In early 1972 the heavy cruiser Newport News deployed to Southeast Asia. Newport News was one of the last of the big gun cruisers, commissioned in 1949 and carrying 9 8-inch guns with an automatic reload system that allowed the cruiser to fire ninety shells per minute. The cruiser was playing a role similar to […]
Tag: united states navy
SecDef Gates at the Air Force Air University: Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday the Air Force is not doing enough to help in the Iraq and Afghanistan war effort, complaining that some militar
A couple of aircraft carrier related links for your afternoon… Via Danger Room, Martin Sieff has a new series at UPI on the vulnerability of carriers to submarine attack. Galrahn has a very usef
Last August I wrote: It’s unclear whether the Indians will keep Viraat around for another three years or accept a carrier deployment gap. It’s kind of interesting to me that, in spite of our newfound tight friendship with the Indians, I haven’t heard a peep about selling India one of the six supercarriers the US […]
Over the break I finished Vincent O’Hara’s U.S. Navy Against the Axis. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Pacific War, and in surface naval combat in the 20th centur
Matt makes a good case that John C. Stennis is the worst American ever to give his name to a major capital ship. Any thoughts from our resident naval antiquarians on the worst human being who’s
Norman Polmar has a nice post up at Defense Tech about the future of the aircraft carrier. The big deck carrier remains an extremely powerful platform, but is also remarkably expensive, especially considering the extended task force needed to support and defend a carrier. I’m a little less skeptical than many about the carrier; people […]
I have a piece at TAP Online about America’s “elegant decline” or lack thereof: We live in strange times. While the United States is responsible for close to 50 percent of aggregate