Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with Sal from Commander Salamander and
Speaker 1: Eagle One from Eagle Speak at seer Shure your home
Speaker 1: for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime.
Speaker 1: And Welcome board everybody. This is the aforementioned Sal and
Speaker 1: with my evergenial co host Eagle One of Eagle Speak.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our July Free for All. That's where we
Speaker 1: don't have any guests. It's just Mark and I and
Speaker 1: the opinions of the day. Like to invite everybody. If
Speaker 1: you are with us live, then you can go over
Speaker 1: to the chat room. We'll wannitor that during the course
Speaker 1: of the show. And if there are some questions that
Speaker 1: you would like for us to inquire about, ponder about,
Speaker 1: and maybe pontificate, that's a perfect place to put it
Speaker 1: because we will monitor any good inputs you have in
Speaker 1: there and maybe a little bit of the not so good.
Speaker 1: And also if you just have some commentary about some
Speaker 1: of the things that we say, that's a perfect place
Speaker 1: to do that. So hey, we're just going to dive
Speaker 1: right into it. Good afternoon.
Speaker 2: Pontification is my specialty.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, here we are during the middle of
Speaker 1: July and the holiday season. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but at least both inside and outside the lifelines of
Speaker 1: the National security arena. This month, this last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: it seems like a few months, there is a lot
Speaker 1: going on there. And kind of the start things off
Speaker 1: is the Eisenhower and her strike Group and airwing came
Speaker 1: after nine months, and there was a few articles talking
Speaker 1: about how many Tomahawks and flight hours are expended during
Speaker 1: that nine month cruise, mostly but not exclusively focused on
Speaker 1: what was going on in the Red Sea. It did
Speaker 1: kind of beg the question about what exactly are we
Speaker 1: doing there? What is the in stake we are trying
Speaker 1: to reach because when you look at ordnance time and
Speaker 1: manpower expended forward versus is the Red Sea shipping that
Speaker 1: significantly more safe. I don't know whether you can really
Speaker 1: make that argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think somewhere in the Jim Dark Pass I
Speaker 2: pointed out that the Suez Canela was for a number
Speaker 2: of years back back within my memory, which goes back
Speaker 2: pretty far. You know, it was they had been mined
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, and it stayed shut I think
Speaker 2: for five or six years. A lot have to go
Speaker 2: look up the exact numbers, but you know, if we
Speaker 2: don't need it, and it's just you know, it adds
Speaker 2: dollars to the expensive shipping stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And of course the shipping companies are now making good profits,
Speaker 2: which is nice for them. You know, I think you're right. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, I just keep remembering they called the Powell douction,
Speaker 2: which was really based on somebody else. But but you know,
Speaker 2: why are you doing what you're doing, and what do
Speaker 2: you expect like when you get done? And if we're
Speaker 2: not going to go take out the Hoofi's with sending
Speaker 2: an eighty second and the one on one airborne in
Speaker 2: there and Marines, and why are we doing this? And
Speaker 2: how much of what goes through there comes to the US?
Speaker 2: How much it assurrance problem? And if they don't care,
Speaker 2: why do we care?
Speaker 1: Like a lot of things we've seen recently, it had
Speaker 1: me thinking a bit about the decision brief when this
Speaker 1: was done. It's what was at the pole mill i e.
Speaker 1: The President, the Secretary of Defense, What is their guidance,
Speaker 1: what is their intent? And once you have your guidance
Speaker 1: and your intent in theory, unless you're just throwing a shwag,
Speaker 1: which we've seen a couple of those in the day.
Speaker 1: Then you have your whole type of operating. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is what you want to accomplish. Here are difference of
Speaker 1: courses of actions we could take. What are the expectations
Speaker 1: in theory. You've wor gained them both before, during, and
Speaker 1: after execution, and you have certain decision points if certain
Speaker 1: things aren't being accomplished, that you do other things. It's
Speaker 1: another one of those occasions that are we to the
Speaker 1: brief ye here telling them what they want to tell
Speaker 1: to hear. Are we being told that's nice, that what
Speaker 1: you want to do, but you're not going to do this.
Speaker 1: You're going to do this instead, and you just need
Speaker 1: to do it anyway because we don't want to do
Speaker 1: what you said needs to be done. So you go
Speaker 1: forward and you do. I think I've mentioned a couple
Speaker 1: of times do a little less than the bare minimum,
Speaker 1: and those are the results that you get. It doesn't
Speaker 1: take anything away from what the folks on the ships
Speaker 1: and the air wings and the carrier and the staff's
Speaker 1: working it. You do the best you can given the
Speaker 1: resources and the direction and guidance you've been given. But
Speaker 1: it's got to back up to again, the United States
Speaker 1: Navy and the Nation it serves. It's putting its and
Speaker 1: it's allies because we've talked some of our friends to
Speaker 1: come join us. It's putting their reputation on the line.
Speaker 1: And reputation isn't an ego things. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you don't have to go to war because your nation
Speaker 1: and its military has a certain reputation that would make
Speaker 1: pulling that card out of the deck not an attractive option.
Speaker 1: And if you degrade that to a certain point, it invites,
Speaker 1: it invites aggression, It encourages aggression, it rewards it. And
Speaker 1: you have to look at what I ran in, our
Speaker 1: proxies are trying to do and are they succeeding or
Speaker 1: are we succeeding in our reactionary role and that of
Speaker 1: our allies. It's just not an attractive look, especially when
Speaker 1: you look at the track record of the last few years.
Speaker 1: The larger effects of this, I think is dangerous. Now.
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned the when the Red Sea was
Speaker 1: closed when I was a little kid. My briefing of that,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometime in the nineteen seventies, the National
Speaker 1: Geographic had a nice article on it that had the
Speaker 1: pictures of all the ships that have been sunk after
Speaker 1: the I think it was a seventy three war and
Speaker 1: it was. It was for years the Suez Canal was blocked.
Speaker 1: So can the world economy survive without the Suez? Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: It's just everything is going to be slower and more expensive,
Speaker 1: and it's it's the decision people have to make. And
Speaker 1: somewhere along the line, people are making the decision that
Speaker 1: we're not going to go past a certain level of
Speaker 1: feet dry in Yemen and we're not going to do
Speaker 1: what needs to be done to stop equipment coming from
Speaker 1: Iran to Yemen. So it's going to be in a
Speaker 1: way at the the Egypt Shop is going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of unscheduled range time that they can improve
Speaker 1: their censors on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean the Seui's canow was closed after the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven more between Egypt and Israel, and it
Speaker 2: stayed closed until nineteen seventy five, so there is an
Speaker 2: eight year period was shut. But you know this is
Speaker 2: of a piece with the Gaza j Lot's effort, where
Speaker 2: you've got on one hand, uh, the the chief of
Speaker 2: our commander chief says, I want to show the the
Speaker 2: Palestinian Palestinians that I'm supportive of those Palestinians, many of
Speaker 2: them now live in Dearborn and other places, will take
Speaker 2: note that I'm trying to get aid to them. And
Speaker 2: on the other hand, I want to support Israel because
Speaker 2: amas is the Hoothies are supporting AMAS by sending missiles
Speaker 2: into and rockets and stuff into into Israel. So we're
Speaker 2: gonna We're gonna do bare minimum stuff in in the
Speaker 2: Red Sea. We're going to pretend that we're going to
Speaker 2: get stuff over the shore and in in Gaza, and
Speaker 2: the world will be a better place and I won't
Speaker 2: lose any votes. I mean, I hate to be that cynical,
Speaker 2: but I'm that cynical. And you know, at least we
Speaker 2: have a couple both senior officers Sentcom and I think
Speaker 2: some others who have said, uh, why are we not
Speaker 2: stopping the stuff coming from Iran? What? What kind of
Speaker 2: what are we trying to do here? I think that
Speaker 2: question has been raised at at the four star level anyway,
Speaker 2: And so that makes me feel better as a as
Speaker 2: a as a civilian whose tax money is paying for
Speaker 2: some of this stuff that that you know, at least
Speaker 2: the least voices have expressed concern over what the in
Speaker 2: state desired instate is and and why we're not doing
Speaker 2: to take the steps depending what that instate is, We're
Speaker 2: not taking steps to make sure we get one that
Speaker 2: we can live with. So I mean, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: with that right now. It's just I'm incredibly cynical about
Speaker 2: the approach we take to some of these things.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's well earned cynicism in it.
Speaker 1: We're not going to get the answers out of the
Speaker 1: executive branch. I think that's abundantly clear. The we have
Speaker 1: the same senior leadership that and I'm speaking on the
Speaker 1: civilian side that brought about the debacle in Kabul, and
Speaker 1: nobody is held accountable. They feel rightfully fairly titanium and teflon.
Speaker 1: Nobody can touch them. They can do or not do
Speaker 1: whatever they want to. The only check on that in
Speaker 1: our republic is Congress and congressional oversight. However, this is
Speaker 1: an election year, and it's midsummer of an election year
Speaker 1: where we're just a few short months of the November elections,
Speaker 1: so everybody's distracted. Everybody has to run for office, and
Speaker 1: there is so much going on that congressional oversight I
Speaker 1: think is kind of tapped out, But it would seem
Speaker 1: what we've done in the Red Sea, and I think
Speaker 1: especially the quote godz appear unquote are ripe for congressional oversight,
Speaker 1: especially with the attempted assassination of former President Trump in
Speaker 1: the investigations they're going to be going there. There's just
Speaker 1: probably enough, not enough bandwidth up it in Congress to
Speaker 1: really look at this. And then you look at Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what about the military press and reporters that are focused
Speaker 1: on the military press. And again these are owned by
Speaker 1: large companies that they have p and ls to meet metrics.
Speaker 1: But the civilian press that was pretty well focused on
Speaker 1: things military, you know, the Military Times, Navy Times, Marine
Speaker 1: Corps Times, that all those people in those networks, they
Speaker 1: just had a whole bunch of layoffs some of their
Speaker 1: experienced reporters and there are other ones that are beginning
Speaker 1: in marching orders someplace else. I guess I don't think
Speaker 1: we have the national security people that we used to
Speaker 1: have at the major institutions. And one of the best
Speaker 1: investigative reporters out there who does know security, well, well, oh,
Speaker 1: what's her name? She was just laid off from CBS.
Speaker 1: Catherine Heritage she's now unemployed, focused on other things. You know,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Griffin at Fox, she's she's really good, but she's
Speaker 1: kind of tapped out. I don't know who's going to
Speaker 1: dig into and hold people to account for what is
Speaker 1: again to data points, same part of the world responding
Speaker 1: to the same events as seventh of October, poor, poorly executed,
Speaker 1: and the results kind of speak for themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it also raises all these issues of you know,
Speaker 2: the lack of carriers and I mean you can feel it,
Speaker 2: and and those people who are serving on carricters and
Speaker 2: I know, I know at least one of them, uh
Speaker 2: you know, they know, they're they're they're what's the word.
Speaker 2: It's like when you you know, it's road hard and
Speaker 2: hung up wet. You know, you don't do that to horses,
Speaker 2: and we sure are doing that to our carriers. And
Speaker 2: it's a nightmare. Now. I say all this, but there
Speaker 2: are a couple of good things, and they're probably political too.
Speaker 2: But let's just give the Navy credit for finally recognizing
Speaker 2: that the that the Chicago fifty, the sailors who were
Speaker 2: working at the Naval Weapons Station and near conquered California
Speaker 2: Port Chicago blew up. I mean the explosion was the
Speaker 2: left three hundred and twenty people dead to one hundred
Speaker 2: and two of whom were African American. You know, there
Speaker 2: were another four hundred people injured, and fifty of them
Speaker 2: had the gumption to say, this was not caused by us,
Speaker 2: not by the sailors, but by the unsafe working conditions.
Speaker 2: You know, we would like to have that fixed. And
Speaker 2: then they got charged with mutinies. So these fifty went down.
Speaker 2: Has had been found guilty. I think maybe one of
Speaker 2: them didn't. I think maybe it's forty forty nine were
Speaker 2: actually found guilty of it. But the Navy finally said, no,
Speaker 2: we were wrong. We're going to exonerate those men, and
Speaker 2: we'll try and make amends to the families because I
Speaker 2: think all of them, all of them are gone by now,
Speaker 2: but all those involved are gone by now. But it's
Speaker 2: sometimes it's not a little too late to do the
Speaker 2: right thing. And I think this is an instance where
Speaker 2: even if it was cynical to get another set of
Speaker 2: voters it was, it is still the right thing, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad that they did it. And having served in
Speaker 2: the Port Chicago area at the Naval weapons station conquered.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that that is a not a
Speaker 2: great place to work. And if they were trying to
Speaker 2: really load ships in a hurry, you can see how
Speaker 2: an accident like this can happen, particularly with the kind
Speaker 2: of munitions they had in World War Two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, munitionships, there's no room for error, you know, and
Speaker 1: some of them blow up and you just don't know
Speaker 1: why because there's nothing left, like the big Halifax explosion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the action they took for the I think it was
Speaker 1: last week with the Chicago fifty. Yeah, I do not
Speaker 1: think any of those gentlemen are still alive, which is
Speaker 1: a shame because a few years later that they went
Speaker 1: back and they got rid of the dishonorable discharges and
Speaker 1: they commuted some of their sentences from fifteen years to
Speaker 1: what do I have here on this article from seventeen
Speaker 1: to twenty nine months, which you know that closed to you.
Speaker 1: That's quite the admission, But that wasn't willing to take
Speaker 1: the full step while people we were still alive, and
Speaker 1: that's a shame. But you're right, you better. It's a
Speaker 1: good reference point for people when incidents take place that
Speaker 1: whether it's military or civilian. The judicial system's not perfect.
Speaker 1: The law is not perfect. Tons Sometimes decisions were made
Speaker 1: and judgments were meted out with incomplete information, or we're
Speaker 1: done at the heat of the moment or the people
Speaker 1: who were there at the moment, and when the perspective
Speaker 1: that time gives you and evolution of thought that if
Speaker 1: you're going to move, you should go ahead and do
Speaker 1: the full move, as opposed to letting it take decades
Speaker 1: and decades and decades to get there. You could you
Speaker 1: could be pedantic and say what you want to about
Speaker 1: what the fifty did, but watching hundreds of people blow
Speaker 1: up and then being expected to go again when you're
Speaker 1: not on the front lines. You're in Chicago, right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the US. But it's difficult to judge
Speaker 1: people because you weren't at their place and time. But
Speaker 1: in this situation, you're right. It was the right thing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we've got a couple of other good things
Speaker 2: we should point out before we started going back on
Speaker 2: the lit new of bad things. One of them is
Speaker 2: I've seen a recent trend among our senior naval officers
Speaker 2: to be wearing navy uniforms. Yes, so they don't look
Speaker 2: like tree suits anymore. You know, yay, congratulations, somebody's paying
Speaker 2: attention to how the Navy should look, especially in formal occasions.
Speaker 2: And the other one is we got a well, I
Speaker 2: got a couple more. One is that that we have
Speaker 2: a new in maritime Industrial base program. Head it's a
Speaker 2: new program, but at least somebody's paying attention to in
Speaker 2: the Navy. That hey, one of the problems we don't
Speaker 2: have no shipyards and stuff like that. So that's those
Speaker 2: are good things. And the other last one I had
Speaker 2: for good things is the we've got an F eighteen
Speaker 2: that's been seen toting around at SM six, which would
Speaker 2: which is I mean, that really is good because they
Speaker 2: can take it out to the limit of the F
Speaker 2: eighteen range. The F thirty five's can pick it up
Speaker 2: and direct them where they need to go, and that
Speaker 2: really adds to the legs of our sea going air
Speaker 2: aircraft and those units.
Speaker 1: So those are it is. It's a great thing, and
Speaker 1: it takes to one of the blocks that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about here on mid Rats for over a decade,
Speaker 1: especially with some of our guests like Jerry Hendrix. I
Speaker 1: know this is one of his bugebears that we share
Speaker 1: with them, especially when you're talking about the Pacific range
Speaker 1: range range, range, range, time distance, it's a bear out there,
Speaker 1: and no pun intended for you to ninety five fans.
Speaker 1: But when we got rid of the Tomcat and the phoenix,
Speaker 1: you know, the am rams no slouch. When you absolutely
Speaker 1: positively got to get there real fast at far distance.
Speaker 1: The phoenix was a nice little creature to have, and
Speaker 1: it's all behind the skiff where it belongs. But being
Speaker 1: able to strap an SM six on the wing. Also
Speaker 1: knowing the multi mission capability of the SM six, it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to know how many different modes they
Speaker 1: can use that at. That's a nice asset that makes
Speaker 1: your potential enemies worry a little bit more and gives
Speaker 1: a strike group commander a lot more flexibility on how
Speaker 1: and when he wants to approach things. And it's also
Speaker 1: kind of in the in the finer traditions in the
Speaker 1: Naval service that in Vietnam back when you were a
Speaker 1: kitty kitty, we got into the anti radiation missile business
Speaker 1: by taking SM one standard missile, slapping that puppy underneath
Speaker 1: the or an A seven or an F four whatever
Speaker 1: we were using on it, and saying, go out there,
Speaker 1: and do great things and it did so. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that was the great bass. One thing that I was
Speaker 1: thinking of when you're talking about the uniforms, and you
Speaker 1: have detected that still much more work to do, but
Speaker 1: that is a positive trend some people are doing. Also,
Speaker 1: credit where credit is due. Also, I want to tap
Speaker 1: my hat to Dave Lader and Chris Kavis because they,
Speaker 1: along with us, were some of the folks that were
Speaker 1: beating the drum really hard. Is there has been I
Speaker 1: started noticing about a year ago, so let's pack that
Speaker 1: up six months. So let's say eighteen months ago that
Speaker 1: in general, the physical condition and corrosion efforts on board
Speaker 1: of our ships is getting better. They do not seem
Speaker 1: to have as many as bad ships out there. I
Speaker 1: don't know if we've got new equipment, new procedures, a
Speaker 1: few more sailors on board to be able to do it,
Speaker 1: some more money, but whatever change has come up in
Speaker 1: the last eighteen months. And I've asked a couple of
Speaker 1: people and people are like, I don't know, but that's
Speaker 1: a good news story. If we have got a way
Speaker 1: to do better maintenance on our ships, even when they've
Speaker 1: been on a long deployment. We should tell that story,
Speaker 1: because that was a black eye for over half a decade,
Speaker 1: how bad our ship forgets. But the last eighteen months
Speaker 1: it's been a noticeable change, you know, getting back to
Speaker 1: where they should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's uh, that's that's I think I've
Speaker 2: noticed the pictures too that things look a lot, a
Speaker 2: lot better. And you know, he has a surface warfare guy.
Speaker 2: If your ship looks good, your crew feels better, you know,
Speaker 2: because that means that they're taking care of it, and
Speaker 2: there's there is pride in the place you work, especially
Speaker 2: if you're a sailor and you're assigned to a tin
Speaker 2: can or a cruiser or whatever. You know that that
Speaker 2: does make a difference, even with today's modern mutes. But no,
Speaker 2: it's it's that's a good thing. The other good thing
Speaker 2: is is Chowd to Hall, Chowd to Hill. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: CEO of the of theft lost the care and right,
Speaker 2: so he has done more to let people know about
Speaker 2: what our sailors are doing and how much the command
Speaker 2: and his command appreciates what they're up to. And you know,
Speaker 2: so he's had uh, you know, the the nukes from
Speaker 2: his his engineering department up there. He's had. I can't
Speaker 2: remember radium and radio people, people who climb the mast
Speaker 2: to fix antennas. I think he's I hope he's had
Speaker 2: some haltechs up there, but I'm not sure. On a carrier,
Speaker 2: your hall techs are pretty they're the people for who
Speaker 2: don't know. They're kind of like the plumbers of a ship,
Speaker 2: and they're the ones to keep all the stuff flowing,
Speaker 2: so to put it gently. And there are important people,
Speaker 2: so you know, that's great, and I think more CEOs.
Speaker 2: I know this the CEO. There's another ce out there
Speaker 2: who's doing a similar thing. He's he's on a DDG.
Speaker 2: But that's great. That's that's what we need more of
Speaker 2: and use social media for for good purposes like that. Also,
Speaker 2: it allowed him to respond when the who he say
Speaker 2: that paid added something on you know somehow, and were
Speaker 2: able to get a missile to hit the the deck
Speaker 2: of the of the I. His responses were, I don't
Speaker 2: think so, I mean, and it was immediate. You know,
Speaker 2: there was no there was no buddy in the Pentagon
Speaker 2: went well, we we can either confirm or deny that's
Speaker 2: such a thing has happened. I mean, you don't need that,
Speaker 2: you need somebody out there on the ship scent didn't happen,
Speaker 2: won't happen and blow it out your your ear. So
Speaker 2: you know, I like that. I'm very happy with that.
Speaker 1: I think would also demonstrates is something that most people
Speaker 1: I know know intuitively, but we we don't really take
Speaker 1: advantage of it as much as is what he did
Speaker 1: and something I wish the CHINFO would would take on
Speaker 1: board here. It was very basic, It was very simple,
Speaker 1: and it was sailor forward. You put your sailors in
Speaker 1: front of a camera and just tell their story of
Speaker 1: what they do. We talk about recruitment, we talk about retention,
Speaker 1: we talk about sea blindness. That I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of great conversations, Like he had one of his nuke
Speaker 1: machinists mate up top side and people were kind of
Speaker 1: making friendly. You could tell who had served or not.
Speaker 1: We're kind of making jokes about her. It's like, that's
Speaker 1: enough daylight for you. You need to go back down
Speaker 1: to the reactor spaces. Good stuff like that. We like
Speaker 1: jackass at each other eighty year old people. Kid jackass
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old, but that eighty year old
Speaker 1: person was a nuke machinist. May too it's okay, it's good.
Speaker 1: But I think what it did is it demonstrated without
Speaker 1: all this flash and glitter, the fact that here's an
Speaker 1: organization that will take a young lady twenty three twenty
Speaker 1: five and she's down there running none running a nuclear
Speaker 1: power plant with her watch team. She's got lots of responsibility.
Speaker 1: She's doing something extremely important. There was also a pullets
Speaker 1: or quality photo of the ike. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: child to put it up. There are one of the
Speaker 1: folks of aviation bosom mates standing there backlit with looking
Speaker 1: like looking like some Greek god of the underworld with
Speaker 1: the big chains over his shoulders, getting ready to chalk
Speaker 1: and secure aircraft. That should be on a poster on
Speaker 1: Times Square or something like that, because that will appeal
Speaker 1: to a certain people who want to do certain things,
Speaker 1: and the Navy is the place to do it. Uh.
Speaker 1: There there was a lot to be learned about the
Speaker 1: attractiveness and again all biases aside. There was lots of
Speaker 1: non Navy people who gave this feedback. If you're looking
Speaker 1: at it, sailors doing sailor things unfiltered out there, it's
Speaker 1: a positive. It's a sales point. Gets what we're doing
Speaker 1: out there. This isn't just a ship. This is ANWKE machinist.
Speaker 1: Mate is aviation Bosn's mate. This is an F eighteen pilot.
Speaker 1: This is the merchant marine mariners next door sending stuff
Speaker 1: over for beans and bullets. You don't have to do
Speaker 1: much of it, just give people the ability to tell
Speaker 1: a story. And I'm sure that he would say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is really risky. But it was like ten years
Speaker 1: ago or so they had a documentary film crew going
Speaker 1: board one of our carrier deployments and ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of it was outstanding, five percent of it was yeah.
Speaker 1: But that also that yeah is what gave it the
Speaker 1: human element overall positive experience. But those are the exceptions,
Speaker 1: not the rule. So I'm hoping that the right people
Speaker 1: are seeing that example and we can do something more
Speaker 1: besides just the carriers, and I think they're on two
Speaker 1: occasions they had sixty minutes out on the carrier as well.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was the ike in one other carrier that
Speaker 1: was again they were mostly flag officers and O sixes
Speaker 1: that were in front of the camera, but we did
Speaker 1: have some everyday sailors there as well. I don't think
Speaker 1: the sixty minutes. Crew was intentionally out there just picking
Speaker 1: the best people, but they all just did really outstanding work,
Speaker 1: especially when you look at a nine month deployment. Six
Speaker 1: months deployments are tough enough, but halfway through a deployment
Speaker 1: where you all of a sudden you say that we're
Speaker 1: extending ninety days, it's tough, not just on sailors and ships,
Speaker 1: but also in families. I don't know what the turnaround
Speaker 1: cycle is of the carriers, but you also see it
Speaker 1: saw people who were using this as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: strangely argue how obsolete aircraft carriers were. I know, we
Speaker 1: could spend our money doing other things with it, which
Speaker 1: I can make that argument, but whenever something beyond the
Speaker 1: normal happens, carriers get extended, and sometimes multiple times. I think,
Speaker 1: I think what primograph says, we're eleven carrier and Navy
Speaker 1: and a fifteen carrier world. The math kind of works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I keep saying eighteen carrier world, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Ask for eighteen to get fifteen, well.
Speaker 2: Then ask for twenty one. I mean, I think somebody
Speaker 2: in the comments just noted that the that the CEO's
Speaker 2: get a lot of screen time on some of these visits,
Speaker 2: and really we have nothing to fear from the from
Speaker 2: the sailors talking to the TV. You know, they're they're
Speaker 2: out there. They're professionals. And if these eighteen ninety year
Speaker 2: old twenty year old kids are good enough to go
Speaker 2: drag chains around and do all the stuff they do
Speaker 2: in a flight deck or to work in the engine
Speaker 2: rooms and the the c c s and all that
Speaker 2: stuff on the destroyers and other ships, then they're good
Speaker 2: enough to be on TV that they don't want to
Speaker 2: look like fools either, you know. I mean, they want
Speaker 2: to go out and tell the truth. And I don't
Speaker 2: have any I can't see any downside having them say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I could have been a soda jerk back in Flat Rock, Kansas,
Speaker 2: but instead I'm out here doing something that's that's meaningful
Speaker 2: to the country and meaningful to the world. And it's
Speaker 2: hard work and probably don't get paid as much as
Speaker 2: we should. But you know, where else at my age
Speaker 2: am I going to have this kind of responsibility and
Speaker 2: this kind of interesting work to do, Even though it's
Speaker 2: endless when you're out there for six months on station
Speaker 2: or nine months on station, I mean, it's just but
Speaker 2: you know, I just this is not. I think the
Speaker 2: Army it did this when they embedded a lot of
Speaker 2: reporters during the First Gulf War and it worked for them,
Speaker 2: I think, And we know since we've gone to army
Speaker 2: centric a lot lately, we really need to get these
Speaker 2: kids that are doing a great job out there on
Speaker 2: so they get to see it at home. And you know,
Speaker 2: when des Moine TV wants somebody to talk to and
Speaker 2: we had to be thrusting a kid from that area
Speaker 2: in front of a camera and saying to ask him
Speaker 2: any question you want.
Speaker 1: It's worth the risk. And you know, if it goes sideways,
Speaker 1: it goes sideways. We do things a lot more dangerous
Speaker 1: every day of the week than putting a third class
Speaker 1: petty officer in front of the camera where he drops
Speaker 1: an f boem because he just got off watch. It's okay,
Speaker 1: it'll be just fine, because especially in an all volunteer military,
Speaker 1: most people are going to find that personalization very helpful
Speaker 1: as opposed to the other ring that can be especially
Speaker 1: in the Navy, I think because it's an aircraft and
Speaker 1: you really don't see the pilot, it's a ship, you
Speaker 1: really don't see the sailors. It's a submarine. Usually don't
Speaker 1: even see the submarine. So we have this huge entity
Speaker 1: doing nobody really knows what, and there aren't people involved
Speaker 1: in it. And even though for some reason I was
Speaker 1: talking to somebody the other day that in my service
Speaker 1: I always found myself working with people from Ohio and Vermont.
Speaker 1: I don't know why those aren't. Those aren't nautical places
Speaker 1: to be, but especially post Brac are naval bass where
Speaker 1: you have a significant Navy family presence, it's pretty minimal.
Speaker 1: So people may not run into if they don't have
Speaker 1: a family member, they may not run into somebody in
Speaker 1: the navy. But when you are one touch of your
Speaker 1: phone away seeing a twenty three year old petty officer
Speaker 1: on the USS ike that looks like the person you
Speaker 1: went to high school with, that that personalizes it real
Speaker 1: f I don't know what the other services have done
Speaker 1: that's been similar to that. It's kind of hard, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like we're not taking advantage of our comparative
Speaker 1: advantage because, let's face it, warships and aircraft are pretty
Speaker 1: darn cool, the ocean is pretty pretty neat, and our
Speaker 1: uniforms when we wear them, aren't distinctive. The Army and
Speaker 1: to a lesser extent the Marines. It doesn't afford itself
Speaker 1: to the theatrical landscapes that the Navy does. It's definitely
Speaker 1: a comparative advantage that I would hope that we would
Speaker 1: leverage the experience in the last nine months and do
Speaker 1: some more with that to help with the scene blindness issue.
Speaker 1: That it's not that everybody. We want everybody to see sailors,
Speaker 1: but when you're trying to emphasize the importance of why
Speaker 1: our republic needs the Navy, it has If that's the
Speaker 1: first time people have thought about it when you mentioned it,
Speaker 1: then we've kind of failed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think a lot of people the only
Speaker 2: exposure they have to what happens on the deck of
Speaker 2: a ship of the opening scenes of Top Gun, first
Speaker 2: Top Gun, and the latest one, so you know where
Speaker 2: there are the crews out there. I mean, flight deck
Speaker 2: stuff is fascinating to watch. It's really interesting. But it's
Speaker 2: no less interesting to me, of course, the world of
Speaker 2: SWOW than watching my bosom mates do stuff, or watching
Speaker 2: the gunners mates do stuff on board ship. I mean
Speaker 2: it's and going into c IC and watching these young people,
Speaker 2: you know, monitoring all the centers. We have. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it doesn't lend itself to great drama
Speaker 2: unless you're showing hunt for Red October kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But it's important work. And I don't care if you're
Speaker 2: a if you're a cook or a storekeeper. You know,
Speaker 2: there's nobody on a ship who's not important. And you know,
Speaker 2: if one person fails to do their job, the consequences
Speaker 2: can be catastrophic, as we all know from various episodes
Speaker 2: that have happened. And so you know, I think the
Speaker 2: emphasis on responsibility for an eighteen nine year old kid
Speaker 2: is something that we really should should talk about. Speaking
Speaker 2: of responsibility, did you see that the Coastguard has had
Speaker 2: a zillion years to get their act together for Icebreakers
Speaker 2: has now announced that they are still a few years
Speaker 2: away from doing anything because they don't have their design
Speaker 2: complete yet. I mean, what on earth?
Speaker 1: I I really, honestly, I don't know what is wrong
Speaker 1: with everybody when it comes to building and designing shits,
Speaker 1: especially something that we knew we needed Icebreakers designed twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. There's something very very broken with our acquisition
Speaker 1: system that in a time where communication is instantaneous, tation,
Speaker 1: computer power is many orders of magnitude. Orders of magnitudes
Speaker 1: are ordered as a magnitude greater than it was one
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, and yet we cannot seem to say
Speaker 1: get from the point we need an icebreaker. We've built
Speaker 1: these before, how do we make a better one? Okay,
Speaker 1: then let's do it. It's a combination of bureaucratic interference, analysis paralysis.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, it goes to
Speaker 1: the coast Guard leadership that they are letting these organizations,
Speaker 1: just like the Navy does, that are supposed to be supporting,
Speaker 1: the larger organization become the supported organization. And we've seen
Speaker 1: something very similar happening to the Constellation frigate. I can
Speaker 1: get the timing worked out right, we might actually had
Speaker 1: a guest on to talk about in detail here in
Speaker 1: the next few weeks. There is no reason why this
Speaker 1: is taking place unless it is the fact that our
Speaker 1: system has been allowed to exist for so long that,
Speaker 1: like the old joke, the process is the punishment, the
Speaker 1: process is the program. Be damned what the actual requirements are. Again,
Speaker 1: the only thing that's going to fix us is congressional oversight.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this has to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that the Coastguard is now part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security. I believe all right there.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's I think that. I think the issues,
Speaker 2: you know, the same ones with the Constellation. You've got
Speaker 2: you've got people who have never built this kind of ship.
Speaker 2: You know. So VT. Hall Alter was going to do it,
Speaker 2: and then they went bankrupt or something and bolund your
Speaker 2: shipyards got them, and you know, they they they say
Speaker 2: they found They told GAO that they found errors. The
Speaker 2: result they needed to redesign work. But the GEO, you know,
Speaker 2: their comment on this was what they say here. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: they said, until the design for the Icebreaker is mature,
Speaker 2: I mean at least the functional design is complete, including
Speaker 2: routing to major distributing systems that affect multiple zones of
Speaker 2: the ship, prior to authorizing lead cutter construction beyond the
Speaker 2: previous approved eight prototypes. That is, they want them to
Speaker 2: ensure they have a mature design. The Navy bought a
Speaker 2: maturer design for the Constellation. But you know, every bell
Speaker 2: and whistle that you add on ahead of time, it's
Speaker 2: just oh, you know, if you put that left reciprocated
Speaker 2: pump here, then that means we have to remove you know,
Speaker 2: the this thing over here, and that means this thing
Speaker 2: down here. You know, just build one the way it
Speaker 2: was designed by Finnican terry or wherever did it, and
Speaker 2: and then as you use it you could say, you know,
Speaker 2: it would be nice if we had I mean, that's
Speaker 2: the way that when you look at the destroyers for
Speaker 2: Ward two, you know, they build the A class. They
Speaker 2: found problems, they build the fletchers. Okay, the fletchers were
Speaker 2: pretty good, heavily gone, but they weren't quite long in us,
Speaker 2: so they build the gearing class. You know, how long
Speaker 2: did the gearings last? Thirty years after? You know, all total,
Speaker 2: they were good design, well designed ships, but was because
Speaker 2: of the iterative process. And you've talked about this before,
Speaker 2: the inereve process of build one, you know, or two
Speaker 2: or three, beat it to death and find out where
Speaker 2: things should be different, and then you know, improve as
Speaker 2: you go along, rather than you know, we're going to
Speaker 2: build eight of these exactly the same, but we got
Speaker 2: to get the design right first and then take then
Speaker 2: you take it out like the lcs's and find out
Speaker 2: that you've got these designs that just don't work for
Speaker 2: what whatever the intended purpose was.
Speaker 1: And part of the problem is the fact that the
Speaker 1: accountants are are winning the argument and the core function
Speaker 1: of the military, which is to be effective, is suffering.
Speaker 1: It's the same reason why the last air dominance fighter
Speaker 1: produced by the US came off the production line in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven as thirteen years ago, which I wish they
Speaker 1: could just call it f Whatever they're going to call
Speaker 1: it may not make shadow on a ramp for another
Speaker 1: ten years, so twenty three years. In the distance of
Speaker 1: time between World War One and World War Two, we
Speaker 1: keep delaying in having one single platform, whether it's a
Speaker 1: ship or an aircraft, that has to be perfect and
Speaker 1: that does not work. Instead of doing the iterative process
Speaker 1: where you have multiple platforms under production staggered. That minimizes
Speaker 1: your technology risk, your production risk. It also is better
Speaker 1: for your industry. Now, is that the most efficient on paper?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 1: No, But does it produce a more effective military? I
Speaker 1: think the answer is clearly yes. In that regard whole
Speaker 1: deal with the Constellation frigate. That is infuriating me, just
Speaker 1: like you outlined, is we should have done a flight
Speaker 1: one saying yes, flight one of the Constellation frigate. It's
Speaker 1: eighty five percent commonality with the European designs. It brings
Speaker 1: with it some of the limitations of the European designs.
Speaker 1: For instance, it's not as resilient to taking hits are
Speaker 1: especially to the engine room. However, we will be correcting
Speaker 1: that on flight two. And because we need the holes
Speaker 1: in the water, we need the ships forward. That would
Speaker 1: also give them some an opportunity to upgrade from that
Speaker 1: fifty seven milimeter. Again, what we've seen in the Red
Speaker 1: Sea is the five inch and at least the seventy
Speaker 1: six millimeter. That multi use gun is pretty pretty darn
Speaker 1: good at some of these lower speed attack drones that
Speaker 1: we're going to see more and more of because smart
Speaker 1: militaries are going to have a mixed force where they
Speaker 1: have your really neat anti ship ballistic missile, but they're
Speaker 1: also going to have cruise missiles, and then they're going
Speaker 1: to flood your zone with these low cost, low tech,
Speaker 1: but very multiple attack drones that uh can cause you
Speaker 1: to go Winchester pretty fast at being thrown out at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in the US Navy's time about doing that
Speaker 2: very thing. I mean we're saying, okay, well, we're going
Speaker 2: to throw all these unmanned things out there and and
Speaker 2: make the problem harder for the bad guy. Okay, that's great,
Speaker 2: but let's do it and let's you know, it reminds
Speaker 2: me of the Burks. The Birks start out with flight one,
Speaker 2: a Flight two, Flight three. It's steady improvement of the
Speaker 2: class of ships. They are wonderful ships, you know, they
Speaker 2: there are some issues. You know, if you're a helicopter pilot,
Speaker 2: you don't always like how the flight deck sits so
Speaker 2: low in the water. But you know there are other
Speaker 2: other there are other things. I mean that that iteration
Speaker 2: that the problem is as and you already we've just
Speaker 2: discussed this too. When you decide that a single airplane
Speaker 2: is going to do everything on your character and everything
Speaker 2: except the the uh stuff that the C two's and
Speaker 2: the Hawkeyes do, you know, you end up with the
Speaker 2: F eighteen. Not a bad aircraft. That's your only aircraft.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to live with all limitations that that
Speaker 2: has because you didn't. You decided that was the easiest
Speaker 2: way to do it. You know, it's the model T.
Speaker 2: We're gonna we're gonna build one thing. We're gonna make it,
Speaker 2: you know, to make them this way. Well, we'll adapt
Speaker 2: them as they go along, which is good, that's a
Speaker 2: good thing. But you're you're you've limited yourself to what
Speaker 2: the maximum that that aircraft can do, rather than have
Speaker 2: is back in the old days when I was as
Speaker 2: you say, when I was young, we had the A
Speaker 2: six's and we had the S three's, We had a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of other aircraft out there could do. You
Speaker 2: could do a lot of different things that the F
Speaker 2: eighteen can't do. And it just you know that why
Speaker 2: we went through this single aircraft approach to carrier aviation
Speaker 2: is beyond me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the arrogance of the post Cold War era,
Speaker 1: combined with the fact, you know, we both saw it
Speaker 1: happen in the mid nineteen ninety Everything was best business practices.
Speaker 1: Everybody go get your NBA. I saluted smartly and got
Speaker 1: my NBA. But that doesn't translate to having an effective
Speaker 1: military or an effective airwing. And especially, and this has
Speaker 1: always been true, people think that they can exquisitely design
Speaker 1: the future. You really can't. You don't know, We've talked
Speaker 1: about a lot here. We're all looking at the Davidson window,
Speaker 1: you know, big combat Western Pacific. Well, we're not really
Speaker 1: good at predicting the next war. Maybe that'll be it,
Speaker 1: maybe it won't. I mean, there's a non zero chance
Speaker 1: that in twenty thirty two we're fighting alongside the Russians
Speaker 1: in Siberia against the Chinese. Who knows. You don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to take place. But a complicated world requires
Speaker 1: a diverse set of tools, which means you need a
Speaker 1: diverse airwing. And you know, you look coming out of Vietnam,
Speaker 1: some of the carrier decks had a much more robust park,
Speaker 1: I think, but you had and the F four teams
Speaker 1: are just a couple of years behind it, But you
Speaker 1: had your F fours, A six's, a sevens EA six's,
Speaker 1: A couple of them had an A three slapped on
Speaker 1: the deck. You've got the A fours. Lots of different tools. Yes,
Speaker 1: your supply issues and your your maintenance nightmares were just
Speaker 1: that because you had all these different platforms, all these
Speaker 1: different aircraft, which we also had stability to do a
Speaker 1: lot of different missions because you had a very diverse toolbox,
Speaker 1: flight deck full of light strike fighters with an occasional
Speaker 1: helo here and there and a.
Speaker 2: Hawkey.
Speaker 1: That's great and wonderful, Yes, that simplifies your maintenance, that
Speaker 1: simplifies your supplies, but that also complicates your ability to
Speaker 1: be able to go to war because you don't have
Speaker 1: inherent tanking, and your enemy, while you were focused elsewhere,
Speaker 1: has developed this very complicated porcupine looking east towards the
Speaker 1: International Dateline. That when you have short legs and you
Speaker 1: rely on the air force tanker aircraft's bases or underneath
Speaker 1: your enemy's artillery, it makes for an interesting decades after
Speaker 1: you've made those decisions. That's really what we're dealing with now.
Speaker 1: We're dealing with the decisions that were made decades ago,
Speaker 1: which is why the decisions we make now are so important.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't assume that this is one reason. While I
Speaker 1: appreciate and agree with some of his arguments, a former
Speaker 1: mid Rats guest Bridge Colby, he's really been beating the
Speaker 1: drum hard about China, China, China, China, China, versus what
Speaker 1: we're doing to help Ukraine and to a lesser extent,
Speaker 1: Israel and the Europeans. Yes, yes, yes, that's true. However,
Speaker 1: we need to be very careful in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: assuming we know exactly what the child in twenty thirty two,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty seven or twenty forty is going to be
Speaker 1: twenty forty seems like a long way, but it's really not.
Speaker 1: It's only sixteen years from now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, if I'm a bad guy, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you always want to red team your ideas, right,
Speaker 2: I'm a bad guy, I'm going okay, Well, I want
Speaker 2: something that will keep I know, in the maximum range
Speaker 2: of his aircraft, and I know the problems you're going
Speaker 2: to have getting refueled. So when I draw the arc
Speaker 2: of of denial, if you want to call it that,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna draw this circle. This
Speaker 2: is This is all the area I have to protect
Speaker 2: because I mean, I don't have I can deal with
Speaker 2: the stuff in here because he can't get here unless
Speaker 2: he can get here, and he can't get here because
Speaker 2: his aircraft don't have the range. I mean, somebody must
Speaker 2: have been thinking about this, and I know Jerry and
Speaker 2: Bran and a bunch of other people have been saying
Speaker 2: this too. You know, it is it is, It is foolish.
Speaker 2: I mean, actually F thirty five has some additional range,
Speaker 2: but it's a single engine aircraft that always from mind
Speaker 2: navy perspective that that's troubling, but you know, more range
Speaker 2: is good more but you know, we gave up a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff, and we got rid of the A
Speaker 2: six and some of the other attack aircraft that we're
Speaker 2: capable of going a lot further than the.
Speaker 1: F eighteen, And we really don't have any options on
Speaker 1: the board right now. We've got thirty five under production,
Speaker 1: we got they're trying to shut down the F eighteen line.
Speaker 1: I hope somebody stops out from taking place, because if
Speaker 1: we're serious about the potential threats down the road, absolutely
Speaker 1: no production line of a weapons system needs to go
Speaker 1: cold and cold until its replacement is at least through IOC.
Speaker 1: And we haven't seen FA xx whatever they're calling it
Speaker 1: this week yet anywhere. F eighteen line and the F
Speaker 1: thirty five line should not go cold until the new
Speaker 1: jet is under production full stop. And I would make
Speaker 1: the argument we need to be looking for a different
Speaker 1: design as well. But it's okay, and part of it
Speaker 1: is and it's a common thing like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to invest all this money when all these people
Speaker 1: are telling me that by you know, twenty thirty five,
Speaker 1: twenty forty, everything is going to be unmanned and drones.
Speaker 1: It's no again, twenty forty. It's only sixteen years from now.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: does not seem too long ago. That was sixteen years ago.
Speaker 1: You and I listene. I started blogging in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four. You started in two thousand and four, didn't
Speaker 1: you as well?
Speaker 2: I think I threw something up in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two thousand and three, So you had already been
Speaker 1: blogging for half a decade by the time two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight.
Speaker 2: Comes along, and I really feel ancient.
Speaker 1: But look at the delta between two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty four. Yeah, we have some new things,
Speaker 1: We have some new technologies, some interesting things on the
Speaker 1: drawing board. However, the toolkits eighty five percent the same.
Speaker 1: We should make the same assumption that in twenty forty
Speaker 1: our toolkit is going to be about eighty five percent
Speaker 1: the same. And if you're saying we're not going to
Speaker 1: do the next iteration of improvement because the magic beings
Speaker 1: from Tomorrowland are going to make all of our problems easier,
Speaker 1: you are setting yourselves up for failure, which is why,
Speaker 1: in part the only warship we have under construction of
Speaker 1: any meaning is a late Cold War DDG that we
Speaker 1: will be building until the crack of doom because I
Speaker 1: don't know when we start getting the the DDGX displacing water.
Speaker 1: The initial stuff i've seen it looks like a nice
Speaker 1: iterative improvement over the early Birk design. It's just a
Speaker 1: shame that and maybe smart people are have this hidden
Speaker 1: in a drawer somewhere, But I know CGX was a
Speaker 1: failure that never left the PowerPoint. But we need we
Speaker 1: need more than just one new service ship design because
Speaker 1: what we're doing right now I think we talked about
Speaker 1: on one of our more recent mid rats is we
Speaker 1: have accepted the fact that our Arley Burks we're just
Speaker 1: going to make them cruisers because we don't have any
Speaker 1: cruises anymore. It's our Taikos are just are falling apart
Speaker 1: and are going away. Well, my understanding is all of
Speaker 1: the Arley Burke flight Flight three are all going to
Speaker 1: be captain commands. Upgraded prior flights of DDGs are also
Speaker 1: going to be captain commands. So I don't know where
Speaker 1: our commanders are going to get the command experience. Maybe
Speaker 1: on the lcs that never deploy, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Hopefully on the constellation class for it ever build a
Speaker 2: damn things. I mean, yeah, that the road to command
Speaker 2: used to be a lot different than it is for
Speaker 2: people at sea, and it's that we need, you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't have enough ships, it's hard to train
Speaker 2: enough people to be to find out because the command
Speaker 2: does things to people you know in command see especially,
Speaker 2: so a lot of the problems we see with commanders
Speaker 2: being uh found we've lost confidence in Joe X. I
Speaker 2: think could have been identified a lot much sooner had
Speaker 2: they had a previous at sea command. But that's just me,
Speaker 2: you know. The other thing that I wanted to throw
Speaker 2: out there is there's an article in the current issue
Speaker 2: of Julyishaw Proceedings by Lieutenant Commander Michael Ackman. Now that
Speaker 2: I've mentioned his name on our broadcast, will probably be
Speaker 2: sent to to Adak or someplace, and it's it's our
Speaker 2: in for amphibious aircraft and we were talking about extending
Speaker 2: the range of of our of our strike forces. He
Speaker 2: points out on the end of this article says, you
Speaker 2: know what would be the problem with having your setting up.
Speaker 2: Your amphibious aircraft has a has a tanker to extend.
Speaker 2: They will fly along with a lot slower than but
Speaker 2: fly along with the strike force, and you've got a
Speaker 2: much larger aircraft capable of carrying a lot more fuel
Speaker 2: for these guys and send them along.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see how you negotiate that. For instance,
Speaker 1: the P eight can receive fuel via the air Force,
Speaker 1: not via the Navy drogue, but it can't give gas
Speaker 1: by design. I think that would have overly complicated. And
Speaker 1: if the if the P eight could give gas to
Speaker 1: the air wing, that's all they would do. I think.
Speaker 1: But using the seaplanes is tanker might be a lesser
Speaker 1: included mission. But first of all, we've got to get them.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of funny the amount of the difference
Speaker 1: between those that would like to bring seaplanes back, like
Speaker 1: the Chinese and the Japanese have under production right now,
Speaker 1: and the amount of reaction you get for people who
Speaker 1: absolutely do not want them at all. It's a very
Speaker 1: interesting hostility towards the seaplane that I don't quite understand,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, they all contend the same
Speaker 2: sort of thing that they're too much work, it's hard
Speaker 2: to maintain, kind of have special ships to deal with them.
Speaker 2: D and you know, there are a lot of things
Speaker 2: that they say, but you know that, and this is
Speaker 2: one of those cases where there's already a proven design
Speaker 2: that we ought to be playing with. We ought to
Speaker 2: own four or five of the things, just to drive
Speaker 2: them around and find out whether we really like them,
Speaker 2: and if we like them, then we can buy them.
Speaker 2: That seems to be too complicated a thought for us.
Speaker 2: US know, if we buy one, then we've got to
Speaker 2: buy the whole food chain.
Speaker 1: Would to be okay. I think the Japanese are doing
Speaker 1: part of the construction and building of the F thirty
Speaker 1: five Alphas that they're buying, but they're F thirty five bravos.
Speaker 1: They're just pretty much buying from the US. You know,
Speaker 1: if Japan's buying a bunch of our stuff, we should
Speaker 1: return the favor buy some of their stuff as well.
Speaker 1: But whether you're looking at special Forces, my take has
Speaker 1: always been, if we're really serious about the Pacific fight,
Speaker 1: everybody has seen the video from World War Two of
Speaker 1: former President George Bush forty one being pulled out of
Speaker 1: the drink by a submarine. If we wind up in
Speaker 1: war in Western Pacific, our submarines are not going to
Speaker 1: be doing that. We don't have enough of them. They
Speaker 1: have other missions to do. We don't have land based
Speaker 1: search and rescue that besides helicopters that have an EAT
Speaker 1: that for range, and with the very limited service ships
Speaker 1: we have, if you think that we're going to go
Speaker 1: station destroyers and picket lines to be able to pick
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that's submission we could do for the lcs
Speaker 1: that can't fight in the latorals any I gotta think
Speaker 1: about that some more. Because they do carry helicopters.
Speaker 2: I now have an answer.
Speaker 1: When people say, well, you can't do anything for words,
Speaker 1: I say, actually, yes you can't. They could be our
Speaker 1: search and rescue platform. Air Force and US Navy pilots
Speaker 1: that are going to be conducting operations in and around
Speaker 1: the body of water between Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Speaker 1: They're going to be having mechanical difficulties, they're going to
Speaker 1: be running out of gas, they're going to be shot down,
Speaker 1: and that is not fun water to be floating around in.
Speaker 1: If you know your shark history, we've got to have
Speaker 1: a better answer than Okay, hang out there. We'll have
Speaker 1: somebody to get you in five or six days. It
Speaker 1: needs to be five or six hours.
Speaker 2: Even the LC Yes, I'm thinking, okay, what's their range
Speaker 2: and they can they can go fast and they can
Speaker 2: get there, But how much fuel does that cost? And
Speaker 2: what kind of tender are you going to have for
Speaker 2: them waiting to refuel them and take the take the
Speaker 2: people they pick up. Now you can make this argument
Speaker 2: for any kind of thing. One last thing before before
Speaker 2: I get done pontificating. UH. Salmacarglen had a really good
Speaker 2: tweet today about I'm sorry X whatever we're gonna call
Speaker 2: those things, about the the AoE that was accompanying the
Speaker 2: UH the task group in the Red Sea and how
Speaker 2: many unreps it conducted and how much fuel it transferred
Speaker 2: and it has you know, those things have a huge
Speaker 2: fuel capacity. But I think his thing said it was
Speaker 2: over twenty times. The it would go back and refuel
Speaker 2: itself more than twenty times to get the fuel the
Speaker 2: the aircraft, not the not the carrier aircraft and the
Speaker 2: other ships accompanying the aircraft carrier in that area needed.
Speaker 2: And there was also an oiler USNS oiler out there
Speaker 2: who also you know more than eight times. It's smacked
Speaker 2: of capacity of fuel to keep the fleet going. Now,
Speaker 2: if based on my recollections of the old days off
Speaker 2: the coast of Vietnam, I mean we in one eleventh
Speaker 2: month deployment, we did three hundred and sixty four unreps.
Speaker 2: You know that's just munitions. I mean we did also
Speaker 2: you know ever now that we put a freezer box
Speaker 2: on and get people food. Occasionally some idiot would take
Speaker 2: fuel from us. But you know, just think about that.
Speaker 2: That was one ship for an extended period time. It
Speaker 2: really got busy in April seventy two when the Easter
Speaker 2: Offensive occurred, until we left the area in November of
Speaker 2: seventy two. But think about what that's going to do. Uh,
Speaker 2: if we get into a hot fight somewhere, how many
Speaker 2: of these ships aes AOS that aren't going to be
Speaker 2: decommissioned because I think these things are the Arctic or
Speaker 2: whoever was out there with them was there. They're long
Speaker 2: in the tooth. So uh, you know, logistics, logistics, logistics,
Speaker 2: you all, we got to start there and and and
Speaker 2: work from there. That's why we asked that are I
Speaker 2: mean you've talked about it. World War two, we had
Speaker 2: those long range subs, which was a huge advantage for
Speaker 2: us for the US and uh uh, you know we
Speaker 2: have to be thinking that way again because the Pacific
Speaker 2: is all a big ocean.
Speaker 1: I also think and kind of end on a scary note.
Speaker 1: I'm money. Maybe maybe you've inspired my topic for tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: There's also the thought, you know, what is your high
Speaker 1: value unit in operations such as that. We have a few,
Speaker 1: very few, very large, very capable resupply ships. If you
Speaker 1: can't get through to take out the carrier, what if
Speaker 1: the carrier can't refuel, re arm and its non nuclear
Speaker 1: escort ships are getting low on fuel and have to
Speaker 1: go back because there's nobody out there to go give
Speaker 1: them replenishment. You know, that's something else that we have
Speaker 1: not faced. Even wher World War Two, the Japanese never
Speaker 1: really succeeded in hitting that too hard besides the Neosho,
Speaker 1: but that was a side game. That's something nowadays when
Speaker 1: we have just so few assets like that, what if
Speaker 1: you really want to put your red hat on and
Speaker 1: be difficult play that game out for a few turns.
Speaker 1: And people talk about one of my least favorite words
Speaker 1: in the conversation, asymmetric there's more than one way to
Speaker 1: fight a carrier.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean if they can't, they can't wear
Speaker 2: their arm their aircraft, they might as well not be
Speaker 2: out there. They're not an offensive weapon in other of themselves.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess we have reached our hour, haven't we.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could go for several more hours, but I
Speaker 2: think many people want to get back to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: Yes, get back back to the Olympics. Whatever's playing right now.
Speaker 1: I'm just glad I'm not in Paris. But thank you.
Speaker 1: We had five folks in the chat room, got some
Speaker 1: regulars and some new folks. Glad to see you there.
Speaker 1: Appreciate everybody joining us for another edition of mid Rats
Speaker 1: and until next time, I hope you have a great
Speaker 1: Navy day.
Speaker 3: Cheers, Dryad, like my lonely one to marry me and
Speaker 3: to release a friend of becdily for you being to
Speaker 3: blame my love.
Speaker 4: Fairly love me, silly faulting your the tame.
Speaker 5: It's a long way to Dipperary, It's a long way.
Speaker 5: It's a long way to dipper y, to the Queen.
Speaker 4: Gor b becdi farewell, Lidwell, it's a long long way
Speaker 4: to dipperate.
Speaker 5: But my my