New sub for the Navy

The USN gets another Virginia class attack boat.  The USS Oregon.

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Sharp Sword

Looks like the Chinese are testing a drone to operate off their first indigenously produced aircraft carrier.  We need to stop dumping our money into China which only ends up in the state coffers for weapons development.

Hotspot

As you know the South China Sea is a hotspot I watch closely.  However adjacent to it, in the  Sea of Japan (North China Sea) a little tussle is developing between North Korea and Russia.  These two nuclear armed, third-rate powers are apparently scrapping over fishing in each other’s waters.  Both countries are economically desperate and North Korea simply has to have as much protein as they can find so I could easily see this one flaring up.  Stay tuned.

Naming Navy ships

The Navy has made a report to Congress on plans for naming upcoming ships.  You can read it here. This is a pet peeve of mine. I hate the developing trend of politicians naming everything after themselves and their buddies.  The absolute pinnacle of this abomination is the late Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia who basically named everything in the state after himself.

I firmly believe that no ships should EVER be named after a living person.  With certain rare exceptions I don’t think that ships should ever be named after politicians ( I make rare exception for long dead persons of historical significance such as Lincoln and Washington)  Carriers should be named after battles, or historic previous ship names. Boomers should be named after States, Attack subs should be named after  major cities. APDs and the like should be named for smaller US cities and counties.  CGNs, DDs and FFGs should be named after naval heroes.  None of them ever should be named for living people, especially living or recently deceased politicians. <end rant>

 

Amazing photo

Photo here.  Photo of the USS Savannah in the immediate aftermath of getting hit by a German Fritz X bomb.  An amazingly-well timed photo.

A little bit of good news

It seems like nothing but bad news comes out of Asia these days with tensions ratcheting ever higher.  Well, this seems to be a positive development.  The JMSDF has asked the US Marines to deploy the F-35B on two large Japanese Helicopter carriers.  The Japanese are buying their own F-35Bs and this appears to be some advance work to make sure that the JMSDF ships are ready for the new equipment.

Carrier news

South Korea getting into the game.

 

Meanwhile, China and the US having trouble with their latest.

Drones and naval warfare

This story of China using a drone to keep tabs on US Navy ships passing through the Taiwan straight raises an interesting question of how drones (UAVs) will affect naval warfare in the future.  I am not sure anyone knows.

Something is broken

with the US Navy procurement system. (Army and Air Force too)  This needs to get fixed now.  We are going to have lean budgets ahead.  We can’t afford to continue pouring money down a rat hole.  If this isn’t fixed now, it will eventually cost lives down the road.

 

Movie review: Master and Commander (2003)

While I had seen bits and pieces of this film from time to time, a recent modeling session and the purchase of the DVD finally led me to see the whole film.  It was worth it.  I am a fan of Crowe and I have heard a lot of good things about the books in the series that this movie was based on.  The movie was excellent.  It was well paced and really gave a feel for life in the age of sail.  The action scenes are compelling, well-paced and well shot.  The films was a small success at the box office when released, but not enough of one that the hoped-for sequels were made.  This is a shame.  It seems that all we get out of Hollywood is superhero movies these days, when movies like this would be much more compelling IMHO.  The movie did win two minor Oscars.  Four and a Half out of Five stars.  See it.