USS San Francisco (SSN 711) in dry dock to assess damage sustained after running aground approximately 350 miles south of Guam Jan. 8, 2005. U.S. Navy Photo
Eight years ago, USS San Francisco (SSN-711) ran full speed into a mountain more than 500 feet below the ocean’s surface.
One sailor died.
Fifty years earlier, the crew might not have been as lucky, said Rear Adm. David Duryea, Naval Sea Systems Command’s deputy commander for undersea warfare told USNI News in an interview. Read More
Photos of USS Thresher. Read More
From the March, 27 2013 Congressional Research Service report:
The Navy’s proposed FY2013 budget requests $564.9 million for continued research and development work on the Ohio replacement program (ORP), a program to design and build a new class of 12 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to replace the Navy’s current force of 14 Ohio- class SSBNs. The Ohio replacement program is also known as the SSBN(X) program. Read More
From the March 28, 2013 Congressional Research Service report: The diminishment of Arctic sea ice has led to increased human activities in the Arctic, and has heightened interest in, and concerns about, the region’s future. The United States, by virtue of Alaska, is an Arctic country and has substantial interests in the region. On January 12, 2009, the George W. Bush Administration released a presidential directive, called National Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD 66/HSPD 25), establishing a new U.S. policy for the Arctic region. Read More
The following is a paper from the NATO Defense College Rome, published in March, 2013.
From the report:
In case you did not know, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has an Alliance Maritime Strategy (AMS). The document, approved on 05 January 2011, was the first of its kind in over a quarter of a century. In spite of this post-Cold War milestone, however, the strategy was endor- sed by the member states with little fanfare. Since its declassification in March of the same year, it has been quietly buried in the NATO official website, largely out of sight from the popular media and (by extension) from the European and North American populace whose security and prosperity it is ostensibly designed to safeguard.2 The average person on the street (or, perhaps more aptly expressed in this context, on the sea- front) should therefore be forgiven if he or she has never heard of, let alone read, a dedicated maritime strategy for the Atlantic Alliance in the 21st century. But exist it does. Read More
The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible. National Geographic Photo
Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron has given his DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to help further research efforts in next generation underwater craft, WHOI annouced on Tuesday. Read More
From the March, 8 Congressional Research Service report titled, New Zealand: U.S. Security Cooperation and the U.S. Rebalancing to Asia Strategy.
As part of its strategy to rebalance toward Asia the Obama Administration has greatly expanded cooperation and reestablished close ties with New Zealand. Changes in the security realm have been particularly notable as the two sides have restored close defense cooperation, which was suspended in the mid-1980s due to differences over nuclear policy. The two nations are now working together increasingly closely in the area of defense and security cooperation while also seeking to coordinate efforts in the South Pacific.
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Casey James Fury. Dover Police Photo
The admitted arsonist that set fire to the nuclear attack submarine USS Miami was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on Friday, according to several press reports. Read More
Ted Stevens official US Senate photo from 2005.
The U.S. Senate has included a provision in the latest appropriations bill to name a warship after Ted Stevens, the former head of the Senate Appropriations Committee who died in a plane crash in 2010, reported in the Roll Call Heard on the Hill blog. Read More
Shipbuilding and related programs that could experience execution problems under a year-long CR include the CVN-78 aircraft carrier program, the CVN Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) program, the DDG-51 program, the DDG-1000 program, an amphibious assault ship (LHA) funded in a prior year, and the Moored Training Ship, according to the Congressional Research Service March, 1 shipbuilding report. Read More