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.
By special request by Sam, this FbF we'll return to a legend we last posted on in '05, Fluckey. Just a small part from a great summary from historynet on the 5th patrol;
Submarine captains were usually allowed only four—statistics showed that on the fifth patrol the captain was likely to become either overconfident or overcautious. But Fluckey convinced the admirals that he would be neither. He had unfinished business in the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as a few parting shots in mind.
Commander Fluckey wanted to mount a rocket launcher on the Barb and fire the rockets at factories. He also wanted to blow up a train. Furthermore, Fluckey bet another officer a quart of whiskey that on its twelfth patrol the Barb would sink fifteen vessels—trawlers, luggers, schooners, and sampans included. Not your usual goals for a submarine captain, but Fluckey had proven to be anything but usual.
With fewer Japanese convoys in the area to supply targets, the Barb’s main mission when it departed on June 8, 1945, was to “raise a rumpus,” recalled Admiral Lockwood. Three wolf packs were sent to hunt ships that planes and destroyers now guarded some distance away.
At 1:50 a.m. on June 22, the day after Okinawa fell, history was made when Fluckey gave the command, “Man battle stations rockets!” Twelve rockets whooshed out of the pipe-rack launcher, and thirty seconds later they hit their target 5,250 yards away as chunks of buildings flew into the night. The Barb took off at flank speed to raise more of a rumpus farther north.
At dawn on July 2, the Barb approached the port of Kaihyo To, inside Patience Bay at Shikuka. Peering through the mist with binoculars, the crew counted twenty-three barracks, warehouses, factories, shops, and mills. At eight hundred yards the Barb commenced firing. Fluckey called the assault “Little Iwo Jima.”
The barrage of bullets continued for thirty-three minutes. The 40mm antiaircraft cannon destroyed a pillbox, an observation post, three sampans, and an oil dump. The five-inch gun destroyed a radar and radio station, blasted buildings, and set fires that raged under an immense black cloud. “The island is out of commission,” he said. “No communications, no radar, no power, no buildings, no boats exist.”
Radio Tokyo said Kaihyo To had been bombarded by six warships and a submarine. Fluckey was pleased because it described his objective: maximum harassment with minimum force.
That afternoon they fired a smaller Mark 27 torpedo at a freighter that was nearly overhead, and the torpedo found its way to the ship’s propeller. It was the first time a freighter had ever been sunk by a Mark 27, let alone from the allegedly suicidal range of seventy-five yards. Four down, eleven to go for Fluckey to win his whiskey.
On July 5 they sank another small freighter, and on July 11 they got their seventh vessel, a large diesel sampan, with the five-inch gun. On July 18, using the last of the unreliable Mark 28 torpedoes, the Barb got a frigate, Kaikoban No. 112.
Now it was time for some derring-do that would bring the Barb as much fame as any of its previous kills. On July 20 Fluckey pulled to within one thousand yards of shore in Patience Bay and watched trains all day. He waited for an overcast night, which came on July 23. At midnight, eight saboteurs in two rubber rafts paddled six hundred yards to shore (every single crewman had volunteered) and buried fifty-five pounds of explosives under the track. It was detonated two hours later by a switch triggered by the weight of the train.
“Boom! Wham! What a thrill!” recalled Fluckey in Thunder Below! “The boilers of the engine blew. Engine wreckage flying, flying, flying up some 200 feet, racing ahead of a mushroom of smoke, now white, now black. Sixteen cars piling up, into and over the wall of wreckage in front, rolling off the track in a writhing, twisting maelstrom of Gordian knots.”
Commander Fluckey now had to sink seven vessels in just three days in order to win the whiskey. The torpedoes were gone, but there were some five-inch shells left—and forty-eight rockets.
“Our priority now is Shiritori, where we’ll reconnoiter for a triple rocket massage,” he told his officers. “We’ll rocket Shiritori just after dark, then proceed at flank speed down the coast and rocket Kashiho before dawn. From there we skid across the bay to bombard Chiri. After that I’d like one more crack at luring a single minefield frigate into deep water.”
“Rockets away!” Thirty-six rockets flew toward two factories and Shiritori’s city hall, striking gasoline drums. Fires lit up the night sky. Fluckey invited all hands on deck to enjoy the fireworks before they raced off to their final stop that night.
Two hours later the last dozen rockets blew up more buildings at Kashiho.
Later in the morning they got another sampan, taking a prisoner to obtain information about defenses at their next target, Chiri. On the way into Chiri they got another sampan. They unloaded on Chiri with forty-three five-inch shells; on the way out they got another sampan with the last of the five-inch shells. All that remained were three star shells, which weren’t explosive, but no matter. They fired two into a sampan at the waterline, holing the hull, sinking it, and bringing the tally to six sampans for the day. Fourteen vessels down, one to go.
The Barb received a message from Admiral Lockwood:
fluckey you come home x acknowledge x.
There was no ammunition left except for the 40mm gun and 20mm Oerlikon machine gun. They used the last of the 40mm shells to blow up a lumber mill at Shibetoro, again hitting a fuel tank and causing an inferno. The wind blew the fire onto seventeen sampans, which didn’t count for the bet because they were collateral damage.
Four miles later they came across a trawler. Looking around for something to throw at the trawler, they came up with a crate of rifle grenades. After eighteen lobs, the trawler caught fire but wouldn’t sink. So, finally, Fluckey rammed it with the Barb. “It seemed like driving a car into a burning garage,” he said.
The trawler went down. Some might argue that sinking sampans and trawlers is hardly a challenge, or even a very good use of a well-armed American submarine. But to Fluckey, a bet was a bet, and the trawler was his fifteenth and final kill.
Some DivThu write themselves and more often than not reinforce known truths. Elections have consequences, and it often isn't so much who is elected, but who they appoint, and then who advises those who were appointed.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus ordered the Marine Corps to submit a plan by Jan. 15 to make the Marine Corps boot camp gender-neutral and remove the word “man” from job titles.
Just read it all to soak it in. Go to the second page of the below.
Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus announced today that the first ship of the next generation of fleet replenishment oilers (T-AO 205) will be named USNS John Lewis after the civil rights movement hero and current U.S. representative of Georgia's Fifth Congressional District.
Douglas Murray over at TheSpectator outlines what with each passing week starts to come more clearly in to view; the Sunni and Shia are not going to take a break in a rising spiral of escalation in their unending centuries of conflict. You will read "Iran" and "Saudi Arabia" but what you need to hear is "Shia" and "Sunni";
Some years ago, before the Arab ‘Spring’ ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region. What, I wondered, was their single biggest fear? The answer was striking and precise: ‘That the region will clarify.’ That is a fear which now appears to be coming true.
Part of what is encouraging this is the fundamental internal weakness in the birth of most of the nations at the center of conflict of the latest phase, Iraq and Syria. Almost a century later the world continues to suffer from the awful Treaty of Versailles where the best and the brightest set the stage for generations of conflict;
The Middle East is not simply falling apart. It is taking a different shape, along very clear lines — far older ones than those the western powers rudely imposed on the region nearly a century ago. Across the whole continent those borders are in the process of cracking and breaking. But while that happens the region’s two most ambitious centres of power — the house of Saud and the Ayatollahs in Iran — find themselves fighting each other not just for influence but even, perhaps, for survival.
...
the first from al-Qa’eda’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the second from the Free Syrian army [FSA]. ‘You apostate infidels,’ says the first. ‘We’ve declared you to be “apostates”, you heretics. You don’t know Allah or His Prophet, you creature. What kind of Islam do you follow?’ To which the FSA fighter responds, ‘Why did you come here? Go fight Israel, brother.’ Only to be told, ‘Fighting apostates like you people takes precedence over fighting the Jews and the Christians. All imams concur on that.’
Combine the sloppy map making of Versailles along with built in sectarian and ethnic friction - there is no simple path to the way things were. In reality, there is probably no path at all. The events of the last half decade lead me to believe that this will have to be resolved the old fashioned way, through blood and iron.
Feeding off their own apocalyptic traditions, the whole region is regressing to a Game of Thrones all-against-all free for all.
What is the non-Muslim world to do? At this stage of the game, probably the best thing is to contain and shape the edges. Support the least/worst - and accept good allies as opposed to trying to create perfect allies out of our own vanity. The major Shia power is Iran. The major Sunni (Egyptians will have to pardon me for a bit) is Saudi Arabia. For the past few years, they have ratcheted up their proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and other places. The last week as see more fuel throw on the fire;
First, one man's execution spurred sectarian protests and violence in the Middle East. Now, it appears to have sparked a serious diplomatic rift.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Sunday that his country is severing ties with Iran. Iranian diplomats in Saudi Arabia have 48 hours to leave the country, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters.
The two countries have long been at odds, but Saudi Arabia's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr Saturday kicked off a new round of sparring between them that analysts say could mark a dangerous shift in an already volatile region.
"I think you're going to see a period of very harsh rhetoric, and the cutting of diplomatic ties comes at a very bad time. ... This is Saudi Arabia saying, 'The gloves are off,' " said Bobby Ghosh, a CNN global affairs analyst and managing editor of Quartz.
... Three Sunni-led countries joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, worsening a geopolitical conflict with sectarian dimensions in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
The diplomatic protests from the three countries — Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — came as Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran two days earlier as a pretext for diverting attention from its problems.
Back to TheSpectator article;
From the outset of the Syrian uprising, it was inevitable that Iran would weigh in on the side of its client in Damascus. Indeed, so desperate were the mullahs in Tehran to do everything they could to protect their own interests that they even put up with protests at home from people starved of basic supplies complaining about their own government pouring millions into Syria’s civil war.
But the next step was just as predictable. Saudi Arabia, which fears Iranian influence spreading any further than it has already throughout the region, began to back the opposition. Starting cautiously, in recent months that caution has retreated and Saudi is now supporting groups as close to al-Qa’eda-linked forces as to make little difference. Desperate measures, certainly. But for the Saudi leadership these are desperate times. Though it is a battle that has been brewing for decades.
Let's stop the review there. Let's talk about what we should do. Contain in two ways. We have two things to contain, first ourselves, then second their culture. For ourselves, we need to be very clear headed about where our interests are and what the American people will support. We need to contain our desire, and the desire of others, to have the USA fix their problem for them.
Our interests are always to promote stability ... but the American people want stability on the cheap. If we cannot/willnot/shallnot have 19-yr old Americans on every street corner, then we will have to shape where we can and not let stupidity or ego cause us to do things that could lead to involvement in places no one wants it to go.
We cannot force stability on the cheap, but we can help shape it. Shape it by supporting relatively modern forces like the Kurds, the Jordanian monarchy, the Egyptian military, and even relatively unsavory but better than the alternative strongmen like, yes, Assad. If we won't, then get out of the way of others who will do what needs to be done like the Russians. War is a dark room. If you only step in a bit with one hand on the door and only one foot in - you can usually back out if needed. If you jump in screaming ... well ... that usually does not end well. Airstrikes and limited ground forces to support our allies doing the hard work on the ground? That is the right move. Combat brigades engaging as maneuver units? No, we tried that. Doesn't work with the numbers, ROE, and political support we have at home. Even if we did, it still would not work. What is dangerous to our national interest are those sects who are not content with killing their neighbors, but want to kill internationally. That is the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Those also happen to be Sunni. That doesn't make us Iran's ally, we just are fighting the same people. That is what the balance of our shaping needs to be. Kill the radical Sunni elements, and let the others fight for what is left. That is fine for now, but what if the Sunni/Shia battle goes larger beyond the proxy wars already being fought? Well, what other cards does Iran have left to play? Iran has strong cards. 1. Eastern Saudi Arabia is Shia. That is also where their oil is. 2. The Gulf Arab states have huge Shia populations ruled by Sunni monarchs. 3. The Hazara of Afghanistan are Shia, surrounded by AFG and IS allies who hate them from both an ethnic and a religious point of view. Let's go through a little Course of Action exercise. Red and Blue does not work all that well because depending on which proxy war we are looking at, good in one place is bad in another. So, let's make Sunni "Black" and Shia "Yellow." Yellow Most Likely COA: A Proxy for all my Friends - Iran will huff and puff, but will be patient. It will remove the stops, what few are left, in agitating the Shia in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. It will keep the Saudi agitation to a slow boil, but will ratchet up hard on the her edges from Bahrain to Yemen. It will see which is the weakest and will reinforce agitation in those places, looking for a cheap victory. It will make the Saudis lose face and increase their paranoia until they do something stupid against their own Shia minority. At that point, it all falls apart in a great Shia uprising in the eastern oil provinces of the kingdom. While this is going on, they double down in Syria while building their ties with Russia and China. With a feckless Europe distracted by waves of hundreds of thousands of young Muslim men let loose among their people, and a distracted America in a waning phase of international involvement following a divisive election, this is their moment and they are going to take it. Yellow Most Dangerous COA: Last Turban Standing - The Iranians start with the Most Likely COA, but either they lose patience with it, or the Saudis decide they don't want to play. In addition to the proxy wars, conventional forces are on the move. Some other external power or powers join in on the Saudi side, Turkey or perhaps Egypt. Arabian and Persian oil not being what it once was, there is no Western existential reason to get involved. America is self-sufficient, there are other ways for Europe to get oil. With a planning assumption that the Gulf States subdued and Oman compliant, there is no problem getting oil to China. The world economy is hit hard, but is not hit so hard as to motivate anyone to want to get involved. Result; they fight it out from the Transoxiana to the Nile. That is best case. Worse case, some major power outside the area gets involved, and/or the nuclear Jinn gets let out. Eventually, they bleed each other white. Only then may we find what Douglas Murray would like;
...perhaps the region is going to descend into a complex miasma of slaughter as surely as Europe did a century ago. Either way there will be a need for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution — a redrawing of boundaries in a region where boundaries have been bursting for decades.
That would be a Muslim solution to a Muslim problem. Ugly, but what other options are out there that have any chance of political support in the West? We are not going to build an army of millions to liberate a people who do not want liberation, and even if they had liberation, recent history shows they don't know what to do with it. We are not going to nuke the place from orbit just to be sure either. Finally, did you think I forgot the other containment? That is containing the culture which is creating this conflict. The instability of that region's culture is being exported. As I have mentioned before, the mainstream politicians have a narrowing window to address this problem. If they don't, the people of the West will empower non-mainstream politicians to fix it when it is almost too late. In small numbers, there is no significant issue with taking refugees from toxic cultures - but as Europe is seeing, Muslim immigrants in large numbers do not play well with others. They do not assimilate. They do not contribute. They will cause you to become something you don't want to be, but have to be. In addition to closing borders, they need to be sent back. Invest billions to support nations like Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon with their refugee camps, but that is it. Those refugees we do take in should only be religious minorities that have no land to come back to ... or ... we could support the waring parties that do protect religious minorities, Assad and the Kurds, to take back territories that once belonged to religious minorities.
In summary, perhaps what we should do as Yellow and Black decide which COA they want, is to follow some sound advice - don't just do something, stand there. Stand there on the edges, shield in one hand stabbing sword in another, but in general - stay out of the scrum. A Muslim Treaty of Westphalia? Maybe. Perhaps a Battle of the North Inch would be better first.
This week's episode will focus on the US Navy and Marine Corps from the attacks of September 11th, 2001 to today. This 14-part series will take you decade by decade, starting with the 1870s, discussing the significant naval events and developments that helped shape the US Navy. The podcast will coincide with the Naval Academy Museum: "Warrior Writers: The U.S. Naval Institute" open from September 10, 2015 through January 31, 2016. Our guest for each episode leading us through the decades will be Naval Academy History Professor Emeritus and noted naval historian Dr. Craig Symonds, and Naval Academy Museum Director Claude Berube. You can listen to the episode below, get the full archive over at BTR, or better yet, subscribe to the show on iTunes.
How do you balance cost, risk, peacetime habits and wartime requirements in designing and using the world's largest Navy? How do we maximize the most the utility of our platforms now, and create a future fleet best suited for what is coming up? Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss will be Barney Rubel, CAPT, USN (Ret.). Robert C. “Barney” Rubel is a retired naval officer. From 2006 to 2014, he was Dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the US Naval War College. Prior to assuming this position, he was Chairman of the Wargaming Department. A thirty-year Navy veteran, he received his commission through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Illinois. He subsequently became a light attack naval aviator, flying the A-7 Corsair II and later the F/A-18 Hornet. He commanded Strike Fighter Squadron 131 and also served as the Inspector General at U.S. Southern Command.
Join us live if you can with the usual suspects in the chat room and offer up your questions for our guest, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio. 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.
I feel bad it has taken this long for me to cover Mugs. Read the whole thing, but here is a lead in to the video below;
Former Navy Capt. Ronald E. "Mugs" McKeown, a decorated fighter pilot who was the first commanding officer of the elite Top Gun academy, died Nov. 21 in a Hillcrest care facility. The cause was complications associated with Parkinson’s disease. He was 76.
Mr. McKeown, whose boxing prowess earned him the nickname "Mugs," was chosen to command the newly commissioned Navy Fighter Weapons School, popularly known as Top Gun, in 1972. The training school began informally just two years earlier in a converted trailer at the former Naval Air Station Miramar to teach Vietnam War pilots air-to-air combat tactics necessary to defeat MIG attacks. He was one of the program’s first instructors.
Taking command of the program allowed him to teach jet pilots the tactics he had been honing for years.
He took part in the first air strikes against North Vietnam in 1964, flying F-8U Crusader and F-4B Phantom aircraft. While on deployment, he was chosen for test pilot and astronaut training and went on to serve as chief test pilot and tactics manager of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four. There, he was in charge of engineering changes to the radar-homing Sparrow missile, developed tactical maneuvers for the F-4 Phantom, and gained invaluable cockpit knowledge flying Soviet-built MIG fighter planes.
