Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
In comments on different thread, Sid sent on this from the USS Pittsburgh.
Here is the background story. Great ship. She did all this in her first six months.
..she passed through the Panama Canal in January 1945 to join the war against Japan. Pittsburgh's first combat operation took place in mid-February, when she screened aircraft carriers during strikes on the Japanese home islands.
During the next month she supported the invasion of Iwo Jima and took part in additional raids on Japan. On 19 and 20 March 1945 the cruiser towed the badly damaged carrier Franklin to help get that ship away from the threat of further enemy action. Pittsburgh's next task was as a carrier escort during the extended campaign to seize Okinawa. This work began in late March 1945 and continued into June.
On 4 June the fleet encountered a typhoon and, on the following day, while she was fighting high winds and powerful waves, Pittsburgh's bow broke off in front of her forward eight-inch gun turret. In a remarkable feat of seamanship and damage control the ship rode out the storm and steamed to Guam, where she received temporary repairs.
Now, that was a ship that had no problem filling in the white space on FITREPS and EVALS.
When George Will is right, he is right. I cannot disagree with him with this point (except for the unmedicated pessimism about Afghanistan and Iraq);
The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to The Weekly Standard - voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, "neoconservativism" - everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything.
"No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria . . . " You get the drift. So, The Weekly Standard says:
"We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions - and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."
"Why wait?" Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its plate, in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Assad's regime does not fall after The Weekly Standard's hoped-for third war, with Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?
As for the "healthy" repercussions that The Weekly Standard is so eager to experience from yet another war: One envies that publication's powers of prophecy, but wishes it had exercised them on the nation's behalf before all of the surprises - all of them unpleasant - that Iraq has inflicted. And regarding the "appeasement" that The Weekly Standard decries: Does the magazine really wish the administration had heeded its earlier (Dec. 20, 2004) editorial advocating war with yet another nation - the bombing of Syria?
Neoconservatives have much to learn, even from Buddy Bell, manager of the Kansas City Royals. After his team lost its 10th consecutive game in April, Bell said, "I never say it can't get worse." In their next game, the Royals extended their losing streak to 11 and in May lost 13 in a row.
BLACKFIVE comes off the top rope. I'm not getting in his way.
Many times, I believe that the left wing elements (certain media and political orgs, etc.) of this country would have us lose. There are those within the Democratic party that do not want us to lose, and there are Democrats that I do admire. Not many, but they are there. But I believe many of the left elements would throw our soldiers under the bus in order to win elections (as evidenced by the recently pulled commercial produced by the DCCC). They are running the game with the John Kerry Winter Soldier Playbook. The big difference between now and then is that active duty and veteran military folks have the same tools as the media...and then there is all of you, too.
It took 16 months for the sequal, but thanks to Opinion Journal:
No one knows how long it would take Japan to go nuclear, though estimates are days or weeks. But for 60 years Japan has refrained from becoming a nuclear power and remained militarily quiescent. That particular sun may be rising again, however, thanks to the support by China and South Korea for the military threats of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
This is the meaning of a remarkable, but underreported, comment last week that Japan might want to knock out North Korea's missile bases with a pre-emptive military strike. "If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack . . . there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. "We need to deepen discussion." The head of Japan's Defense Agency made a similar observation.
Still not up to speed on the attack on the Israeli Navy? Old, new, borrowed or blue; if you need a quick refresher on C-802/CIWS/SeaWiz and all that jaz....this video about covers it. Yes, you have to sit through it all. At 2:00 it addresses shore based ASM.
Oh, and if interested, here is the Iranian Navy playing with the air-launched version of the C-802. You can also see minute 3:30 here to see some more of naval missile work.
After I recovered from my Zen yesterday, I got up to speed with the early reports by Eagle1 and Bubblehead and then threw what I could dig up yesterday into a first-look prior to dinner yesterday at MilBlogs. With a night to chew on it, let’s sweep up what we know:
Facts as known now: - Israeli Saar 5 Corvette, INS Hait, on patrol ~10NM off Beirut is hit by a shore launched C-802. - Four Israeli Sailors killed. - Warhead did not explode. - No active counter measures we know of were deployed (we don’t know about passive and active might have been, we just don’t know right now. - Ship returns to port under own power (see photo above) (UPDATE: Bravo Zulu to Sid. That picture looks pre-strike. I'll see if I can find better one).
Background: - Saar 5 is Israel’s most advanced warship. She is optimized for Anti-Surface Warfare with Harpoon and Gabriel Anti-Ship Missiles (ASM). Very good self-defense anti-air/anti-ASM with her Barak and Phalanx. Some ASW. She has no main gun. She does not perform Naval Fire Support Missions. She was on blockade patrol. - Without getting into a weaponeering geek-fest, the C-802 is in the same class oas the Exocet and Harpoon, one generation past the SS-N-2 Styx, Silkworm, and others. The C-802 class of weapons is almost 30 years old technology wise, (the other generation almost 50 years old) though modified over the years, this is the type of missile that we all train against and use ourselves. There is little to nothing that is not known about the missiles and how to counter them.
This attack was not a bolt out of the blue. Israel has a great background in anti-ASM dating from the loss in ’67 of their destroyer to Styx missiles, to the smackdown of the Egyptian and Syrian missiles (defeated 50+) in the ’73 war. From the Sheffield to the Stark, through countless exercises countering a C-802 class missile – this engagement is about as bread and butter as you get. On the easy-to-hard scale; the C-802 is on the easy side. You want hard? Try the SS-N-22.
Operational/Tactical Chain-of-Events: Two paragraphs tell the story from ynet and Harretz:
Brigadier-General Noam Page of the Navy said in a press conference Saturday that the Navy was unaware that a missile threat existed in the sector, and that the boat's crew had acted accordingly ... The Saar-5 class is equipped with very advanced defensive systems. However, these were not in operation at the time of attack, partly because of the number of IAF aircraft operating in the area. It was feared that if the system was in operation, it would mistakenly identify friendly aircraft as enemy targets and engage them.
Sounds like someone made a call. Take a small risk of and ASM strike against the more likely risk of shooting down your own aircraft. Here is what it looks like from here. Someone up the chain decided that the thread of an ASM was much less than the chance of a Blue-on-Blue from the Hait to the Israeli Air Force via the Barak and SeaWiz. A C-802 will travel about ~9nm a minute. Once feet wet, the missile was probably less than 1 minute from impact. Depending on the guidance chosen at launch, the seeker head would turn on much closer to the target, giving even the best ESM operator seconds to report, and the Skipper even less time to decide to engage. What readiness state were the Barak and SeaWiz in? How long will it take to go from that dictated from on high state to weapon away or SeaWiz wizz’n? We don’t know. Most likely, there was nothing that could be done.
Even with the background shore clutter, 10 nm out the radar system on the Hait should be able to detect and defeat a C-802 – if the Skipper has them at his disposal. That being said, if you are ordered to stand-down your anti-ASM systems, you are alone and unarmed. A shore based Patriot battery cannot protect you. An aircraft overhead cannot help you. In the best of cases, this is tactically challenging. It can be argued, I will, that if you have Indications and Warnings of a ASM shot and you have the right Rules of Engagement (ROE), 1 minute is a lot of time to defeat a C-802. 20 second tight, but doable. If you handicap yourself, you are asking to be hit. They were.
A side story here is the fact that the Israeli Navy is the red-headed stepchild of the Israeli military. The Commanders of the Lebanon campaign most likely do not fully understand naval warfare, though I am sure they are getting a crash course now. I won’t beat them up though. They made a call. Based on what they knew and were briefed, they did a little Operational Risk Management and decided, based on Intel (sound familiar) that the ASM threat was very small and they would rather micro-manage the ships off shore than take the chance of getting a F-15I shot down by one of their own. Tough call.
As always, as a professional, you should look at this and see what written in the blood of Israeli Shipmates you should take away. Ask yourself a few questions. Here are four broad areas. - Through ROE limitations or systems casualty, how do you fight your ship when your main systems go down but you have to stay and complete the mission? - Do your ROE and orders make sense? If not, have you let your superiors know your concerns? - How are your Damage Control teams doing? Are they the best they can be? If your half your DC personnel are killed in a strike, can the others step up and save the ship? - What are your Top 3 threats that can sink your ship? Are you ready for them? Does your immediate superior agree? Have you discussed this with them?
My money is on the fact that, in the end, we will find out that the Skipper did the best he could with the ship and ROE he had, and the ROE he had was the best given the intel they had. But……(you know this was coming)… Never assume your threats away. The missiles were in Lebanon; they were/are a threat. I hear echoes of, "Our torpedoes will work just fine.." or "There are no enemy submarines in this sector..." or "Their fighter aircraft do not operate this far from shore..."
