Has the Navy Reached its Breaking Point?

Title of the Op-Ed in Thursday's Wall St Journal.  The writer, Seth Cropsey, former naval officer, currently with the Hudson Institute,  writes a lot about the Navy's need for more funding, and the size of the job the Navy is tasked to do, and extended deployments.  But he doesn't talk about the real causes of this accident.  Things like the following:  Were navigation lights burning on both vessels?  Was the destroyer's radar manned and operating?  What was the range to the tanker when radar reported the contact to the bridge?  How many lookouts were on duty at the time of the accident (o'dark thirty)  How close was the tanker when the lookouts first reported it to the bridge?  Who was officer of the deck?  Was he on the bridge?  Was he awake?  How long had he been on duty? How much experience did he have?  Did the officer of the deck order full speed to avoid collision?  Could the engines produce full speed (30 knots or better for a destroyer) or were they worn or broken?  What were the skipper's standing orders regarding steering clear of merchant vessels?  Did he quote Admiral Dan Gallery, "Steer well clear of any merchie, lest he decide to liven up your day by ramming you." Where was the skipper anyhow?  Was there radio traffic with a shore traffic control center?  If so, what was it? 
   In short, do our sailors know what they are doing? 

The Economist trashes the construction industry

They complain that the industry has not modernized and improve their productivity.  That ain't true.  I can remember hanging around construction sites as a boy many years ago.  Studs were cut to length with handsaws.  Now a days a Skilsaw or a radial arm saw zips thru two by fours in seconds.  I remember the chink-chink-chink as the carpenters drove nails home with 20 oz framing  hammers.  Now one pfhht with an air nailer and a 10 penny nail is sunk right up to the head.  Sheet goods, plywood, siding, sheet rock, go up faster than nailing boards together.  Now a days even the smallest job does earthmoving with back hoes, bulldozers, and front end loaders rather than picks and shovels.  CPVC piping goes in faster than copper tubing and cast iron drain pipe with oakum and lead joints.  Romex cable goes in faster and easier than the old steel armored cable. 
   I'm thinking the Economist is written by the type of folk that cannot change a light bulb. 

I got a push poll from my old Alma Mater

At least it claimed to be from Franklin and Marshall, but it displayed the name of the survey company as much as it did the name of my old college.  It came to me on Facebook. The survey writer was deep into "diversity"  and asked a lot of questions about it, with answers slanted toward "diversity is good".   This survey was more into shaping my opinions than in finding out what I think about things.  Diversity was the shtick, no questions about safe spaces, micro aggressions, care and feeding of snowflakes, anti free speech. 

US Navy does it again

How does a destroyer, with vastly great speed, maneuverability, and the best radar money can buy,  get hit by a tanker?   And this is the second such incident this year.  On the first one, the Navy has relieved the captain and the executive officer of duty.  They never have said just how the accident happened.   Admiral Dan Gallery once wrote "Steer well clear of any merchie, lest he decide to liven up your day by ramming you."  I guess modern destroyer skippers don't read Dan Gallery any more.
    Could it be the destroyer thought he had the right of way over the tanker, and expected the tanker to change course to avoid him?   It doesn't work that way, big tankers don't maneuver all that well and if they are in a narrow channel, they won't maneuver at all lest they run aground.   Grounding a big tanker costs a lot more than running down anything, so the tanker skippers just plow on ahead.  You would think a US Navy destroyer skipper would understand this, but you never know. 

Boston Law Enforcement did better than Charlotte's

Boston had a bigger demo.  The Boston cops prevented anyone from bringing in weapons, and kept the two sides (lefties and righties) apart.   There are internet postings and TV pieces saying that Charlotte police stood to one side and let the two sides fight with each other.  Charlotte city  democratic party gave the stand aside order, hoping to create a national news feeding frenzy, which happened.  MSM has been talking about nothing else for a week.   I'm not sure if this theory is real news or fake news, but it is certainly plausible. 

Is the F35 any good?

It's been in development, sucking down money, for 20 years, and it's just now coming into squadron service.   It lost five out of five mock engagements with an F16 last year.  The cost per aircraft is outta sight,  maybe $80-90 million.   It won't turn very hard, g-limited to like 6 G.  Plenty of jet fighters going back 50-60 years can pull 8 G, no sweat. 
   They sent a demo model to the Paris air show where it  pulled enough fancy low altitude maneuvers to  catch some attention.  
  Aviation Week ran a three page piece where two experienced individuals debated the merits of the aircraft.  Pierre Sprey, experienced aircraft designer, panned the F35.  Retired Marine Corps colonel David Berke likes the F35.  Both men agreed that the demo sent to the Paris air show had been stripped way down to lighten it and improve it's maneuverability.  Neither man offered any numbers to support his position.  Numbers like range, speed, payload, maneuverability, rate of climb, maxt takeoff weight,  landing speed.  Nothing solid or hard, just unsupported "I like it"  or "I don't like it" 
   Colonel Berke said nice things about the F-35's  blended display system, claimed that it gave the pilot more intelligence to make better decisions.   Back in the day, all the pilot cared about was range and bearing to target.  Radar can do this.  Ground radar and the radar intercept officers give target location to the pilot over voice radio.  When the fighter closes to like 100 miles, his on  board radar will see the target.   They have spent a lot of time and money "blending" the radar, the IR, the ground datalink, and other stuff onto a single big cockpit display all at the same time.  They claim this is cooler than just showing the radar on the main cockpit display.  Maybe, but radar is the sensor that does the heavy lifting, might as well concentrate upon the radar, that's where the targets are. 

Would you buy a used airliner from this man?

Air Force One, a specially modified Boeing 747 has been flying for 25 years now.   Getting on in years, but still young compared to the B-52's and the KC 135's which are still flying after 50 years.  The Air Force budgeted nearly $4 billion dollars to buy two new replacements.   That's $2 billion per airplane.  Boeing's catalog price for a brand new 747 is $387 million.   President Trump did some jaw boning on the president of Boeing and came away with a small (nit noi) cost reduction. 
    And now we have a new deal.  The Air Force will buy a couple of brand new 747's that were built for a Russian airline Transaero, now bankrupt.  The check bounced, and two nice new 747's have been sitting on a back lot  in Victor California.   The Air Force has refused to say just how much it is paying for them.  Let's hope it is no more than list price new, $387 million each.   
   Now comes the expensive part,  jazzing up the planes with super fancy interiors, nice paint, and radio and comm gear  that lets the president talk to every part of the military, internet, TV, and probably alien deductors.  Plus anti missile warning systems, flare dispensers and laser jammers, plus God knows what other cost enhancers.
   All this work is scheduled to last until 2024.  That's seven highly profitable years for some contractor.    Can you spell gold plated?