Notice: This post will evolve and expand this evening (8/18) and now into 8/19. Lots of issues here, just in case someone decides we need to protect out coastline. I’m starting it now to get the thought process going, but if you’re interested, check back late tonight or tomorrow for more of my insights.

Got this from Milblogs and the poster there, Eagle1, has more at his site, including a 7/26/06 post.

I feel like adding my two cents and I will “fisk” myself, using my own comments I posted on Eagle1’s blog:

A thorny issue indeed. Many years gone by, there were NIKE AJAX and HERCULES, as well as BOMARC missile sites all around the US, near major cities to defeat the threat of manned bombers.

I grew up near the Renton, WA Boeing plant, and a family friend got me a factory model of a IM-99 BOMARC missile, complete with the TEL.

How can we possibly manage a coast line defense without massive expeditures, let alone the acquisitions of real estate in all of the places we would need to park a RADAR/SAM Site?

First issue: While ballistic missiles go up, with enough altitude to show well beyond local horizon, we’ll need outward looking RADAR systems to continually scanning the horizon, on the azimuths of the expected threat….At the very least, we’d have to place many RADAR sites on the East, Gulf and West coastlines for protection. We could decline to place them on the Northern and Southern border, as the threat is postualted, in this case, to be sea launched. We would have to acquire plots of land, every so many vulnerable miles to allow siting the defense systems. The effort and the cost would be staggering to cover all three coasts, so some hard decisions would have to be made, as to which places were of “high value.” Who would make this decision matrix up?

If we choose to only protect some areas, then, as demonstrated by the terrorists, the tactics are to go for the weak spots. What if a “tramp steamer” was modified to carry North Korean manufactred SCUDs? As a result, the non-/less defended areas would most likely become the targets of choice for those wishing to make a point. The follow on outcry would parallel that of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with citizens with loud voices, would have expected that every single square inch of American soil and neighborhood was protected with 100% certainty. The human wreckage would be bad enough, but the political fallout would be horrific, as we seem we are no longer able to understand the Federal Government cannot take care of everyone, everywhere.

It’s not out of the question, these days, that other than nation sates with military power, have access and support (financial, logistical and training) to field and use weapons of increasing size and complexity. The Israelis found this out when a CS-801 anti-ship missile was launched from the vicinity of Beriut.

Second issue: Land acquisition. My father worked for years in Montana, North and South Dakota (and other states in the vicinity I’m sure) as an Army Corps of Engineers land appraiser. He travelled most of the time in my early years, finding and procuring land for Minute Man silos. I do recall discussions, once in a while about “condemning” property back then, and have come to understand years later that’s what we have come to know as “eminent domain.” I’m also sure, the cost wasn’t cheap for that level of national security to be put in place.

While I was on active duty, my dad visited me in Virginia Beach, there to work on getting the local community to grant easements for the land around Oceana Master Jet Base. The Navy wanted agriculture only. That was when Viginia Beach was the fastest growing city in the US, during the Reagan military build up. With the building of Lynnhaven Mall in early 80’s, there was concern such a large shopping center would be located essentailly under the landing and approach patern for a busy air station, not to mention, more and more farm land was being sold, and both commercial and residential building was taking place around there. The response from the City Council/community was: “If you want the land to be free of buildings…then buy it!” What would happen now if we had to purchase beachfront property, particularly when it’s near population centers (to be defended) at today real estate pricing? Think about the cost…more comments later in this article related to this topic.

I’m wondering if RCA is proposing the SPY-1 Series, in a block house, with a MK-41 VLS matrix in a self contained blockhouse arrangement.

Call it “MOTS” (Military Off the Shelf), for purposes of discussion, but…there are systems developed, tested, deployed and documented in our hands right now. The ideal shopping list of equipment would be from those items deployed aboard Navy combatants, as they are designed for maximum capability, using minimum space and limited resources. The logistics chain is already established and the only issue would be quantities, from a contracting standpoint.

I mentioned the AN/SPY-1(series) phased array RADAR, and the AN/SPG-99 Illimuniators because they have proven themselves with several decades of service. The proof of concept on this type of shore based installation has been in place for many years, being nicknamed the “Cornfield Cruiser” near the RCA plant in Moorstown, NJ. The MK-41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) missile matrix is already certified to operate with several types of anti-aircraft weapons. Other choice might be the Rolling Airframe Missile with the modified MK-15 Close In Weapons System mounting for point defense of the RADAR site itself. Toss in the AN/USG-2(V) Cooperative Engagement System (CEC) capability for intercommunications between nodes. All this stuff is in service right now.

All you’d have to solve is the radio frequency interference (RFI) issues when operating high powered RADAR. The issue there is when the US and the Soviet Union put over the horizon early warning radars on the line in the late 70’s, the exceptionally high strength signal “splattered about the RF spectrum, and Amatuer Radio Operators referred to the signals as “the Woodpecker” for it’s characteristic interference signal in serval bands. These sites would play havoc with local TV and radio reception, a necessary side effect for the trade off of defense.

Another particulalry interesting issue involved in placing such things in a neighborhood, since explosives ordnance will be present, is the blast radius of detonating ordnance in the event of that unplanned circumstance. One other project my father worked on was the possibility of building an ammo pier on Guam, in one of the bays on the SW part of the island (this was during the height of the VN war, and the B-52s out of Anderson AFB hauled a lot of bombs). I do recall sitting at the kitchen table, looking at aerial phots of the area, with concentric circles superimposed on them. The inner circle was the area where houses would be leveled, the second, I believe was major strutural damage and the third, where glass windows would be blown out. Of course they had to plan for an entire ship load of ordnance exploding, not merely something like 16 SM-3 anti-air missiles. In any case, this is not an issue most real estate agents have to consider. In other words, the physical space for the site, in terms of land procurement is one issue, but then having a cleared, safe area, in the event of explosions, adds to the acreage needed. It would be costly.

Questions:

1) If we can’t get people in Martha’s Vineyard to allow wind generators on towers off the beach, how will we get them to accept the placement of a phased array and a booster disgarding missile system “just down the block” from their house?

Even when last years devestating hurricanes helped (once again) to point out our dependence on foreign oil, not only did the beach residents of MA say “NOT IN MY FIELD OF VIEW (will you construct those ugly wind towers)!”, but the CA and FL congressmen banded together, across party lines, to ensure no oil drilling would occur with 250 miles of a beach (unless you’re Chinese oil rigs working for Cubans). So if too high gas prices won”t allow measures to solve the problem, would the concept of placing systems as decribed above work any better? And, in actual fact, it’s not like you can just lobby to place your defensive system (for your locale) in a less affluent neighborhood, because defense is about location and geometry, and cares not even a little for the economic topography….

2) If we don’t want to fund manpower to sit as virtual TAOs at each site (wow…job opportunity for retired SWOs!), is there a plan to have a centrally located node with the RADAR/ESM sensor data being transmittded to where the decision maker will sit a 24/7/365 watch?

3) If the manpower is too much money for the taxpayers liking, will “we” accept software control of engagements (which…is already a proven function in several systems)? Will we choose an MS operating system to manage the functions, and if so, will Bill Gates allow the review of the software at the code level?

Ah, more to blog on….I have some background in the field…

Software safety. Big issue. Worthy of tackling when I can pull out the mental coal shovel, so I’ll end this tale for the night. Check back for more tomorrow (late day)

20 years ago, I got involved in an interesting exercise. The roots of the participation began during the cruise I discussed in the series “A Journey Into History.”

After relaxing from the hectic operations of the three CV battle groups, we headed west to the states. Sometime during the transit, tasking arrived for our staff to handle two Operational Test Launches (OTL) for Tomahawk in August. The plan was to exercise operational control of a two ship unit that would shoot two TLAM exercise rounds at the range on Eglin AFB.

Internally, our tasking was to “read everything there is written on Tomahawk.” Back then, must of the documentation was in the initial stages of being put in a tactical format, and only one TACNOTE existed for operational guidance, everything else was technical documentation.

The staff I was assigned two was one of the “Tactical DESRONs,” which complimented the “READRONs.” I ention this for a little history of the surface Navy’s organization at the time. TACDESRONs were flaters in the grand scheme of operational schedulers, middlegrade and upper level officer and enlisted “nomads.” On paper, we had a chain of command through a CRUDES group commander, but they rarely tasked us. We were operationally attached to deploying BG commanders, which may be Carrier Groups or Crusier-Destroyer group types, and our operations became linked to their work ups. Since we didn’t have any individual functions, for the early part of the deployment cycle work ups, while ships and air squadrons individually worked on their training, we were floaters for use for anyhting else that happened. This method of our use never gave us any real down time, as we never needed to go into the yards, a drydock, or any sort of maintenance availability. Net result: We got to meet a lot of ship’s company personnel from all over the East Coast. That’s how we came to get the assignment for the Tomahawk firings. Some of you will have read between the lines on what this meant for OPTEMPO, and if you didn’t, it’s not important.

We got a few days to spend with the families on return from the Med, and then it was in the pubs, on the phones and off to meetings, looking for any piece of information on THawks. We met with the Project Office guys, who told us about the test objectives. We hounded the Surface Warfare Development Group (SWDG) for more info. We re, re-read, and re-re-read the TACNOTE, then sat in meetings with the Commodore, discussing what we had learned. We thought we knew a lot, after the extensive study.

USS IOWA (BB-61), USS CONOLLY (DD-979) and USS DOYLE (FFG-39) were the three ships assigned to us, and along with that came addtional tasking. COMSECONDFLT staff directed us to also develop and test over-the-horizon targeting (OTHT) tactics for Battleship Battle Groups (BBBG) use. Assigned to us for this purpose was USS WILLIAM V PRATT (DDG-44) to act as a “cooperative mobile target” and one ship, a SPRUANCE Class DD (it may have been the USS PETERSON) headed to Guantanamo Bay for training to cooperate as possible enroute Cuba. We dug further into what ever we could find to figure out how to exploit the range of the Tomahawk Anit-Ship Missile, given the nominal resouces of the proposed BBBG. A LAMPS MK III single plane detachment would embark on DOYLE, and the CONOLLY would have her normal LAMPS MK I SH-2F Sea Sprite. We would have some hours of support from a pair of S-3B Vikings equipped with the very new, cutting edge, inverse synthetic aperature radar (ISAR). The Vikings would come from the Pax River assets, and I think were the only equipped units at the time.

There you have the initial layout: Lots of new toys that would be coming to the fleet, or had just begun to arrive aboard, that had to be leveraged to get the most out of the reason we bought them. Seeing as how the Commodore was a man who believed that intimate knowledge of details would lead you to the big picture, we spnt many, many and the many more hours, trying to gather the info, but then to game out how it might work best in a real seaborne envirnment.

Stay tuned. I’ll have to do this one in parts….

Part II here

Try one of these for better traction across obstacles and bogs:

H/T: Popular Science

More cool, as in waaaayyyyy cool stuff. Less than one oz, can be mono or binocular setup…

Another fine looking product, with all sorts of implications for warfighting, and just plain old video watching and regular work. When the resolution gets up with 17″ display capability, then great for the leading edge games programs.

Oh…and it’s out of Israel, too.

And…how about true 3D displays?

Chap, Lex and Eagle1 need to check their systems for security.

I do envy them, but, hackers being hackers, they love a challenge.

It’s a day late, but BMCM(MDV) Carl M. Brashear, USN (Ret), is worth a few moments.

*****
Update 07/31/2006: Neptunus Lex has posted a report of BMCM(MDV) Brashear’s funeral.

Link to the Navy News article on the funeral.

Update 08/03/2006: Military.com’s discussions on the article they have about Master Chief’s funeral. A few people who commented served with, or met the Master Chief.
*****

I can’t comment on his life, other than I heard of him when I was commissioned. He was the legend we know of by then. He passed away Tuesday. I Would like to take you a little way into the world Carl Brashear worked in, so you might appreciate, all the more, what a heroic man he was

This is the insignia Boatswain’s Mate Master Chief Brashear wore. It is silver anodized in color, not to be mistaken as the Diving Officer’s insignia that is gold. The MDV insignia is far more prestegious. A master diver has come through all the salvage diving training, and is also a supervisor, not just someone who has been a SCUBA diver, 2nd and 1st Class diver, but also a Saturation diver. Along the way, the Master Diver will have learned an incredible amount of diving medicine to augment the skills gained as a salvor. The Master Diver is the real person in charge of the technical work on a dive. The Diving Officer present, is the one responsible for the work.

Until sometime in the 80’s, the Navy used the MK V diving gear to make salvage dives. Carl Brashear, missing one leg, dove in this equipment through out his Naval career. I spent two months in the salavge officer pipeline at the beginning of my time in the Navy, but found out it wasn’t my calling.

I mde my first indoc dive in one of these in Jan 77 at NAB Little Creek. I followed that one dive (which was a check off item to be able to go to diving school) with three weeks of MK V dives at Anacostia Naval Shipyard, Washington, DC, beginning in February 77. I recall the data like it was yesterday:

Rubberized cotton suit: 18#
Spun copper helmet and breastplate: 54#
Boots: 38#
Weight belt: 98#
Total: 210#

Do the math. Except for the weight of the boots, most all of that is positioned above the knees, where Master Chief has his amputation. So take the 40# off the 210# total and do walk around a rolling, heaving deck, getting to the water, and coming out. It is work, without a handicap of a stump scrapping in a prosthesis.

My diving officer training wouldn’t have included saturation diving, which BMCM Brashear may have also been qualified. I can’t recall it exactly, but it seems the extra equipment, part of which is the cannister of CO2 scrubbing chemicals attached to the back of the helmet that took the total weight of the suited up diver up 300 lbs.

It is a physically demanding duty to be a salvage diver, but these days, they have markedly improved equipment, and are now using the MK 12 rigs, witch can be used for several types of diving.

So there’s a little history to help you connect with the persistnet spirit that we know as BMCM(MDV) Carl Brashear.

Oh, and if you have one of these laying around you don’t want, send me an email…I’ll gladly pay the shipping!

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

The Defense Link website, run by DoD, profiles the Valour-IT Project!

There’s a picture of one of the service members who have benefited from your contributions.

BZ, as we say in the Navy, to any and all who help with this project

PS: Donations are welcome and appreciated any time of the year!

Technology and Military Ops, particulaly in the Naval Service sense, will be the point of a 4 day conference later this month in DC.

Capt Chris Christopher, Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Research, forwarded this heads up:

This is an update to my previous email regarding the 2006 Naval S&T Partnership Conference, July 31-August 3, at the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel in Washington, DC. This conference replaces the ONR conferences held since 2000 in Washington, DC.

The $1 Million “CNR Challenge” announced by ONR

Chief of Naval Research (CNR) Rear Admiral William E. Landay III, USN, has announced the $1 million “CNR Challenge” for innovative science and technology ideas brought to the Office of Naval Research during the 2006 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference. The CNR Challenge is targeting $1 million for innovative ideas or technologies brought to ONR’s attention through the Open Innovation Marketplace at the Naval S&T Partnership Conference.

The Open Innovation Marketplace gives registered conference attendees the opportunity to schedule face-to-face meetings with personnel from ONR, other parts of the Naval Research Enterprise, industry, or academic institutions, to ask specific questions about naval science and technology research, or to present new and innovative concepts and technologies. Marketplace participants must submit an abstract in advance. More information on the Marketplace and conference registration
is available on the 2006 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference web site at http://www.ndia.org/meetings/6200/. More information about the CNR Challenge is available at http://www.onr.navy.mil/.

“There are always a number of good ideas coming to ONR through the Open Innovation Marketplace,” said Admiral Landay, “so I have allocated one million of our precious research dollars to more rapidly develop those ideas. One of the drawbacks in the Open Innovation Marketplace in the past was that we could not move out quickly on good ideas. Our budget process often causes a year or more delay before funds become available.

“If there are any good ideas that meet Navy or Marine Corps needs, we want to move very quickly to develop them. This should allow us to jumpstart ideas we receive through the Marketplace.”

2006 Naval S&T Partnership Conference

Presented by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) with technical support from the Office of Naval Research, the 2006 Naval S&T Partnership Conference is the successor to, and builds upon the success of, the six annual partnership conferences previously presented by ONR. The 2006 Naval S&T Partnership Conference will provide key insight into
the Navy & Marine Corps drive to enable revolutionary naval operational concepts that meet the challenges of the 21st century through strategic investment in S&T research. The Conference will inform government, industry and academia of the direction, emphasis, and scope of the Department of the Navy’s investment in science and technology research, and how companies and universities can do business with the Naval Research Enterprise.

An impressive list of speakers has been announced for the event, highlighted by confirmed speakers Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter; the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Dr. Delores Etter; Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation Dr. Michael McGrath; Chief of Naval Research Rear Admiral William Landay III; and Commanding General, Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command Brigadier General
Douglas Stone, USMC. Additional speaker announcements will be made in the days to come to come.

In three and one-half days of the Conference, attendees from government, industry, and academia will:

* Hear from the senior leadership of Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, the Office of Naval Research, and the Naval Research Enterprise
* Gain an understanding of S&T research partnership opportunities for industry and academia
* Meet one-on-one with program managers from ONR and across the Naval Research Enterprise, including Naval laboratories, Naval warfare centers, and University Affiliated Research Centers in the Open Innovation Marketplace.
* Learn how to participate in the challenge to creative innovative solutions to meet Fleet and Force requirements in the Future Naval Capabilities (FNC), Innovative Naval Prototypes (INP), and Discovery and Invention (D&I) efforts;
* See and discuss innovative technologies from industry, National and Federal labs, and academia in the conference exhibit hall.
* Enjoy stimulating scientific debate and discussion at Ben Franklin’s Scientific Salon.

In a one-half day training session before the Conference opens, industry and academic attendees will learn how to do business with ONR and the Naval Research Enterprise. The theme of the 2006 Naval S&T Partnership Conference is “The Navy After Next…Powered by Naval Research.” The challenges of providing power and energy to the Fleet and Force will be
in the spotlight, and speakers from all segments of the energy industry will be invited to participate in discussions that will focus of the potential future sources of power and energy to enable the Navy-Marine Corps team to execute its mission in the 21st century. NDIA is presenting a gala dinner to salute 60 years of world class S&T research by ONR.

Information

Information on attending and exhibiting at the Conference is available on the NDIA Conference web site at http://www.ndia.org/meetings/6200 , or at the ONR web site http://www.onr.navy.mil/.

Sounds like a great opportunity to “get an oar in the water” with the future of the Navy. Any takes?

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post.

I don’t turn the TV on much, but last night late, I clicked on over to the Military Channel and they had a show on the Coast Guard in Combat in Vietnam. Good story, describing the development of their deployments and duites, early in the Me Cong Delta area, then later in the Rung Sat Special Zone.

How timely a bit of knowledge, given the NYT feels compelled to disclose another National Security program that is being used to keep their city from being attacked again. I maybe watch 20 minutes of TV a week, and there this story was when I fired up the tube….

One side light was about a LORAN-C Navigation System being put in place well from shore. The Chief Petty Officer who set it up was told it was to help with search and rescue efforts. The reality the Air Force had it put in so the bombers could more accurately bomb (stated as 50 YD error system). The project was named “Operation Tight Reign”.

In 1965, a New York Times reported visited the site, and later published an article saying the base was put in with the navigational system to support strategic bombing. The Chief’s boss called to chew him out, but the Chief never had a clue that’s what it was used for. It turns out someone in the Air Force, I believe at the Pentagon, leaked the information.

I think it’s time for a new marketing slogan for the NYT:

The New York Times: Contributing to the loss of America lives for over 40 years!

Interesting side note from the Tight Reign history document (link above): The C-123 began it’s life as a haevy assault glider. The engines were added later, but the design had no room for fuel tanks in the wings. All fuel was carried in external drop tanks…talk about re-use of engineering work!

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Outside the Beltway

Dadmanly has a post on the recent discussions on the roll over problems with the Up Armored HMVEEs. It is one of many, which I will use for a jumping off point for the discussion of “we’ve been here before.”

Asa recap, it wasn’t all that long ago the MSM was lambasting the Military for not having “enough” armor on HMVEEs, which, were never intended to be patrol vehicles by design. They were cargo carriers to get supplies to the front, but…that’s another entire story in how equipment is developed and fielded by the US Armed Forces, as a function of Defense Analysis, brought to the Pentagon in the early 60s, by a gentleman you may recall named Robert McNamera.

Be that as it may, after the sceeching from the front pages of major papers, and in other forms of media communications, the Pentagon lept into action and got armor on the HMMVVs, sometimes, and at first, by troops scrounging for steel plates and getting out the trusty welding torches. Troops with skills are not always a bad thing, but there are times that well intentioned “local” efforts cause some consequences that can’t be forseen. Conversely, sometimes the “shore based” or stateside development organizations are too stuck in traditional thought to see a good idea, or, they are more often constrained by budget allocations from doing more. That also leads to another discussion, where too much money spet, when it is working to save lives (which is hard to quantify) ends up an issue in the media, where the demands are made to call people on the carpet to explain their “excessive and unnecessary” expeditures. So, once more good, hard working, thoughtful and intelligent people, in uniform, as civil servants, and as contractors, get caught trying to tip toe through a minefield.

On December 10th, 1941, the British battleship HMS PRINCE OF WALES and battlecruiser HMS REPULSE were sunk in the South China Sea by a Japanese air attack. Within a few short days, the Japanese Navy forever changed the face of war at sea. Proving the capability of aircraft launching and attacking from long range as the effective method of projecting power. The sun set on the era of the large captial gunship that day.

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