Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. This week…We’re just back from a couple days at sea aboard the carrier USS GERALD R FORD, now in the early stages of her first deployment. We’ll hear from a variety of those on board the FORD – including the strike group, ship and air wing commanders, as well as those in charge of the giant ship’s engineering plant and the launch and recovery systems.
Please send us feedback by DM’ing @CavasShips or @CSSProvision or you can email chriscavas@gmail.com or cservello@defaeroreport.com.
This Week’s Naval Round Up:
The USS RONALD REAGAN carrier strike group continued operations in the Sea of Japan in early October, maneuvering with warships from Japan and South Korea. The cruiser CHANCELLORSVILLE on October 6 conducted a ballistic missile defense exercise in the Sea of Japan with the Japanese destroyer CHOKAI and Korean destroyer SEJONG THE GREAT, all equipped with the Aegis combat system. The exercises are part of an apparent tit-for-tat cycle with North Korea, who has fired 12 ballistic missiles in late September and early October, some after the REAGAN began a visit to the Republic of Korea in late September. All the missile launches – dubbed “test launches” by North Korea as the missiles are not carrying warheads — are seen as provocative – one of the missiles flew over Japan itself. In another seapower demonstration, this time in the South China Sea, the US destroyer HIGGINS operated with the Japanese helicopter carrier IZUMO, destroyer TAKANAMI and a submarine along with the Canadian frigates VANCOUVER and WINNIPEG.
The British aircraft carrier HMS PRINCE OF WALES got underway from Portsmouth naval base late October 7 headed for drydocking in Rosyth, Scotland to repair her damaged propeller shaft. No timeline for repairs has yet been announced by the Royal Navy. Meanwhile sistership HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH is operating off the US east coast having replaced the PRINCE OF WALES for the US deployment.
Eastern Shipbuilding has dropped its protest of the award of future US Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutters to competitors Austal USA. The service announced Oct. 5 that Austal can move ahead with detail design of the OPC. Austal in June won the competition to build OPC’s 5 through 15 after the Coast Guard rebid the program due to problems with Eastern’s construction of the first ships. The contract won by Austal is for one ship with options for 11 more, at a potential value of over $3.3 billion. The Coast Guard plans to buy a total of 25 OPCs to replace older cutters.
In new ship news – the destroyer LENAH SUTCLIFFE HIGBEE DDG123 completed her acceptance trials October 6. Next up for the ship, built at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, will be delivery to the US Navy followed by commissioning into service.
A keel ceremony for the multimission salvage tug SAGINAW OJIBWE ANI-SHIN-ABEK T-ATS-8 was held October 3 at Bollinger Houma Shipyard in Houma, Louisiana. The ANISHINABEK is the third of five Navajo-class ships being built by Bollinger for the US Navy. Five more ships in the class will be built by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama.
And a keel ceremony for the yet-to-be named oceanographic survey ship T-AGS 67 was held October 4 at Halter Marine, in Pascagoula. The survey ship as well as the Navajo-class salvage tugs will be operated by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command.
SERVELLO Squawk:
Following up on your visit to the Ford, I want to foot stomp how important this deployment is for the US Navy. Not only is it important to learn lessons about how the new systems perform in a deployment setting, but it is vitally important that the Navy get past all of the negativity and controversy associated with how the Ford class got to this point.
I won’t recap or belabor all the hiccups that the Navy and the shipbuilder went through to get us here—our listeners know it was a long and tortuous road.
That said a successful deployment of wringing out all of the new systems and sharing the lesson learned with the public would go a long way in shaking the monkey off the program’s back.
Both for internal and external skeptics the Navy needs to over-communicate the successes and setbacks from the Ford deployment. They need to show this a real ship going through a real deployment and that when called upon the technology and the crew will respond to whatever tasking is asked of it.
Your visit and the coverage of the ship getting underway was an excellent first step…lets hope that approach continues throughout the deployment.
