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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member

000 USS John Murtha LPD-26-01.jpg
USS John Murtha, LPD-26, Commissions on October 8th, 2016.

USS Portland, LPD-27, the 11th San Antonio Class LPD was launched February 13, 2016. The 12th vessel and last San Antonio Class, the, USS Fort Lauderdale is under construction.

After that, the new LX(R) vessels, to replace the 12 LSD ships, will start construction using the same hull as the San Antonio Class.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
As we know, the USS Zumwalt has been repaired of her minor engineering issue and will be commissioned in Baltimore next week on October 15th.

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But I thought folks would like to see this pic of the Zumwalt departing, with her now launched sister ship, the USS Michael Monsoor, 2nd in class, seen in the foreground.

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...and another of the two together before Zumwalt left:

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interestingly USS Mason Fired 3 Missiles to Defend From Yemen Cruise Missiles Attack
The crew of a guided-missile destroyer fired three missiles to defend themselves and another ship after being attacked on Sunday in the Red Sea by two presumed cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi-forces, USNI News has learned.

During the attack against USS Mason (DDG-87), the ship’s crew fired the missiles to defend the guided-missile destroyer and nearby USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) from two suspected cruise missiles fired from the Yemini shore, two defense officials told USNI News.

Mason launched two Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) and a single Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) to intercept the two missiles that were launched about 7 P.M. local time. In addition to the missiles, the ship used its Nulka anti-ship missile decoy, the sources confirmed. Mason was operating in international waters north of the strait of Bab el-Mandeb at the time of the attack.

According to a defense official on Monday, Mason “employed onboard defensive measures” against the first suspected cruise missile, “although it is unclear whether this led to the missile striking the water or whether it would have struck the water anyway.” The official did not specify that the defensive measure was a missile fired from the ship.

USNI News understands, as of Monday, the crew of the ship was uncertain if the suspected cruise missile was taken out by an SM-2 or went into the water on its own. In the Monday statement, the Pentagon said an investigation was ongoing.

The second missile launched from Yemen hit the water without being struck by a U.S. interceptor.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis would not confirm Mason launched missiles to USNI News on Monday. On Tuesday, Davis told reporters the missiles coming from Yemen might have been intended to strike Ponce and that the U.S. “will take action accordingly,” in response to the findings of the ongoing investigation.

While the Pentagon will not confirm details of Mason’s engagement, the use of both missiles by the U.S. is, “very significant,” Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former aide to retired former-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Monday.

“It might be the first time the SM-2 used against an actual threat for which it was designed,” Clark said.
“It’s definitely the first time ESSM has been used… This is obliviously a huge deal.”

The SM-2s – more than two decades old – were specifically designed to tackle Cold War cruise missile threats to a guided-missile destroyer, much like the ones Iran has presumably given to the Houthis in Yemen.

Last week a Houthi-launched cruise missile caused significant damage to the UAE-leased HSV Swift – an unarmed aluminum high-speed transport vessel used to move supplies and wounded in the region, UAE officials said. UAE is part of a Saudi Arabia led coalition that has fought against the Iran backed Shi’a Houthis in Yemen since last year.

While U.S. sources haven’t confirmed the type of missiles, open source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News on Monday the damage on Swift appears to be from the warhead used in a Chinese-built C-802 anti-ship missile (NATO reporting name CSS-N-8 Saccade). The C-802 is based on Cold War-era French technology.

Specifically, the damage on Swift indicates the missile had an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) warhead – a well-known feature of the C-802. An EFP expands on impact launching additional pieces of shrapnel once the missile has penetrated the outer skin of a target around its circumference.

While the guidance system is largely 1990s vintage, the C-802 carries a, “very damaging warhead,” Carlson said.

The attacks on Mason and Ponce follow an airstrike that killed more than 140 people and injured more than 500 during a funeral in Yemen. The Saudi-led bombing has prompted a review of U.S. support of the conflict fought between the collation and the Houthis since last year,
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.

Prior to the Saudi strike, Houthi rebels have told Saudi Arabia and its allies — via Iranian state media — to stay out of Yemen, “territorial waters.”

Davis told reporters on Tuesday, there’s no short-term anticipated change in U.S. posture in the region.
source:
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Hyperwarp

Captain
USS Mason Fired 3 Missiles to Defend From Yemen Cruise Missiles Attack
By: Sam LaGrone
October 11, 2016 2:34 PM • Updated: October 11, 2016 5:33 PM


The crew of a guided-missile destroyer fired three missiles to defend themselves and another ship after being attacked on Sunday in the Red Sea by two presumed cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi-forces, USNI News has learned.....

Source -
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Hyperwarp

Captain

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now
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Recently, Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson drove home the point that
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, was too vague as to be useful to define the effort of US and allied forces to deal with peer competitors.

“The term ‘denial,’ as in anti-access/area denial is too often taken as a fait accompli,” the CNO said, “when it is, more accurately, an aspiration. Often, I get into A2AD discussions accompanied by maps with red arcs extending off the coastlines of countries like China or Iran. The images imply that any military force that enters the red area faces certain defeat – it’s a ‘no-go’ zone!”

But for the CNO not only does A2AD ascribe capabilities to peer competitors that are not demonstrated, but the term suggests an outcome when in fact U.S. and allied forces are being shaped to operate very differently than in the period of the dominance of the land wars.

Richardson is focused as well on the reshaping of the maritime forces to operate in a much more effective manner throughout an extended battlespace. The CNO has crafted a concept which he calls kill webs to describe the way ahead for the maritime and joint force.

We recently discussed the evolving approach to this issue with one of the senior Naval officers charged with translating the approach into combat reality,
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, deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems (OPNAV N9). He is responsible for the integration of manpower, training, sustainment, modernization and procurement of the Navy’s warfare systems.

It is clear that both the Air Force, the Navy and Marine Corps team are focused on shaping the force for the high-end fight against peer competitors. The Army’s main contribution in such considerations is the expanding and evolving role of Army Air Defense and Missile Defense systems. But in so doing, the focus is upon shaping a modular, agile force, which can operate across the spectrum of military operations; not just be honed simply for the high-end fight. It is about shaping multi-mission and multi-tasking platforms into an integrated force, which can deliver lethal and non-lethal effects throughout the distributed battlespace.

Recently, the new
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, underscored that preparing for the high-end fight was a moral imperative. Given similar language and statements by the Chief of Naval Operations, this raises the question of the evolving working relationship between the Air Force and the Navy and Marine Corps Team.

“We are working closely with General Goldfein through various service interaction groups; most effectively at the highly classified level,” Manazir told us. “The core commonality between the two is that both are expeditionary services. When we get into the battle area, Air Force assets can strike, reset, and strike again. Naval forces operating in the maritime domain provide persistence. If you combine Air Force and Naval combat capabilities you have a winning combination. If you architect the joint force together, you achieve a great effect.”

A key focus for the changes needed is the kind of command and control for a distributed force to ensure decision-making superiority. The
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is an aging artifact of nearly 16 years of ground war which assumes the US and the allies had complete air superiority. Dealing with peer competitors and drawing upon the assets in a distributed approach requires different force configuration, training and operational foci.

Manazir underscored that, “C2 is ubiquitous across the kill web. Where is information being processed? Where is knowledge being gained? Where is the human in the loop? Where can core C2 decisions best be made and what will they look like in the fluid battlespace? The key task is to create decision superiority. But what is the best way to achieve that in the fluid battlespace we will continue to operate in? What equipment and what systems allow me to ensure decision superiority?”

As the technology changes and as the force becomes more effectively in the extended battlespace changes are necessary to shape appropriate rules of engagement for the distributed force. “The rules of engagement (ROE) need to keep up with the technology,” the admiral said. “An F-35 is going to have electronic means that can affect somebody a long way away. We didn’t have those electronic means before, and so the ROE should be able to allow us to employ weapons based on the technology that we have.”

One of the key aspects of changes involves weapons in the kill web. Target identification and weapons delivery will not be necessarily located on the same platform. Indeed, the ability to deliver lethal effect in the electro-magnetic battlespace will be distributed throughout the kill web. Weapons are distributed throughout the kill web and can be fired by platforms also operating throughout the kill web capable of firing weapons not carried by that platform.

Distributed strike will become increasingly significant as well as weapons modernization accelerates and the problem of providing new capabilities to the force, a force that is distributed in operations.

A new capability already in the fleet but whose future has just begun are directed energy weapons. As Manazir put it: “directed energy weapons are part of our overall transformation in the weapons enterprise. Directed energy weapons are fifth generation weapons. Directed energy weapons, coupled with other new types of weapons, are critical to empowering a distributed force.”

Put simply,
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works right now. But the overall approach is to build from deployed capabilities to more optimal directed energy weapons. Manazir outlined the Navy’ strategy: “In order to have the higher-end kinetic effect, you have to have the space for the weight of the laser itself, the power for it, and then the cooling-wherever the source.

“Obviously, with a ship in the water, you have an unlimited source of cooling water. Then, in order to have a very, very deep magazine for a laser shot, you either have to have a constant source of fairly high electrical power, or you have to have a very large battery. We are not waiting until we have what many see as the ultimate goal, a one-megawatt laser weapon; we would like to build capability incrementally.

“Over time we will be able to field higher and higher power laser weapons. It is about putting it into the fleet and evolving the capability; it is not about waiting until we have the optimal weapon. We need not just the weapon, but the training and the tactics shaped by the fleet to provide inputs to how best to integrate the capability into the force.”

Manazir outlined some of these ideas in a recent presentation at the Williams Foundation Seminar on air-sea integration held in Canberra on August 10. With the Aussies and Brits participating, it was clear these core allies share that the Navy’s focus on kill webs as well. Manazir underscored the importance of the allied-US engagement in force transformation in our interview.

“In effect, when we can operate together in this new environment and work from the same page, we can support core allies or allies can support us in the battlespace,” he said. “We can function as each other’s wingman. We are moving from a platform-centric mindset to a capability-centric mindset.”

The entire kill web approach affects the modernization and acquisition of platforms as well as the high-end training necessary to shape an integrated force.

According to Rear Admiral Manazir, the Navy is focused on innovations in the man-machine interactive capabilities. By so doing, the Navy is focused on levearging the interactive capabilities of manned and unmanned systems as well as kinetic and non kinetic ones. In the famous OODA loop the focus is upon finding ways for the machine to work more effectively in delivering the OO part of the OODA loop and innovating in how the combat warriors then can make decisions in the extended battlespace.

According to Rear Admiral Manazir: “The key is continually evolving combinations of capabilities that enhance the defensive and offensive power of the platforms that you put into the kill web. We are very focused on the evolving man-machine relationship, and the ability of manned and unmanned systems, as well as kinetic and non-kinetic systems, to deliver a broader spectrum of capability to the force.

“We are aiming to use the machine for the OO (Observe-Orient) part of the
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and optimize our human capabilities to do the DA (Decide-Act). Fighter pilots have always been “thinking aviators” but we are adjusting what we expect from them as they become key nodes and crucial enablers in the kill web. Becoming a Top Gun pilot in this world will be quite different than in the legacy one,” Manazir said.
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Time for it and the good guy win :cool: and the bad lost as in a good Western hehe :)
if I were you, I wouldn't cheer yet:
U.S. Navy destroyer again targeted by missiles from Yemen: U.S. officials
A U.S. Navy destroyer was targeted on Wednesday in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, the second such incident in the past four days, U.S. officials told Reuters.

The USS Mason, which was accompanied by the USS Ponce - an amphibious transport dock - fired defensive salvos in response to the missiles, neither of which hit the ship or caused any damage as it operated north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The renewed attempt to target the U.S. Navy destroyer will add pressure on the U.S. military to retaliate, a move that would represent the first direct U.S. military action against Houthis in Yemen's conflict. The Pentagon hinted about possible retaliatory strikes on Tuesday.

The incidents, along with an Oct. 1 strike on a vessel from the United Arab Emirates, add to questions about safety of passage for military ships around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping routes.

The Houthis, who are battling the internationally-recognized government of Yemen President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, denied any involvement in the previous attempt to strike the USS Mason or the nearby USS Ponce on Sunday.

But U.S. officials have told Reuters there is growing indications that Houthi rebels, despite those denials, were responsible for Sunday's incident.

The rebels appeared to use small skiffs as spotters to help direct the missile attack on the warship. The United States is also investigating the possibility that a radar station under Houthi control in Yemen might have also "painted" the USS Mason, something that would have helped the Houthi fighters pass along coordinates for a strike, the officials have said.

The Houthis, who are allied to Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, have the support of many army units and control most of the north including the capital Sanaa.

Reuters has learned that the coastal defense cruise missiles used against the USS Mason on Sunday had considerable range, adding to concerns about the kind of heavy weaponry that the Houthis appear willing to employ and some of which U.S. officials believe is supplied by Iran.
source is Reuters:
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