Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Stupid Navy naming tricks

You need to subscribe to Defense Daily, but I'll save you the trouble.
The Navy is expected in the coming weeks to rename its DD(X) combat ship to DDG-1000.
Now, go look at the Navy list of DD and DDG here. Besides my favorite class, the Kidds (DDG-993-996) our present DDG class, the Burkes, run from DDG-51-105. Now, being that everything nowdays has some type of guided missiles, IMAO, the "G" is redundant...but I will give the Navy a pass on that...I am sure that it wasn't that they didn't want to double up on the past recent DD numbering of the Spruance class (DD-963-997), I don't think we will have 800 and change DDX. In any case, in addition to the Burkes, all the older DDG (Converted Forrest Sherman DDG-31-34, Charles S. Adams DDG-2-24, Farragut/Coontz DDG-37-46), numbers doubled up older DDs from the early years.

What is wrong with the first DD(X) being DDG-106? What? I tell you what - too cleaver by half, cheesy, beltway amateur marketing gimmicks - that's what. For the same reason the F-18 became the F/A-18 (at least the USAF was honest enough to move back to the F-22 from FA-22), and we skipped F-24 through F-34 just because the X-35 "became" the F-35. Just as stupid as SSN-21.

It may seem clever for the Potomac Flotilla, but Shipmates let me tell you something you will agree with me over a beer at Pete's Bar; it is stupid and smarmy from the Fleet perspective.

Professionally insulting. Harumph.

UPDATE: Correction. DDG-112 will be the last I relied on an official Navy site for my previous data - and it was out of date....so how about DDG-113...same point.

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