Free Republic

The National Museum of Denmark has confirmed that two 18th-century shipwrecks in Cahuita National Park, long thought to be pirate ships, are the Danish slave ships Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, which sank in 1710. The identification was announced on Sunday, resolving decades of speculation about the wrecks off Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The ships were identified through underwater excavations in 2023, which analyzed ship timbers, cargo blocks, clay pipes, and other artifacts. In 2015, U.S. archaeologists from East Carolina University discovered yellow bricks, specific to Danish manufacturing in Flensburg, among the wreckage, prompting renewed investigation. The wrecks, located on...

The Biden administration’s ballyhooed naval coalition scrapped together for the sole purpose of deterring missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen is failing. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced on December 19 during a trip to the Middle East that the United States was standing up a naval coalition named “Operation Prosperity Guardian” to stop the attacks. “The international message to the Houthis is they need to cease and desist this irresponsible and dangerous behavior. And again, that’s the message we’re hearing from the international community,” Austin said on December...

The Ukrainian military struck two Russian military transport ships with sea-based drones Thursday evening, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced. The transport ships were crewed and carried armored vehicles for transport in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian military claimed, also publishing video of the attacks. It was unclear whether the ships were sunk. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry claimed similar transport ships were being used as makeshift anti-aircraft platforms around Crimea. The Russian military has not commented on the attacks, but it claimed two Ukrainian aerial drones were shot down over Crimea overnight. Ukraine has focused strikes on Russia’s naval forces in...

Ukraine said it had carried out a sea drone attack on a Russian naval base, as dramatic videos appeared to show a damaged Russian warship listing heavily in the Black Sea early Friday. Social media images showed the ship being towed near the Novorossiysk naval base, despite earlier claims by the Russian defense ministry that the attack had been repelled. A Ukrainian source told CNN that a sea drone with 450 kilograms of TNT had attacked the ship and claimed there were about 100 Russian servicemen aboard. “A big navy ship Olenogorsky Gornyak was hit,” the source told CNN. “As...

Super Bowl LVI Live Thread Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

HONOLULU (KHON2) -- It was tense hours for those stuck inside The Kahala Hotel and Resort during Saturday’s barricade. A guest who stayed two flights above the suspect said he has traveled back home, but it is an experience that is difficult to leave behind. Get Hawaii’s latest news sent to your inbox, click here to subscribe to News 2 You, a daily newsletter. https://nxslink.khon2.com/join/6sd/signup A gunman barricaded himself inside his hotel room and forced all guests at the Kahala to seek shelter. Some people sheltered in the lobby and ballroom, others like David Fox remained inside their room when...

August 1981 opened with a massive show of American force in the Mediterranean Sea, just north of Libya. Two of America’s super-carriers, the USS Forrestal and the class’ namesake, USS Nimitz, had entered into what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had illegally declared his nation’s territorial waters. America’s carriers were there to oppose that declaration, and for days, fighters from both countries danced in an airborne extension of diplomatic tensions until two U.S. fighters entered into a deadly dogfight. "The left side of the lead Libyan aircraft lit up with a big flame as the missile motor ignited," recounted Lieutenant Larry...

A Norwegian warship was heavily damaged in a collision with a Maltese oil tanker in the North Sea off the coast of Norway. According to Norwegian media reports Thursday, the frigate is in danger of sinking after sustaining heavy damage. The oil tanker is reportedly undamaged. Several reports confirmed that all 137 crew on the navy ship were evacuated but seven have been treated for minor injuries. "The armed forces is now reviewing all the means available in the region to assist the KNM Helge Ingstad (the damaged warship)," Lieutenant Colonel Ivar Moen told AFP. According to the website Marine...

Over the course of the Cold War, the balance of forces between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Soviet Union changed dramatically. At different points, a war would have played out in far different ways in the major theaters, including Central Europe, the Arctic, the North Atlantic, the Far East and even in space. For the most part, changes to each side’s forces came slowly, with only a few significant shifts due to technological advances.

(Very long article, so I excerpted only the conclusions graphic)

From Reuters - URL only

This is a really well done documentary series on naval history. It is rather long but worth watching. Empire of the Sea (pt 1 of 4)

On Oct. 15, 2016 in Baltimore on the U.S. East Coast, the U.S. Navy commissioned the guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt into service following a protracted and costly development. Six hundred feet long and displacing 14,500 tons, Zumwalt — the first of three stealthy land-attack destroyers — is America’s largest surface combatant in generations.

The United States Navy is paradoxically the most traditional and innovative of America’s armed services. It is also by far and away the most diverse in terms of missions and capabilities. In addition to its fleet of cutting-edge surface ships and submarines, the Navy possesses its own ground force—the Marines—and an air force, both land and carrier-based, which has greater strike capability than the air forces of most developed nations. The Navy’s supercarrier battle groups function as mobile military cities, extending American power and influence across the entire globe.

The U.S. Navy’s latest and greatest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, when completed, will join the ranks of the world’s most advanced warships ever put to sea. It will carry an air wing with firepower second to none. It will be defended by some of the most powerful naval vessels on the planet. And yet, coming in at an astounding $15 billion dollars—the most expensive naval vessel ever—its time as the symbol of U.S. power projection and military dominance may be over. Notice I used the words may be over. The simple fact is this: no one really knows...

On Friday, we reported the latest provocation in what has truly become a very dangerous, if largely pointless, staring contest between Beijing and Washington over China’s reclamation of land in The South China Sea. Responding to suggestions that the US was set to sail warships around the islands Beijing has constructed atop reefs in the Spratlys, China served noticed that it would “never allow any country to violate China's territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight.” This was simply a formalized version of the more concise phrasing the PLA...

An F/A-18 fighter jet aircraft has crashed west of Naval Air Station Lemoore. The crash, which happened Monday, was north of Highway 198 in a dirt field just east of the Kings/Fresno county line, about two miles west of NASL, according to Adam Barresi, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. The pilot reportedly ejected from the aircraft in mid-air, parachuted to the ground, landed and walked over to emergency responders on scene, according to Kings County Fire Chief Bill Lynch. Lynch said the crash happened around 4 p.m. The pilot's name wasn't immediately available. The parachute was reported as...

Two Russian warships have docked in northern Iran for a series of naval training exercises with the Islamic Republic, according to Persian-language reports translated by the CIA’s Open Source Center. The two Russian ships docked in Iran’s Anzali port on Sunday and will hold “joint naval exercises during the three-day stay of the warships in Iran,” according to a Persian-language report in Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency. “The [Russian] warships, Volgodonsk and Makhachkala docked in Anzali Port [near the Caspian Sea], in the fourth naval zone, on the afternoon of 9 August,” the report says. The war exercises come just...

A threat prompted the U.S. Navy to evacuate workers from two Philadelphia facilities Tuesday morning and raise the threat level to imminent. In turn, officials raised the threat level for those facilities from Bravo to Charlie — the second highest level — while evacuating workers around 10:20 a.m. Some workers said they were suddenly told they had to leave without being given an explanation. By noon, SkyForce10 captured crews blocking the entrance to the Northeast Philly facility with concrete barriers.

Canada’s military has again delayed the opening of a major new Arctic port, a sign the government is struggling to assert sovereignty over a remote resource-rich region. The planned deep water naval facility at Nanisivik – some 3,100 km (1,900 miles) north of Ottawa – is one of the key components of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “use it or lose it” approach to the Arctic. The port, initially due to open in 2012, will now not be operational until 2018.