va. to Kabul. But our American troops are amateurs compared to the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, which has topped even its own impish cartoon mascot, Prince Pickles, with the heartwarming family day demo you’ll see above.
UPDATE: Check out the left side of your screen starting at about 1:50 — you can just catch sight of a little Aegis DDG moped, complete with SPY 1 arrays and a 5 inch gun!
UPDATE 2: This video gives a better view of the my-size DDG underway, as it were.
Russian hospitality
September 17th, 2010 | Foreign navies | Posted by Phil Ewing
Back in the bad old days, an F-14 Tomcat like this one from VF-51, the "Screaming Eagles," used to help Russian guests get started back on their way home. // DoD
We’re still trying to get more information about the frigate Taylor’s reported close encounters with Russian navy aircraft last weekend, but there’s one thing that’s already quite clear: these Russians have some funny ideas about hospitality.
You invite an American warship to help you commemorate the end of the bloodiest war in human history, in the city that was the terminus for a supply lifeline that cost the lives of thousands of mariners — and when it’s all over you pull the old “uh oh, it’s a Bear on an attack profile” routine? What’s the deal?
Maybe, after years of trying this stunt with carrier groups that can disintegrate attack aircraft at hundreds of miles, the Northern Fleet guys couldn’t resist playing with a target with no surface-to-air weapons. Quipped Galrahn:
Well, the good news is our guided missile frigates are heavily armed to protect themselves from any attack by an old Tu-95… Hmm… Well, at least the littoral combat ship that replaces the old frigate will be able to address this problem by outrunning the threat… Hmm. Well, we’ll just outsource this problem to the 1000-ship navy… Hmm.
Hmm is right.
Turn back the clock: An LCS for Saudi Arabia?
September 14th, 2010 | Foreign navies | Posted by Phil Ewing
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead visited Saudi navy headquarters in 2008. Talks about a Saudi-model LCS had been taking place even years before that. // MC1 Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst / Navy
Very little seems new about the reports this week on the Pentagon seeking congressional approval for $60 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia — the deal has been in the works for awhile and, even way back in 2007, its naval implications caused a lot of blog chatter. In those days, the naval bloggers we now know as Craig Hooper and Raymond Pritchett — then still shrouded in mystery, as was the style of the time — both mused about what would be involved with Saudi Arabia buying its own littoral combat ships. What they wrote then is worth revisiting today.