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…What is going on in the South China Sea? Sam LaGrone of USNI News joins us to discuss the first in a series of articles based on the seven-week trip this summer by reporter Mallory Shelbourne. First up is a great story detailing a long patrol over the Nine-Dash Line aboard a US Navy patrol aircraft.
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This Week’s Naval Round Up:
Chinese Navy and Coast Guard ships skirmished with units of the Philippines Armed Forces on October 4 during a Filipino resupply mission to the BRP SIERRA MADRE, a former amphibious ship permanently grounded on Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. In recent months China has increased its efforts to disrupt the resupply missions, and in prior incidents have harassed Filipino ships with lasers, water canons and aggressive ship maneuvers. Elsewhere, near contested Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine Coast Guard reported that a Filipino fighting vessel was rammed October 2 by an unidentified vessel, killing three fishermen.
The Turkish cargo ship KAFKAMETLER was hit by a mine October 5 in the western Black Sea. Multiple sources reported the ship stopped to examine the damage, but no casualties were reported and the merchant ship moved to a Ukrainian anchorage to further assess the damage. The incident took place about 11 nautical miles off the Romanian coast near the entrance to the Sulina Canal, gCaptain reported. It was not clear who laid the mine or when. Ukraine issued a statement confirming the mine strike but offering no further information, and Russian sources declined to comment. The British government, among others, has said Russia may be using sea mines to target civilian shipping in the Black Sea.
And multiple news outlets report that Russia has withdrawn its fleet from the naval base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, moving most of its naval ships to Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland, further away from Ukraine’s reach. The moves come after a series of successful missile and drone attacks by Ukraine on the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Russian media reports that Russia will build a new naval base in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia in the eastern Black Sea.
The special mission submarine USS FLORIDA completed a series of exercises in late September with Norwegian forces above the Arctic Circle off the Norwegian coast that featured Norwegian Special Forces teams embarking aboard the FLORIDA. Norwegian F-35A Strike Fighters and the submarine UTHAUG also took part.
In new ship news, USS JACK H LUCAS DDG 125, the first Flight III variant of the Arleigh Burke-class of destroyers, was commissioned October 7 in a ceremony at the Port of Tampa, Florida. The Flight III ships feature the new SPY-6 Airborne Missile Defense Radar that replaces the SPY-1 arrays fitted to all previous Burke-class ships. Delivered from HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding this past June, the JACK H LUCAS will now head to its homeport of San Diego.
Up at Bath Iron Works in Maine, the Flight II destroyer HARVEY C BARNUM JR DDG 125 was launched October 4 from a floating drydock. A christening ceremony was held for the ship in late July. The General Dynamics Shipyard will complete one further Flight II ship before switching production fully to the Flight III variants.
At Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi, the amphibious assault ship BOUGAINVILLE LHA 8 was launched from a floating drydock on September 30. Although described as a member of the America-class of assault ships, BOUGAINVILLE features a full well deck, unlike the previous ships AMERICA and TRIPOLI.
And Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced October 3 that the new Virginia-class submarine SSN 810 will be named SAN FRANCISCO, perpetuating the name of the city-by-the-bay in the submarine force. The previous USS SAN FRANCISCO, SSN 711, was decommissioned in May 2022 upon her conversion to a static nuclear-power training ship.
