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…Navy budget testimony is in full swing on Capitol Hill, one senator is holding up more than a hundred DoD confirmations, and the Naval Academy gets its first female nominee to become superintendent. Plus SpaceX and “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.” Sam LaGrone of USNI News joins us to unwrap it all.
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 Russian Pacific Fleet on April 14 ordered a general snap deployment, with ships getting underway and entering the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. Japanese Self-Defense Forces closely monitored the movements and published several reports of ships passing through La Perouse Strait – also known as Soya Strait – between Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. At least 18 Russian naval ships were reported passing through the strait on April 20, including two destroyers, two frigates and six guided-missile corvettes.
Destroyer USS MILIUS carried out a Taiwan Strait passage April 16 through the waterway between mainland China and Taiwan, the first such passage since January 5. MILIUS also carried out a freedom of navigation passage near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on April 10.
It was a rough week for Fincantieri Marinette Marine. On April 15 the shipbuilders christened and launched the last Freedom-class littoral combat ship for Lockheed Martin, the future USS CLEVELAND LCS 31. As has been the case with dozens of launches at Marinette, the ship was launched sideways into the narrow Menominee River – actually the last sideways launch at the shipyard, which will build a new ship lift to launch Constellation-class frigates for the US Navy and combat ships for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But moments before the launch, the tugboat WILLIAM C GAYNOR inexplicably moved in too close and under where the CLEVELAND was to roll, and when the LCS was launched the tug tried to get out of the way but couldn’t, causing a dent in the side of the CLEVELAND. It’s still not clear why the tug moved in so close or why Fincantieri’s safety team didn’t stop the launch. And on April 19, USNI News broke the story that the shipyard had been the victim of a ransom-ware attack that began April 12 when, according to USNI News, large chunks of data on the shipyard’s network servers were rendered unusable by an unknown professional group.
The US Navy on April 21 announced that Yvette Davids has been nominated for the rank of vice admiral and to become the next superintendent of the US Naval Academy. If confirmed, Davids, who was the first Hispanic woman to command a Navy warship, would become the first female superintendent of the academy.
In new ship news, the future USS KINGSVILLE LCS 36 was to be christened April 23 at Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama. KINGSVILLE is the next-to-last Independence-class littoral combat ship, to be followed only by the PIERRE LCS 38. As noted above, Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine launched the last Freedom-class ship, CLEVELAND LCS 31, on April 15.
