Category Archives: Current Capability Analysis
Patos, Logos, Etos and the LCS Design Trap
Bloomberg News recently again raised the issue of LCS survivability. Survivability is justifiably important as it is one of the key characteristics that differentiates warships from commercial vessels. Yet there is something wrong with the debate about LCS survivability. In general, the arguments fall into one of three broad categories — patos, logos, or etos. These Greek words refer to [...]
Read MoreCoal to Oil and the Great Green Fleet
It has been more than a month since the Senate failed to pass legislation that would have blocked U.S. Navy efforts to develop and use biofuels. This passage of time means it might now be possible to make a less emotional and more measured comparison of the Navy’s “Great Green Fleet” to the decision-making processes behind previous [...]
LCS: Passing on the ASW Mission
The American people have grown accustomed to the status of its military as the strongest force the world has ever known, and despite recent budget cuts, that the United States Navy (USN) remains the finest Navy ever put to sea. The people also expect that in every battle our forces will not just prevail, but [...]
Read MoreThe Vanishing Amphibious Fleet: Why Our Next Inchon May Begin off the Deck of a Container Ship
Christopher Barber is a Marine Corps Reserve Captain mobilized in the national capital region. While on active duty, he served in Helmand, Afghanistan as an Intelligence Officer and Scout Sniper Platoon Commander. He is a 2008 graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and a USCG licensed deck officer. A PIVOT, BUT WITH WHAT? [...]
Strength in Numbers: The Remarkable Potential of (Really) Small Combatants
LT Jimmy Drennan is a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy. He is the prospective Weapons Officer aboard USS Gettysburg and a Distinguished Graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School’s Systems Engineering Analysis program. You are a tactical commander tasked with a mission to seek out and destroy one of the enemy’s premier capital ships [...]
Maritime Warmongering: Russia’s Black Sea Military Exercise
Aaron Willschick on the tension over the recent Russian military exercise in the Black Sea and how Russian President Vladimir Putin should put an end to his persistent warmongering. In what is becoming an almost daily occurrence, the Russian government has again stolen the front page news headlines with its recent military exercise involving more than thirty [...]
Read MoreLCS – Playing with Modularity
The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is now at an interesting but dangerous point of development. At least that’s one impression from reading Chris Cavas’s article in DefenseNews. The controversies surrounding LCS are not surprising taking into account the words of Sir Julian Corbett.
Read MoreThe Carrier and National Security Variables
The report At What Cost a Carrier? published by CNAS and written by CAPT Henry J. Hendrix contains all the necessary ingredients for a simple model-structuring discussion about the validity and viability of the “Carrier Force” concept. With such a model, individual variables can be discussed or discarded without undermining the need to answer the leading cost [...]
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