Archive for the ‘war’ Category

But nobody was fired…

Posted: August 26, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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If you’re not already familiar with it, the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is…a floating pile of garbage.

Not literally…or maybe, littorally? The Littoral Combat Ship was seen as a new, sleek, fast ship to replace the old minesweepers and patrol crafts. It could drive super fast and would be able to change out mission modules, meaning one day it could be oriented towards minesweeping, and the next day it could hunt down submarines. Even better, it would have a small crew, so the Navy would save on manpower.

If that all sounds too good to be true…it was. Many people pointed this out at the time, but were called naysayers for doing so. Yet here we are today watching the Navy retire a Littoral Combat Ship after only five years of service (compared to the 20+ years we get from Destroyers, Cruisers, and basically any other ship).

USS SIOUX CITY, decommissioned after only 5 years.

Crying about this fact gets us nowhere. What I want to do is point out the hypocrisy in the Navy in how it treats it’s flag officers. With the LCS as a raging dumpster fire, at least one of the manufacturers, Austal USA, had the good sense to make its CEO resign. Would the Navy do this? Let’s look at some of the LCS programs past leadership:

  • Rear Admiral John Neagley took over the program around 2016. He apparently wrote many of the requirements for LCS back in the day, so you’d think he could turn it around. Nope! He wasn’t fired either, instead, he retired and now works at ICI Services.
  • In 2012, Rear Admiral John Murdoch said “I am not concerned at all about any of the deficiencies…in terms of my ability to correct them before the ship leaves the Great Lakes,” concerning serious problems onboard USS FORT WORTH while it was in Lake Michigan. The FORT WORTH commissioned in 2012 and was retired in 2022 after only 10 years in service. John Murdoch retired without issue and now works at Lockheed Martin.
  • Rear Admiral Robert Nowakowski took over in 2020, and after two years…the Navy cancelled the anti-submarine mission package on LCS due to overspending. Rear Admiral Nowakowski is still in the Navy and hasn’t had anything negative happen to his career.

So the Navy has a massively failing program that wastes millions of taxpayer dollars on ships that cannot fight or even stay afloat after only a few years. Its leadership gets punished…nope. It’s leaders, because they wear stars on their shoulders, get to retire to fat pensions with no repercussions whatsoever.

None. Zip. Zilch.

Meanwhile, Sailors work themselves to death trying to maintain vessels they can’t get training on and aren’t properly sourced.

These Admirals should be ashamed of themselves and the pain they caused these Sailors, their families and the impact to our Naval Power.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency, because those agencies want you to keep thinking that everything is fine and you should just keep handing over your tax dollars like the good little sheep you are without asking hard questions.

A Reminder to the A-Bomb breast beaters and China

Posted: August 26, 2023 by datechguy in war
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This week I watched 30 Seconds Over Tokyo (1943) and I was reminded of a very important reality.

The same people who cry “genocide” over the A-Bomb never seem to remember that in the aftermath of the Doolittle raid which did very little actual damage, the Japanese decided to teach Chinese civilians a rather nasty lesson. (via Encyclopedia Britannica):

In early June 1942 the Japanese launched an offensive into Chekiang and Kiangsi (Jiangxi), and the brutality directed at the civilian population drew comparisons to the Nanjing Massacre. Trinkets and souvenirs left by grateful Americans—parachutes, cigarettes, pieces of military kit—doomed entire villages, as the Japanese would judge all the residents as having been complicit. Japanese bombers devastated Chuchow, and Kiangsi’s provincial capital of Nancheng (Nanchang) was razed, its population annihilated. It was estimated that some 250,000 civilians were killed during the three-month reprisal campaign.

250,000 civilians killed and whole villages slaughtered. That’s pretty bad but it didn’t stop there:

As the Japanese army prepared to withdraw from Chekiang and Kiangsi, members of its infamous germ warfare program, Unit 731, moved in. They seeded the area with dysentery, typhoid, and cholera, and disease ravaged those who had survived the initial Japanese attacks.

Yes you read that right, chemical warfare left to take care of any civilians who were spared the tender mercies of the Japanese army.

Somehow this just doesn’t seem to spark the outrage among the self righteous.

But there is one more thing that needs to be remembered, not only by the self righteous left who have forgotten the slaughter in china but by the Chinese who haven’t.

The only reason why the Japanese today are not the same people who did these things is because there have been American soldiers by the tens of thousands sitting on that Island for over 75 years.

China should ask itself what would happen if the US decided that 75 or 80 years are enough and that it’s time for Japan to defend Japan and leave.

Well I can’t say that the Japanese culture would return to the bad old days but I can tell you this. As one of the most if not THE most technologically advanced countries in the world Japan could have the bomb if they wanted it in a week and in six months they could have a whole lot more.

With what happened in all those cities still in living memory I’m sure China would just be tickled pink to think about a rearmed Japan just sitting there and believe me Japan would be rearmed fast because they know China hasn’t forgotten and despite 3/4 of a century passing since what happened they’d love the chance to return the favor.

Oh an anyone who thinks that Japan or Germany for that matter might not harken back to the days of yore once American troops are gone take a look at just how fast things have changed here in the us only three years.

Under the Fedora No Promises for Dodger Stadium, Three Cheers for My Bishop, Duck and Cover, The Price of Cowardice and Paradise Burnt

Posted: August 22, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, catholic, elections, politics, primaries, under the fedora, war
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Apparently Hurricane Hillary caused flooding at Dodger Stadium an excellent reminder that while God promised not to end the world by flood he gave no such assurances for Chavez Ravine.

Might I suggest that LA operate a program to make sure there are at least 10 faithful devout Catholics in the city at all times (Any Biden or Pelosi doesn’t count).

Speaking of Faithful Catholics it’s nice to know I have one for my Bishop:

The Diocese of Worcester, which is about 45 miles west of Boston, announced last week that Bishop Robert McManus earlier this summer approved a policy titled “Catholic Education and the Human Person” for all schools under its jurisdiction starting this fall.

The policy states: “Pope Francis has repeatedly stressed the importance of a proper understanding of our sexuality, warning of the challenge posed by ‘the various forms of an ideology of gender that denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences.’” …

Students under the policy are expected to act according to their biological sex, including in school sports, uniforms and locker rooms.

He’s going to catch hell here in Massachusetts but he’ll help avoid hell both for himself and those under his charge.

Donald Trump has announced that he will not just be skipping one debate but won’t be attending ANY debates with his GOP rivals.

While many say this is a sound decision as he will not be challenged on things like Fauci (which DeSantis et/al will eat him alive on) the problem here is that if he doesn’t absolutely wipe out his opponents fast then any decision to debate later will look like desperation.

Trump has a pretty good record as president and he should be spending every single day comparing the Trump years to the Biden years. I think making that point bluntly on stage with the rest of the GOP candidates on stage is a winner for him.

If even half of what is being said about the Ukrainian war on the Tucker Carlson show is true the disaster that this war is going to produce is horrifying.

This is yet another cost of the stolen election in the US. If this was Trump’s 2nd term Russia would not be in Ukraine today, but then again lots of elites would not have the graft they have made off of this war.

Cowardice in not stopping the steal has incredible costs and will continue to cost more.

It has taken less than a week for the governor of Hawaii to blame the fires in Maui on climate change.

What’s really amazing about this is that compared to Biden words in Maui he sounds sane.

But the craziest thing about it all is that I suspect when November 2024 comes along Hawaii will still vote for the left because they’re rather risk being burned out of house and home than vote for a republican or even worse a conservative.

Navy looks to drain reserves to fill gaps

Posted: July 29, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in war
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Your lawn requires maintenance. If you don’t put time and effort into filling your lawn with nice grass, it will eventually fill up with undesirable weeds. Nature abhors a vacuum, so its going to fill the lawn if you don’t. Similarly, the Navy is going to fill its manpower requirements one way or another. Between draining its DEP rolls, slow-rolling retirements, suspending body fat and physical fitness failures, and even suspending high year tenure, you’d think for just a minute that it all might work, that this nibbling around the edges of the problem (instead of addressing it directly) would bring in enough recruits.

Nope.

The Navy, still circling the drain, has now decided to start draining the reserves. Reservists are folks who typically served an initial enlistment and then decided to leave the military but retain a connection to the service. They muster one weekend a month and typically serve a two-week period during the year on active duty. In return they remain eligible for health care and get a cut-down retirement. It’s not a bad gig, but in the past most reservists were barely meeting standards and were thought of as a “break glass in case of emergency” manpower solution. The terrorist attacks on 9-11 changed that and resulted in a bit of a change so that reservists were more available for extended deployments.

Not surprisingly, the Navy is making it easier to tap into reserves and making it harder for people to fail out of the reserves. Let’s look at the following NAVADMINs:

NAVADMIN 158/23: POLICY FOR ACTIVATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF RESERVE COMPONENT FORCES IN FY24 AND BEYOND

NAVADMIN 160/23: SELECTED RESERVE ADVANCEMENT TO WARFIGHTING POSITIONS PROGRAM PHASE I

NAVADMIN 167/23: SEPTEMBER 2023 (CYCLE 260) ACTIVE-DUTY AND TRAINING AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE RESERVE (TAR) E-4 THROUGH E-6 ADVANCEMENT AND MODIFICATION TO SELECTED RESERVE E-4 ADVANCEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT (CYCLE 113)

NAVADMIN 158 references the a memo that basically says Navy Individual Augmentees (IAs) are eating the force alive, and lays out a plan to have Navy Reservists fill more of these billets, even if they are involuntarily activated…meaning they get told “Drop your civilian job and take this crappy military job.”

I am NOT a fan of IAs. These were initially brought out during the invasion of Afghanistan because the Army was short people, and the Navy said “We can send some people to Afghanistan to fill slots!” Seems like a good idea, until 20 years later we were STILL filling IAs. Meanwhile, Navy manpower went missing at key places like shipyards, support facilities and the like, so our Navy platforms suffered, our shore facilities rotted, and Sailor morale went into the toilet. Somehow in 20 years the Army couldn’t staff its own war? Color me skeptical…

So even after we lost Afghanistan, we’re STILL using IAs…and why this is true still boggles my mind. Naturally, it kills morale to go to one job then get yanked to go to another, especially one shore duty when you were promised some time with your family. So instead of killing active duty Sailors morale, we’ll kill Reservist Sailor morale.

NAVADMIN 160 tells us that if you’re an E-4 or E-5, you can take a Selected Reserve (SELRES) job one paygrade above, and after completion you get a permanent paygrade bump. Not bad, you might think. But lets be honest…why would a Sailor not make the next rank? Perhaps he just had bad timing. But more often, he or she was probably not all that great of a Sailor. So now, performance be damned, you get promoted if you take the right job.

NAVADMIN 167 basically makes it even easier to promote. If you’re an E-3 wanting to make E-4, all requirements have been removed, so long as your Commanding Officer says OK, you’ll make rank. High year tenure (where you get booted from the military if you haven’t made a certain rank by a certain number of years in the military) is suspended through 2024…and my guess is they’ll suspend it again. This NAVADMIN is basically making it easier than ever to stay in the Navy no matter how dumb or bad at your job you are.

The sad part is…this won’t work. The Navy continues to not address the morale issues brought on by a restrictive COVID-19 “vaccine” requirement, white supremacist training and the inability to do basic things like fix ships, have decent berthing and fight naval wars. Even Navy veterans like myself are telling our kids not to join. Until the Navy addresses the fundamental issues at hand, these short-sighted efforts will fail.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

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