A Bit of Ship Naming Sanity

BZ to the SECNAV for doing the right thing. Almost all navalists I know get twitchy when we start naming ships after buzzwords and program manager FITREP bullets.

Got to give credit where credit is due to the SECNAV and the right thinking people on his staff that helped move this forward.

This week, the secretary announced three more changes: Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) will be called Expeditionary Fast Transport, or EPF; the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) will be called Expeditionary Transfer Dock, or ESD; and the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) variant of the MLP will be called Expeditionary Mobile Base, or ESB.

Spokesman Capt. Patrick McNally said the chief of naval operations’ staff made the recommendations to Mabus, who signed off on them this week to give these new platforms more conformative names.

The decision establishes E as a new designator, similar to the L-class amphibious ships, S-class submarines, A-class auxiliaries and more. These three E-class ships were previously listed as seabasing ships in the Naval Vessel Register.

In Sal's perfect world, we would not create a new designator "E" and would have instead stuck with "L" - but good now beats perfect probably never.

Now, if the low performing aviation world would just put the F-35 in its proper order as the F-24, all would be well.