Posted on 06/17/2017 6:36:09 AM PDT by Twotone
In May, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson and acting Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley appeared before a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing to discuss the recently unveiled fiscal year 2018 defense budget and its effects on the Navy. The news was not good about the state of the Navy and where the service is headed.
Despite campaign promises to rebuild the military from the twin disasters of sequestration and the 2011 Budget Control Act combined with nearly 16 years of combat deployments, the first Trump budget for the Navy does little to look to the future. This proposed budget only begins to fix the neglect of the past, placing more emphasis on getting the ships and submarines the repairs they desperately need.
The Navy has been in a long budgetary downward spiral since the Cold War ended. Back then, the Navy had just over 500 ships. Since then the fleet has dropped to 275 ships. And the number of ships that are available to deploy in a combat ready status has dropped to embarrassing lows, putting into question its ability to perform its central missions without further straining material and crews. Shipboard maintenance has been backlogged and ships that should be out to sea are instead sitting pierside, making the 275-ship number much, much smaller in an operational sense.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com ...
They did have one comment about cost. One had either seen or heard of F-35s being set aside for the Blue Angles and the Thunderbirds. He felt this was a huge misallocation given the cost of the F-35. In his view, the money would be better spent on salaries and benefits in order to keep experienced pilots in the Air Force.
Only after they purge the upper ranks.
Otherwise, a Navy that names ships after Murtha, Giffords, and Cesar Chavez probably needs to die.
F-35’s in the Blue Angels? Can’t imagine that. From what I’ve heard the Blue Angels’ aircraft are stripped-down hot-rods. Why would you want to do that with a stealth aircraft?
Showman ship is part and parcel for the armed service these days - combat readiness, new and repaired equipment all take a back seat in the new socially conscious experiment still called the US military which will likely be found a sexist name and changed to something more acceptable to the new generation of snowflakes and PC princes in the Pentagon who replaced the prancing self-decorated perfumed princes of yore ...
The F-35 has an extremely advanced radar, capable of simultaneous air to air, air to ground, and active ECM, that is tied into all aspect EO/IR cameras, a targeting camera, and ESM. All of that data flows to the pilot via a 10x20 color display and helmet mounted visor. The capabilities of how to employ a system like this even outstrip my imagination, after a 20 year career in Navy fighters.
Pilots love shiny new things, but they also have fierce loyalty to their current airframes. When people tell you candidly it's a game changer, I tend to believe them.
Stop the idiocy of mixed gender ships’ crews and the Navy can save a crap load of monies now spent on flying female crew members that decided to get pregnant to get out of the remainder of their ship’s deployment, and flying in another female to replace her.
Or...
Put a tax on the prostitution rings existing in all mixed gender ships’ crews to generate the necessary cash flow for the Navy.
Their friend odumbo made sure that the hole got a lot deeper in his attempt to destroy our military. Yes, Trump has a difficult task before him, if the bastards would get out of his way and some help from Congress, he could fix the problems.
The changing technology of warfare makes surface ships pre-flaming datums. Same with unarmed aircraft. Subs will win or lose a general war.
A billion here a billion there...
A plane can sink a sub but a sub can’t shoot down a plane.
Bingo, yes! They did talk about that. The helmet/visor combination on the F-35 was a marvel. It allowed the pilot to “see” right through the airplane. In other words, an F-35 pilot could look down and see right through his legs and feet and through the bottom of the aircraft and “see” what was happening below him or at any angle he turned his head. I wondered that if that’s how it worked couldn’t, a pilot with the same helmet in a trailer hundreds or thousands of miles away fly the plane as well. That comment was greeted with a grunt, Aaagh!, and nothing more.
He sure did. BTW I was doing a little play on words. Error = era. To me the obama era was a big fat error.
Once a person realizes all those "mistakes" obama made were in fact on purpose to tear America and its military down; it all makes perfect sense. Obama is an enemy of the state; always was and always will be. He should be taken out back behind the outhouse and made to face a military firing squad for his crimes. Instead he will pay a far higher price when he meets his maker. Satan has special sections for the exceptionally evil people when they get to him and it ain't to pray 5 times a day.
I don't know how a soul is tormented but I like to think the really bad ones like obama, hitler, mussolini, and the like all suffer much more than the standard murderer.
Sort of like 0bama Nation == Abomination ...
Remind me how much it costs to retrofit an insane man who believes he's a woman, and insists upon being treated as if he's carrying a fetus?
Sounds like an adaptation of the Whale. 50,000lbs and 20,000 of thrust. What a hotrod.
I have heard the BA will likely not get the Super Hornet version of the F-18 either. Too bad, it is a more hot airplane than the ancient version flown by the BA today.
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