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One of my spies in the shadow world of the "special" Maritime Patrol & Reconnaissance community sent along this point to ponder;The Navy will consolidate its two electronic reconnaissance squadrons in August into one large squadron.
According to a directive issued in late March by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron Two (VQ-2) officially will be deactivated on Aug. 31 at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., although the deactivation ceremonies will be held on May 17. Its EP-3E aircraft and air crews will be absorbed by its sister squadron, VQ-1.
The consolidation is part of the Navy’s initiative to reduce its overhead costs planned for fiscal 2012.
VQ-2 was established on Sept. 1, 1955, as Electronic Countermeasures Squadron Two at Port Lyautey, Morocco. It was transferred to Naval Station Rota, Spain in January 1960 and redesignated VQ-2. The squadron moved to Whidbey Island in October 2005.
Word has it VPU-1 is going away on 22 APR.As Skippy has outlined often, the move to put the P-3 community in charge of the VP and VPU squadrons may have made sense on paper - but did not bode well for those communities.Strange in a way. With today's challenges, those skills that they brought to the table are needed more now than ever. The VQ squadrons were already large compared to VP squadrons. We don't see them consolidating VP squadrons to the size of VQ, personnel wise, but we know the reason for that (it takes CDR Commands to make CAPT to make RDML to make .... ).So. This was in many ways written in stone with the horrible decision almost a decade ago to go with that canary in the acquisition coal mine, ACS for a EP-3 replacement. My spy give of a view down the road too, ... the Navy is getting rid of manned reconnaissance before unmanned assets are online (watch for the requirements creep in BAMS Spiral 3 - advertised as an EP-3E replacement...and then watch the program slip), is the annual certification before Congress as to the health of the VPU/VQ community.
Gen. Cartwright said that everything was fine, but that was at RDML Mike Hewitts personal request - they are quite close.
This year's certification will also discuss detaching crews for 6 months at a time (the Navy standard redline), but that the squadrons don't have enough people to keep those deployers home. In an unusual change of events, VQ squadrons ITEMPOs are surpassing VPUs, with certain ratings in the 70% ALREADY.
Also, as your sources in [redacted] can tell you, POM14 is a tough year. An issue sheet (that looks good from a funding perspective) will get rid of VPU entirely in 2015, and VQ in 2017. Hard to tell if the COCOMs will weigh in.
If they could - what would they say?
Please don't tell me this is another case of, "Let's get rid of something that is working, mature, and functional now, for something the PPT tells us will slice, dice, and juliennes 5-yrs from now. That works great every time - pay it forward!"
The about face from the USAF on Global Hawk (BAMS is the Navy version of Global Hawk) Block-30 vs. manned U-2 should give one pause ... but is anyone in Navy listening?
If my spy is right - are we looking at a sound decision, or a decision to throw VQ and VPU over the side in order to ensure that the right number of P-8s are purchased? Hard to tell - for this community there is very little in open source or any press.
We'll find out eventually though ...
What is real, and what is a mirage? Can something be a cost effective strategic option, or a fool's errand?
As outlined by our guests in their latest work in the periodical, Asian Security; An Ocean Too Far: Offshore Balancing in the Indian Ocean; the United States is beset by war weariness after over a decade of war and a half century plus of global commitments. We find ourselves with a stagnant economy, and skyrocketing defense procurement costs. It is seductive to think of retiring from continental Eurasia, but if history calls us back - returning in times of systemic conflict would be problematic – even in the relatively accessible rimlands of Western Europe and East Asia.
In a part of the world with the planet's largest democracy - offshore balancing is close to impossible in the Indian Ocean.
As it turns out, offshore balancing in the Indian Ocean may be no balancing at all.
Our guests for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm EST to discuss their article will be U.S. Naval War College Associate Professors James R. Holmes & Toshi Yoshihara.
Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio - the best way to get the show and download the archive to your audio player is to get a free account and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
What Fresh H311 is this?Wait ... wait ... wait. Don't follow the link above yet. Just so you know how your taxpayer money (or money borrowed from the Chinese in your kid's name) is being spent - behold the gobble-d-goop;This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. The solicitation number N68836-12-T-0219 is issued as a request for quote (RFQ). The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through the latest edition of the Federal Acquisition Circular. This solicitation is Sole Source. NAICS Code 611430
The following clauses and provisions apply: 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items;52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items; 52.204-7 Central Contractor Registration; 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items; 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items, and citing: 52.219-6, 52.222-21, 52.222-26, 52.222-35, 52.222-36, 52.222-37, 52.225-13, and 52,232-33; 252.204-7004 Central Contractor Registration; 252.212-7001 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes Applicable to Defense Acquisition of Commercial Items, and citing: 252.225-7001 and 252.232-7003; Offers are due by close of business 17 November 2011 and may be emailed to roma.shoy@navy.mil or faxed to 904/270-6498.
Here is the title of what they(we) are paying for.U--Training "SEX SIGNALS"
Oh yea. Only someone who has not deployed recently and spent some time with their Sailors would think this is a fix. I guess it won't hurt - but it will be entertaining; especially if you are in the audience focused on those around you.Personally, I want Skippy to give this. He'll do it for 1/4 the price too.Blending a unique combination of improvisational comedy, education and audience participation, "Sex Signals" provides a provocative, in-your-face look at issues surrounding dating, sex and date rape on college campuses.
Through the use of humor, the show explores how mixed messages, gender role stereotypes and unrealistic fantasies contribute to misunderstandings between the sexes. Students are thus engaged in a candid discussion on dating and the realities of date rape as they are challenged to provide solutions that will better improve communications in interpersonal relationships. All of the performers have extensive training in interactive theater and sexual assault education.
Since the program's inception in 2000, Sex Signals has performed over 1000 shows at over 400 colleges and universities, making it one of the country's most popular lecture programs.
Being that it is being shown in Mayport - I think we should detail Byron to attend.Do I have a second?Well - if not; here is a preview. Ht tip TD.
At last, are the Navy's senior leadership starting to admit about LCS what the critics have been saying from the start? Is realism setting in?I'm pondering over at USNI the CNO statements yesterday AM. Come visit and ponder with me.
In a time of war, age really doesn't matter. The genius of a 19-yr old can be brought to ruin by the valor of a 21-yr old.The genius;On 16 April 1862, the Confederate Navy Department, enthusiastic about the offensive potential of armored rams following the victory of their first ironclad CSS Virginia (the rebuilt USS Merrimack) over the wooden-hulled Union blockaders in Hampton Roads, Virginia, signed a contract with nineteen year old detached Confederate Lieutenant Gilbert Elliott of Elizabeth City, North Carolina; he was to oversee the construction of a smaller but still powerful gunboat to destroy the Union warships in the North Carolina sounds.
Yes, we are talking about the CSS ALBEMARLE.Displacement: 376 tons
Length: 158 ft (48 m)
Beam: 35.4 ft (10.8 m)
Draught: 9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion: Steam
Speed: 4 knots
Complement: 150 officers and men
Armament: two 6.4 Brooke double-banded rifles
War record? A very good war record, but that's not why we are here.Today we honor and honorable adversary (can't call such a man an enemy); the Yankee Lieutenant (later CDR) William B. Cushing, USN.Cushing discovered two 30-foot (9.1 m) picket boats under construction in New York and acquired them for his mission (some accounts have them as 45 feet (14 m) to 47-feet). On each he mounted a Dahlgren 12 pounder howitzer and a 14-foot (4.3 m) spar projecting into the water from its bow. One of the boats was lost at sea during the voyage from New York to Norfolk, Virginia, but the other arrived safely with its crew of seven officers and men at the mouth of the Roanoke. There, the steam launch's spar was fitted with a lanyard-detonated torpedo.
On the night of October 27 and 28, 1864, Cushing and his team began working their way upriver. A small cutter accompanied them, its crew having the task of preventing interference by the Confederate sentries stationed on a schooner anchored to the wreck of Southfield; both boats, under the cover of darkness, slipped past the schooner undetected. So Cushing decided to use all twenty-two of his men and the element of surprise to capture Albemarle.
As they approached the Confederate docks their luck turned, and they were spotted in the dark. They came under heavy rifle and pistol fire from both the shore and aboard Albemarle. As they closed with the ironclad, they quickly discovered she was defended against approach by floating log booms. The logs, however, had been in the water for many months and were covered with heavy slime. The steam launch rode up and then over them without difficulty; with her spar fully against the ironclad's hull, Cushing stood up in the bow, pulled the lanyard, detonating the torpedo's explosive charge.
The explosion threw Cushing and his men overboard into the water; Cushing then stripped off most of his uniform and swam to shore, where he hid undercover until daylight, avoiding the hastily organized Confederate search parties. The next afternoon, he was finally able to steal a small skiff and began slowly paddling, using his hands and arms as oars, down-river to rejoin Union forces at the river's mouth. Cushing's long journey was quite perilous and he was nearly captured and almost drowned before finally reaching safety, totally exhausted by his ordeal; he was hailed a national hero of the Union cause for his daring exploits. Of the other men in Cushing's launch, one also escaped, two were drowned following to the explosion, and the rest were captured.
Cushing's daring commando raid blew a hole in Albemarle's hull at the waterline "big enough to drive a wagon in." She sank immediately in the six feet of water below her keel, settling into the heavy river bottom mud, leaving the upper casemate mostly dry and the ship's large Stainless Banner ensign flying from the flagstaff at the rear of the casemate's upper deck. Confederate commander Alexander F. Warley, who had been appointed as her captain about a month earlier, later salvaged both of Albemarle's rifled cannon and shells and used them to defend Plymouth against subsequent Union attack—futilely, as it turned out.
We have those same 19 and 21-yr old men in our Navy today. Officer and enlisted. They are there - waiting for their chance. Would you know one if you saw one - and do you have the command climate and ability to give them the opportunity to succeed?As a final note; the last USS CUSHING (DD-985) was decommissioned in 1995. MURTHA, CHAVEZ, GIFFORD. Go figure.
... are, according to Walter Russell Mead, greatly exaggerated.The world balance of power is changing. Countries like China, India, Turkey and Brazil are heard from more frequently and on a wider range of subjects. The European Union's most ambitious global project—creating a universal treaty to reduce carbon emissions—has collapsed, and EU expansion has slowed to a crawl as Europe turns inward to deal with its debt crisis. Japan has ceded its place as the largest economy in Asia to China and appears increasingly on the defensive in the region as China's hard and soft power grow.
The international chattering class has a label for these changes: American decline. The dots look so connectable: The financial crisis, say the pundits, comprehensively demonstrated the failure of "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have sapped American strength and, allegedly, destroyed America's ability to act in the Middle East. China-style "state capitalism" is all the rage. Throw in the assertive new powers and there you have it—the portrait of America in decline.
Actually, what's been happening is just as fateful but much more complex.
I think he has it about right. Other nations have their challenges - and in a nation as large as ours, as Adam Smith said; there is a lot of ruin in a nation.The debt-fest and foreign policy bumbling of the last few years could go on for another ~5 years; but this nation has so many inherent advantages that we will continue to be a player. It isn't so much that we are declining, but that other nations are rising.That is, on balance, a good thing. None of the nations represent any expansion of totalitarian "isms" that we saw in the last century. On balance, they do not threaten our way of life. The only real threat to our way of life, after Islamic Terrorism, is our selves.Be thankful for our challenges - most of the solutions lie in ourselves. Many nations don't have that luxury.Despite all the talk of American decline, the countries that face the most painful changes are the old trilateral partners. Japan must live with a disturbing rival presence, China, in a region that, with American support, it once regarded as its backyard. In Europe, countries that were once global imperial powers must accept another step in their long retreat from empire.
For American foreign policy, the key now is to enter deep strategic conversations with our new partners—without forgetting or neglecting the old. The U.S. needs to build a similar network of relationships and institutional linkages that we built in postwar Europe and Japan and deepened in the trilateral years. Think tanks, scholars, students, artists, bankers, diplomats and military officers need to engage their counterparts in each of these countries as we work out a vision for shared prosperity in the new century.
The American world vision isn't powerful because it is American; it is powerful because it is, for all its limits and faults, the best way forward. This is why the original trilateral partners joined the U.S. in promoting it a generation ago, and why the world's rising powers will rally to the cause today.
If you believe in freedom and individual liberty, then you have to have faith in our future. It won't end up our way by itself though - it will take hard work, dedication, and a watchful eye.Papa Salamander always used to tell me, "No one owes you a living." For nations; no one owes you the future.It is ours to lose.
Remember a few years ago - because they said they, ahem, didn't want to promote "fat bodies" (sizeism!) - they brought back the picture for promotion boards?Well - in what is actually a very good Top-10 for those joining the civilian workforce; this caught my eye.Mistake 7: Including a picture on the resume.
Solution: Leave off all pictures. In the United States, this information could be considered discriminatory.
...
Mistake 5: Including any information that would specifically lead a reasonable person to know from a resume the applicant's race, color or religious affiliation.
Solution: Leave off all information of any group or award that specifically reveals your race, color or religious background. This background is a hot potato for an employer and could cause them to immediately eliminate the resume from consideration.
.... and what do we emphasize on our promotion boards and/or the out-brief?Your picture and your race/ethnicity.
Ponder.
