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. On this episode…Budget questions, leadership questions, carrier questions – so many unknowns! Sam Lagrone and Mallory Shelbourne of USNI News are back with us to help sort through the many open questions facing the US Navy right now.
***We recorded the following conversation with USNI News on the afternoon of Friday, February 21st. That evening, President Trump announced the firings of the Navy’s top officer, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Charles C Q Brown, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General James Slife, and the Judge Advocates General of the Navy, Army and Air Force. We know many of you are following these developments. In our talk with Sam LaGrone and Mallory Shelbourne we reference leadership questions, but given that there are far more questions than answers at the moment, we’re running this discussion as it was, several hours before the announcements from the White House and the Pentagon. We’ll all undoubtedly know more in the days and weeks ahead.
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 News:
The Australian government on February 20 began warning commercial aircraft to avoid flying over the Tasman Sea due to unannounced Chinese Navy live-fire exercises that include the launching of cruise missiles. The unusual exercises – thousands of miles from China in waters off Australia’s southeastern coast – the country’s most populated region – were not publicly announced by China, and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles told ABC Radio Perth that Australia was not notified by China. “We became aware of the issue during the course of the day,” Marles said. It is not clear how many Chinese ships are involved in the exercises, but they include the Type 055 destroyer ZUNYI, frigate HENGYANG and support ship WEISHANHU. The three ships were observed a week earlier transiting the Coral Sea and coming down Australia’s northeast coast before entering the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
The Canadian frigate OTTAWA carried out a south-to-north transit of the Taiwan Strait on February 16th, just four days after two US Navy ships made a similar passage in the waters between mainland China and Taiwan. China immediately protested the passage and said its forces were in close proximity to the Canadian warship throughout the transit. It’s the sixth time in recent years a Canadian naval ship has transited the strait. The Esquimalt-based frigate is on a western Pacific deployment that began in October.
The carrier USS HARRY S TRUMAN arrived at Souda Bay, Crete on February 16 for damage assessment and repairs following her collision on February 12 with the Turkish-owned bulker BESIKTAS-M off Port Said, Egypt. A Navy statement noted damage to the ship’s starboard quarter, or aft, area, but said flying operations were not affected, and the service released images taken February 15 of the carrier conducting flight ops at sea. On February 20, the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Dave Snowden, was relieved for loss of confidence, and Captain Christopher “Chowdah” Hill, commander of the carrier DWIGHT D EISENHOWER now undergoing overhaul, was placed in temporary command of the TRUMAN. The TRUMAN, with Carrier Air Wing One embarked, has been deployed from Norfolk since mid-September.
And in old ship news, the venerable passenger liner UNITED STATES, laid up in Philadelphia for decades, left Philly under tow on February 19 bound for Mobile, Alabama, where the fastest liner ever to sail the North Atlantic will be prepared for sinking as a dive reef off Okaloosa County, Florida. Despite the failure of a number of efforts to preserve the UNITED STATES, the somber event was covered by multiple mainstream media outlets reflecting widespread interest in the ship, which was a prominent part of the Philadelphia skyline since 1996. The largest passenger liner ever built in the U.S. entered service in 1952 after construction at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and was retired in 1969.
