How do we get to 355 ships, on Midrats with Will Beasley.

Everyone seems to have a plan to get to 355 ships as the new President desires. Most plans include new construction, digging in the mothball fleet, extending service life of existing ships, and even some of the exotic options such as license building foreign designs. Most plans include a mix of some or all of them.

The political and strategic foundations need to be put in place to support it - and a new SECNAV in place to push it - but that has not stopped the ideas from flowing.

To review the options being discussed, we have a returning guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern, William M. Beasley, Jr.

Will is an associate attorney with Phelps Dunbar, LLP in Mississippi. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Mississippi with a BA and MA in history where his research focused on naval history. Mr. Beasley earned his JD from the University of Mississippi School of Law, where he served on the editorial board of the Mississippi Law Journal. Prior to joining Phelps Dunbar, Mr. Beasley worked as a research consultant on legal and international security issues with the Potomac Institute in Arlington, Virginia. His work on naval history and maritime security has appeared in Proceedings, at The Strategy Bridge, and USNI Blog. Mr. Beasley's views do not reflect those of Phelps Dunbar or its clients and should not be construed as legal advice. Follow him on Twitter @MSNavalist.

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Fullbore Friday

First posted this eight years ago ... but there is so much to learn from this little know (at least to Americans) battle, I wanted to post it again.

Any excuse for a Tallships FbF.

This battle is known more by the name than the place, as it was fought over 400 miles from Ushant, near Brest. [Some sources give the distance as 700 miles, which may be where the pursuit began.] There have been four battles by this name, with the last in 1944.

A British fleet under Admiral Lord Howe was escorting merchantmen to North America at about the same time as a French fleet under Rear Admiral Louis Villaret de Joyeuse was escorting 130 merchantmen loaded with grain from America to France. Admiral Howe had dropped off his charges when on May 28, 1794 the two fleets sighted each other. Because of fog, only light fighting took place between the British (24 ships) and the French (26 ships). During this time, the French managed to successfully feint and draw the British away from the merchantmen, which made it home intact.

Nonetheless, the battle cost the French 6 captured and one sunk, against no loss for the English. Eleven English and 12 French ships were dismasted. Ushant III is also famous for a savage duel between HMS Brunswick and the French Venger, which lasted four hours – a very long time for these actions. These were typically fought at point-blank range; each broadside that connected caused terrible havoc, particularly on the open decks. Captain Harvey Brunswick commanded HMS Brunswick. Wounded three times in a battle that saw 44 of his crew killed and 14 wounded, he did not survive the battle.

Overall casualties were 1500 French killed, 2000 wounded and 3000 POWs; 287 English killed and 811 wounded.

The British were too exhausted to pursue. The French claim Ushant III as their victory because the grain fleet made harbor safely.

I like this little hmmmmm as well.

.... this battle took place at the height of the Revolutionary Terror in France, with over 380 people a month executed. The French Government had a policy of executing failed commanders. Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse escaped the guillotine undoubtedly because the grain fleet came in safe. Wargamer.com feels that many French captains continued fighting after their situation became hopeless because of the “zero-tolerance-for-failure” policy.

Also head on over to this site for the full fleet line up.

Not a complete Navy story though, as The Queen’s (Second) Royal Regiment of Foot was involved and so was a wee sailor.

The third battle of Ushant, where British Admiral Lord Howe fell upon the French fleet of Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse after several days of fierce fighting and won a tactical victory, though he did not intercept a food convoy from the new world.

Aboard the HMS Tremendous, one pregnant passenger gave birth to a boy. People thought this happy event was tremendous, so the kid got the nickname "Tremendous" and a Naval General Service medal in recognition of his presence at the action (with a rating of "baby").

... and you thought ours was the first fighting navy to push them out at war? Silly goose.

On a serious note - a tactical victory for the British; but a mission success for the French. The grain got there - call it a draw.

Hat tip ADB.

Keep This Ship From Public View

Every now and then, this needs to be brought up; the even numbered INDEPENDENCE Class LCS should never make a port visit or participate side by side with any other navy.

I mean, just look at her.

Good morning, Vietnam! Eighth annual exercise between navies to get underway. https://t.co/94mVtRBaB1 pic.twitter.com/XfwO02ahdm

— Navy Times (@NavyTimes) July 6, 2017

Now, really look at her.

Up close; click the pic and zoom in. 

Now, look at the pictures of PLAN warships that participate in multi-national exercises and make port visits. Especially in cultures that value "face" - this ship is an underway INFO OPS/PSYOPS/PAO own-goal of epic proportions. It isn't the ship's company fault either - they can only do with what Mother Navy gives them. This tramp steamer look is by design - and will only get worse with age.

A final operational note as well; everyone can stow the, "She is ASUW capable, she is carrying Harpoon ASM now ... " BS. Zoom in there as well. I see one.

Just one. I'll bet good money she can only launch in a casualty mode as well.

When You Can't Wait for the NSFS Fairy Dust

Working with the Italians and other NATO allies, we can get more out of our existing 5" guns - and if we bring back the OHP, our 76-mm too.

I'm discussing over at USNIBlog.

Come by to visit.

Why CNN vs. Reddit Shitposter Matters

To whom much is granted, much is expected.

Rightfully, for a free republic based on liberty, the Founders put the press and free speech right up front. It is the result of the hard fought intellectual battles to base our nation on the best lessons learned from prior republics. As anyone with a passing knowledge of The Federalist Papers and the gloriously rough and tumble press and pamphleteers of the first decades of our republic knows, it came about largely by people working under pseudonyms or straight up anonymous.

A lover of freedom accepts these untidy, messy, and occasionally nasty bits of the marketplace of ideas as a feature, not a bug. They are the fine grit that gives you the creative friction you need for a free society to function.

Respect for and defense of such players in the information ecosystem from both those giving and receiving a broad spectrum of criticism is a baseline requirement to be seen as a productive member of a free and functioning system of intellectual liberty.

There is always in the background an authoritarian tendency with people in powerful positions. Indeed, our Bill of Rights and Constitution are largely constructed to institutionalize barriers and speedbumps to power and abuse of power by those who have it.

It isn’t just the people who have political power who become addicted to it and develop a junkie’s paranoia and insecurity about access to it; you see the same in industry and civil institutions. Power and money always bring out the worst in people. It finds a person’s weakness and amplifies it; pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth – human history is little more than a story of the 2nd and 3rd order effects of power leveraging human weakness.

CNN is a global behemoth wielding power in the Informational domain greater than most nation states. It also has tremendous impact in the Diplomatic and Economic domains. With such power comes much responsibility – especially for an institution that only has its power due to the efforts of anonymous writers and pamphleteers over two and a half centuries.

As such, the following story is beyond disturbing.

After posting his apology, "HanA**holeSolo" called CNN's KFile and confirmed his identity. In the interview, "HanA**holeSolo" sounded nervous about his identity being revealed and asked to not be named out of fear for his personal safety and for the public embarrassment it would bring to him and his family.

CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.

CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.

As of this AM until about 10am, CNN still had this as their top story. In the face of the backlash it appears they are trying to let it pass and have let it fall off the front page – though still available. Like some tin-pot dictator taking pride in burning a village full of serfs, they are proud of their abuse of power.

In a civil society, punching down in such a way is just not done by anyone claiming the high ground.

In the media ecosystem, CNN is a top predator. A Reddit poster is somewhere right above a commenter or a blog like mine. Between CNN and a Reddit poster are, in ascending order; twitter users, contributors to group-blogs, individual bloggers, writers for online magazines, podcasters-internet radio, online video producers, internet media outlets, local media, talk radio, national cable news, network news, international news outlets.

Look how far CNN is punching down. Some schmuck posting on Reddit threatened with his job & safety for just making a silly gif focused on WWE. It threatens no one, insults no mature person, and otherwise would just be one of a million shitposted gifs if POTUS didn’t find it funny.

This is the network that couldn’t figure out how Donna Brazile fed Hillary questions, but they can dig up this on a Reddit Shitlord?

Why? Simple. CNN is acting like an insecure, petty tyrant. It isn’t just the vile Kaczynski that is the issue, corporate CNN let this run above the fold for a full day. It would be one thing if Kaczynski & CNN realized they stepped over the line and corrected (no one is perfect, even your humble blogg’r has retracted and apologized), but this is different.

When I stopped watching the news I grew up with, CBS, after Dan Rather went after Bush41, I shifted to NBC until they became unreliable, and by the mid-90s, ABC. They lost me when I found CNN to be more balanced. That had been true until the last decade where, with few exceptions, it has now become a pathetic shell of itself, feeding off the professional capital that a younger Ted Turner built.

Until there is a major change at what was once the premier news outlet, they should be looked at as little more than a less unhinged InfoWars.

Why does this matter to some bottom feeding milblogg’r such that it takes up space here? If you don’t know the answer yourself, I don’t think I can help you at this point.

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock


Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton



Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton



Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross


Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry



Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery



Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott



New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

Longstreet at Gettysburg & After the War

As we remember the Battle of Gettysburg, over at TheStrategyBridge, Kyle Gaffney wrote a moving bit, capturing in place in time a man who in my adulthood, grew to be a great man in my eyes, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, CSA.

There is much Longstreet does not know and will never know. He does not know that after this moment there will be no more miracles to conjure up, the war in the west would become a futile exercise, or just how successful Grant would be after the Siege of Vicksburg. After this moment, he cannot know The Cause would be broken after the freedom both Union and Confederates shared was redefined by President Lincoln over the bones of those who died here. Longstreet does not know that, even as the battlefield comes back into view, the jackals who will one day hang responsibility for The Cause’s demise around his neck for accepting the South’s defeat and honoring his old oath prowled his own lines.

Pickett begs again to go.

Obstinacy turns to resignation. In this moment, what Longstreet does not know is unimportant. What he knows for sure is that he had done his duty as the senior Lieutenant General in the Army of Northern Virginia. No one present could say they were not warned. Now he is numb. Without an outlet, his emotions implode inward and he just stares out across the killing fields. Few of the blades of grass he sees will be spared a watering of blood and shot. Better angels cry out to Longstreet from somewhere beyond, but it is too late. Unable to support the weight of his assignment, Longstreet bows his head. Pickett’s wet eyes plead for the order to advance, oblivious to his commander’s torment.

Longstreet can only nod once.

It has saddened, but not surprised me, that this weekend in 2017 we find the worst among us have decided to throw away the hard work of reconciliation born by our ancestors, and have gone about like some perversely lame version of the American Taliban pulling down monuments and other such acts in some post-modernist hissy-fit of the virtue signaling narcissists of ignorance they represent.

As for me, Longstreet is a great man not only for his service to the South in the war, but for what he did after the war.

On April 2, 1865, Union forces broke the Confederate line at Petersburg. When A. P. Hill was killed, Longstreet took command of his Third Corps. On April 9, 1865, however, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. Longstreet and Lee parted ways on April 12, 1865. Longstreet moved to New Orleans, and the two men never saw each other again.

In 1867, the New Orleans Times asked several leading citizens to comment on the newly passed Reconstruction Acts. Unwisely, Longstreet suggested that Southerners support the Republicans. He was praised in the North, but vilified in the South. In June 1868, he received his pardon – by act of Congress – with help from General Grant. He supported Grant for president, and when elected, Grant nominated Longstreet to be the Surveyor of Customs for the Port of New Orleans. For this last betrayal of the South he was labeled a “scalawag.”

Many of Longstreet’s actions after the war were controversial: his letters to the New Orleans Times, his support of the Republican Party, his acceptance of political appointments, and the fact that he commanded African-Americans (part of the New Orleans Metropolitan Police Force). Worst of all, he had dared to criticize Robert E. Lee’s leadership. Very quickly he became the target of “Lost Cause” attacks by Jubal Early, William Pendleton, Rev. J William Jones, and others. Longstreet spent the rest of his life attempting to restore his reputation. In 1889 he was dealt another huge blow. His home, Parkhill, burned to the ground in April. Then his wife, Louise, died in December.

Despite the many attacks by former officers in the Confederate Army, many men fondly remembered their days fighting under Longstreet. In 1890 the Washington Artillery—famous for their performance at Fredericksburg—insisted that Longstreet participate at the unveiling of Lee’s statue in Richmond and in 1892 at the 3rd annual United Confederate Veterans meeting former soldiers flocked to him. He spoke at the dedication of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in 1895 and attended the 1902 centennial celebration at West Point.

We all should reflect on what those who actually faced each other across the battlefield did to try to come together as one - the best men and women of their time. The least we can do is to try to emulate and honor those who worked for peace after the bloodbath they and their loved ones lived through.

It is easy to rage & preen in the future from a protected, blissfully ignorant peace paid by others. It is something else to make peace while the wounds are still fresh. 

I know which is easier to respect.

Longstreet published his 800-page memoirs, From Manassas to Appomattox, in December 1895. In September 1897 he married 34-year-old Helen Dortch; although his family was not pleased with the marriage, Helen defended Longstreet’s name until she died in 1962. James Longstreet died on January 2, 1904, just days short of his 83rd birthday. He was buried at Alta Vista Cemetery in Gainesville, GA.

On my way out West to hunt this winter, I think I'll take a 20-min detour to Gainesville, GA to pay my respects.

Even more important, I will practice what I preach about primary sources and get a copy of his book.