Posted on 10/15/2023 10:56:28 AM PDT by hardspunned
Two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers deployed this week, with four carrier strike groups currently deployed across the globe, USNI News has learned.
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) left Norfolk Naval Station on Saturday morning, according to ship spotters. Ike’s deployment will take the CSG to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to join USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and its strike group, according to a late Saturday Pentagon statement.
“The Eisenhower CSG will join the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which arrived earlier this week,” reads a statement from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “The increases to U.S. force posture signal the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
Thanks
They took a cue from Jake Sullivan when he said about 2 weeks ago the Middle East was quieter than it had been in 20 years.
You don’t need to deploy Carrier Strike Groups, if everything is quiet and at peace.
They took a cue from Jake Sullivan when he said about 2 weeks ago the Middle East was quieter than it had been in 20 years.
You don’t need to deploy Carrier Strike Groups, if everything is quiet and at peace.
It was Trump who was going to get us into a world war, right?
It was Trump who was going to get us into a world war, right?
***
It’s always the Democrats who get us in to a war.......
>>>It was Trump who was going to get us into a world war, right?
No doubt Joe is having an ice cream cone somewhere?
The Ford was on her way home when she got turned back to the Eastern Med. It seems the Pentagon is merely replacing the Ford with the Eisenhower.
I’ll be surprised if any come home until we find out whether or not there’ll be an Iranian war. I can only hope the Vinson is heading for the Persian Gulf. I can’t think of a place where a carrier battle group would be more needed or more effective.
During my last two Fifth Fleet deployments ('20, '21) we didn't transit Hormuz at all. We just hung out in the GOO (Gulf of Oman) and pulled into port once in a while in Duqm, Oman (where there is absolutely nothing to do).
I was blessed to have served during a time when port calls to Dubai were commonplace but I think those days are over for a while.
Once operations in Iraq ceased, there wasn't any real good reason to patrol the Arabian Gulf and take on the risk of a Hormuz transit. The way things are looking now with Israel and Ukraine as major areas of hostilities, I have to wonder if the Ike will even bother entering the Fifth Fleet at all, or just hang out in the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Sucks for the Sailors. No tax-free pay until you enter the Suez.
Carrier crews are already overworked and overdeployed as a rule (i.e., operational tempo out-of-whack, too high) . That is to say, we don’t have enough aircraft carriers, even for peacetime steaming, given our (U.S.) legitimate (necessary) global policy imperatives. So, far from having any spare carriers exist to throw at regional problems, we have already been knowingly destroying the necessary schedule of lethal deployment, stand-down (leave/shipyard/re-arm/reload), and recruit/train-up/re-qualification of ship and crew. It’s a serious issue and nobody anywhere can take our place.
That sounds like a wise idea.
Ford is still getting the bugs out of the system.
Unfortunately I have no faith in our current political leadership. I was hopeful when they sent the Ford someone was awake at the top finally
I am hoping the Vinson is headed to the Indian Ocean. However they being cagy about where it is going. I am not sure if that is good news or bad news. It passible it is going to the West Pacific to deter China from jumping into the game.
It’s my understanding we have 11 active duty carriers. Last week we had 2 deployed. You’re telling me that’s “overdeployed”? Then why do we have half a trillion dollars invested in 11 carrier battle groups? It’s unconscionable not having a carrier in the Persian Gulf during this war.
I wonder how many young pride sailors are bothering to show up for deployment. The young really do whatever the hell they want to do these days. “I’m not going and you can’t make me. I’ve got rights.”
The Sixth Fleet chaplain in Naples had forty tickets to midnight mass at the Vatican in 1991 (this was after Iraq-related (First Gulf War) hostilities had died down, but the Red Sea was still part of a war zone through and including April of 1992). The Naples port visit included Carrier (anchored out) and other ships/small boys, and spanned both Christmas and New Years festivities.
All personnel in liberty in Naples had to report back to their ships by 9pm on New Years Eve for safesty/security purposes. The Naples locals had a habit of throwing heavy, flaming things (like, for example, couches) out of third-floor windows and down into the narrow, cobblestone roads and alleys below, in celebration of the New Year.
So we got the USS Battaan and a bunch of Marines in the Gulf of Oman and no carrier battle group covering them
Hard to believe anymore that mere incompetence is at play here
Good Lord, in all the confusion, I forgot about our rainbow warrior led military’s competency. Oh nightmare of nightmares, what if someone on the Vinson has Covid!?! Will they turn the battle group around and head back to port like during the scamdemic?
The devil is in the details.
OpTempo is already too high.
The carriers are national assets, used to project power worldwide. Not just during wartime or times of strife or uncertainty. And not just in dicey or strategically important places, but in dozens of places, and for very good reasons. We can’t skimp and moreover need new carriers to replace the aging/old ones we already have. Big bucks.
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