Part II left the notional Battleship Battle Group (BBBG) departing home ports on the East Coast, heading for the Gulf of Mexico.

As with many other moments at sea with DESRON 32, there was not enough time in any given moment, exaserbated by our need for data, that was electronically gathered and transmitted to us, but we had to sort it by hand. National tasking poured ream after ream of contact reports, which had to be quickly evaluated, checked against other tracks building and then analysed for its tactical significance, followed with orders for the use of our surveillance assests to maneuver to intercept. Under the crushing task of doing this, we didn’t realize we were leading the way for more automation of the Over the Horizon targeting (OTH-T) shooters and tactical staffs.

We used JOTS, the HP9020 computers that could take a LINK-14 data feed, and manual inputs. It wasn’t unusual to have 4 -6 tactical radio circuits you had to keep an ear out for key words. We were in port and starboard from the staff watchbill, two officers in each section, with OSCS(SW) Jim Koch staying on station about every waking moment for 6 straight days. We drove the flagship’s crew nuts, but, we were going to develop the tactics (or die trying).

we had brainstormed the use of Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missiles (TASM) and figured out we could plan attacks from multiple platforms, but we couldn’t, due to the technical limitations of the missiles using their search patterns, plan a simultaneous attack. No problem: We designed the “Near Simultaneous Time on Top” (NSTOT). By directing specific employment options, we had some reasonable degree of success in sending several TASMs at the target within a short time.

In addition to the tactical staff watchstanding requirements, we had to monitor the progress of the Cooperative Mobile targets (CMTs – see earlier posts on this topic). That added to the anxiety and intensity, as we had to control all that happened, if you follow my drift.

Oh, yes: We had masterminded an extensive, all encompassing data collection plan, which, we also, as watchstanders, had to make sure was being done, not only within our staff, but aboard the Flagship, and via radio, the other units in company.

When one of our shooters decided to launch a TASM, they would go out on the HF tactical radio net and transmit “GREENFLASH, GREENFLASH, GREENFLASH!” That message set in motion a detailed set of data collection for that moment, aboard all the players, so we might have the innformation to reconstruct were ships and aircraft thought they were and where they actually were.

For four days, that was the routine, carried on at max output plus another 50% or more. Not much sleep was gotten, and many meals were missed in the pseudo intensity of the exercises.

More later…the story continues!

Who knows…link here and yoiu just might get read by a few more readers…:)

Trackbacks now display as “in line,” meaning they will show up in the post, and also in the comments.

There is now a link at the beginning of the post that you can copy and paste and get the proper shortcut to send your trackback here.

So, come one, come all. Link til you drop.

Here’s my “sea story” and….due to hurricane hysteria locally, I’m just going to link to one from about a year ago:

Great! You’ve been to Legal School!”

It was said on my first full work day on my first ship, as a brand new officer and, it was “instructive.”

Some time back, I found suitable, affordable substitute vehicles to keep the feeling alive for retired sailors.

In this post, there was jet boots (to go with a wing suit) for Capt Neptunus Lex. All he would need was a hot air ballon to get the altitude, and then he’s off to the sound of twin jet engines pushing about the sky.

Chapomatic has a few years to go yet, before he’s on the public dole, but since used nuclear subs require too many friends to take out for a sea cruise (not to mention where will you get the fuel), but he can get one of these for a lot less. Subsunk is already off the books and operating independantly, so, even tho it may be late to get it wrapped for his retirment, I’m sure he’d not turn it down.

Now, an appropriate gift for (I’m assuming he’s a gator sailor) Commander Salamander: The “Quad Ski:”

Being a two person vehicle, it may constrain your social interaction, and if that’s the case, then I invite your further attention to the “Humdinga:”

Now, this would be more suitable for someone like Froggy, so he and his well musculed friends could take a run for an afternoon jaunt (or….a moonless night run). Any Marine would most likely feel comfortable in this, if they had ever survived a ride to the beach in an LVT. I’m sure the M2 is an option, and the Class III license you’d have to obtain on your own.

If Uncle Jimbo or Black Five get the urge to revisit their old special ops days, they might want to pitch in with one of the professional mariners or soldiers of the sea, just to keep the union bosses off their backs…

Before the ’04 Tsunami, an Earthquake So Violent It Even Shook Gravity says the New York Times article today.

It seems the gravitational effect of the quake it affected the orbits of two of our research satellites….

Interesting article discussing the motivation behind those would would kill themselves and others for gain…

I have always believed that the sick view of sexuality promoted by strict Islam is one of suicide bombing’s prime motivators. Young males, living in Islamic societies where pre-marital sex with women is sometimes punishable by death, and raised by mothers who are treated like chattel, can’t possibly have healthy outlooks on sexuality. So it is unsurprising that there’s no shortage of young Muslim males drawn to the notion that unlimited carnal delights can be had at the push of a button. In an ultimate perversion, the suicide bomber–and those who fund and recruit them and prepare their missions–draw from an act of creation to create death.

Sex…yep, it’s a pretty powerful motivator in the history of all sorts of species, not just man, but animals seem to be a bit more realistic about it.

H/T: Distant Thunder commenter at Little Green Footballs

Note on the end before you begin reading. The further I got into reading the subject article, the more I can’t help but think this is one of the most significant bits of intelligence the world has seen to date on the current state of world-wide affairs. It cuts across the lines of history, culture, religion, military affairs, global politics and empire building, but it tells us who is behind it all. Mark my words, it is a definitve article for every serious person to read, and more importantly, one that is worthy of many changing their beliefs on how we got here, and use the information to figure out how to clean up the mess in the aisle known as the World.

Do your own thinking, but this General has provided the “glue” to bind together a multitude of seemingly random events over the last 30+ years.

Scanning about this morning brought me to an article on how the Soviet Union masterminded the use of client states and Muslim discontent to attack us:

“Russian Footprints: What does Moscow have to do with the recent war in Lebanon?” By Ion Mihai Pacepa

The introduction:

The Kremlin may be the main winner in the Lebanon war. Israel has been attacked with Soviet Kalashnikovs and Katyushas, Russian Fajr-1 and Fajr-3 rockets, Russian AT-5 Spandrel antitank missiles and Kornet antitank rockets. Russia’s outmoded weapons are now all the rage with terrorists everywhere in the world, and the bad guys know exactly where to get them. The weapons cases abandoned by Hezbollah were marked: “Customer: Ministry of Defense of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia.”

If my recollection of history is correct, the Soviets have been none too kind to their Jewish population:

In the mid-1970s we also started showering the Islamic world with an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a tsarist Russian forgery that had been used by Hitler as the foundation for his anti-Semitic philosophy. We also disseminated a KGB-fabricated “documentary” paper in Arabic alleging that Israel and its main supporter, the United States, were Zionist countries dedicated to converting the Islamic world into a Jewish colony.

Note: This movie has made it’s way into this country and is now on the shelves at BlockBuster for rent. Thankfully, at least Amazon knows it a faked story. Click on the link above on the title and see what they say.

As Ion points out, that people group, specifically the ones gathered in Israel, became the pawn in the great game of the superpowers in a bi-polar geo-political world, and is now, a classic case study of “unintended consequences.”

At the core, was the embarassment of the Soviets, when their client states, armed with “conventional” weaponry, supplied by the Soviet Unions central economy, had their butts handed to them in the 1967 war. As with the mentaility of most losing teams, while there are still games in the series to be played, you get back in the locker room and look at what happened on film and from personal reports, then you brainstorm a plan to not have it happen again. (Note to all those teachers who think competition among youth in classrooms and on the playing fields is a bad thing: Read this and rethink your position right now) Speaking of personal reports, check this out:

Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East. I witnessed its birth in my other life, as a Communist general.

I’d say you can’t get much more credible than a personal story of one who was at the table, in the room, and as part of the very first discussion on what we are experiencing today. However, I doubt the left wing, President Bush planned 9/11 conspiracy crowd will be able to honestly accept that it all was conceived, birthed and nurtured by the great Communist “Empire,” and not Bechtel or Halliburton and Dick Cheney. It would, if accepted as the truth that it is, necessarily require them to divest themselves of two major issue at the apex of their discontent:

1) George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Scotter Libby, and, yes, Dick Cheney, and big oil, the capitalist military industrial complex and “the rich” (except the ultra rich liberals from Hollywood and the Heinz families) are not to blame for the world wide terrorist movement, the domain of those who adhere to the teachings of the Koran.

and

2) Communism is, in fact, a force for evil, and while they have been removed from governing most nation-states, their heritage of tyranny, oppression, and creation of human misery carry on.

Side note: Doing this would cause the rest of their actions/rheotric to become also menaingless by association with two top level assumptions that are now shown to be incorrect. Interestingly enough, the rapid environmentalists have painted themselves into a very similar corner, it seems….Advice to anyone with an extreme argument: Know that the actual facts, read: The Trurh, or any one thing is not always apparent at the outset of your intial investigation. Lave room for the truth to come along and help your see the issue more clearly/credibily. See my book report on a well written, yet readable story of science and mankind, or discredited assumptions and theories, that did lead to greater, more precise truths.

The outcome of this desire to get back at the US, via fomenting hatred of Israel and Jewish people is affecting the world wide economy, and, in the cultural landscape of today, are resonsible for us (the world community of humanity) driving wedges between various groups of people. The bottom line for all those who didn’t figure out that Karl Mark prepetrated the most extensive “practical joke” on all of mankind, is that that the end result of socialism and Communism, is not the great utopia they all crave. For the record of those who are not away, the devastating irony of Karl Marx’s political and cultural theory is he was a retired industrialist when he published his idea. He had alrady extracted the sweat equity from the “proletariat,” and was living in luxury as a result. He suckered V.I. Lenin and company into taking it out for a 70 year spin, reusulting in miliions upon millions of deaths from the collective farms of Russia, to the killing fields of Cambodia, and more recently, as we find out, the Marine Barracks in Beruit, the World Trade Centers, various embassies of several nations, in the skies over Lockerbee, Scotland, at Munich, in Mogadishu, Dufar in Sudan, and daily in the streets of Baghdad, but those are merely a few instances.

My analysis: Communism is the most destructive social cancer we face today, which, strangley enough, is worshipped by the leftists, who also want us to embrace each and every human as worthy and equal (and I don’t disagree with that at all, as a goal). “Useful Idiots” defines these leftists properly, and Oh, BTW, that’s a term invented by Lenin, for those who he could use to further his own goals of Communism.

Before you read further, H/T: LT Smash, the first MilBlogger, for leading me to this jewel of an article.

Eagle1 at Eagle Speak discusses how the Germans in WWI used similar tactics, while using Iran.

Thanks to Little Green footballs for running an outstanding blog!

Trackbacked at:
Samantha Burns
Don Surber: Why they Hate Us

Church and State
Point Five

Read the rest of this entry »

Before you begin busting on Apple, they have been responsible for bringing more innovation to our desktop since the Steve² team of Jobs and Wozniak did their thing in a garage and made the Apple I.

Yep, they have a recall on exploding batteries, but that’s not the first battery in history to do that. Ask some of the other laptop manufacturers.

So, MacBook users, get out your kevlar lap blanket, or don your FFE, but most importantly…heed the recall.

You die hard PC users who can tell me how bad Macs are, when you have never touched one in your life, keep it for your PC friends and send a thank you note to Apple for the Windows OS you are using to view this post.

Random surfing, while backtracking sitemeter hits:

All Wood Wings Military Ship Index page was found….

But…they make planes and helos, too.

If you have some spare change, then you could buy Capt Neptunus Lex one of these (done in one of his squadron colors, of course)…

For less than two bills, he’d have this to adorn his desk after he retires really soon….

You could get Chapomatic a hand crafted wooden sub.

He may not like it, it probably floats and doesn’t sink.

I’ll take one of these…

Anyhow…looks like wonderful keepsakes for that special person…

Police crack down on strippers at funerals.

Just letting you know to get your affairs in order….

Welcome to the first weekly open trackback post!

I plan to make a post available weekly, on Wednesday afternoons, to allow other bloggers to link their work here, so hopefully, the real talent and ideas will spread even further. I do reserve the right to edit, revise, or delete, as I deem appropriate. No adult stuff, but reasoned discussions are welcomed. I do enjoy supported facts, and, as a general rule, think (having working on the “inside” for 20 years) just about every conspiracy theory is just that: a theory. Government projects involve too many people and people like to talk, so if only one person says they saw it happen, I find it easy to discount from my experiences.

So…link away, shipmates! If you don’t have a blog, but wold like to share a “sea story,” email it and I’ll look it over for posting.

For those wishing to post a trackback, get the link to the post here and then add “/trackback” to the link name. When you ping my blog, it will show up in the comments on this post. If anyone knows how to put trackbacks into the post automatically (with WordPress), please let me know.

Readers, please peruse the comment section for those posts other bloggers are sending over to share.

Today’s “Sea Story:”

There I was, still an ensign, but with a few months of sea time behind me. It was a day we were running a General Quarters drill, that was to include a “bugs and gass” (Chemical, biological, radiological (CBR)) portion of the scenario. I was the Combat Information Center Officer (CICO), so I was in CIC as the CIC Watch Officer, my GQ station.

I recall the 1MC (General announcing system) reports of the close by nuclear blast, and the subsequent reporting of the radiation levels. The actual “readings” were dummied up by the Damage Control Assistant, LT Cliff Barnes, for the drill. As time past, and the postualted movement of the wind spread the fall out, the counts got higher. We sat in the darkened space, performing our normal duties of keeping track of ships and aircraft in our vicinity.

I sat at a watch deck in the center of CIC, outfitted in my khakis, trouser legs tucked in, collar button buttoned, with my MK V gas mask pouch and inflatable life preserver around my waist. I can’t recall what I said, but one of my operation’s specialists leaned forward and said to me: “Call the bridge and tell them we’re ready to take control.”

We certainly could do the job of maneuvering the ship, but we’d be looking out to the nearby area by RADAR, deprived of any human eyeballs to look for small objects. I had three AN/SPA-4F RADAR repeaters to held us monitor the AN/SPS-10 surface seach RADAR. On my desk was a stack of sheets used for plotting relative maneuvers and other ships around us. We had the equipment, and the skills, but…it wasn’t a common thing to sail a 40K ton oiler about the ocean without anyone being outside to see, let alone with an Ensign that wasn’t yet qualified as Officer of the Deck, in charge of the rudder and engine orders.

I leaned forward, keyed the swith on the 21MC (also affectionately called the “btich box”) and said: “CIC ready to take control of the Conn!” Hey, I didn’t know any better and I think Chief Mac might have had some severe angina, but, it got really quiet behind me. I’m thinking it was more like the quiet when people are trying not to laugh at what the ensign just did, rather than they were aghast….

Not a moment later, the deep voice of CDR David Martin, the executive officer (XO), called back in the 21MC and said: “CIC has the Conn! We’re evactuating the bridge!”

The quiet of not chuckling in CIC thruned to the shock and awe quiet for a few seconds, startled at the response, but then it got busy, with Chief Mac hollering for info and directing the CIC gang at their profession.

The XO, then pretending to the be the Officer in Tactical Command (OTC), sent a dummy tactical maneuvering radio signal, ended with the immediate execute direction. Using RADAR and the “Mo Board” I directed the ship to the new ordered station. Once I “arrived,” and reported “On Station,” a little sigh of relief went thru the space. We had moved farther away from the giude of the formation. Not too difficult, but we were nervous not having any “eyes” (actually the XO and a few others stayed on the bridge).

Within seconds, the dummy tactical signal from the “OTC” (the XO), directed us back to the original station. Now we were poitning ourselves basically at the other ships and working our way back, again, all by RADAR only.

We got there just fine, but all of us were sweating, for by the Ship’s Deck Log, I and my CIC gang were directly responsible for the safety of the ship. Once back in station, the bridge team “remanned” and took control of the Conn once more. The XO realyed a BZ from the CO for our tactical accumen, and then we really were able to relax a little bit.

So….beware what you tell your new ensign to do, the XO may take you up on it….