Um navio de guerra americano já não vai a terra há dois meses devido a uma epidemia a bordo
http://visao.sapo.pt/atualidade/2019-03 ... ia-a-bordo
O USS Fort McHenry, com quase 200 metros de comprimento e mais de dez mil toneladas de peso, não aporta desde janeiro, na sequência de um surto de parotidite entre os marinheiros
arece um guião de um filme-catástrofe: os mais de 700 tripulantes do navio americano Fort McHenry estão desde janeiro sem pisar terra firme, desde que começou a alastrar uma epidemia de parotidite, uma doença infectocontagiosa provocada pelo mesmo vírus que causa sarampo.
A Marinha dos EUA manteve o segredo até ontem, quando a CNN, alertada por uma fonte, questionou diretamente as cúpulas militares. Segundo as informações agora reveladas, 25 marinheiros já contraíram a doença, que provoca febre, desidratação e arrepios, e todos os tripulantes receberam reforços da VASPR (vacina antissarampo, parotidite e rubéola).
O primeiro caso terá surgido a 22 de dezembro, mas os oficiais do navio não instauraram imediatamente a quarentena: em janeiro, o USS Fort McHenry atracou na Roménia, quando se encontrava em exercícios militares no Mar Negro.
Apesar dos cuidados e dos reforços de imunização, o surto continua vivo - o caso mais recente surgiu no sábado, 9. Se forem seguidas as recomendações médicas para estas situações, o navio só poderá aportar 30 dias depois de a última infeção ter sido detetada, pelo que os marinheiros ainda têm pela frente um longo período sem ir a terra.
Neste momento, o navio encontra-se no mar Arábico, no Índico.
Marinha dos EUA
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
![Imagem](https://navaltoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/propulsion-issues-delay-uss-gerald-r-fords-return-to-fleet.jpg)
Nuclear propulsion system repairs delay USS Gerald R. Ford’s return to fleet
https://navaltoday.com/2019/03/27/nucle ... -to-fleet/
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
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Porta-aviões USS Jhon C. Stennis em Marselha
![Imagem](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aSgpXrPA0RU/XMoinPGgqzI/AAAAAAAAkSs/wJP4jCVCks0w7kEWVu0HwJQs6PJanTTtgCLcBGAs/s640/170908-N-BR087-146-tile.jpg)
Por: Yam Wanders.
O porta-aviões USS Jhon C. Stennis (CVN 74) partiu hoje do porto de Marselha no sul da França, após sua semana de folga para a tripulação e reabastecimento genérico.
Durante essa semana do dia 27 de abril até esse dia 1o de maio, muitos militares tripulantes do porta-aviões americano participaram de atividades culturais oferecidas pela prefeitura de Marselha e também efetuaram ações sociais junto à população de Marselha, principalmente palestras em escolas, associações populares e centros culturais, onde esses militares da U.S. Navy explicam muitos assuntos referentes à presença da frota naval americana em sua mega operação no Mar Mediterrâneo, sobre a carreira militar na Marinha dos Estados Unidos e também sobre os laços culturais entre o povo americano e francês, inclusive com um jogo de futebol entre o time da tripulação do navio, os "Blue Stars" contra o time de Sapeurs-Pompiers de Marseille, jogo esse que ocorreu no estádio municipal com grande público presente.
A visita ao porto serve também como um gesto de gentileza entre a França e os Estados Unidos, que são aliados navais mesmo antes da aliança militar NATO/OTAN, já que o super porta-aviões poderia fazer sua escala em Nápoles, local da base permanente da U.S. Navy no âmbito das atividades da NATO/OTAN. Na parte técnica, a aportagem de uma embarcação dessa categoria serve para aperfeiçoamento das tripulações em seus procedimentos de atracamento em um porto inusual e outras manobras extra rotinas.
O porta-aviões atraiu a atenção de muitos na cidade portuária de Marselha, já que a base naval que rotineiramente recebe navios militares fica em Toulon, a alguns kilômetros de distância dali e é uma área super restrita aos civis.
O porta-aviões Jhon C. Stennis (CVN 78) não organizou visitação pública por questões de segurança, mas recebeu selectos membros da imprensa local, como foi o caso de nosso colaborador, o Dr. Jean-Michel Maurel, que foi recebido pela equipe de relações públicas da U.S. Navy e efetuou uma muito boa cobertura fotográfica da visita, e, gentilmente nos forneceu suas fotos!
Blog do especialista em Aviação Naval, Dr. Jean-Michel Maurel:
http://aeronav.over-blog.com/
Fonte: Orbis Defense 1 mai 2019
Porta-aviões USS Jhon C. Stennis em Marselha
![Imagem](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aSgpXrPA0RU/XMoinPGgqzI/AAAAAAAAkSs/wJP4jCVCks0w7kEWVu0HwJQs6PJanTTtgCLcBGAs/s640/170908-N-BR087-146-tile.jpg)
Por: Yam Wanders.
O porta-aviões USS Jhon C. Stennis (CVN 74) partiu hoje do porto de Marselha no sul da França, após sua semana de folga para a tripulação e reabastecimento genérico.
Durante essa semana do dia 27 de abril até esse dia 1o de maio, muitos militares tripulantes do porta-aviões americano participaram de atividades culturais oferecidas pela prefeitura de Marselha e também efetuaram ações sociais junto à população de Marselha, principalmente palestras em escolas, associações populares e centros culturais, onde esses militares da U.S. Navy explicam muitos assuntos referentes à presença da frota naval americana em sua mega operação no Mar Mediterrâneo, sobre a carreira militar na Marinha dos Estados Unidos e também sobre os laços culturais entre o povo americano e francês, inclusive com um jogo de futebol entre o time da tripulação do navio, os "Blue Stars" contra o time de Sapeurs-Pompiers de Marseille, jogo esse que ocorreu no estádio municipal com grande público presente.
A visita ao porto serve também como um gesto de gentileza entre a França e os Estados Unidos, que são aliados navais mesmo antes da aliança militar NATO/OTAN, já que o super porta-aviões poderia fazer sua escala em Nápoles, local da base permanente da U.S. Navy no âmbito das atividades da NATO/OTAN. Na parte técnica, a aportagem de uma embarcação dessa categoria serve para aperfeiçoamento das tripulações em seus procedimentos de atracamento em um porto inusual e outras manobras extra rotinas.
O porta-aviões atraiu a atenção de muitos na cidade portuária de Marselha, já que a base naval que rotineiramente recebe navios militares fica em Toulon, a alguns kilômetros de distância dali e é uma área super restrita aos civis.
O porta-aviões Jhon C. Stennis (CVN 78) não organizou visitação pública por questões de segurança, mas recebeu selectos membros da imprensa local, como foi o caso de nosso colaborador, o Dr. Jean-Michel Maurel, que foi recebido pela equipe de relações públicas da U.S. Navy e efetuou uma muito boa cobertura fotográfica da visita, e, gentilmente nos forneceu suas fotos!
Blog do especialista em Aviação Naval, Dr. Jean-Michel Maurel:
http://aeronav.over-blog.com/
Fonte: Orbis Defense 1 mai 2019
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
General Dynamics presenta su propuesta de fragata de misiles guiados para la Marina de EE.UU
Basada en el diseño de la fragata F-100 de Navantia, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works ha presentado su propuesta a la Marina de Estados Unidos.
El principal astillero de Estados Unidos, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, parte de General Dynamics Corporation, ha presentado su propuesta de fragata de misiles guiados bajo el programa FFG (X) para la Marina de Estados Unidos.
El concepto de una nueva fragata de misiles guiados se dio a conocer durante la exposición anual Sea-Air-Space, la mayor exposición marítima que se celebra en Estados Unidos.
En febrero de 2018, la Marina adjudicó a General Dynamics Bath Iron Works un contrato de 14.9 millones de dólares para el diseño conceptual de la planeada Fragata de Misiles Guiados de la Marina (FFG (X)).
El diseño propuesto por Bath Iron Works está basado en una familia de Fragatas de Misiles Guiados AEGIS diseñadas por la compañía española Navantia. La adjudicación del contrato permite a Bath Iron Works madurar el diseño para cumplir con las especificaciones establecidas por la Marina que se utilizarán para la solicitud de propuestas de Diseño de Detalle y Construcción. El contrato incluye opciones que, de ejercerse, elevaría el valor total del contrato a 22.9 millones de dólares.
La solicitud inicial de propuestas de la Marina en noviembre requería que los diseños de las fragatas se basaran en una forma de casco existente que ya esté operativo. La Armada ha dicho que el requisito hará que la producción planificada de 20 fragatas sea más asequible y que los barcos lleguen a la flota más rápidamente. El premio de Diseño de Detalle y Construcción está previsto para el año 2020.
Bath Iron Works diseñó la fragata anterior de la Marina, la clase Oliver Hazard Perry, y construyó muchos de los cascos. Bath Iron Works se asoció con Navantia en la década de 1980 para adaptar el diseño de Oliver Hazard Perry a la construcción de la industria naval española y al uso de la Armada Española.
De acuerdo con la reciente notificación del Comando de Sistemas Marítimos Navales, la futura fragata proporcionará un activo excepcionalmente adecuado para alcanzar objetivos de control seleccionados y realizar operaciones de seguridad marítima, al tiempo que se facilita acceso a todos los ámbitos en apoyo de las operaciones de grupos de ataque y de flota agregada .
Como parte del Concepto de Operaciones Marítimas Distribuidas de la Marina, el pequeño combatiente de superficie FFG (X) ampliará la influencia de los sensores de la fuerza para mejorar la imagen táctica general de la flota mientras desafía los esfuerzos de inteligencia, vigilancia, reconocimiento y rastreo del adversario. Las FFG (X) también contribuirán a las necesidades de la Armada aliviando a los buques de gran tamaño del estrés de las tareas rutinarias durante las operaciones que no sean de guerra. La Marina espera construir un total de veinte buques FFG (X) según el Informe del año fiscal 2019 al Congreso sobre el Plan Anual de Largo Alcance para la Construcción de Buques Navales.
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
![Imagem](https://navaltoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/lockheed-withdraws-its-lcs-from-us-navys-ffgx-frigate-competition.jpg)
Lockheed withdraws its LCS from US Navy’s FFG(X) frigate competition
Lockheed Martin will not be pitching an upgraded version of its Freedom-class littoral combat ship for the US Navy’s next-generation guided-missile frigate FFG(X) competition.
This was first reported by USNI News, who further said the company informed the navy about its decision on May 23.
Lockheed Martin is withdrawing from the competition despite being one of five companies down-selected to provide designs for the future frigate program. All contenders received $14.9 million contracts from the navy to complete their proposals by June 2019.
With Lockheed out of the race, the remaining contenders include fellow LCS builder Austal, Huntington Ingalls Industries with its offshore patrol cutter-based frigate design, Fincantieri Marinette Marine with the FREMM frigate-based bid and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works who has teamed with Navantia to propose a design based on Navantia’s Aegis frigate family.
According to USNI News, Lockheed felt the Freedom design was not adequate for all the capabilities that have emerged. Instead of competing for the main contractor role, the company said it would focus on the development of its COMBATSS 21 for the future frigate’s combat system, in addition to vying to supply other systems and platform integration.
https://navaltoday.com/2019/05/29/lockh ... mpetition/
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
Boa tarde.
Copiei porque pode ser um erro do site e ser apagado.
O primeiro paragrafo do texto é um assunto e o segundo é completamente diferente.
Qual deles é real e qual é fantasia?
FONTE https://www.debka.com/mivzak/urgent-con ... firefight/
Urgent consultations in Washington, Moscow on reported US-Russian submarines in firefight
Jul 2, 2019 @ 22:24 Diane Shalem
First reports reaching DEBKAfile’s military sources say that a US submarine intercepted a Russian nuclear sub in American waters opposite Alaska. The Russian sub escorting the nuclear submarine responded with a Balkan 2000 torpedo and scuttled the US vessel. Urgent consultations in both the White House and the Kremlin were taking place on Tuesday night. US Vice President Mike Pence called off an appearance in New Hampshire after being recalled to Washington for a conference called by President Donald Trump without explanation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled an engagement and headed for the Kremlin to confer with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chiefs, after learning that 14 submariners died in a fire that broke out on a nuclear-powered “experimental submarine in Russian waters.” This account carried in Russian media varies in most respects from the first reports reaching this site and may refer to a separate incident. They report between 14 and 17 members of an AS-12 nuclear powered submarine died of poisonous fumes caused by a fire aboard the vessel. The submarine was described as experimental and unarmed but often used in spy missions. It is unclear how many of the 25 crew survived. Local media suggest four or five are receiving treatment in Severomorsk’s military hospital for poisoning and concussion injuries. Another news account said the majority of the officers died in or on their way to hospital. These reports do not cite the cause of the fire.
Copiei porque pode ser um erro do site e ser apagado.
O primeiro paragrafo do texto é um assunto e o segundo é completamente diferente.
Qual deles é real e qual é fantasia?
FONTE https://www.debka.com/mivzak/urgent-con ... firefight/
Urgent consultations in Washington, Moscow on reported US-Russian submarines in firefight
Jul 2, 2019 @ 22:24 Diane Shalem
First reports reaching DEBKAfile’s military sources say that a US submarine intercepted a Russian nuclear sub in American waters opposite Alaska. The Russian sub escorting the nuclear submarine responded with a Balkan 2000 torpedo and scuttled the US vessel. Urgent consultations in both the White House and the Kremlin were taking place on Tuesday night. US Vice President Mike Pence called off an appearance in New Hampshire after being recalled to Washington for a conference called by President Donald Trump without explanation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled an engagement and headed for the Kremlin to confer with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chiefs, after learning that 14 submariners died in a fire that broke out on a nuclear-powered “experimental submarine in Russian waters.” This account carried in Russian media varies in most respects from the first reports reaching this site and may refer to a separate incident. They report between 14 and 17 members of an AS-12 nuclear powered submarine died of poisonous fumes caused by a fire aboard the vessel. The submarine was described as experimental and unarmed but often used in spy missions. It is unclear how many of the 25 crew survived. Local media suggest four or five are receiving treatment in Severomorsk’s military hospital for poisoning and concussion injuries. Another news account said the majority of the officers died in or on their way to hospital. These reports do not cite the cause of the fire.
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
The Navy’s new plan to fix Ford’s elevator failures
By: Mark D. Faram
The Navy is vowing a “full court press” to overcome delays and finally field all the Advanced Weapons Elevators needed by the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford.
“We have a full court press on the advanced weapons elevators,” said Jim Geurts, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition in a Monday press release.
With only two of Ford’s 11 elevators operating — and no firm schedule for delivering the remaining nine — the Navy brought a “team of experts” from both the government and private industry on board the Ford to fix the snafus, according to Geurts.
The sea service also announced Monday that officials will build a pair of testing facilities to help engineers fix problems and prep sailors to operate and maintain the elevator technology.
Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez told Navy Times on Monday that the ongoing bugs include “construction challenges” caused partly by “very tight tolerances, physical structural adjustments and software refinement” needed to make “weapons movement sustainable and reliable."
“Getting the doors and hatches installed was not enough. There has been learning on the sequence of building them,” Hernandez said.
He said that operations must be checked and rechecked to ensure they’re “working according to specs,” as when the elevators need to maintain “holding water tightness” as they move through the decks.
“Doors and hatches have to be moving in the right sequence and as you’d expect. They have to be aligned,” Hernandez said. “Mr. Geurts feels once we get the uppers and lowers working, it’s just a matter of improving efficiency.”
Guerts told Congress in March that Ford’s expected yearlong post-shakedown maintenance availability would be extended three months. That will delay the carrier’s return to sea until October.
Officials wanted all the elevators operating before heading back to sea so the Navy could begin to fully test the $13 billion Ford’s flight deck capabilities.
On Monday, Geurts indicated that the team of experts, working with Huntington Ingalls Industries, will find “the most efficient timeline possible” for getting Ford’s elevators to work.
They will identify systemic problems and “recommend new design changes” for the installation of the elevators on board other Ford-class carriers, he added.
If the team can get the elevators to work in concert with Ford’s revolutionary arresting gear and electromagnetic catapults, officials hope to hike the number of aircraft sorties by 33 percent compared to the previous Nimitz class of warships.
Those elevators are expected to tote 24,000 pounds of ordnance at 150 feet-per-minute compared to a Nimitz carrier’s 10,500 pounds at 100 feet-per-minute.
Ford’s elevators rely on electromagnetic technology instead of cables and pulleys.
For testing and virtual technology training, officials want to replicate the Ford’s technology ashore at Naval Surface Warfare Center Division Philadelphia and a “digital twin” test site at the Newport News shipyard.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... -failures/
By: Mark D. Faram
The Navy is vowing a “full court press” to overcome delays and finally field all the Advanced Weapons Elevators needed by the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford.
“We have a full court press on the advanced weapons elevators,” said Jim Geurts, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition in a Monday press release.
With only two of Ford’s 11 elevators operating — and no firm schedule for delivering the remaining nine — the Navy brought a “team of experts” from both the government and private industry on board the Ford to fix the snafus, according to Geurts.
The sea service also announced Monday that officials will build a pair of testing facilities to help engineers fix problems and prep sailors to operate and maintain the elevator technology.
Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez told Navy Times on Monday that the ongoing bugs include “construction challenges” caused partly by “very tight tolerances, physical structural adjustments and software refinement” needed to make “weapons movement sustainable and reliable."
“Getting the doors and hatches installed was not enough. There has been learning on the sequence of building them,” Hernandez said.
He said that operations must be checked and rechecked to ensure they’re “working according to specs,” as when the elevators need to maintain “holding water tightness” as they move through the decks.
“Doors and hatches have to be moving in the right sequence and as you’d expect. They have to be aligned,” Hernandez said. “Mr. Geurts feels once we get the uppers and lowers working, it’s just a matter of improving efficiency.”
Guerts told Congress in March that Ford’s expected yearlong post-shakedown maintenance availability would be extended three months. That will delay the carrier’s return to sea until October.
Officials wanted all the elevators operating before heading back to sea so the Navy could begin to fully test the $13 billion Ford’s flight deck capabilities.
On Monday, Geurts indicated that the team of experts, working with Huntington Ingalls Industries, will find “the most efficient timeline possible” for getting Ford’s elevators to work.
They will identify systemic problems and “recommend new design changes” for the installation of the elevators on board other Ford-class carriers, he added.
If the team can get the elevators to work in concert with Ford’s revolutionary arresting gear and electromagnetic catapults, officials hope to hike the number of aircraft sorties by 33 percent compared to the previous Nimitz class of warships.
Those elevators are expected to tote 24,000 pounds of ordnance at 150 feet-per-minute compared to a Nimitz carrier’s 10,500 pounds at 100 feet-per-minute.
Ford’s elevators rely on electromagnetic technology instead of cables and pulleys.
For testing and virtual technology training, officials want to replicate the Ford’s technology ashore at Naval Surface Warfare Center Division Philadelphia and a “digital twin” test site at the Newport News shipyard.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... -failures/
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Re: Marinha dos EUA
Eight Lieutenants Deliver a Tough Message
At this year's Tailhook Convention, a panel of eight tactics instructors from across the naval aviation enterprise delivered a tough message: We are not ready for the peer fight.
By James R. Holmes
In September, the Tailhook Association—the nonprofit association of naval aviation—convened its annual symposium in Reno, Nevada. This year’s symposium commemorated the 50th anniversary of the founding of TOPGUN, the U.S. Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. A crisis in air-to-air combat in the early days of Vietnam brought the school into being in 1969; commentary from Tailhook 2019 suggests a new crisis is at hand.
If so, its consequences could prove dire. Back then the foe was North Vietnam, a doughty opponent that nonetheless posed little threat outside its borders. Today, China has emerged as a serious military competitor across the Indo-Pacific even as Russia resumes its station as a world power. It is one thing to reinvent yourself when you can learn from past mistakes without fear of losing a war—quite another when you are fighting a peer competitor and could suffer a defeat of seismic proportions while trying to adapt.
A mix of material and cultural factors brought TOPGUN into being. By the 1960s the Navy fielded carrier-based fighter jets whose design philosophy centered on guided missiles. It had become an article of faith that U.S. aircraft would prosecute missile engagements at “standoff” range, firing beyond enemy weapons range and beyond visual range. Adversaries would never get off a shot in reply. Missiles had rendered gunfights a thing of the past, or so it was thought in the early 1960s. Yet Ho Chi Minh’s pilots were an ornery lot, refusing to follow the script American tacticians had written for them. Rather than remain at standoff distance to be blasted out of the sky, North Vietnamese airmen closed to dogfighting range and took their chances in gun duels.
Imagine that: an enemy might decline to do your bidding. U.S. aviators were ill prepared for North Vietnamese tactics. Indeed, the F-4 Phantom—the Navy’s premier fighter in the 1960s—was not even equipped with guns for close-range combat. Hence the crisis that brought about TOPGUN. A tougher-than-expected antagonist stunned naval aviation into arming its warplanes for dogfighting, developing tactics for close combat, and re-grounding naval aviation’s culture on solid precepts—including the soundest of all military assumptions, namely that America’s enemies get a vote in war and will always cast it against our efforts.
The adversary, in other words, is not an inert, passive mass on which we work our will; but rather a living, breathing contestant certain to veto U.S. tactics and operational methods. And with sufficient ingenuity and resolve a rival might just make its veto stick. Humility is a virtue. Yet often it takes a trauma—a defeat or something likewise dramatic—to remind a martial institution to respect antagonists’ skill and moxie rather than disdain them.
In a sense, then, winning big can be a curse. Complacency afflicts those who ace the most severe test. Naval aviation contracted a case of hubris amid the afterglow of victory in World War II and the Korean War. The Vietnam War bestowed a gift on carrier aviators by debunking faulty assumptions underlying air tactics and aircraft design, and it did so in a theater where tactical setbacks carried less-than-catastrophic repercussions. Better to unlearn unsound concepts and methods in a peripheral setting rather than in a globe-spanning and perhaps mortal conflict against the chief adversary of the time—the Soviet Union.
In short, Indochina acted as a laboratory where naval aviation could rediscover the fundamentals and gird for success in the late Cold War. Thank you, Hanoi.
Back to Reno and Tailhook ‘19. The organizers put a portentous question to a panel of eight lieutenants—instructors representing various segments of the aviation tactical-training community: “Are we ready to fight a peer competitor today?” The panelists answered with refreshing bluntness. The first respondent set the tone: “The simple answer is, ‘No.’” That inaugurated the chilling part of the deliberations. The United States’ standing in the world depends on military might—on its ability to cow prospective antagonists while heartening allies and friends. Air power is one of the principal “sticks” of U.S. foreign policy. A U.S. air supremacy deficit could embolden hostile powers while disheartening partners. The U.S.-led world order could unravel over time.
Here a caveat is in order. The panelists defined not being ready to fight a peer competitor in a curious way. For instance, a TOPGUN instructor lamented that future fights are shaping up to be “fair fights.” In this view naval aviation is unready unless it commands an overmatch in the wild blue. Nevertheless, that lofty standard is a fitting one. Parity on an aircraft-for-aircraft or missile-for-missile basis works against the United States. After all, U.S. forces wage war on rivals’ home ground, where a multitude of advantages—including the advantage of numbers—already go to the defender. A carrier air wing or two could confront the combined weight of China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Naval Air Force. Parity on a one-to-one basis translates into inferiority when a fraction of one force squares off against the whole of another.
Air battles must be as unfair as possible if Washington hopes to accomplish its goals in distant arenas.
The panelists pointed to material and human factors molding the balance of air power. Recent years, declared one, have seen a “huge shift” from the relatively placid interlude following the Cold War. Carrier aircraft no longer boast the same “kinematic advantage,” or edge in speed and energy maneuverability, that once granted them near-invincibility in the Balkan wars, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Aircraft designers must try to restore that hardware advantage, making air battles lopsided once again, even as aviators experiment with new tactics to ensure the U.S. “man in the box” is the finest combat pilot in the world.
Fittingly for teachers, the panelists fretted more about human than matériel shortcomings. They spoke forcefully on behalf of additional manpower for naval aviation, including the training apparatus. Squadrons need access to more capacious airspace to practice countering longer-range enemy weaponry and handling longer-range weapons of their own. Above all, U.S. aviators need more flight hours. Just as athletes hone their tactical acumen through constant practice and self-critique, airmen need sufficient resources and time to undertake “repetition after repetition after repetition”—and flourish in action.
The logic of deploying human excellence to offset material shortfalls rings familiar. During Great Britain’s age of maritime mastery, Parliament sought to maintain a Royal Navy equal in numbers and physical capability to the next two fleets combined, on the well-founded assumption that Britain might face an alliance of its brawniest opponents. The conceit was that British seamanship, gunnery, and élan honed through repetition in high-seas operations would beget a decisive advantage against peer forces. British mariners doubtless would have welcomed the type of material overmatch espoused at Reno—but they seldom had the luxury.
Here is the heartwarming part of the deliberations to accompany the doleful outlook. The instructors pointed out that naval aviation is working with other communities within the U.S. Navy, and with fellow armed services, to tighten up the sinews that bind them into a cohesive fighting force. This helps offset peer competitors’ home-field advantage. For instance, carrier airborne early-warning-and-control aircraft are working with the surface navy—especially Aegis destroyers and cruisers that help wage the air battle from beneath—and with the U.S. Air Force. If the U.S. military hopes to excel at joint warfare, it must pursue ever-greater harmony and resilient networks among elements of the force. In so doing it compensates—in part—for the numbers challenge.
Next, the panelists urged naval leaders to accelerate adaptation within the big, unwieldy, set-in-its-ways bureaucracy. One respondent insisted that the service tries to do it all, performing every mission imaginable. The Navy could get away with spreading itself thin during the early post-Cold War years, when the strategic landscape lacked a peer competitor. Yet armed forces that try to do everything, everywhere, in stressful times generally end up accomplishing little, anywhere. Naval leaders must shed secondary missions to liberate finite time, intellectual energy, and resources for what matters most.
This is sage counsel. Strategy is about mustering the gumption to set and enforce priorities. It makes no sense to sacrifice something of central importance for the sake of something peripheral. If competing against rival great powers in their own backyards is the central task before the U.S. Navy, naval overseers must offload lesser commitments to concentrate on that uppermost goal.
And lastly, the eight young aviators on the stage at Tailhook reported trying to imprint a culture of ruthless critique on the naval air arm. The bad news according to one participant: “we have been dishonest” about aviators’ performance during exercises since the Cold War, drawing up unrealistic, canned scenarios and letting standards slip. The good news: Renewing the culture of self-criticism promises to be easier in the tactical realm than in the murkier, more ambiguous realm of strategy and policy. Results are instant and verge on irrefutable in air combat, whereas historians quarrel without end about strategic cause and effect in long-ago conflicts.
Institutional honesty is a pivotal virtue for the aviation community, as indeed it is for any military institution. Naval aviators need to admit they may lose under certain circumstances—otherwise it would not be a fair fight—and harness that conviction to fire the quest for innovation. The panel espoused employing objective, data-driven analysis to evaluate aircrew performance in battle scenarios rather than issuing subjective, easily fudged verdicts certifying who lost and who won. A TOPGUN commentator reported simulating “red air” that acquitted itself perfectly every time. Going up against a perfect foe “punishes” even slight errors committed by “blue air” (U.S. crews).
Good. Better to err on the side of making the red team superhuman than depict it as a pushover.
The Tailhook convention supplied the forum for a bracing conversation among up-and-coming leaders of the naval aviation community. Edmund Burke, among the greatest political philosophers, would smile at the frank, discomfiting tenor of the Tailhook panel discussion. Two centuries ago Burke pointed out acerbically that our enemy is our friend: “He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.”
So, in a way, China and Russia have rendered the U.S. military a service through their prowess and sheer cheek. Formidable competitors are compelling U.S. fighting forces to survey the tactical and strategic environment anew, sharpen their skills, and fortify their nerves. Young leaders in U.S. military ranks likewise wrestle with senior leaders. If this year’s Tailhook panel is any indication, an insurgent spirit animates the rising generation of U.S. naval officers and enlisted professionals. They will refuse to suffer their leaders to be superficial. To impudent youth this oldtimer replies , “Huzzah!”
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedi ... gh-message
At this year's Tailhook Convention, a panel of eight tactics instructors from across the naval aviation enterprise delivered a tough message: We are not ready for the peer fight.
By James R. Holmes
In September, the Tailhook Association—the nonprofit association of naval aviation—convened its annual symposium in Reno, Nevada. This year’s symposium commemorated the 50th anniversary of the founding of TOPGUN, the U.S. Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. A crisis in air-to-air combat in the early days of Vietnam brought the school into being in 1969; commentary from Tailhook 2019 suggests a new crisis is at hand.
If so, its consequences could prove dire. Back then the foe was North Vietnam, a doughty opponent that nonetheless posed little threat outside its borders. Today, China has emerged as a serious military competitor across the Indo-Pacific even as Russia resumes its station as a world power. It is one thing to reinvent yourself when you can learn from past mistakes without fear of losing a war—quite another when you are fighting a peer competitor and could suffer a defeat of seismic proportions while trying to adapt.
A mix of material and cultural factors brought TOPGUN into being. By the 1960s the Navy fielded carrier-based fighter jets whose design philosophy centered on guided missiles. It had become an article of faith that U.S. aircraft would prosecute missile engagements at “standoff” range, firing beyond enemy weapons range and beyond visual range. Adversaries would never get off a shot in reply. Missiles had rendered gunfights a thing of the past, or so it was thought in the early 1960s. Yet Ho Chi Minh’s pilots were an ornery lot, refusing to follow the script American tacticians had written for them. Rather than remain at standoff distance to be blasted out of the sky, North Vietnamese airmen closed to dogfighting range and took their chances in gun duels.
Imagine that: an enemy might decline to do your bidding. U.S. aviators were ill prepared for North Vietnamese tactics. Indeed, the F-4 Phantom—the Navy’s premier fighter in the 1960s—was not even equipped with guns for close-range combat. Hence the crisis that brought about TOPGUN. A tougher-than-expected antagonist stunned naval aviation into arming its warplanes for dogfighting, developing tactics for close combat, and re-grounding naval aviation’s culture on solid precepts—including the soundest of all military assumptions, namely that America’s enemies get a vote in war and will always cast it against our efforts.
The adversary, in other words, is not an inert, passive mass on which we work our will; but rather a living, breathing contestant certain to veto U.S. tactics and operational methods. And with sufficient ingenuity and resolve a rival might just make its veto stick. Humility is a virtue. Yet often it takes a trauma—a defeat or something likewise dramatic—to remind a martial institution to respect antagonists’ skill and moxie rather than disdain them.
In a sense, then, winning big can be a curse. Complacency afflicts those who ace the most severe test. Naval aviation contracted a case of hubris amid the afterglow of victory in World War II and the Korean War. The Vietnam War bestowed a gift on carrier aviators by debunking faulty assumptions underlying air tactics and aircraft design, and it did so in a theater where tactical setbacks carried less-than-catastrophic repercussions. Better to unlearn unsound concepts and methods in a peripheral setting rather than in a globe-spanning and perhaps mortal conflict against the chief adversary of the time—the Soviet Union.
In short, Indochina acted as a laboratory where naval aviation could rediscover the fundamentals and gird for success in the late Cold War. Thank you, Hanoi.
Back to Reno and Tailhook ‘19. The organizers put a portentous question to a panel of eight lieutenants—instructors representing various segments of the aviation tactical-training community: “Are we ready to fight a peer competitor today?” The panelists answered with refreshing bluntness. The first respondent set the tone: “The simple answer is, ‘No.’” That inaugurated the chilling part of the deliberations. The United States’ standing in the world depends on military might—on its ability to cow prospective antagonists while heartening allies and friends. Air power is one of the principal “sticks” of U.S. foreign policy. A U.S. air supremacy deficit could embolden hostile powers while disheartening partners. The U.S.-led world order could unravel over time.
Here a caveat is in order. The panelists defined not being ready to fight a peer competitor in a curious way. For instance, a TOPGUN instructor lamented that future fights are shaping up to be “fair fights.” In this view naval aviation is unready unless it commands an overmatch in the wild blue. Nevertheless, that lofty standard is a fitting one. Parity on an aircraft-for-aircraft or missile-for-missile basis works against the United States. After all, U.S. forces wage war on rivals’ home ground, where a multitude of advantages—including the advantage of numbers—already go to the defender. A carrier air wing or two could confront the combined weight of China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Naval Air Force. Parity on a one-to-one basis translates into inferiority when a fraction of one force squares off against the whole of another.
Air battles must be as unfair as possible if Washington hopes to accomplish its goals in distant arenas.
The panelists pointed to material and human factors molding the balance of air power. Recent years, declared one, have seen a “huge shift” from the relatively placid interlude following the Cold War. Carrier aircraft no longer boast the same “kinematic advantage,” or edge in speed and energy maneuverability, that once granted them near-invincibility in the Balkan wars, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Aircraft designers must try to restore that hardware advantage, making air battles lopsided once again, even as aviators experiment with new tactics to ensure the U.S. “man in the box” is the finest combat pilot in the world.
Fittingly for teachers, the panelists fretted more about human than matériel shortcomings. They spoke forcefully on behalf of additional manpower for naval aviation, including the training apparatus. Squadrons need access to more capacious airspace to practice countering longer-range enemy weaponry and handling longer-range weapons of their own. Above all, U.S. aviators need more flight hours. Just as athletes hone their tactical acumen through constant practice and self-critique, airmen need sufficient resources and time to undertake “repetition after repetition after repetition”—and flourish in action.
The logic of deploying human excellence to offset material shortfalls rings familiar. During Great Britain’s age of maritime mastery, Parliament sought to maintain a Royal Navy equal in numbers and physical capability to the next two fleets combined, on the well-founded assumption that Britain might face an alliance of its brawniest opponents. The conceit was that British seamanship, gunnery, and élan honed through repetition in high-seas operations would beget a decisive advantage against peer forces. British mariners doubtless would have welcomed the type of material overmatch espoused at Reno—but they seldom had the luxury.
Here is the heartwarming part of the deliberations to accompany the doleful outlook. The instructors pointed out that naval aviation is working with other communities within the U.S. Navy, and with fellow armed services, to tighten up the sinews that bind them into a cohesive fighting force. This helps offset peer competitors’ home-field advantage. For instance, carrier airborne early-warning-and-control aircraft are working with the surface navy—especially Aegis destroyers and cruisers that help wage the air battle from beneath—and with the U.S. Air Force. If the U.S. military hopes to excel at joint warfare, it must pursue ever-greater harmony and resilient networks among elements of the force. In so doing it compensates—in part—for the numbers challenge.
Next, the panelists urged naval leaders to accelerate adaptation within the big, unwieldy, set-in-its-ways bureaucracy. One respondent insisted that the service tries to do it all, performing every mission imaginable. The Navy could get away with spreading itself thin during the early post-Cold War years, when the strategic landscape lacked a peer competitor. Yet armed forces that try to do everything, everywhere, in stressful times generally end up accomplishing little, anywhere. Naval leaders must shed secondary missions to liberate finite time, intellectual energy, and resources for what matters most.
This is sage counsel. Strategy is about mustering the gumption to set and enforce priorities. It makes no sense to sacrifice something of central importance for the sake of something peripheral. If competing against rival great powers in their own backyards is the central task before the U.S. Navy, naval overseers must offload lesser commitments to concentrate on that uppermost goal.
And lastly, the eight young aviators on the stage at Tailhook reported trying to imprint a culture of ruthless critique on the naval air arm. The bad news according to one participant: “we have been dishonest” about aviators’ performance during exercises since the Cold War, drawing up unrealistic, canned scenarios and letting standards slip. The good news: Renewing the culture of self-criticism promises to be easier in the tactical realm than in the murkier, more ambiguous realm of strategy and policy. Results are instant and verge on irrefutable in air combat, whereas historians quarrel without end about strategic cause and effect in long-ago conflicts.
Institutional honesty is a pivotal virtue for the aviation community, as indeed it is for any military institution. Naval aviators need to admit they may lose under certain circumstances—otherwise it would not be a fair fight—and harness that conviction to fire the quest for innovation. The panel espoused employing objective, data-driven analysis to evaluate aircrew performance in battle scenarios rather than issuing subjective, easily fudged verdicts certifying who lost and who won. A TOPGUN commentator reported simulating “red air” that acquitted itself perfectly every time. Going up against a perfect foe “punishes” even slight errors committed by “blue air” (U.S. crews).
Good. Better to err on the side of making the red team superhuman than depict it as a pushover.
The Tailhook convention supplied the forum for a bracing conversation among up-and-coming leaders of the naval aviation community. Edmund Burke, among the greatest political philosophers, would smile at the frank, discomfiting tenor of the Tailhook panel discussion. Two centuries ago Burke pointed out acerbically that our enemy is our friend: “He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.”
So, in a way, China and Russia have rendered the U.S. military a service through their prowess and sheer cheek. Formidable competitors are compelling U.S. fighting forces to survey the tactical and strategic environment anew, sharpen their skills, and fortify their nerves. Young leaders in U.S. military ranks likewise wrestle with senior leaders. If this year’s Tailhook panel is any indication, an insurgent spirit animates the rising generation of U.S. naval officers and enlisted professionals. They will refuse to suffer their leaders to be superficial. To impudent youth this oldtimer replies , “Huzzah!”
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedi ... gh-message
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