Warfare has changed

[bigbill]

That person must be an admiral by now....

The watch rotation had me relieving this person every 8 hours for five months. I was the 0800-1200 and 2000 to 0000 officer of the deck, and we were the night carrier while the Truman was days. We started launching airstrikes at 1900 and recovered the lifeguard helicopters at 0800. The general rule was no closer than 10,000 yards (5 nautical miles, a nautical mile is 2000 yards), and 20,000 yards is preferred. All of our airstrikes were launched while driving in a box between Cyprus and Turkey, one of the world's oldest nautical trade routes, so we were constantly contacting ships to maintain distance. It's trickier at night. Most of the time, we had a "shotgun" cruiser on a parallel course and a destroyer plane guard behind us at night. It was kind of stressful.

[Saab2000]

The watch rotation had me relieving this person every 8 hours for five months. I was the 0800-1200 and 2000 to 0000 officer of the deck, and we were the night carrier while the Truman was days. We started launching airstrikes at 1900 and recovered the lifeguard helicopters at 0800. The general rule was no closer than 10,000 yards (5 nautical miles, a nautical mile is 2000 yards), and 20,000 yards is preferred. All of our airstrikes were launched while driving in a box between Cyprus and Turkey, one of the world's oldest nautical trade routes, so we were constantly contacting ships to maintain distance. It's trickier at night. Most of the time, we had a "shotgun" cruiser on a parallel course and a destroyer plane guard behind us at night. It was kind of stressful.

Airplanes have transponders that give distance from a potential conflict. I assume ships have similar technology but it’s also possible military vessels operate on discrete frequencies. Are you able to comment on this WRT keeping distance from civilian ships in those waters?

[bigbill]

Airplanes have transponders that give distance from a potential conflict. I assume ships have similar technology but it’s also possible military vessels operate on discrete frequencies. Are you able to comment on this WRT keeping distance from civilian ships in those waters?

Radar and human eyeballs. There are shipping lanes like highways where heavy marine traffic is expected. Strait of Malacca, Strait of Hormuz, Hampton Roads, Puget Sound, and others, all have traffic separation schemes. It's like checking into ATC, you contact local traffic and check in with your destination, speed, heading, and any restrictions in the ability to maneuver. However, most oceans are a free-for-all with no designated routes, just an agreement to obey the Coast Guard Rules of the Road. Slow down and turn right. And every ship needs an English speaker.

On deployment with many ships in the group, picket ships can contact merchants and pass the info to the entire group. A few times during OIF, we had a few merchant captains that weren't happy with our presence and would refuse to yield right of way and try to cut our bow. There's nothing like a high-speed cruiser rotating deck guns toward a threat to make a captain rethink his actions. Navy ships are expected to obey the rules of the road, and unless you're restricted in your ability to maneuver, such as recovering aircraft, you better do what the book says.

[j44ke]

All that traffic makes the increased number of container ships and tankers (successfully) spoofing GPS locations in order to evade embargo restrictions concerning, not just because they are evading embargo restrictions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/03/w...ional-law.html

[bigbill]

Container ships and tankers are the easiest to deal with on the open seas. They are on a base course at 22ish knots, so they're very predictable. If you have to hail one on the bridge-to-bridge radio, it was sometimes several minutes before they replied, likely to wake up the guy who speaks English. They also drive on autopilot with one guy on the bridge to keep an eye on things and answer the radio. Merchants are in a tough spot these days. For about a year, there weren't enough containers returning to SE Asia to ship products to the US. I live about a mile from the major East-West rail route, and we finally see trains with empty containers heading west. You know the double-deck container trains are empty when two locomotives pull 100+ cars. Eastbound trains typically have 5-6 locomotives. I ride the dirt roads alongside the tracks, and occasionally, I see a string of 9-12 locomotives heading west with no cars.

[bigbill]

The latest is Putin's threat of tactical nukes. Because he is losing. Commander Salamander presents a good wargame discussion.

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/20...e-for-you.html

[9tubes]

Here's a no-shitter, I was one of the officers of the deck on the carrier TR during OIF. We were operating between Cyprus and Turkey which sees a lot of merchant traffic. I walked up to the bridge to take the watch and part of my routine was to use binoculars to assess the tactical situation. We were just 3000 yards from an LNG tanker. It was a large ship with three distinct "humps" that spelled out L-N-G. I called the captain and turned the ship to open up distance. They're floating bombs that would only need a shoulder-fired missile to ignite.

Good thing there hasn't been an uncontrolled proliferation of portable missiles in the past decade, you know, the type that have range of several miles and are gps or laser guided. </s>

[theflashunc]

War. War never changes.

[jclay]

The United States spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea — combined. Link to graphic here: https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0...nse-comparison

Never mind that way too many of our "interventions" have ranged from immoral through war crimes committed by lying bastards, it's unsustainable and an easy "out" from the enormously difficult and never ending task of finding/negotiating alternatives and recognizing that we won't always get our way or be economically CAVU. But there's just too much money to be made, for some anyway, with the MIC. The only related question that really puzzles me is which will deliver the irreversible and mortal blow first; human degradation of the planet's ability to support high order life at even a minuscule fraction of our current 9 billion humans or, be it via avarice or good old honest eff-up, nuclear war.

That said, I'm going with a dinner combo platter: Appetizer of slow-burn global environmental catastrophe followed by an entree of widely distributed wars/violence at various intensities and for dessert, nuclear exchange. Funny....it sounds kinda like what's getting whipped up in the kitchen right now.