From the Submarine Force Museum NAUTILUS history page:

On the morning of January 17, 1955, at 11 am EST, NAUTILUS’ first Commanding Officer, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, “Underway On Nuclear Power.” Over the next several years, NAUTILUS shattered all submerged speed and distance records.

She is now resting as at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT. Was a “Class Ship,” set a lot of records and steamed over 513K miles during her service….

I can’t believe I scooped Chap and Bubblehead on this submarine force history story….

So get to clicking! The VA Mortgage Center is sponsoring a contest for the best Military Blogger…$3000 to the winner, and $250 to each of the next ten runner’s up.

From Fuzzilicious Thinking:

Yup. You can donate $3,000 to Valour-IT without giving up a cent.

As part of its marketing campaign, a new website is having people vote for their favorite milblogger. Any milblogger who finishes in the “Top 10” of voting will receive $250…. but the winner will receive $3,000!

FbL is pushing Black Five’s blog. Matt has already stated he will directly pass through all prize money to Valour-IT.

So…we can pile on Matt’s blog and propel him through the finish line at the top and for nothing but a little time to go HERE and click on Black Five.

Also, Neptunus Lex has also committed to send winnings to those who have helped us, too. Maybe we can leverage the total for Valour-IT into $3250!

Get on it!

Update: Sgt Hook sez he’ll use the money he wins to get to the 2007 MilBlogger’s Conference (MARK YOUR CALENDERS NOW! 5/5/2007 – DC AREA!), so I’m torn as to who to vote for. I’d love to meet Hook in real life…Matt, well, I shook his hand last year….so…go forth and help a worthy cause of your choice.

Trackbacked at:

Cao’s Blog

I have been posting at The Wide Awakes for a few weeks, and I cross posted an old post of mine contrasting leadership styles…Well, it has blossomed into a full blown debate, with some ad hominum attacks, but not many, considering the “sides” represented.

The post is here. If you have anything to add (but read the discussion in the comments section, for it has transmogrified (H/T: Calvin and Hobbes) to a discussion of the current strategy for the Iraq War.

For the record, I don’t think the President has carried out the war as I have. Also for the record, I’m not the President….

I do, however, think there has been an overall strategic emphasis on a “forward defense,” which is quite offensive to some. Amazingly, to those who would call us to withdraw and huddle within our borders, staying quiet, so no one might notice us, are the very same people who refuse to support sealing our borders from illegal immigration.

I find that most interesting…pull out and pull back from an attack by a determined enemy, who makes no bones about wanting to destroy us, and, in criticizing the President, from both sides of the aisle, the comment is often made about how terrorists can slip across our border….

The prevailing mood appears to be that we will grant amnesty to the estimated 12 millions illegal immigrants, and the discussion about securing the border by physical and electronic means is pretty much discouraged.

I would ask: How do we leave a war, yet refuse to secure borders? Somehow the two strategies don’t match up to me. If you aren’t going to go forward to combat a threat, then you need to build a protected area to survive in.

So, I’m rambling, but, the two issues are connected and while some would try to keep them separated in the “grand scheme of things,” they are also the ones who drag out the “the President hasn’t made us safer, because the terrorists are coming across the borders” remark when it suits the purpose to derail the war strategy discussion.

I’m working through the mental hoops on my thoughts (remember: I’m not the President) on the plan to send more troops into Iraq in order to get a handle on the conflict. Between some books I read about a 20 years ago, one that was written about 100 years ago, and another I’m waiting to receive in the mail, I think we are headed on a good track, so long as the message is not the military might is the supreme force to employ.

Received from the author. Besides getting your personalized autographed copy, the book is the foundation of a documentary for next fall!

All,

It’s my pleasure to invite you to a discussion of my book, “No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf” (Naval Institute Press, 2006, http://www.nohigherhonor.com) at 7 p.m. this Friday, Jan. 19, at the Borders Books in Springfield, Va (6701 Frontier Drive, Springfield, Va). The store is located near the Springfield Mall, just south of I-495.)

The book (now in its second printing) tells the story of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a small U.S. warship dispatched to the Persian Gulf in 1988. Well-led and well-trained, its crew shepherded oil tankers through the chaos of the Iran-Iraq War — until disaster struck. On 14 April, an Iranian mine ripped open the Roberts’ engineroom, ignited fires on four decks, and plunged the ship into darkness. With seawater rising around their boots, the crew fought fire and flooding into the night. Four days later, the U.S. retaliated, sinking a half-dozen Iranian warships and boats in the biggest surface battle since World War II.

The book has received good reviews; it has also inspired a History Channel documentary that is slated to air this fall.

Hope to see you on Friday!

Brad Peniston

My book report is here.

Oh, yes, and Brad chipped in two copies for the Valour-IT Fund Raiser this past November. Just in case you wanted to support him, too.

If I’m not there, the PVR is running…

Aviation buff? Curious about what air combat maneuvering (ACM) has been like over the ages? Do you love tactics, espcially ones conducted at high speed and in three dimensions? Do you get “speed is life” or want to?

So, at 10PM each Friday night, you should be tuned to the “History Channel for “Dogfights.”

Using computer gaming simulations software, detailed graphical representations and interviews with some of the actual “players” in many historical air battles, it will give you a dose of detail to round out your comprehension of the “process” of dogfighting….

For the Naval Historians out there, the episode aired 12/22/06, titled “Death of the Japanese Navy” was a well done detailed description of the Battle Off Samar in Oct, 1944. While the show is about air combat, they used the same techniques to tell the story of the clash between Adm Kurita’s Central Force and Taffy 3 in the early hours of 10/25/1944 off of Leyte Gulf. Featured for much of the commentary was James Hornfisher, author of “Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors”. The valiant aviators, who, in many cases with no more ordnance, continued to make passes at the overwhleming force is intermingled with the surface combat between destroyer escorts, destroyers (on the US side) and the battle force lead by IJN Yamato, other battleships, cruisers and destroyers of the Japanese fleet.

So…see about the Flying Tigers, aerial combat between “The Last Gunfighters” F-8 Crusaders and MiGs over Hanoi, Spads (not A-1s!) over the trenches, or the trials of the “Cactus Air Force.”

Post your stuff here!

Chief “Mac,” my “Sea Daddy” said (while the stub of his cigar never left being clenched between his teeth) these things about pistol usage:

• “You have to put 50 rounds down range a day” (to stay proficient – he believed a 1911 .45 should feel just like another part of your body)
• “You always shoot twice. Once to get him, the second to make sure. Any fewer rounds is stupid, any more is a waste.”

Wisdom…it comes in many forms.

Recevied via email from one of the Navy Valour-IT Team Members. He is asking the word get passed around the military community to consider signing a new appeal for redress….:

I don’t do self-promotion, and this really isn’t about that. I hope you’ll read this post – and then direct any active duty members that you know to the petition. My goal is to offset the negative effect of the liberals’ Appeal for Redress, which will be widely touted by the media, with this alternate Appeal for Redress, which asks Congress to respect our military.

[email protected] – http://www.antimedia.us/
Dedicated to exposing the media’s many lies

Antimedia’s post has a link for active duty members to sign up, but I’ll put it here.

Pass the word…time to make an appeal to the higher ups.

Press release from CENTCOM 1/5/2007:

NEWS RELEASE
HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
7115 South Boundary Boulevard
MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101
Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894

U.S. Central Command Launches NEW Podcast on Website

TAMPA, Florida -Today, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) launched a new podcast on their website. The weekly podcast will feature stories from around Central Command’s area of responsibility. The weekly episodes will provide visitors to the CENTCOM website a readymade means of accessing information about events in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and the Horn of Africa, as well as RSS feeds with up to the minute news.
The Central Command podcast is available at http://www.centcom.mil to download as an MP3 audio file, or via subscription to the podcast RSS syndication feed.

CENTCOM’s unique access to the region will take you to the Iranian border in Iraq and hear from coalition members working with the Iraqi Border Patrol to the villages of Somalia to features about post-earthquake Pakistan.

The inception of this medium to the website accommodates a diverse audience and provides them with another method of acquiring news and information about Central Command and the units on the ground.

“We are really excited about the addition of podcasting to the CENTCOM web site. This brings a whole new dimension to our capabilities and allows our users to access information that is not available anywhere else” said Central Command Public Affairs Director Colonel Jerry Renne.

Podcasting technology enables users of personal audio players to receive broadcasts of audio media via an Internet feed to which users can subscribe.

These feeds deliver audio broadcasts to your desktop. You can listen to these files on your computer or load them on to your MP3 player and take them with you. The word “podcasting” combines the words “broadcasting” and “iPod.” The term can be misleading since neither podcasting nor listening to podcasts requires an iPod or any portable music player.

The content of the weekly podcasts include a look at coalition forces fighting the Global War on Terror within the region, an opportunity to hear from Central Command’s top leaders, interviews with troops on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa and specials from the 27 countries within the command.

USCENTCOM is one of the five geographically defined unified commands within the Department of Defense. The command is responsible for planning and conducting United States military activity in a region consisting of 27 countries that make up the CENTCOM AOR.

We also want to encourage you to subscribe to our latest news and press release feeds delivered directly to your email inbox via FeedBurner.

Subscribe to US CENTCOM News by Email

Subscribe to US CENTCOM Press Releases by Email

Or, if you use a feed reader, you can subscribe directly by clicking here.

Good ideas come and they go and other ideas seem to just keep recycling themselves.

From Popular Mechanics comes this “Tech Notes” on “Project ISIS.”

“Project ISIS” has the ring of a James Bond movie, but it actually comes from an acronym (albeit a clumsy one) for a new curved radar array being developed by Raytheon and DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm. The Integrated Sensor Is Structure concept calls for such arrays running along the wings, tail and underbelly of military or commercial aircraft. Eventually, it could replace the flat-panel radar antennas typically found in a plane’s nose, providing improved surveillance capabilities and better 360-degree threat detection. ISIS technology is set to debut in 2009 as part of a colossal unmanned airship parked at more than 65,000 ft. over combat zones.

I wonder what the staff at DARPA has been smoking on their spare time…

Frank Luke with his Spad XIII (Credit: Wikipedia)

Hmmmm….I began reading a little about flight history when I was but a young guy. Tales of the top aces of WWI were pretty exciting, but I do recall the daring do of a man named Frank Luke. He liked balloons, but not to fly them, to “bust” them. His exceptional skills at downing enemy observation balloons earned this young man from Phoenix, AZ the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Gary Powers (Credit: Wikipedia)

I also recall a story about a man named Gary Powers about a day in May 1960. The 1st, to be exact…

SA-2 Guideline/ missile on Transporter (Credit: Wikipedia)

It seems we thought flying “high” over enemy territory made us invulnerable, yet, a missile named by NATO the “SA-2 Guideline,” fielded in 1957 for the purposes of engaging our B-52 Stratofortresses, had an operational capability between the altitudes between 1500 and 82K ft. Gary Powers found out the hard way, and I believe our intelligence agencies had a lot of egg on their faces in the aftermath of the Powers shoot down. Call it an intelligence failure, for that’s what it was.

Oh, and yes, the SA-2 Guideline is still in service with countries around the world. It was used very effectively by the North Vietnamese to do what it was designed for: Shoot our B-52’s out of the sky, much to the dismay of my fellow Air Force vets.

Some basic issues, that even a Black Shoe like me can understand: If you have an active radar system to find things, sensors on the other end of the search can find the radar. back in the Vietnam War days, we had developed and deployed missiles that could be told to find a signal and home in on it, then, upon arrival at the source of the signal, to detonate (and thereby destroy the radar). Those are called “anti-radiation missiles.” The technology has generally been used to go from an air platform to a surface (slow/not moving) target. In the case of an airborne platforms making the emissions, if the target is not moving very fast, it doesn’t take a whole lot of calculations to get a weapon to the target…

So…my point? All you need is a dedicated pilot in an aircraft that can get to 65K ft, or a Surface to Air Missile with the same altitude capability to sort of ruin our day. Of course, of you have Klingon type cloaking systems in development to pair up with ISIS, I may have to change my tune on the topic…

Credit: Ace Pilots

A wee bit late for the sun passing over the yardarm, but here nonetheless….post your good stuff!

My sea story? In a word….Seabats. I know, you think I’m pulling your legs, but…RADM Bernsen has seen ’em….and so has this guy. Today is your day to tell me how you can connect the dots.

And when you have that assignment completed, tell me about your seabat experiences….