US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

I just think this strong insisting the US didn't have Napalm for decades is strange.
At first, from how I understand some sources (listed at the end of the post) the actual Napalm follow on Mod 77 were Napalm as well, were the last batch (mod4) was stored in Fallbrook and destroyed in march '01.

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True. But it's gone now. And has not been used in combat since Vietnam. The last time I know of the USMC using it was in a disposal manner at an old bombing range in the Philippines in 1976. I know I was there and to my knowledge that was the last batch of napalm the US had in the Pacific. I was stationed at NAS Cubi Pt RP in '75 til' '77.

The USN only had napalm on board CV's until the about 1971. Napalm was removed because of it highly flamable nature and the storage space needed the napalm containers. It is very easy to fill a napalm container. It looks just like a fuel tank. Excepct it's silver. The problem is those containers can only be filled on the hangar deck or flight deck. Basically making it impracticable to use on board a CV.

USN releases more info on sub collision

This news release kinda puts the kibosh on BLUEJACKETS theroy.



By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© January 10, 2007

NORFOLK - The submarine Newport News was submerged and leaving the Persian Gulf when a mammoth Japanese oil tanker passed overhead at a high speed, creating a sucking effect that made the sub rise and hit the ship, the Navy said Tuesday.

That is the preliminary finding of Monday's collision between the Norfolk-based submarine and the Mogamigawa, a 1,100-foot-long merchant ship displacing 300,000 tons.

Both were southbound, crossing the busy and narrow Strait of Hormuz while heading into the Arabian Sea.

"As the ship passed over the sub, it ended up sucking the submarine into it," said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Loundermon, a spokesman for Submarine Force in Norfolk.

"It is a principle called the venturi effect," he said.

The Mogamigawa, built in 2001, is a super tanker that displaces 300,000 tons of water - three times the amount of water of a modern aircraft carrier.

The Newport News, a Los Angeles-class submarine, displaces 6,900 tons of water.

"This was a very, very large ship moving at higher speed," Loundermon said.

No one was injured aboard either ship, the Navy said, and damage to both vessels is relatively minor.

The collision was the fifth involving a U.S. submarine in the past six years, according to news records.

Four of those incidents involved other surface ships. In one case, a submarine hit an undersea mountain.

The Newport News collided with the Mogamigawa while submerged in the Arabian Sea about 10:30 p.m. local time, the Navy said.

Afterward, it was going to Bahrain to check for further damage.

"She is headed to port right now," Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, a spokesman for the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain, said late Tuesday from Bahrain.

Damage to the Norfolk-based Newport News appears to be confined to the bow, he said. The sail, or mast, and the sub's nuclear reactor were unharmed, he said.

Aand ahl said he could not discuss details such as the speed or depth of the submarine at the time of the impact.

Aandahl emphasized that the Newport News was not surfacing at the time, as was reported earlier by CNN.

The Strait of Hormuz separates the Arabian Gulf from the Gulf of Oman and the North Arabian Sea. It is about 40 miles wide - 34 miles wide at its narrowest point, according to globalsecurity.org.

The strait, which is the world's most important oil chokepoint, has channels for inbound and outbound tanker traffic that are 2 miles wide, as well as a buffer zone of 2 miles, according to the Web site.

The Newport News left Norfolk along with the aircraft carrier Eisenhower strike group in October for a six-month deployment to the Middle East.

The Mogamigawa was traveling from the Persian Gulf to Singapore with a crew of eight Japanese members and 16 Filipino members. The submarine has a crew of about 130

So, they were sneaking out of the Gulf, not into it- not a big difference since earlier they had to sneak in-otherwise that sub would have been on the surface! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the importance of knowing about traffic in the general area of the strait to avoid a collision- and that's what the surface search radar is for. Yes, mishaps like that happen, but most of them are due to human/procedural/operational errors. The LA sub has to sneak -otherwise it will be defeating the purpose of stealth!

BLUEJACKET said:

So, they were sneaking out of the Gulf, not into it- not a big difference since earlier they had to sneak in-otherwise that sub would have been on the surface! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the importance of knowing about traffic in the general area of the strait to avoid a collision- and that's what the surface search radar is for. Yes, mishaps like that happen, but most of them are due to human/procedural/operational errors. The LA sub has to sneak -otherwise it will be defeating the purpose of stealth!

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Well I do not want to argue with you. But the SSN 750 is part of the CVN-69 Carrier Strike Group.



And was apparently moving out of the Gulf to later accompany the Ike off the Horn of Africa.

Everyone knows an LA class is always assigned to a CSG.

Nothing more than that.

Wether an SSN is a part of CSG or not it must remain undetected as much as possible. We had an SSN in our CBG back in RimPac'98 and I didn't see it intil they surfaced for a photo op. However, I don't have to be a submariner to understand that the SSN 750 could but didn't use her sensors at periscope depth to avoid the supertanker. Hell, the CV-63 had to be honked by another tanker in the Gulf to avoid running into each other- in daylight-I've seen it myself!
Well, what do you think about arguments in

Please read the entire article.

BLUEJACKET if you would like to discuss that article in the link you posted please do so open a new thread in the World Military forum.

However, I don't have to be a submariner to understand that the SSN 750 could but didn't use her sensors at periscope depth to avoid the supertanker. Hell, the CV-63 had to be honked by another tanker in the Gulf to avoid running into each other- in daylight-I've seen it myself!

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Been there done that. The Persian Gulf is crowded. I don't know about the Kitty Hawk but on the Nimitz we posted extra lookouts.

As for what were truely the full circumstances behind the collision of the SSN 750 and the Japanese tanker ... Well it may be a while before the full story is released.

Some hot news!

11 January 2007

US detains 6 Iranians in raid

Real news with details, instead of a blog.



U.S. detains 6 Iranians in Irbil raid

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S.-led multinational forces detained six Iranians Thursday at an Iranian government office in the northern city of Irbil, Iraqi officials said, as President Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding militants and promised to "interrupt" the flow of support as part of his new war strategy.

The U.S. military said it had taken six people into custody in the Irbil region but made no mention of a raid on the Iranian government office.

The forces entered the building about 3 a.m., detaining the Iranians and confiscating computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Irbil is a city in the Kurdish-controlled northern part of Iraq, 220 miles from Baghdad.

A resident living near the building said the troops used stun bombs and brought down an Iranian flag from the roof. As the operation went on, two helicopters flew overhead, the resident said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

At the Pentagon, a senior U.S. military official said the building was not a consulate and did not have any diplomatic status. The six Iranians were taken in a "cordon-and-knock" operation, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Baghdad was seeking clarification from the U.S. and Iran "about these people and what they were doing there and whether they were employees."

The regional Kurdish government condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the Iranians. It added that the government "was not aware in advance of the raid."

Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the Iraqi and Swiss ambassadors in Tehran and "demanded an explanation" about the incident. Switzerland represents American interests in Iran, where there is no U.S. embassy.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told state-run radio the raid was "against a diplomatic mission" since the "presence of Iranian staffers in Irbil was legal." Hosseini claimed the action by coalition forces reflected a "continuation of pressure" on Iran, aiming to "create tension" between Iraq and its neighbors.

Late last month, U.S. troops elsewhere in Iraq detained two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. military would continue to target networks of individuals, regardless of their nationality, that are providing weapons designed to kill American troops in Iraq.

"I think it's instructive that in the last couple of weeks two of those raids that we conducted to go after these folks that are providing these kinds of weapons - two of those raids had policed up Iranians. So it is clear that the Iranians are complicit in providing weapons," he said.

The arrests come as tensions are high between Iran and the United States. The Bush administration has accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and of helping fuel violence in Iraq. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, is trying to expand Tehran's role in Iraq as a counter to U.S. influence in the Persian Gulf region.

Al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said any improvement in relations between the United States, Syria and Iran would only help Iraq.

"Sometimes we pay the price for the tension in relations between Iran and the United States and Syria, therefore it is in our interest ... that these relations improve, but not at the expense of Iraq," he said.

Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.

According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.

"We anticipate significant events there next spring," said Tata.

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Some more news on the Bush Administration's escalation of the war in Iraq, those 20,000 troops aren't going to be pulled out of thin air, they basically get these numbers via these methods:

1. Speeding up the entry of troops already destined for Iraq
2. Taking away troops from other areas and putting them in Iraq
3. Extending TODs for troops already in Iraq



In addition, the Pentagon has abandoned limits on cumulative active-duty time a soldier can spend on the battlefield.



Examining the map, consider what difference 20,000 soldiers will do. The US/Iraqi ratio will still be around 1 to 300.

Excellent news source "Z" It gives an very unbiased view in my opinion. Pres. Bush can say or do whatever he wants..but those troops have to come from somewhere.
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USN sub force to stand down

When I was in the Navy evertime there was news worthy accident or too many accidents we had a "Safety Standown". That means we had to sit around all day an listen to safety lectures. We called it "safety stand around:"



Submarine Force Announces Operational Stand Down
Story Number: NNS070111-10
Release Date: 1/11/2007 7:13:00 PM

From Commander, Naval Submarine Forces Public Affairs

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- The U.S. Submarine Force announced Jan. 11, that it will conduct an Operational Stand Down in the wake of recent submarine incidents. In a message to the submarine force, Vice Adm. Chuck Munns, U.S. Submarine Force commander, directed the immediate “stand down” to focus energy and intellect on the basics of submarine operations.

Submarines provide continued excellence in the accomplishment of national and theater tasking, but recent problems in routine operations need attention.

“It is clear that a common thread through recent problems has been errors [when] conducting normal routine operations,” stated Vice Adm. Munns. “We are going back to basics, back to practice.”

Munns directed that, effective immediately, all submarine commanding officers review recently completed operations and future planned evolutions, and evaluate areas of risk and risk mitigation.

Normal operations will continue while the review is conducted. The review will be completed by Jan. 19.

Additionally, during the month of February, submarine squadron and group commanders will review inputs from the force’s submarines and implement actions to improve routine efficiency. The submarine force will also take additional actions to incorporate findings from the stand down and better prepare commanding officers with tools and techniques that foster good judgment, technical, and mariner skills.

“I am fortunate to have assigned the best people America can produce-they are well trained, they have the best equipment in the world,” stated Vice Adm. Munns. “This operational focus, ‘stand down’, will continue our success in national tasking and also improve our daily operations.”

For more news about Naval Submarine Forces, visit .