What should the third Zumwalt-class destroyer be named? // Northrop Grumman

Maybe it’s that a three-hull class of advanced ships raises the stakes. Maybe it’s that there will be so many Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that they all start to blend together. Or maybe it’s that, with 51 more littoral combat ships that will carry only names of  “medium-sized town names” (for now, anyway) people are worried they’re running out of ships to name for heroes.

Whatever the reason, people have been going after the as-yet unnamed third and last Zumwalt-class destroyer, DDG 1002, with name suggestions. Not just any Navy ship — DDG 1002.

An early one was “Robert A. Heinlein,” for the science fiction author. But one Navy Times reader rejected that and instead recommended “Ernest E. Evans,” for the legendary captain of the destroyer Johnston. The latest recommendation, according to an email making the rounds on a particularly salty distribution list, is “Delbert D. Black,” for the first master chief petty officer of the Navy.

Scoop Deck was cc’d on that email, which pointed to this blog post laying out the whole case. The Navy has plenty of ships named for chiefs of naval operations, writes blogger Chris Garett, but it needs to start according the same honor to its MCPONs, starting with Black.

What do you think? Would you pick Heinlein, Evans or Black for DDG 1002, or a different name altogether?

The littoral combat ship Independence pulled out for its acceptance trials, now finished, from Mobile, Ala. // Navy

After a long and winding technical journey that began in June with the main engine light-off, then initial delays, then included blazing speed, otherworldly photos and flooding in the jet-drive room, the littoral combat ship Independence got to its latest milestone this week. The ship finished its acceptance trials Thursday, which included a full-power run at a wave-scorching 45 knots.

A team from the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey was aboard for the demonstrations, and its inspectors now are going over their findings to determine whether they’ll recommend that the Navy accept the ship. We’ll be watching for that, as well as for new images from the Navy that show whether being aboard still makes you feel like you’re wrapped up in a monstrous burrito.

If all goes well, the Navy plans to commission the ship Jan. 16

Sailors from the cruiser Chosin rescued three fishermen clinging to a piece of wood this week in the Gulf of Aden // MC1 Scott Taylor / Navy

The Navy’s new slogan may have gotten a mixed reception internally, but there are three Yemeni fishermen, at least, who would probably agree it really is a global force for good. The cruiser Chosin spotted the men on Tuesday clinging to a piece of wood in the Gulf of Aden, and sent a launch to fish them out of the water.

But it wasn’t as though these guys went for a swim and let their boat float away. According to this statement from 5th Fleet, they told the crew of the Chosin they’d been hijacked:

According to the fishermen, they were left stranded in the water after 12 suspected pirates hijacked their vessel. The fishermen also said that the pirates gave them an ultimatum to either jump overboard with only a wooden plank as a flotation device or be killed.

After surviving for three days with only a few bottles of water, a passing merchant vessel spotted them in the water. The merchant vessel notified coalition forces and a Chosin rescue team picked up the stranded fishermen.

Sounds unpleasant, although forcing a crew to jump overboard seems more like something from the Boy’s Book of Pirates than a tactic used by modern outlaws off the coast of Somalia. Today’s pirates make their living by ransoming hostages, so doesn’t it seem odd they’d want these guys off their boat?

MH-65D, the latest iteration of MH-65 helicopter platform. // Coast Guard photo

The Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter is celebrating its 25th birthday today. The service accepted the HH-65A Dolphin helicopter for service on Nov. 19, 1984.

The Dolphin has served the Coast Guard well, and they have another 18 years to go in service before they will be replaced under the Deepwater program. By the end of October, the service had moved 48 of the upgraded MH-65Cs  through their third segment of upgrades. The biggest change is a new engine that provides 40 percent more power and offers greater reliability. The helicopters also have new weapon mounts. Pretty nifty birthday gifts.

The MH-65Ds began in-flight testing in March. Look for a new flight navigation system, which is common to DOD helicopters and replaces the current compass, gyro systems and GPS system.

When the $901 million upgrade is finished in 2017, the Dolphins also will have equipment that will allow them to be secured and transferred to the hangars of the new national security cutters.

Climbing up or down a Jacob's ladder can be a tricky job, as when this Mexican sailor boarded a German warship this spring during an exercise // Coast Guard

Quick sea anecdote: One time Scoop Deck was standing in the upper vehicle stowage bay of the amphibious assault ship Makin Island, at sea in the Gulf of Mexico, waiting to climb down a Jacob’s ladder into a boat moored alongside. It was clear and sunny, but the sea was choppy enough that people were nervous about reporters not being able to  get on the boat without taking a bath.

One chief boatswain’s mate counseled not to step down the ladder below the gunwale of the launch, because it would catch your leg and mangle it against the amphib’s hull. (”That’ll ruin your whole day,” he said.) But don’t step from the ladder to the launch when it’s at the peak of a wave, because as it starts to fall, he said, so will you. Scoop Deck stepped off at the peak, did a few semi-splits and cartwheels around the slippery deck, got covered with sea slime, but at least stayed aboard.

The presence of this story, hopefully, won’t make it sound too mean to point out these hilarious photographs of  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had some trouble climbing from an inflatable boat to a Jacob’s ladder this week. “Trouble,” as in, he fell into some poor sailor’s lap.

Netanyahu wanted to congratulate the crew of an Israeli warship for interdicting a load of weapons bound for Hezbollah, but from the looks of it, the sailors probably congratulated him for not swimming in the Mediterranean.

Have you ever acquitted yourself less than gracefully when climbing on or off a small boat?

Japan's "helicopter destroyer" -- wink, wink -- the Hyuga, joined the carrier George Washington for excerises this month in the Pacific // MC1 John Hageman / Navy

How many carriers? Just one. In the background is the carrier George Washington; in the foreground is Japan’s “helicopter destroyer” — or “carrier destroyer,”  as one Deck commenter called it — the Hyuga.

Some observers might think it’s neat that the last time Japan and the U.S. both fielded aircraft carriers, they were at war, and that it’d be cool to see what could be the first photos of modern U.S. and Japanese flattops underway together. But that’s not what this is a picture of. Because Hyuga is not a carrier.

An international export version of Lockheed's littoral combat ship fired an imaginary missile in this artist's conception. The company is now saying it can augment its Aegis-edition LCSes with ballistic missile defense capability // Lockheed Martin

As Galrahn and Phib discuss the latest news about the littoral combat ship Freedom’s upcoming deployment, one of our senior shipmates at Defense News has some other interesting LCS gouge: This week at the Dubai Air Show, Lockheed Martin is pitching a “Surface Combat Ship” to the navies of the Gulf states — a variant of its Freedom-class LCS modded with Aegis radar and ballistic missile defense capability.

LockMart and its LCS rival, General Dynamics, both have shown off concepts for Aegis-equipped export versions of their designs, but neither of the trade-show fliers just pulled from Scoop Deck’s desk drawer say anything about BMD. They do include the possibility of a Mk 41 Vertical Launch System — which the U.S. Navy’s version doesn’t have — that could carry a battery of SM-3 or SM-6 interceptors. Or, as Defense News’s Pierre Tran wrote, an Aegis BMD LCS could be the eyes for land-based missiles:

Given fears in the region of a possible missile attack from Iran, a deployment of the Surface Combat Ship in the narrow waters of the Gulf would provide early warning of a missile launch and allow early destruction in the upper atmosphere by the SM-3 missile or at lower altitude by the Patriot PAC3 or other weapon.

No word on the price tag for this souped-up “SCS,” but given the cost issues the first two LCSes have had, it could be steep. It could also have implications for the U.S. Navy’s pending mission as the BMD protector of Europe, for which commanders could want as many hulls as possible, maybe including cruisers, destroyers and BMD-LCSes.

The cruiser Cape St. George fired an earlier version of the Tomahawk land attack missile in 2003. The Navy says its late-model Block IV is the best one yet // IS1 Kenneth Moll / Navy

Oh, to have been crouching in the mud with the U.S. and British special operators earlier this month when they called in a “time-critical strike” from the cruiser Princeton. It was just an exercise, according to a Navy announcement, but it still must’ve been pretty cool to see them dial in the thunder with their Precision Strike Suite – Special Operations Forces gear (known, of course, as “piss-off” in the teams) and then have that missile sky down and explode.

The thunder in question was provided by the long-awaited Block IV Tomahawk land-attack missile, which is the latest and smartest version of the classic weapon we all remember from “Red Storm Rising.”

“As the only network-enabled, land attack weapon, Tomahawk can re-target, loiter, or provide last minute weapons coverage to deployed forces from on-station naval combatants,” said its program manager, Capt. Dave Davison.

Still to come: Scoop Deck has been told that the Block IV’s improved ability to find and see targets could return anti-ship capability to the Tomahawk family, after the purpose-built ship-killing variant was withdrawn in 1995. We’re looking forward to seeing video of that test, if it happens.

Looks like the Navy has coined a new term.

I heard it for the first time a couple of months ago when I was out on the Truman and talking to Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, the strike group’s commander. He was explaining how they would remain ready despite a six-month gap between the JTFX and an actual deployment.

Driscoll said the strike group would probably go out for another large-scale excersise.

“The Navy loves acronyms, so we’ll probably call it ’sustain-ex’ or something like that,” Driscoll said casually.

Looks like that term Driscoll was trying out has been formalized.  A few days ago, the Navy public affairs office announced that the carrier John C. Stennis is heading out for a “sustainment excersize (SUSTAINEX).”

Add that to the next edition of the Dictionary of Naval Abreviations, or DICNAVAB.

One of the UK's two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers could become an Indian carrier if a proposed sale goes through // Royal Navy

The shipbuilding future of the Royal Navy has grown so bleak that new stories about what could happen to it have almost lost their ability to dismay. After the Ministry of Defence raised the possibility that it could delete the ability to handle F-35B Lightning II fighters from one of its future aircraft carriers, now it’s raising the possibility of selling one ship outright — to India.

The financial penalties of not building one of the two Queen Elizabeth-class flattops are more prohibitive than going through with it, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reports, so selling one to India could presumably defray the economic impact of going ahead with two ships. It isn’t clear yet how that deal would affect India’s tortured attempts to buy the ex-Soviet aircraft carrier Gorshkov, or whether the upshot of it all means that the Indians could have two new carriers — a used Russian one and British one fresh off the showroom floor — when the smoke cleared in the next decade.

Other implications: Would India buy one of the CVFs as-is, meaning designed to accommodate the short-takeoff, vertical-landing F-35B, even though it isn’t a member of the Joint Strike Fighter club? Or would it ask for changes so the ship could handle a different jet, such as the Su-33? That’d be interesting.

Meantime, the UK could be left with one new carrier, half its original order of fighter jets, and, in a major crisis, could need support from the U.S. Navy more than ever.

Some of us here at Scoop Deck prefer to take our news from paper. The deliberate design of words and images on pages you can turn allows a reader to find news or information he or she might have otherwise missed by pointing and clicking.

Take obituaries. They often make good reads not because someone is dead, but because the deceased enjoyed a rewarding life, a life worth sharing with strangers. It’s for that reason that we’d like to point out the obituary of one Capt. William B. Ecker.

It turns out this Omaha-native who went to University of Maryland became a naval aviator with a no kidding role in world history. Read his story to the end. He’s got a great take on one of the world’s most famous communists.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s been a long, cold, rainy week here at the Center of Excellence, so what better way to wrap things up than by taking a mental vacation to the warm, exotic eastern Pacific? And, since we’re transporting ourselves there anyway, why not imagine some kind of motivational at-sea operations during the trip? No need to tax your brain — check out this video from the Coast Guard.

The national security cutter Bertholf interdicted four high speed vessels suspected of transporting cocaine — or maybe those guys are just dumping fish food overboard — using its MH-65C Dolphin helicopter and its small boats. Of particular delight here on the Deck were the shots of the Bertholf itself, which, as you’ll see at about 1:36, is throwing out an enormous heat plume as it runs its diesels and gas turbine at full CODAG power. Cool.

H/T: Coast Guard Capt. Bruce Baffer, who showed this movie Thursday in a presentation at a Surface Navy Association event outside Washington.

Sailors aboard the carrier Nimitz mustered to get ready to man the rails for a port visit in Japan, much as today's links are mustering to provide you with news and updates // MCSA Robert Winn / Navy

Restricted maneuvering doctrine settin’, ATM cash-withdrawin’, rail mannin’ links, eager to tie up, race down the brow and get into the bars town as quickly as possible:

• After a triumphant visit and commissioning in its namesake city, the amphibious transport dock New York, like so many other newcomers to the Big Apple, is taking refuge in New Jersey.
• The Royal Navy’s newest attack submarine, the Astute, is on its way to the Royal Navy’s famed submarine base in Faslane, Scotland.
• The littoral combat ship Freedom is making a visit to Naval Station Mayport, Fla., the local newspaper reported, nervously pointing out that LCS will “replace” the frigates homeported there.
• Have you heard about this amazing discovery of these World War II Japanese submarines off Hawaii?
• The Missile Defense Agency has announced the next six ships that will be upgraded with ballistic missile defense capability, and, as expected, they’re all East Coast destroyers.
• Remember that movie in which the decommissioned carrier John F. Kennedy inexplicably crushes the White House in a tidal wave? It comes out today.

After a scandal that was out of this world, the Lisa Nowak story has returned to Earth, much as the space shuttle Discovery landed in December // NASA

Reporters, editors, bloggers and late-night comedians are losing an icon this week — the most infamous astronaut of all time, Capt. Lisa Nowak, closed out the story that has brought NASA its most public attention since the moonshot.

Nowak pleaded guilty to assaulting a fellow astronaut, Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, in a crime for the ages: Nowak drove more than 1,000 miles, from Houston to Orlando — geared up with a steel mallet, a wig, a BB gun, a knife, latex gloves, rubber tubing, garbage bags and pepper spray — and attacked Shipman as she tried to get into her car in a parking lot.

The motive? Nowak was apparently jealous that Shipman stol’d her man, Cmdr. Bill Oefelein, who was at the center of the astronaut love triangle. Other sensational elements? The infamous diapers. The e-mails. Just when you thought there were no other ridiculous ways for the story to go, there they were.

That’s all over now. But The Register isn’t wasting the last chance for this sort of thing — its headline today was “Astronaut love-dustup mace space ace Nowak cops plea,” with the sub-hed: “Anger management classes for wiggy carpark catfight.”

Naval History and Heritage Command

Today is Veterans Day, or as we also like to call it, Armistice Day. We’ll be thinking today about everyone who has served and fought.

The looming U.S. military build-up in Guam has some asking how everyone will fit on the Pacific island. Surfers, as it turns out in this story, are also wondering how everyone will get along when more non-locals try to catch waves too.

Today is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps, marking 234 years since the Continental Congress met at the famous Tun Tavern and approved a resolution calling for two battalions of hard-chargin’ soldiers of the sea to fight from Navy ships against the British. Since then, the Marines have graciously permitted the U.S. government to organize other military services, as well.

The Marine Corps birthday brought to mind a time in Iraq this summer, when Scoop Deck was touring a forward operating post called Camp Ubaydi, in northern Anbar Province, as part of the entourage following around Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Tryon, the commanding general of Multinational Force-West.

Our CH-46 Sea Knights (escorted by a menacing AH-1 Cobra) had landed on an unimproved mud pad; the “chow hall” was a wooden box; and now Tryon was leading Mabus through one of the crowded barracks rooms, occupied by elements of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. The leathernecks were standing at attention next to their racks and Mabus, ever the politician, needed a way to break the ice with them.

Before anyone knew what happened, he was on the pull-up bar in the middle of the squad bay, doing correct Marine Corps pull ups (from a hanging start) in the middle of all the startled riflemen. Some of them indicated their approval with a noise distinctive of their breed:

“Eeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr!”

After two pull-ups, Mabus jumped down back to the deck. “Well, I’m not gonna show off,” he said.

Tryon, not to be out-done, jumped up, grabbed the bar and began his own set of pull-ups, far quicker than his service secretary.

“So how’s this thing work?” Tryon shouted as he continued his pull-ups. “I just keep doin’ ‘em? This one works better than the one outside my house.”

Again, from the audience:

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Tryon dropped down from the pull-up bar, smiled at Mabus, and smoothed out his uniform. The tour resumed.

A Marine still at attention behind Scoop Deck murmured to his compatriot: “I thought the general was going to hit his head.”

"Janie, I need your help solving the mystery of the disappearing shipbuilding budget." // CBS

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus apparently so loved being on “The Daily Show” last month that he is returning to prime time — only for his forthcoming guest spot, he has taken a pretty steep demotion in rank. Mabus will play an agent in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on an episode of its eponymous drama, “NICS,” scheduled to air Nov. 24, TV Guide reported Monday.

“He will be making a cameo appearance,” confirmed Mabus’ spokeswoman, Capt. Beci Brenton. He filmed his scenes during a trip last month to the West Coast that included a speech at the Pacific Council and a visit, with LCAC ride, to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. The Navy’s West Coast public affairs office arranged the cameo with CBS, Brenton said, although she wasn’t clear about whether the process began with the Navy offering Mabus or “NCIS” asking for him.

Is Mabus a regular viewer of “NCIS?” Brenton said: “I believe he is.”

Other Navy officials, including the then-head of the real NCIS, have made appearances on the show before, but that precedent didn’t make it all right with at least one commenter over at TV Squad, who thinks Mabus probably has more important things to do than act in TV dramas:

I do not believe the secretary of the navy has any business being on television. If this is all he has to do, he needs to have someone review his “To Do” list. The sailors under his command need him more than NCIS. I hope Obama fires him! We have many more issues for our leaders to deal with. Bad choice by this secretary of the navy!

Another potential controversy here is Mabus’ choice to appear on the original “NCIS” and not its inexplicable spin-off, “NCIS: Los Angeles,” with Cool James and Robin. And if Mabus really wants to flex his acting chops, he needs to play a guy who loves LSU and the New York Yankees.

Seaman Sarah Rickett, of the USS Constitution, demonstrated how to load one of its cannons. Neighbors of the ship have complained its gun salutes are too loud // Navy

In Hampton Roads, Va., the punches and counter-punches over the noise of fighter jets from Naval Air Station Oceana eventually reached the point that people began putting stickers on their cars that read “I ♥ jet noise.” The earsplitting roar of jet engines is the “sound of freedom,” supporters said, and if you don’t like it — you can giiit out.

An even stranger Navy noise situation is in play up in Boston, where, according to the local paper, some of the finer elements of society are complaining about the regular cannon salutes  and other “noise” put out by the USS Constitution. One example: “Over the summer, we have entertained several times, and we have had guests sit up in shock when the cannon goes off.”

Heavens! One scarcely dares dream of it! It simply won’t do to startle Ambassador Carstairs and Lady Uppington-Smythe as they try to enjoy their vichyssoise! And yet the Navy apparently plans to accede to none of the requests quoted by the Herald:

• A reduction in the size of the battery charge would help.
• In the morning, a reduction in the National Anthem volume would help.
• On Sat and Sun, would you be open to eliminating or delaying the morning salute to say 9am?

Just as quickly as the complaints materialized, the Constitution’s other neighbors and advocates have come to its defense. Some of them are quoted here, but two others are names that will be familiar to frequent visitors on the Deck — Boston Maggie isn’t named that because she’s from Peoria, and as a hometown girl, she’s going to bat for the Constitution. And although Mike Burleson makes his home in graceful Charleston, S.C., he too is on the side of the world’s oldest floating commissioned warship.

What do you think? Should Old Ironsides scale back or stop its cannon salutes to be a good neighbor?

Unpronouncable name, fine-looking ship. // Coast Guard

Nothing puts a Coast Guardsman in a better mood than getting a new ship. Navy Times has had the privilege of being around when the Coast Guard showed off new vessels, all the way from the small (a Response Boat-Medium) to the large (the national security cutter Bertholf) and saw how the associated crew members glowed. And although we weren’t there Friday, it’s fair to say that glow was in effect when the lifesaving service accepted its second national security cutter, the Waesche.

Rear Adm. Ron Rabago, the Coast Guard’s top acquisition officer, signed the paperwork in Pascagoula, Miss., to transfer ownership of the Waesche from its Northrop Grumman shipyard to the U.S. government. The ship is set to sail to its new homeport of Alameda, Calif., in January.

Groton-based fast attack submarine San Juan arrives in South Africa for "regional security cooperation activities" and other events.//USN

In what’s becoming almost a habit, another U.S. Navy ship has stopped to visit South Africa. On Nov. 4, the fast attack submarine San Juan pulled into Simon’s Town for what 6th Fleet bills as a “first-ever, at-sea” engagement with that nation’s undersea fleet.

San Juan follows the destroyer Arleigh Burke, which arrived in Durban on July 13 for a similar visit. And last October, the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and cruiser Monterey stopped in Cape Town, marking the first time a U.S. flattop had been to South Africa since the Franklin D. Roosevelt made a stop in 1967.

The U.S. Navy has been building ties with the South Africans steadily in recent years. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead met naval leadership there in April.

For most of the second half of the 20th century South Africa was an international pariah because of its segregation policy known as “apartheid,” which was repealed in 1991. Check out the South African military here.

Northrop Grumman has announced a date for the ceremonial keel-laying of the Navy’s new class of aircraft carrier. On Nov. 14, dignitaries and media will crowd into the Newport News shipyard for a ceremonial beginning of the Gerald R. Ford, CVN 78.

The last of the Nimitz-class carriers, the George H.W. Bush, was commissioned on a bright but chilly Jan. 10 by the former president himself. President Ford’s daughter Susan Ford Bales is CVN 78’s sponsor and her initials will be welded into the ship’s steel.

Like the first President Bush, Ford served in the Navy during World War II. The first of the Ford carriers is expected to join the fleet in 2015 with a host of new technologies and design changes from the Nimitz ships.

The dock landing ship Carter Hall could be the first amphibious ship to transport a nuclear submarine in its well deck // MCSN Derek Poole / Navy

Have you ever looked down at the well deck of an amphibious ship and thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we tried to put the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile down there, or a Fleetwood Pace Arrow, or a giant mobile Tim Hortons? Admittedly, this is kind of silly — those things would obviously all fit at the same time, with plenty of room for actual green gear.

The dock landing ship Carter Hall actually is getting ready to try out carrying some crazy cargo in its well deck: This week this ship arrived at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, with the mission of gulping down the decommissioned research submarine NR-1, which is riding on a support barge.  Carter Hall will transport the legendary sub to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington, where its reactor will be dismantled. Wrote Foster’s Daily Democrat:

The barge and NR-1 will be guided into the well deck of Carter Hall utilizing a combination of tugs and the ship’s capstan system — a rotating machine that is used to lift or pull heavy objects with the assistance of lines or cables.

After that, it’ll be a long, slow trip around the continent. After that — maybe NR-1 will become a museum ship.

Marine Capt. Anthony Scarcella showed a visitor the controls of his AH-1 Cobra aboard the New York this week. Many aircraft, vehicles and weapons are on display on board // MC1 Corey Lewis/ Navy

NEW YORK — Here’s an old story you’ve heard before: A hot new performer arrives in in this notoriously hard-to-please city and is rewarded with fame and adulation. Here’s the twist: This time the main character is a 25,000-ton Navy warship.

The amphibious transport dock New York, which docked in Manhattan Monday in advance of its commissioning this Saturday, is spending the interim as one of the hottest shows in town. Navy officials expect 100,000 people will have toured the New York by Saturday, not only seeing the ship and its sailors, but its embarked Marines and their green gear.

They’re being feted on TV shows and at sporting events. The ship’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation organizers planned to sell out all their ball caps, T-shirts and water bottles bearing the ship’s logo; the 8,000 extra cruise books are expected to go quickly. Some sailors and Marines giving tours will work 18-hour days.

“It’s kinda scary, it’s kinda nerve-wracking, but it’s awesome to be here. We’re proud to be here,” said Pfc Patrick Roberts, of the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, whose LAV-25 is on display in one of the New York’s vehicle bays. Sitting in the turret with Sgt. David Salmonsen, Scoop Deck got to look through the commander’s gun sight and traverse the turret, which was highly motivational.

New Yorkers have a lot more to see when they come aboard. The New York is also carrying a CH-53E Super Stallion; an MV-22 Osprey; a UH-1 Huey; an AH-1 Cobra; an M1A2 Abrams main battle tank; an Amphibious Assault Vehicle; an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle; two Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft; and small arms and other green gear. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit assembled a custom, composite team specifically to extol the virtues of the leatherneck lifestyle during the New York’s visit.

New Yorkers will get to meet Cpl. Elias Norton, of 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, and see him demonstrate how to fire his Javelin anti-tank missile. They’ll get to see the 155mm howitzer that belongs to Fox Battery, 2nd Battalion, 12th Marines and Lance Cpl. Daniel Whitson (who was temporarily assigned, with his colleagues, to 2nd Battalion, 10th Marines). In keeping with Scoop Deck’s interest in gun names, Whitson and Lance Cpl. William McMorrow revealed they’re waiting for approval to paint the name “Big Nasty” on the barrel. (They considered, but rejected, “Final Solution.”) Other names in the battery include “Bang Bus” and “Section 8.”

And New Yorkers will also get to meet Sgt. Charles Peters and climb aboard his Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the first one ever brought onto a San Antonio-class amphib. (Despite its ability to cruise at more than 40 knots over water, it came aboard by LCAC.)

Peters has ridden in the vehicle at that speed over water, however, an experience he described as “scary.”

“Y’know how you when you ride a roller coaster and your stomach keeps dropping?” He said. “Like that.”

U.S. and Canadian airmen unloaded a mobile Tim Hortons from a C-17 at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. Tim Hortons coffee fuels Canada's military in the same way that F76 and JP-5 fuel the U.S. Navy // Canadian Forces

Why do Canadians love Tim Hortons so much? Good question. Why do boatswain’s mates wear those funny hard hats? These are mysteries to which there may never be good answers, but their effects are quite plain — especially that first one. Canadians love their “Timmies,” as they call it, in the same way they love power plays and those French fries with that weird gravy on them. Well indeed does Scoop Deck remember spotting a Tim Hortons, dispensing piping hot coffee, on a 115-degree afternoon at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan.

The Canadian Forces needs its Timmies so bad that it has issued a solicitation for the coffee in Halifax by name. Starbucks, Peet’s, Gevalia — none need apply, the CBC reports:

“There shall be no acceptable substitute,” according to the tender issued Monday. “Tim Hortons has been determined by MARLANT” — the navy’s Maritime Forces Atlantic command — “as the product of choice based on expressed customer taste and preferences for boosting morale in Afghanistan, Sudan and Sierra Leone.”

You can’t get a much bigger endorsement than a nation’s military requesting your product to the exclusion of all those other hosers. Is there an equivalent coffee in the U.S. Navy? Or do you rely on command ingenuity to create a distinctive product — i.e. “boat coffee?”

H/T: Springbored (who praised the U.S. Navy’s decision to shed “fru-fru, gold-plated, 5th Generation stealth coffee.”)

At one point in the Navy’s recent history, sailors serving ashore in Iraq and Afghanistan, often as individual augmentees in Army units, took to calling themselves “dirt sailors.” The brass didn’t like that, we learned. Maybe it was due to the implied value of “dirt.” Sailors, accustomed to being at sea and surrounded by water were merely being observant, as their usual habitat had suddenly turned dry and ah, dirty. 

Today however, a new light has been cast. In remarks during a ceremony for the Stockdale Award at the Pentagon, Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, was describing the current duties of the winners, both ashore in Iraq. He said they are what he “affectionately” refers to as “sand sailors.” So, sand sailors it is.

About 100,000 people were expected to visit the amphibious transport dock New York during its visit this week, leading up to its commissioning Saturday // Philip Ewing/Staff

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORT DOCK NEW YORK — This ship’s arrival in New York this week is a solemn occasion and a time for reflection and all that, but Scoop Deck was glad to hear that other people were having cognitive trouble connecting New York, the squared-away, brand-new warship, to New York, the megalopolis.

Navy ships are powerful instruments of American influence, operated with discipline and expertise. But the name “New York” conjures up images of the faux-wood paneling in the F Line to Brooklyn; scenesters in tight jeans talking about bands you’ve never heard of; astronomical rents; men sleeping on grates on 8th Avenue; and the aroma of human excrement floating out of the sewer.

Chief Electronics Technician (SW/SCW/EXW) Mike Kerrigan agreed that some grittier elements were missing from the brand-new New York. There are a few touches: The crew’s mess is named the “Skyline Café.” The starboard-side main deck passageway is named “Broadway,” and before the ship leaves New York, it will almost certainly acquire a souvenir (or stolen) Broadway street sign from Manhattan.

But Kerrigan said he thought the ship could do still better. (And for the record, he voted for “Hell’s Kitchen” as the name for the crew’s mess.)

“I told the guys, I’m gonna go into the subway and find some of those kids with spray cans and bring ‘em back on board and have ‘em go to town,” Kerrigan laughed. “We’ve got a lot of white space on the walls in the upper V” — the upper vehicle bay.

The New York wouldn’t be complete without a tasteful, but authentic, wall of graffiti, Kerrigan said.

“It’s not commonplace for a Navy ship to do that, but we’re special anyway,” he said.

Crew members aboard the New York got a tour of the harbor Monday that tourists would dream of // Philip Ewing/ Staff

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORT DOCK NEW YORK — Reveille was at 0400 Monday morning, and the 1MC crackled with a familiar brassy introduction and an unmistakable baritone:

“Start spreaadin’ the newwwwws! I’m leaavin’ todaaaaay!”

The sun had not yet risen over the clear morning in the anchorage off Brighton Beach where this ship had spent Sunday, but the atmosphere aboard the New York was already electric. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had distributed 100 “FDNYPD” ball caps in the crew’s mess the night before. The Yankees had won. The Navy ship with the supernatural link to its namesake was about to visit for the first time.

Still, as New York, the seaport, pulled out all the stops for its welcome to New York, the gator — including an escort of fire boats, tugs, pleasure craft and at least a dozen news and police helicopters — the ship’s bridge was serene. The New York was in line behind a cruise ship, the Crown Princess, in the channel leading under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and into the harbor.

As the immense bridge floated overhead, the New York’s captain, Cmdr. Curt Jones, was asked how it felt to cross the threshold.

“My first reaction is probably unprintable,” he said. “It’s fantastic. It really does feel like we’re coming home.”

The New York kept a speed of six knots or less and turned at waypoints plotted out the night before in the navigation brief in the wardroom. World-famous landmarks appeared in the bridge windows. The Statue of Liberty. Ellis Island. (“My great grandfather, Adolph Schmidt, came through Ellis Island,” said Cmdr. Erich Schmidt, the New York’s executive officer.) Marge Simpson’s beloved Governor’s Island. Briefly, we could look up the East River and see the Brooklyn Bridge. Battery Park.

Then the ship started up the Hudson. Three Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, in close formation, zoomed past on the port side.

New York firefighters, police and thousands of other people were arrayed along the marina west of the World Trade Center site. The boatswain’s mate of the watch blew a short blast on his whistle over the 1MC for attention to starboard. The sailors and Marines manning the ship’s rails saluted. On the flight deck, seven Marines fired three volleys from their M16s, although people on the bridge couldn’t hear the 21-gun salute. Two whistle blasts and the ship’s crew brought down their salutes. Three blasts and they stood at ease. The New York started back up the river.

“What a great moment,” Schmidt said.

The ship continued up the river until it passed Grant’s Tomb, then turned in place and started back south. Several New York Fire Dept. pumper trucks were arrayed on a bridge on the edge of Manhattan. As the New York passed, they sprayed a water salute and blasted their sirens. The ship responded with three blasts of its horn.

Why, Schmidt was asked, had the New York passed its pier and gone up the river, only to turn around again before tying up?

“So everybody can see us,” he said.

The amphibious transport dock New York will be the belle of the media world in the week leading up to commissioning in Manhattan on Nov. 7 // MC1 Shawn Graham

Navy-types, get ready to be blasted with an information fire hose. The amphibious transport dock New York has pulled away from Naval Station Norfolk, Va., bound for its namesake city and a week’s worth of frenzied attention in the media capital of the world before its commissioning Nov. 7.

One of the hometown papers has a crew member blogging; another already has a reporter aboard; and then there’s the international press — here’s the report from one of Abu Dhabi’s correspondents in New York. “Fox ‘n Friends” will be broadcasting live from the deck of the New York on Thursday morning. And, yes, Navy Times is also one of the sharks circling in this feeding frenzy.

Just to set the record straight in advance: New York’s bow stem includes about 7.5 tons of steel recycled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center site. The ship displaces about 25,000 tons. It was not “built from the World Trade Center.” The ship’s enclosed masts are not meant to “symbolize” the Twin Towers. Scoop Deck knows you understand, but thanks to months’ worth of hankie-wringing e-mail forwards, these are distinctions that could be lost on much of the mainstream media and many of the new fans the Navy picks up next week.

One last bit of spoilsportery: Despite all the adulation elsewhere, at least one commentator this week has been willing to go on record that he thinks it was a mistake to use steel from the World Trade Center in the bow of a warship. In Tulane University’s Hullabaloo newspaper (motto: “We Put Out On Fridays”) sophomore A.J Balatico wrote this:

Making a part of the World Trade Center into a warship is like making a part of the [true] cross into a crossbow. There’s something wildly perverse about it. The significance of these symbols shouldn’t be compromised by any outside cause, like war and violence. Especially war and violence.

Nothing to be done about it now, but what about the plans for LPD 25, the Somerset, to include steel from a coal crane that happened to be nearby the site where United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania? Should the Navy do it?

The Blue Angels' beloved Marine-crewed C-130T, "Fat Albert," will do its last jet-assisted takeoff Nov. 14, to the dismay of males everywhere // Navy

A seldom-discussed but important rite of passage for every American boy is the first time he hears the story of “the JATO car,” the infamous station wagon whose owner augmented it with Jet Assisted Take Off rocket bottles. The cops found the wreckage of his car crashed into the side of a mountain, the story goes, clear evidence of a man who sacrificed his life to absurd speed-demonism. You can do insane, dangerous, awesome things in this world, the boy learns.

The rite is completed when that boy, perhaps by then a man, learns the story isn’t true. It never happened. And the chances it could ever happen are dwindling, because the world is running out of JATO rockets, according to this story by Scoop Deck shipmate Amy McCullough of Marine Corps Times. One of the last U.S. aircraft to regularly execute jet-assisted takeoffs — the Blue Angels’ beloved, Marine-crewed C-130T “Fat Albert” — will do its last one next month. The end of the “JATO car” legend can’t be far behind. Wrote McCullough:

“Everyone in the Fat Albert shop is really sad,” said Maj. Drew Hess, the Blue Angels’ senior C-130 pilot. “It is a significant chapter [in the team’s history] that unfortunately is being closed.”

To execute a JATO, Fat Albert uses eight solid-fuel rocket bottles, which supply enough momentum for the aircraft to leave the runway after traveling just 1,500 feet. Climbing at a 45-degree angle, it can reach 1,000 feet in just 15 seconds.

The [one-time use] fuel bottles, which weigh about 150 pounds when full, were designed to thrust C-130s skyward in austere conditions where traditional runways are unavailable, said 1st Lt. Craig Thomas, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon. But the Corps hasn’t used JATO in combat since the Vietnam War, he said, and it’s unlikely to do so again, as newer KC-130Js have engines built to exert the same thrust as C-130Ts outfitted with rocket bottles.

Cruel, inescapable progress. Kind of like growing up.

Check out this motivational video of Fat Albert doing its thing:

The decommissioned carrier Ranger, seen here at sea in its glory days, could become a museum ship in Portland, Ore. // Naval History and Heritage Command

World War II carrier museums are all well and good, but for five decades naval aviation has been about the supercarrier — the big, angled deck, steam catapult-equipped monsters whose era began with the commissioning of the Forrestal in 1955. (Earlier flattops were retrofitted with steam cats. ) But even though many of those big ships are out of the fleet, your Cub Scout pack can’t do a sleep-over on one. Yet.

However, Portland, Ore.-area scouts and other propeller-heads can take heart about the news Thursday that the USS Ranger Foundation cleared the first of four hurdles with Naval Sea Systems Command to bring the decommissioned carrier Ranger to a berth on the Willamette River. It’s no small undertaking: The group still must raise money, find a suitable spot, tow the ship from Bremerton, Wash., and get it safe and set up to accept visitors and exhibits.

Getting and running a museum ship is really tough. Navy Times has reported on case after case — such as with the carrier John F. Kennedy — in which organizations’ vision far exceeded their ability to raise money or make the necessary deals. Still, if you have a waterfront somewhere you’d like to spruce it up with some haze-gray decoration, here’s NavSea’s list of ships available to become museums, including the famous Sea Shadow, the cruiser Ticonderoga (pdf) and even another supercarrier, the Saratoga. (pdf)

With the Ranger news peg, this Vietnam-era image of the Ranger and Task Force 77 is too good not to display:

Naval History and Heritage Command

]]> http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/10/29/americas-first-supercarrier-museum-ship/feed/ 2 http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/10/29/mids-at-the-world-series-too-bad-armys-not-playing/ http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/10/29/mids-at-the-world-series-too-bad-armys-not-playing/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:09:05 +0000 Phil Ewing http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/?p=2656

The Naval Academy color guard, here presenting the colors in 2005 in Philadelphia, will do its thing at game two of the World Series tonight in New York // JO1 James Pinsky/ Navy

Halloween is this weekend, the skies are turning iron and giant flocks of migrating birds are doing touch-and-goes outside on the Parking Lot of Excellence. In short, autumn is hitting its stride, and yet thanks to the greed generosity of America’s TV networks, baseball season still hasn’t ended. Wednesday night was game one of the World Series, which saw two great Cleveland pitchers taking on hitters from New York and Philadelphia, and for game two Thursday, the Navy is getting into the act.

The Naval Academy’s color guard will present the colors at Yankee Stadium before the opening pitch, the academy announced Thursday morning, although it wasn’t clear whether that would be part of the televised broadcast. Just in case you can’t catch them on TV, the midshipmen who’ll be taking part are:

Midshipman 1st Class Dan Sauer of Kirkland, Wash., carrying the Brigade of Midshipmen flag; Midshipman 1st Class Luke Leveque of Kodiak, Alaska, carrying the flag of the United States Marine Corps; Midshipman 1st Class Jason Mazzoni of Salisbury, N.C., carrying the flag of the United States Navy; Midshipman 2nd Class Bryen Roder of Little Falls, N.J; and riflemen Midshipmen 2nd Class Zishan Hameed of Norfolk, Va.; and 2nd Class Hannah Allaire of San Antonio, Texas.

Firefighters worked to put out the fire in the bow of the Japanese destroyer Kurama, which burned after a collision with a South Korean container ship // AP

The photos appearing from Japan this week are enough to unnerve any seafarer — a destroyer’s bow crunched, burned, gone after its collision with a freighter at sea. Six Japanese sailors aboard the destroyer Kurama were hurt in the accident, but no one aboard the South Korean container ship Carina Star was injured. The latest theory is that the Carina Star veered in front of the Kurama to avoid a third ship in the channel, although the final verdict likely won’t be in for weeks.

Even more galling for the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, the Kurama was on its way to serve as the flagship for a triennial fleet review this weekend.

Here’s what the ship looked like in happier times:

MC3 Daniel Viramontes/ Navy

]]> http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/10/28/collision-at-sea-aftermath/feed/ 1 http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/10/27/vectors-found-and-lost/ http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/10/27/vectors-found-and-lost/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:53:07 +0000 Andrew Scutro http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/?p=2640  

Some things are just motivating, like the last few words of the Star Spangled Banner, sacks of cash, hot steak sandwiches and of course, the Five Vector Model. The Scoop Deck staff is on an eternal search for reliable sightings of the Five Vector Model and yes, we found another one, pictured above. It was in Groton. Here is one example we keep in the archive, a sighting from the Navy’s Birthday in 2006, somewhere in the Pacific.  If you see a 5VM, in any form, please send in a photo. Probably the most prized example would be a “5VM” vanity license plate. Or a tattoo. That would be sweet.

Fun Fact for the kids: note the difference in vector type and amount between the above example from Groton and the one from the Essex in 2006.

Team Navy bloggers need your help to raise the most money in this year's Project Valour-IT campaign // Navy

The big guns in the Navy blogosphere don’t always agree — Bring back the battleships? Chinese carrier threat? Anything about LCS? — but starting this week they’re steaming line astern in a dread task force with a common objective: Raise money for a great cause and defeat the blogger teams representing the lesser other services.

Galrahn, Maggie, ol’ Phib and Steeljaw are just some of the boldface names on Team Navy taking part in this year’s Project Valour-IT fund drive, which goes toward buying voice-controlled laptops and other needed gear for our fighting men and women who are recovering from injuries they’ve received in action. Here’s the full blog roster for Team Navy, and if you kick them a few bucks you’ll help push the Navy fund-raising bar past the other teams’.

As of Tuesday morning, the Marine Corps team was in the lead — and that’s not acceptable, shipmate!

In the future, CS3 Jermaine Thompson, of the carrier Enterprise, could need to only push a button and his oven would know exactly how long to bake this bread // Navy

The Navy operates some of the most advanced equipment on the planet, what with all the fighter jets and nuclear reactors and Aegis radars and such, but less so in the galley, where culinary specialists depend as much on their own skill as new technology. That’s changing, though — sailors aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln are testing three new high-speed ovens that can basically cook meals on their own, and which promise to make work much simpler for the CSes of tomorrow.

The Blodgett Hydrovection, Rational Combi, and Alto Shaam Combi-therm all can be programmed with the Navy’s standard menu items, which means that sailors can prepare entrees the way the rest of us push the “popcorn” button on the microwave:

“Now the culinary specialist doesn’t have to read off the card and set everything accordingly. It’s as simple as pressing a few buttons,” said Culinary Specialist 1st Class Eric Russell…

For example, the menu card for beef roast rib says to roast the meat for three to four hours at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Since the oven knows this, the CS just has to look under the beef section for roast rib and the oven knows the exact temperature and time left to cook.

In cases like beef rib roast where the menu card instructs the CS to insert a thermometer and roast until it reaches a certain temperature in the center, the new oven has another convenient feature. There is a sensor the CS can insert in the meat so the oven can keep track of the temperature itself. It knows that according to the menu card, beef rib roast must be roasted until the center is at least 140 degrees Fahrenheit. So it adjusts the remaining time according to the temperature of the meat.

It’s the galley practices of tomorrow — today! If your ship makes a lot of special requests for chow, these new ovens eventually will include the ability for local cooks to program them, according to this story.

The Japanese battleship Yamato burned after being struck by U.S. Navy aircraft during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which ended 65 years ago today // Naval History and Heritage Command

Monday marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Leyte Gulf — the largest sea battle in history and one of Scoop Deck’s all-time favorites — and it wouldn’t do for the date to pass without taking note.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf includes some of the finest — and worst — moments in naval history, including the last surface engagement between battleships; the spectacular heroism of the destroyers Johnston and Samuel B. Roberts; and Adm. William Halsey’s fateful decision to send his carriers after a Japanese feint.

Suitably, the Web is awash in good links about the battle and its participants, including Eagle1’s account of the battle, Maggie’s links and SteelJaw’s history lesson. And the Wiki on this particular topic is pleasantly bright and comprehensive.

Visitors spent a sunny afternoon stranded topside on the fast attack sub Annapolis when the Navy's boats to ferry them to shore broke down // Lt. Patrick Evans/ Navy

ABOARD THE FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE ANNAPOLIS – After a pleasant but brief visit to this sleek black shark, lurking incongruously amid the sails gliding across the shimmering Chesapeake Bay, it was time to leave.

The Annapolis’ skipper, Capt. Mike Holland, said our launch would be arriving any moment — plus Scoop Deck had asked to see the ship’s Vertical Launch System tubes in the bow — so we climbed up the ladder forward of the conn and examined them for a few moments in the clear, but chilly, Maryland sunshine. It was just after 12:30. After several more minutes of conversation on the sub’s bow, our boat still hadn’t arrived.

The Annapolis’ weapons officer, Lt. Cmdr. Howard Craig, popped up through the hatch and presented himself to Holland. Holland asked whether a boat would, in fact, be coming to ferry off two reporters, two Navy public affairs officers, and about 50 or 60 other visitors who were milling topside on the Annapolis and on a barge moored on the sub’s starboard side, set up to make it easier for visitors to get on and off the launches running from the sub to the Yard.

There were two launches — USNA 1 and 2 — circulating, Craig said. But: “Sir, one of the launches is D.I.W.; the other one is operational, sir.”

D.I.W.? Dead in the water. So we waited.

It was the most luxurious stranding in maritime history. The bay lapped against the Annapolis’ anechoic tiles, designed to absorb the energy from an active sonar ping. Traffic crossed the Bay Bridge, which filled the horizon like an iron ribbon several miles dead astern. A behemoth car carrier was anchored several miles off our port bow; a bulk cargo ship was riding high east of the channel at anchor off the port beam; the occasional freighter bound south from Baltimore cruised under the bridge and passed us. Dozens of sails wafted like goose quills in every direction over the bay. But we were still stranded.

The channel and the middle of the bay was just deep enough to accommodate the 7,000-ton Annapolis, which drew about 32 feet of water anchored on the surface. Another thousand feet west, we learned, and the sub could go aground.

At shortly after 1, the crew of the Annapolis and its milling passengers sighted one of the Navy launches off the starboard beam, churning toward us behind a good white bow wave. At last! Then the launch slowed. Then it stopped, still about 500 yards distant. By 1:20, according to Scoop Deck’s wristwatch, the boat had dropped its anchor.

Both the Navy’s ferries for taking passengers from Annapolis to the Annapolis and back were stranded in the bay, their engines dead. As the sub’s crew explained the situation, people aboard the submarine and its passenger literage barge began to sit down on the deck.

At 2:05, crew members from the Annapolis’ galley brought around snacks for top side castaways — they offered apples and oranges; Pop-Tarts and granola bars; and a selection of candy bars that did great credit to the ship’s supply department. Soon dozens of orange peels and apple cores were bobbing in the water around the submarine.

At 2:10, Lt. Patrick Evans, a spokesman for Submarine Group 2, read the day’s NFL scores off his iPhone. Naval Academy spokeswoman Judy Campbell expressed dissatisfaction that the Houston Texans were beating her beloved San Francisco 49ers.

At least, it was agreed, we weren’t on one of the two launches stuck in the bay. If we needed to use the heads, they were available, plus we were all munching on submarine snacks. And at least we were all stuck on a calm, pleasant afternoon, not in the monsoons from the day before. But we were still stuck.

Then, just like Vice Adm. David Beatty’s battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the Navy rode to the rescue. One of the Naval Academy’s yard patrol boats, which midshipmen use to practice seamanship, appeared in the crowded bay. In short order, YP 683 pulled alongside the stranded launch USNA 1 and took aboard what was doubtless a load of angry, thirsty passengers. Our hearts leapt as it drew closer to the Annapolis, but then it began a slow left turn back toward the Yard. Having rescued the passengers of both USNA 1 and 2, YP 683 had no space for the people marooned on the Annapolis. They began to sit back down.

But what’s this? Another small craft appeared on its way from Annapolis, making good speed across the bay. It was Naval Academy Superintendent Vice. Adm. Jeffrey Fowler’s “command gig,” and, we learned, it could take a select few people back to shore.

“Right now I’d like the media to get off, so they can get a nice headline,” Holland told the crowd, which burst into laughter.

At 2:42, Scoop Deck piled into Fowler’s gig, which cast off and cut a long right turn away from the Annapolis and made for the Yard. At 2:43 the gig passed USNA 2, sputtering on its way back to its dock. At 2:55 the gig passed YP 683 chugging with its decks full of passengers. At 3:05, Scoop Deck stepped back onto the Naval Academy campus and made for the City Dock, in desperate need of lunch.

One of the Royal Navy's planned carriers, scene in this illustration, could lose its capability to carry F-35Bs, the Ministry of Defence said Sunday // Royal Navy

Is it the first step toward the Royal Navy losing its new carriers? Or is it a compromise that will ensure they’ll both be built? Those seem to be the two options after the announcement Sunday that the Royal Navy is willing to delete the capability to handle F-35B Lightning IIs from one of its two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, now just beginning construction. That would mean the Ministry of Defence could buy fewer fighters, saving billions of pounds, but that for all its recent sacrifices, it would only field half the naval air power it originally wanted.

According to The Guardian, this could mean the Royal Navy might have to make even further concessions about its two carriers, including eliminating one or both altogether. And The Times reminds us the carrier change represents “another blow to the [Royal] Navy’s prestige,” after the British government announced not too long ago it was considering deleting one of the fleet’s four Vanguard-class ballistic-missile subs.

Here’s even more context: News broke on Friday that the Joint Strike Fighter could be billions of dollars over-budget and possibly in need of restructuring. So what would fewer jets going to the U.K. do to the rest of the program? Good question.

As it is, the Royal Navy is looking at a situation in which it’s spending a lot to get a ship it effectively didn’t need to build, writes Mike Burleson:

“We can only wonder if an upgraded Ocean class with a strengthened deck would have been less costly and less a burden to build during wartime.”

Just in time for the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium next week here near Washington, D.C., the good news arrives that the ballistic missile submarine West Virginia successfully launched two unarmed D-5 Trident II ballistic missiles on Oct 23., likely off the Navy’s missile test facility in Port Canaveral, Fla. 

Maybe more likely to come up in discussion at Sub League will be the recent honor bestowed on the crew of the fast attack submarine Hartford. They were commended on Oct. 20 for 1,000 consecutive days without any of the 140 crew involved in a drunk driving incident. What might ignite a few wisecracks during a coffee break is that Hartford has been under repair at Electric Boat in Groton because on March 20 in the Strait of Hormuz it collided with the amphib New Orleans.

Anybody see the Navy’s Chief Information Officer’s blog this week? Rob Carey, the Navy’s top techie, approves of sites like Facebook.

3. Social Media as a Tool to Build Trust. Social media is an inherent part of the toolbox for members of the millennial workforce, while baby boomers are just adopting it. Social media tools should become the standard by which we can share and collaborate on information inside and outside the network boundaries.

Nevertheless, there is a downside.

A few weeks back, we wrote a story about the future of electronic attack aircraft in the Navy and Marine Corps.

That story made a reference to preliminary talk of the Marine Corps eventually using the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for electronic warfare.

But I was over at the annual Electronic Warfare conference this past week and bounced that idea off an EW expert from the Joint Electronic Warfare Center and he called the idea “ridiculous.”

The jamming signals emitted by the EW pods are “loud” and make the aircraft easily identifiable on any radar, he said. Why would we spend billions of dollars developing a stealthy fighter jet just to attach EW pods that eliminate all the advantages of the stealth features?

Good thing the Corps has another a few years until it has to decide what will replace their Prowlers in 2017.

QMSN Antonia Mack plotted a course the old fashioned way aboard the destroyer O'Kane // MC2 Mark Logico/ Navy

Pity the poor visitor who brings a car here to the National Capital Region. Washington and its suburbs can be an impenetrable maze unless you know the territory or you have help from the Global Positioning System. That said, just imagine what it’d be like to try to sail an amphibious assault ship from San Diego to Guam without it. So if GPS stopped working, a lot of people all over the world would (literally) be lost.

And it could, in fact, stop working: According to a Government Accountability Office report quoted by Avionics Magazine, GPS users could start seeing “brownouts” as soon as next year because the GPS  satellite constellation is over-burdened and wearing out. Although it would still be available to Navy, other military and civilian users, no one is quite sure whether it will remain as accessible as it is today:

The impacts to both military and civil users of a smaller constellation are difficult to precisely predict,” the agency [GAO] said. “For example, a nominal 24-satellite constellation with 21 of its satellites broadcasting a healthy standard positioning service signal would continue to satisfy the availability standard for good user-to-constellation geometry articulated in the standard positioning service performance standard. However, because the GPS constellation has been operating above the committed performance standard for so long, military and civil users have come to expect a higher level of service, even though this service is not committed to them. Consequently, some users may sense an operational impact even if the constellation were to perform at or near its committed standards.

So Navy navigation teams should probably keep their charts and rulers, and the rest of us should probably hang on to our paper maps.

H/T: Kennebec Captain

MC2 Matthew White/ Navy

Back in Scoop Deck’s camping days, the standard practice was to say “I hate white rabbits” when smoke from the campfire was blowing on you, to magically send it in the other direction. (This does not actually work.) At this shrine outside the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo, however, the objective is to get the smoke on you, to absorb its curative powers. If it works, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West, and the other top enlisted leaders with whom he recently toured Tokyo, should be healthy for a long time… or at least give off a distinctive aroma.

MC1 Nathan Guimont/ Navy

Here’s the type of watercraft in which one might normally while away a pleasant afternoon, knockin’ back a few cold ones and fishin’ for walleye, but it will no longer be of much use for that. Sailors aboard the carrier George Washington used this boat for target practice Tuesday.

A Marine CH-53E Super Stallion from HMH 464, the "Condors," flew over the Gulf of Aden, much as today's links fly new information to you // Tech. Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock/ Air Force

Big, loud, heavy, smelly, hydraulic fluid drippin’, cargo carryin’, mine sled dredgin’ links, getting ready to touch down on the flight deck and unload these updates:

• The crew of the cruiser Anzio — which you met a few weeks ago here on the Deck — made life unpleasant for some drug smugglers in the Gulf of Aden this week.
• As if South Carolina’s Patriots Point museum didn’t already have enough problems, Naval Sea Systems Command has passed the word: Either fix up the carrier Yorktown, which is in bad shape, or get ready to sink it.
• Today is the 212th anniversary of the launch of the frigate Constitution, or Old Ironsides, as we call it, which has made Maggie very excited, because she gets to take it out for a spin.
• Speaking of launches, the Royal Navy’s fifth Type 45 destroyer, or the Daring-class, as we call it, was set to launch today in the River Clyde in Scotland.
• Speaking of launches, the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy, check out this piece about the birth of the Continental Navy from Naval History and Heritage Command.

Sports are often compared to war — linemen “battle” for the gridiron; bad pitchers get “shelled;” and in the backfield, the secondary provides “optimized, time-critical network-centric support for the joint defense.” So it’s no surprise that the military is chock-full of great athletes and, generally, that the services are permeated by a culture of sports and competition.

In that spirit, Military Times brings you After Action, a new joint blog from all four colors of the rainbow (green, light blue, regular blue and red) about sports in and around the armed services. Check it out here, let us know what you think and send us tips about anything sports-related going on with your service, your local command, or just who won the paper football game in the DFAC last night. And send pictures!

Sailors from the dock landing ship Tortuga conducted global goodness operations in the Philippines last week. The Navy's new slogan, "Global Force For Good," has encountered some early critics // MC1 Geronimo Aquino/ Navy

How influential are Navy Times readers like you? When CNN wanted to hear what no-kidding Navy people thought about the sea service’s new recruiting slogan, “America’s Navy, a Global Force For Good,” the network quoted posts on Navy Times’ forums that showed, for the most part, today’s sailors aren’t quite captivated by it.

CNN’s Lou Dobbs program aired the piece Monday night, and you can view it here.

There’s just something about this story…  even after our article appeared summarizing responses from many of the sailors we asked about “Global Force For Good,” the emails have kept pouring into the Inbox of Excellence. Just yesterday we heard from Intelligence Specialist 1st Class (SW/AW) Grant Miles, who was watching TV with his wife this weekend when he saw the ad for the first time:

“…[O]nce it was done I asked her what she thought. She said, ‘It’s a good commercial, but what is with that slogan? It makes it sound like you guys are the world’s police force or a bunch of conquerors.’ So I think the latest commercials have been great but with the changing of the slogan I don’t think people are going to join because they can do good things.”

It’s been a few weeks since the debut of “Global Force For Good.” Is it growing on you?

The carrier George Washington trained with Korean warships in the Pacific last week. International cooperation was a key plank of the maritime strategy unveiled two years ago this week // MC3 Jeffrey Stewart/ Navy

The famed brown-shoe blogger SteeljawScribe — or as they’d say in Pittsburgh, “Stuhljawr-Scrub” — has reminded the Internet this week that we’ve reached the second anniversary of the unveiling of the maritime strategy (pdf), the document that was supposed to pave a clear road forward for the U.S. naval services and Coast Guard.

Asks Steeljaw: Did it? Answers Steeljaw: Kinda.

As a guidance document the strategy was useful, he writes, but it was incomplete because it contained no specifics for how many and what kinds of ships the U.S. would need to execute it. Those details were supposed to come in the “Naval Operations Concept,” the force structure document for which the world still waits. (Although incomplete initial versions have bubbled to the surface.)

The NOC, writes Steeljaw:

is increasingly important as planners inside and out of the naval services wrestle with new concepts and capabilities, the most recent example being the significant shift in BMD emphasis in the European theater … This redirection and the attendant gossamer-light expositions of how we will employ sea-based BMD in the maritime strategy has led to a fair degree of mis-information and erroneous assumptions as to general operational capabilities, requirements, and necessary force structure.  More detailed explanation, as would be found in a NOC, would go a long ways to alleviate this condition.

On the anniversary of the MarStrat, it’s worth asking: How valuable has it proved for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard?

A building under construction in Wuhan, China, looks suspiciously like a giant aircraft carrier. What is it for? // tiexue.net

If you’re plugged in to the Navy inter-webs you may have seen the latest photo-set depicting China’s newest aircraft carrier, which is quickly taking shape but won’t put to sea any time soon — because it’s a building.

The giant pretend cement aircraft carrier is being built in the inland city of Wuhan, and it corresponds to your standard Russian-influenced notional Chinese carrier design: Large ski-jump bow and very large island, in this case much bigger than it would need to be on a real ship at sea.

The problem — as is often the case in these situations — is a severe shortage of actual facts about the carrier-building. Will Chinese aviators train on this enormous mock-up? Is it a tourist attraction? The blog ChinaSmack reports that parts of the island are already in use as office space. Which is kind of neat, if you think about it; it’s the grown-up equivalent of sleeping in race-car bed. Our Center of Excellence would definitely be better if it were a building shaped like a warship. Or a warship.

So what do you think the Wuhan carrier-building is?