Yarrr, it be Navy Day at Wings Over Iraq!

Today, I'd like to take a look at two different navies that have featured prominently in the blogosphere recently.

The first navy we'll take a look at is the Royal Danish Navy. Though Denmark is half the size of the state of Maine, and has a population of just five million, it fields quite an impressive navy. This might have something to do with the fact that Denmark (or "Jutland") is strategically located on the Baltic Sea, and was the site of one of the largest naval battles in history.

The Danish Navy has been participating in NATO's anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia for quite some time. The most notable vessel in their fleet, the flagship destroyer HDMS Absalon, sank a pirate "mother ship" off the coast of Somalia. This is the second such incident in which the Absalon's crew did battle with pirates in recent weeks, rescuing the occupants of a freighter which had been previously boarded by pirates.

The US Navy's Commander Herb Carmen weighed in on the Absalon at Tom Ricks' The Best Defense. It seems that the ship is about 3/4 the size of a typical Arleigh Burke destroyer, yet it's quite a remarkable machine. Although it sports an impressive array of weaponry for taking out surface ships and aircraft, it's also quite well suited for the "small wars" as well. It's equipped with a "flex deck", capable of carrying over 7 Leopard II tanks, a containerized hospital, or a command post. Throw in a compliment of two helicopters, and you've got a ship capable of almost anything.

The Absalon is apparently quite modern and has fairly decent amenities. A number of posters were in shock that the Danes picked up the vessel for such a low price.

Cmdr. Carmen said it best though, when talking about the crew of the Absalon:

The right ship matters, but what is primary in naval warfare is the fighting spirit of her crew. Commodore Christian Rune and the crew of Absalon have certainly shown superb fighting spirit in 2010. Commodore Rune flies his flag in Absalon and leads the NATO's counter-piracy mission off the east coast of Somalia.

Here's to our NATO allies!

The next navy I'd like to look at is, well, our old adversary: the Russian Navy.

Let me be the first to note that I think that the Russian Navy, like the Russian Army and Air Force, is little more than a "boogey man" cooked up by defense contractors to scare Congress into purchasing more weapons. Much like the Russian Air Force, which consists of a few technology demonstrators and squadrons of broken MiGs, the Russian Navy consists of submarines which, well, never seem to return to the surface. Don't forget their one "aircraft carrier"--which really carries about 1/3 of the aircraft compliment of an American aircraft carrier--that is constantly accompanied by tugboats in the event of a breakdown. Put it all together and you get a paper tiger.

The USNI's blog features an after-action report written by a few French liaison officers who spent some time aboard a Russian anti-submarine ship during a training exercise. Take a look at how bad things have gotten for the Russian Navy.

The metal decks, especially when they are wet or covered in salt, are very slippery. There is a great probability of falling and receiving serious injury during pitching. The guests often slipped. The decks on French ships (as well as on American, British and Norwegian ships) are covered with a rough paint which limits slipping even when wet. The ladders also have a special coating, kind of like emory board, that limits slipping.

So wait. The same Russians who claim to have a super-fighter capable of defeating an F-22 don't even have the technology to come up with slip-resistant paint for the decks of ships?

Wait, it gets even better:

French officers were surprised that onboard the most modern Russian ship, provision of hot water to the staterooms wasn’t even planned for and that cold water was available once a day for ten minutes. The entire [Russian] crew (450 people) washed once every ten days, over the course of eight hours. Each man had three to four minutes in the shower. The French officers paid attention to the appearance of the Russian sailors. By the end of the deployment, lice was found on the sailors.

Seriously, the Russians are supposed to pose a serious threat to US carrier operations and they can't even figure out how to boil enough water for the crew of a small ship? Are they short of water in the middle of the ocean?

There are also some damning indictments on Russian leadership. Rank does come with a few benefits, but judge for yourself:

Food on French ships was significantly better and varied. The basic part of the menu – frutti di mare, meat and vegetables. For the week the Russian officers were on board, the menu did not repeat itself. According to the French sailors, the menu begins to repeat itself after they have been at sea for a month. As opposed to the Russian [ship], where the ration worsens as you go from the Captains table, to the wardroom for the officers and warrants and further down to the crew, on the French destroyers and multipurpose submarines, there is one galley and the food is the same for everyone.

What surprised me is the brutality of the Russian Navy, and the manner in which sailors are treated by sadistic officers. Junior sailors seemed to be repeatedly berated by officers, and information flow was abysmal. Typical for a unit with poor discipline, the ship had numerous "musters" ("formations" for us army guys), during shift changes, rather than relying on junior leaders to enforce standards of timeliness upon their subordinates during shift changes.

Definitely give the USNI's post a read.

A bottle o' rum fer NATO

Monsoon season off the coast of Somalia is nearly over. That means pirate hunting season begins...

Baffling Questions Re: M/V McArthur

Like the gentlemen at the US Naval Institute's blog, I had my doubts about Blackwater Xe Services LLC's pirate-hunting ship for-hire, the MV McArthur*. Blackwater advertised the vessel as a great investment for shipping companies looking to protect themselves against piracy, the hype--and there was quite a bit of it--just doesn't live up to the reality of the McArthur.

Let's start with the fact that the McArthur boasts a top speed--as advertised--of 12 knots. That's roughly 13 miles per hour. To put this in perspective, this is roughly equivalent to a WW2-era Liberty Ship, which had a maximum speed of 11.5 knots. The Maersk Alabama, a type of ship which might be escorted by the McArthur, has a top speed of 18 knots. Also, keep in mind that the McArthur is a paid alternative to ships of Combined Task Force 151, which include modern Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, with speeds of over 30 knots, and US Navy aircraft carriers can top 30 knots as well. Even the speedboat we had at our Boy Scout camp to teach water skiing merit badge could travel faster than 12 knots!

Indeed, not only is the McArthur not fast enough to even keep up with the ships it will be escorting, but it lacks the speed to respond to a distant emergency and intercept pirates who might be in smaller speedboats. Sailors who served on the McArthur even told stories about the ship's speed and suitability for the mission (scroll down). Face it, there was a reason this thing wasn't going to see service anytime soon.

*--in a previous post, I referred to the vessel as the MacArthur, as in Douglas MacArthur, but it appears that the vessel's namesake is a US Coast Guard officer named McArthur instead. The ship served as a hydrographic charting vessel in the US Coast and Godetic Survey.

This is a better morning wake-up than coffee...

(H/T USNI)

Blackwater's private anti-piracy ship, the MacArthur, is now up for sale for approximately $3.7 million (place your bid here) Originally designed to serve as a paid armed escort for merchant vessels, the company has been unable to find any customers, despite a plethora of armed pirate attacks in the Horn of Africa region. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that the crew of the ship punished its scalywags by measures more in line with the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Regardless--place your bid or giggle in delight, like I just did.

Edit: If anyone does buy the MacArthur, I propose organizing a vacation like this one.

If at first you don't succeed...find a different line of work

You may remember the story of the Maersk Alabama, the cargo ship which was seized by Somalian pirates in April of this year: The crew of the ship fought back against the pirates, reclaiming the ship, but not before four pirates escaped with the captain of the ship as a hostage in a life boat. A US Navy destroyer was dispatched, and US Navy SEALs joined the action, parachuting into the water. After a standoff which lasted a few days, the US Navy destroyer, having attached a line to the life boat, slowly began to reel the boat in to range of the SEAL snipers. Suddenly, all three pirates were simultaneously shot through the head, allowing the captain to escape.

It was a masterful mission, and the crew of the Maersk Alabama, as well as the US Navy SEALs, showed considerable bravery. I would have thought that the actions of the US--as opposed to some countries which have simply paid pirates ransom--would deter future pirate attacks.

Of course, this assumes that the pirates are using common sense. Yesterday, Somalian pirates attempted to seize an American vessel...which turned out to be none other than the Maersk Alabama. Again.

The pirates were easily driven off thanks to a compliment of armed guards which now stands watch over the vessel.

I'm beginning to think piracy just isn't their thing.

Links of the Day

Today's Link of the Day roundup:

• From Gizmodo: Liveblogging Couple May Have Been Captured By Somalian Pirates. (Somalian pirates, we!)
• What could be more eagerly anticipated than the revised DOD policy regarding social media? How about a revised policy regarding USB drives? Seriously, I hate burning CD-ROMs five to ten times a day. What is this, 1999? (H/T Karaka Pend)
• Congratulations to Pat O, an ROTC cadet in his last year of college at Georgetown University, who just discovered that he was branched infantry, which was his first choice. Pat, you are far braver than I!
• The Onion exclusive: US Continues Quagmire-Building Mission in Afghanistan. Pure genius (H/T Abu Muqawama)
• Spencer Ackerman reports that Nuristan province is almost completely under the control of the Taliban. Worse news, Taliban 2.0 has much stronger ties to al Qaeda than Taliban 1.0, which is one reason I oppose complete abandonment of Afghanistan.
• Finally, you may remember a quick article I wrote while I was hung over on R and R leave in Australia about the BigDog, a walker-like robot suited for the terrain in Afghanistan. (The article got picked up by the Early Bird--the Pentagon's official news wire. God, their standards must be low). Well, look out BigDog, here comes a two-legged walker variant called "Petman". While the technology probably isn't workable for an actual battle droid just yet, I think that in the next thirty or forty years, we might see robotics technology like this really take off. (I eagerly await my Cylon Model Six).

Yarr, the most amazin’ holiday o’ te year, matey!

That be right, ye scallywags, it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day! See ye scurvy pirates throughout hist'ry:

The Pirate Captain runs fer Cap'n of NC State University. (full story)

Search fer pirates and buried treasure!

Pirate songs!

Arrr, that be all the pirate news fer t'day, mateys, as there weren't any good blog posts t'day. Hoist the mizzenmast!

(Slow blog day, so sue me)

Your 4GW link of the day...sort of...

Analysis of the Iraq War has been sparse in the past week, even with the 30 June deadline rapidly approaching. Despite the number of large bombs that seem to have gone off within the past week, most milblogs and pundits have been relatively quiet on any sort of predictions of exactly what will happen when US troops have moved combat forces out of the cities. For good reason, too, as the situation is as unpredictable as the situation next door in Iran.

In the meantime, however, I bring you this article (courtesy of the Tucker Max Message Board) regarding that other form of unconventional war: piracy. If you're looking to do some some up-close-and-personal research on Somali pirates, you need to look no further than SomaliCruises.com, where you can sign up for an $800 week-long cruise, and hunt pirates for yourself. Renting an M-16 costs $25 per day, while the Barrett .50-cal sniper rifle is $55 per day. Just look at the testimonial:

"Six attacks in 4 days was more than I expected. I bagged three pirates and my 12yr old son sank two rowboats with the minigun. PIRATES: 0 - PASSENGERS: 32! Well worth the trip. Just make sure your spotter speaks English" -- Donald, Salt Lake city Utah USA

Who needs Blackwater when you have these guys?

Okay, the site's obviously fake, but it's already been picked up by at least one pseudo-credible news source, Ananova.com. I'm wondering when The Huguenot Corsair will pick up on this...

South Park and Piracy

Everyone's favorite political satire cartoon has just now taken on the Somalian piracy issue in an episode entitled "Fatbeard". I need to download this.

Army Aviation and Pirates

I had a great conversation the other day with a senior aviator that brought up some interesting observations on piracy. I was going to post this last night, but an unexpected sandstorm knocked out my Internet.

One of those aviation clichés that actually is true is that in every unit, there's that pilot that's been around forever. He's flown one of everything in the Army's inventory, in every theater, and blown up one of everything the enemy's had. Yesterday, I talked tactics with just one such aviator.

We noted that Somalia isn't the first time the US has had to deal with pirate-like enemies in the recent past. In the 1980s, the US and Iran were engaged in the largest naval battle since the Second World War in what has been termed "The Tanker War". During the Iran-Iraq war, Iran had captured a number of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil tankers, causing the US Navy to take action in the conflict

Thus began a massive campaign against the Iranian Navy. Much to the surprise of the US Navy, which was trained to win massive shooting wars against the Soviet battle fleet in the Northern Atlantic to protect the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap, the Iranians employed speedboats against American warships.

The US Navy augmented itself with aircraft from, of all places, the US Army--specifically, aircraft from the 160^th Special Operations Aviation regiment, which operated its "Little Bird" AH-6 and MH-6 aircraft some thirty feet off the water as part of Operation Prime Chance. It was the first time Army Aviators flew with night vision goggles in combat.

The US Army also rushed the new OH-58D Kiowa Warrior into production, which served in Task Force 118 during the brief conflict. The smaller helicopters, working in conjunction with US Navy ships, were able to seek out and destroy Iranian speedboats, and assisted in the capture of the Iranian mine-laying ship, the Iran Ajr.

The US Navy has had difficulty in the past dealing with small boats using guerilla tactics. But then again, the US Army had also difficulty dealing with small pockets of insurgents using guerilla tactics.

The primary mission of the US Navy is to ensure freedom of the seas and to protect US shipping interests. The latest round of piracy in Somalia shows us once again that $2 billion submarines such as the USS Seawolf, F-22 Raptor fighters, and "stealth" destroyers such as the new DDG-1000 are not of great use when your enemy is a group of teenagers who deploy by speedboat and hold American citizens hostage in bright orange life boats. A greater reliance on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, coupled with small-boat and rotary-wing capabilities to transport Special Operations Forces (particularly SEALs) is one of the best ways to combat piracy.

Too bad for the defense contractors that it's not expensive at all…

How to deal with Pirates

I used to call piracy "4th Generation War upon the seas", but one milblogger had actually likened piracy to "5th Generation Warfare". Piracy has no ideology, and isn't attempting to overthrow government. All it seeks is money.

Which makes it relatively simple to defeat. Sure, we can talk about eliminating the root causes of piracy, and it's certainly a noble goal, but what really reduces piracy is making it completely unprofitable. Thus speaks Sic Semper Tyrannis.

I mean, did we stop robbing banks in large numbers because we eliminated poverty or because we made banks so difficult to rob?

Pirates may beat ninjas...

...but they don't beat the US Armed Forces:

Captain Jumps Overboard; SEALs Shoot Pirates (CNN)

-- The American captain of a cargo ship held hostage by pirates jumped overboard from the lifeboat where he was being held, and U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed three of his four captors, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation...
...

Snippets of information started to emerge Saturday about how the Maersk Alabama's crew managed to retake the ship after it was hijacked by pirates Wednesday about 350 miles off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean.

The Alabama reached port in Mombasa, Kenya,on Saturday. Crew members aboard the freed cargo ship described how some of their colleagues attempted to "jump" their pirate captors.

A scuffle ensued and one of the sailors stabbed a pirate in the hand in the battle to retake the container ship, one of the sailors told CNN.

But pirates do, in fact, win student body elections if you go to North Carolina State University.




Edit: I still have one question about the massive media coverage over this event--I recall one of the news stations finding it necessary to include a 3-d rendering of what exactly it looks like for a person to jump out of a boat into the water. Do they really think we lack that much imagination?

There is nothing to fear but Chuck himself...

We've talked a lot about Somali piracy--unconventional warfare upon the seas, a sort of 5th Generation warfare--and the effective remedies for this dilemma.

Turns out we just need Chuck Norris.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Pentagon officials said Wednesday that the American crew of a U.S.-flagged cargo ship had retaken control from Somali pirates who hijacked the vessel far off the Horn of Africa.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because information was still preliminary. But they said the hijacked crew had apparently contacted the private company that operates the ship.

At a noon news conference, Maersk Line Ltd. CEO John Reinhart said that the company was working to contact families of the crew.

"Speculation is a dangerous thing when you're in a fluid environment. I will not confirm that the crew has overtaken this ship," he said.

A U.S. official said the crew had retaken control and had one pirate in custody.

The official said the status of the other pirates was unknown but they were reported to "be in the water." The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Ed. Note: Down with all you people who made Steven Segal analogies....