Rusty's Naval/Military History thread

[Rusty Edge]

You wrote me a Fake PM yesterday, BTW.  Go look.  I'm very tired, myself, today.

Sorry about all the OT in here lately, Rusty.

No worries.
I'm back from fishing, returned today. I've had kidney stones since Sunday. So...I'm attached to the network again. Didn't get to relax much, but pain , narcotics, and pain has a way of clearing one's head , too.

#1) Don't sweat the small stuff.
#2) It's all small stuff.
#3) Except kidney stones, which are small and produce amazing amounts of sweat. I'm pretty sure Yoda was quoting a kidney stone when he said "Judge me by my size, do you?"
#4) I've had worse... which only adds to the anxiety, remembering how bad "bad" can get.
#5) So that's my story and sometimes distraction and denial is the best way of coping, so please don't bring the subject up unless I do first.

[Rusty Edge]

Rusty - a little guidance here; I fancy your main historical interest is roughly Napoleonic-Victorian and military/naval.  How interested in me linking stuff like this?

Ancient Greek 'Antikythera' Shipwreck Still Holds Secrets
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=16576.msg74170#msg74170

That's cool. Ancient and Classical are fascinating, too. I've toured ruins in Greece and Turkey.
Then with the fall of Rome, I sort of lose interest until the Age of Discovery, when Europe was back on track. The naval stuff stays interesting, but the land military fades with adoption of repeating firearms, then the introduction of airplanes and airships draws my attention again, but by WWII it's mostly about naval aviation.

I suppose it's mostly an interest about leaders/nations/empires projecting power.

[Buster's Uncle]

I mostly go in for the ancient, myself - elementary school, y'know?  FORCED the American history down my throat until I just lost interest forever, not helped when I got older and realized how much of it RANK bullcrap so oversimplified and self-serving to the Yankee establishment as to constitute half of it being lies.

I'm pretty keen on anything up to about Shakespeare times - and my interest curve starts tapering off dramatically, for all that you can't be well-read and not know a lot about Cromwell and Napoleon and Hitler and what-all.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sorry to bring it up again, Rust, but I worked up the courage (or foolhardiness) to post on the blog I mentioned before, in the comments of an article drawing comparisons between the Charlie Hedbo magazine murders in France and those church murders in Charleston SC, written by a lady from Tennessee.

Briefly; I’m from North Carolina, and it’s been a heavy-wincing week or so for me on the internet. Annoyance (embarrassment) at people defending a symbol that’s been irreparably soiled, annoyance at SC government for not taking it down the day of the incident -if it’s only a raised finger facing North, even if that’s all and no racism or Skynard fandom, today is not the day, not that any day is- a lot of lose talk in the other direction about “The South” (itself a term so poisoned forever that I wince internally every time I see it) and Confederate this and that and actual related use of the terms “traitors” and “treason” like it’s still 1870. I breathlessly await the hillbilly jokes sure to follow.

…Circa 2003, I saw the president of some Arab-American organization comment that the very first thing he thought when he heard about the thing that happened in New York was “Oh God, please don’t let it be one of us.” That man is a brother of my heart, and I would like to meet him and shake his hand.

- See more at: http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2015/06/je-suis-charleston/#comment-189695

'Mericans sometimes have no idea how ethnocentric they are, and it's especially hard to take from the liberals who should do better at that, speaking as a left-leaner (depending) myself.  The class and regional prejudice against me and my people is certainly not a matter to raise lightly or casually to that crowd when they're oh so very sure of themselves, but rather with enormous thought and care.

Bringing up this subject in a very liberal room is a difficulty level roughly the equivalent of getting into a fight with a veteran moderator as a newb - but this was over two days ago, and I haven't gotten dog-piled, and actually drawn sympathy from a French fellow unhappy with a lot of talk there about France and racist caricatures.

I'd say that counts as close enough to beating the mod...

[Buster's Uncle]

Hey Rusty - you ain't had much to say since you came back.  Still resting up from your vacation?

[Elok]

Yeah. Cool. I'm not sure about the population comparison. Philadelphia was one of the larger English speaking cities back in the day, but that generally sums it up.

The assessment you read was based on reading like four or five biographies of colonial figures; enough to know more than the average schlub, but not enough to make me an expert by any means.  Probably should have added a disclaimer, but I tend to prolixity as it is.

Also my son wants me to add some smilies, so 

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - let me add some goodies from the zoo fer yer boy...
 

-He might enjoy the random stuff I've posted in the Let's make Smilies! thread over time, but not installed...


I totally have no real gift for brevity myself, but I think your take on the revolution makes a lot of sense.  There's a thing there that absolutely no society fails to do in looking at history.  Americans tend not to know at all that we totally invaded Russia during WWI in support of the Whites, but you just know that over there, the kids hear about it in first grade even now.  Likewise for William Walker in Nicaragua. [shrugs]

[Rusty Edge]

Hey Rusty - you ain't had much to say since you came back.  Still resting up from your vacation?

Yeah, resting up from the medical. I didn't tell you everything. I fell and hurt a rib on the trip home, I had surgery again at my home hospital for the stones, but they're over now.  Have complications from adhesive tape touching me for a week. Was trying to find a balance between high/stupid, and pain/cranky. I think I'm drug free and nearly normal now, as long as I refrain from too much activity.

[Buster's Uncle]

Activity here is easy on the ribs - and I certainly encourage you to post high...

[Rusty Edge]

That's true, unless I start to laugh.
I'll make an effort to participate.

[Buster's Uncle]

Let stupid be no barrier!

Lest I have to run Gamera off...

[Rusty Edge]

I thought of him, too.

But I think he's more a case of post envy.


We've got plans for dinner. I want to get out and pay attention to some of my neglected flower beds for a while today. We'll see how well I hold up. I'll probably be back in front of the computer again soon.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - he's just having a good time like the rest of us, and at least helps entertain and energize me.

Have a good time at supper, and careful with the gardening.

[Rusty Edge]

Enough  gardening. I pulled grass and maple seedlings long enough to get the flowers watered. Now some rest and internet.

[Rusty Edge]

Littoral Combat Vessel: The US Navy's Great Re-learning
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/littoral-combat-vessel-the-us-navys-great-relearning-13262

Littoral means close to shore.

This is about the navy trying to find a futuristic replacements for the Perry class frigates, largely used for Anti-Submarine Warfare, but usable as a supplement to the destroyer screens.  Given recent problems with piracy, and the terrorist attack against the USS Cole, and other asymmetrical warfare issues,  they came up with a revolutionary concept from scratch. A light, high speed, shallow draft, stealth vessel.
So, it would be protected from torpedoes and missile launched torpedoes by being mostly out of the water, and radar guided missiles by being stealthy.
It would be automated, with a small 40 man crew. It would be affordable- say 200 and some million $ each. It would be expendable, that is, if it were actually hit it could be abandoned or scrapped.

That makes a certain amount of sense. During WWII the USN used quantities of attack subs, PBY patrol bombers, Patrol Torpedo boats, and carrier based dive bomber much the same way. Quantities of small, expendable weapons working from an advanced island or tender ship. It worked!

Sounds like it's filling a niche, maybe not the ASW category of the ship class it's replacing, but it could have it's uses. Laying mines, landing marines, chasing pirates, drug traffickers  & terrorists, mine sweeping/mine countermeasures.

Well, they incorporated a module concept, to attach equipment to specialize it for a mission- air defense, RC vehicles, Ship to ship combat, carrying marines, etc. Even ASW!

But they were finding that the cost was increasing, and the speed was decreasing with added weight. Well, maybe it should be more durable for that price, and better protect the trained specialists and equipment...best make it more sturdy.  That crew is kind of bare-bones minimal, the loss of a single man, even to illness, could cause a mission to be aborted. Better beef it up from 40 to 50. Of course increasing crew size by 20% will affect those operating cost assumptions upon which the whole program concept was approved, so I doubt that they will be re-visited.

Somewhere along the way the new class became two similar designs of the same concept.
Also the rated sprint speed was reduced from 40 knots to 30.

Although as far as I know, they aren't designed to have tender ships or oiler ships stocked with tools, parts, and machinists the way subs and sea planes were in WWII. YET.



 "Has the U.S. Navy become the Haight-Ashbury of sea power? In a way. Service leaders, it appears, sometimes succumb to the urge to start from zero—dispensing with long-accepted verities. Exhibit A: the newfangled littoral combat ship, or LCS. Ever notice how often you hear about “new” innovations relating to these fledgling surface combatants? This week over at DOD Buzz, for instance, Kris Osborn reports on how USS Fort Worth is “launching a new expeditionary maintenance capability designed to improve the ship’s ability to conduct repairs in transit while on deployment in the Pacific theater.” The world is made new.

Except no. It turns out that Fort Worth is innovating by … carrying spare parts for its machinery. And tools to install those parts! Who’d ’ve thought the crew of a 3,400-ton ship—bigger than a World War II destroyer—could make routine repairs and conduct maintenance without putting into port?"






[/" wise conservatives—the guardians of fixed truths about human competition and war—should turn out in force when radicals maintain that the nature of war has changed, that high-tech wizardry can dispel the fog of war, or what have you. Devil’s advocates should do their damnedest when proponents of gee-whiz technology claim to have been liberated from fundamental principles that rule naval warfare. Naval warfare has not been made anew. No one can start out from zero. That’s the lesson from the littoral combat ship."b]