Trump and Hegseth: Stupid to the Core

They fired the SecNav for failing to do the impossible:

Greg Jaffe and Helene Cooper of the New York Times reported that Trump has been frustrated by Phelan’s inability to fulfill his demand for the first of his new battleships by 2028, an inability caused by the fact that the U.S. shipbuilding industry doesn’t have the capacity to do it. At a Wednesday meeting with Trump, Hegseth and Feinberg convinced the president that Phelan had to go.

The idea that the shupbuilders could deliver a large capital ship in three years or quicker is just a crack-smoking fantasy.

If you feel like taking the time online, look up how long it took to build battleships back in the day. From laying the keel to commissioning, the USS New Jersey, partially built during wartime conditions, took 31 months. The USS Tennessee, built during World War One, took four years, the USS California almost five. One of the reasons why the first years of WW2 were fought with CVEs was that it took longer to build fleet carriers.

Even then, with a far larger shipbuilding industry, we couldn't just poop out capital ships. It's not happening now. It took seven years to build the USS Nimitz fifty years ago and the Navy's trying to get the Ford-class down to eight years' construction time.

Dimbulb Donnie and Whiskey Pete seem to be operating on the mindset that if you want to plow the field faster, you need to beat the mules more. Building complex ships doesn't work that way. That's a fact that's obvious to anyone who can take even a short span of time to educate themselves about building things.

Which is neither one of those fools. The United States has the dumbest, most vapid and mercurial leader of any major power since Kaiser Wilhelm II.

A Bit of Trigger-Happiness

The U.S. military used a laser Thursday to shoot down a “seemingly threatening” drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said.

Whiskey Pete's boys seem to be a little trigger-happy. My guess is that he's given order to kill first and ask questions later. Because that's the sort of ghoul that he is.

CBP uses Predator (MQ-9B) drones, so that's about $34 million or so that was needlessly blown to bits.

Floating in the Winter Sky, 99 Red Balloons Go By.....

Mylar balloons and the DoD's jonesing to play with its new laser toys may have caused the El Paso and Santa Teresa TFRs this morning. It may also have been the result of a bureaucratic pissing contest between the DoD and the FAA.

No matter what was going down, it looks like yet another Federal clusterfuck as the Boyos From Fort Fumble want to screw around with their new shit, which disrupted the travel plans of thousands of people and screwed with cargo commerce.

Slow Frigates

The Navy is looking at building frigates based on the USCG Legend class.

These ships can maybe to 28 knots. The Knox class could make 30, and nobody ever called them fast.

Anyway, NAVSEA will find some way to fuck them up. They are as bad at designing and producting decent ships as Army Ordnance is at designing rifles.

Mandatory MAGA Military Fun

Asshole commanders are ordering their troops to take their families to see the shitty-ass Melania movie.

"You will go to see this movie about Our Orange God's wife and you will like it."

American Defense Stocks Might Not be a Gold-Plated Investment

Norway is buying a South Korean precision-strike missile system.

In past years, the Norwegians likely would have bought HIMARS systems, but the Europeans are looking to reduce their dependence on American military tech because they don't trust us anymore to be reliable suppliers. That's for reasons that anyone with an IQ above freezing doesn't need to have explained to them.

Billy Mitchell Would Like a Word

President Donald Trump has announced a bold plan for the Navy to build a new, large warship that he is calling a “battleship” as part of a larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet.”

“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump claimed during the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
... He said Monday he will have a direct role in designing this new warship as well.

“The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person,” Trump said.

Donnie the Naval Architect. Right. One might wonder why the Demented Designer didn't insist that the ships include masts for backup.

Very large surface combatants have been obsolete for a century. The proliferation of drones has only increased increased that obsolescence. Ukraine, with no navy to speak of, has used drones, aerial, surface and subsurface, to operationally drive the Russian Navy out the Black Sea. That is, Gentle Reader, a harbinger of the future of surface ship operations no less telling than the sinking of the SMS Ostfriesland.

I don't disagree that American shipbuilding, other than submarines, is a shitshow. But building these Trumpy warships, which might as well be called the Very Large Target Class, is a piss-poor way to remedy that.

Whiskey Pete is a Serious Piece of Shit

The War Department showed off photos of War Secretary Pete Hegseth working out with U.S. troops stationed in Malaysia, vowing America's soldiers will be "fit, not fat."

"Secretary Hegseth joined our warriors for morning PT in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia," the DOW's rapid response account wrote on X. "From the top down, we will be FIT, NOT FAT!"

In a sane world, it would not matter a fucking whit whether or not SecDef can run four miles with a full pack or is so obese that he has to be moved with a forklift. The job is to run the bureaucracy of the world's most powerful military. Nowhere in that is a need to be fit enough to go on a combat patrol.

Hegseth is coming across as a stereotypical low-ability military leader who only understands one aspect of his job and hammers that to the exclusion of everything else. You could grab an E-7/9 or an O-3/6 out of the ranks at any unit and that person would have a 75% or better chance at being a better SecDef than this alcohol-infused loser.

The Grifting Engine Continues

You have to know that somebody's beak is getting wet.

When President Donald Trump’s administration last month awarded a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to build and operate what it says will become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex, it didn’t turn to a large government contractor or even a firm that specializes in private prisons.

Instead, it handed the project on a military base to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that has no listed experience running a correction facility and had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million. The company also lacks a functioning website and lists as its address a modest home in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer.

A multi-billion dollar contract to a home-based small business, yeah, that doesn't stink one bit. [/sarc]

Trump Tells the World: American Weapons are Not Reliable

All it takes is for one demented Russian agent or a ketamine-infused wealthy psychopath to have a snit and every American weapon with a computer system might be disabled. It's already happening in Ukraine.

I expect that other arms makers are going to tout the reliability of their weapons over the perceived political unreliability of American arms. Which won't do wonders for the sales and stock price of American defense companies.

ETA: And this:

So I guess the next brilliant Art of the Deal move from the guy who bankrupted casinos is to give Europe as many reasons as possible not to buy weapons systems from US companies right after the EU announced an intent to spent nearly a trillion more on defense.

Osprey, Again

An Osprey being used to ferry White House staff and government officials from an event in New York on Monday was grounded due to a safety concern, with one witness reporting flames under the right engine.

The staff and officials were removed from the aircraft, part of the Marine Corps HMX-1 presidential helicopter fleet, and transferred to a second Osprey to continue their trip accompanying President Joe Biden at a “Friendsgiving” event with members of the U.S. Coast Guard in Staten Island.

Personally, I'd take almost any other mode of transporation over flying in an Osprey.

Gundecking: Newport News Shipbuilding Goes Full Boeing

Shipuilder Newport News Shipbuilding, Va., informed the Department of Justice of faulty welds that may have been made intentionally on non-critical components on in-service Navy submarines and aircraft carriers, USNI News has learned.

[Huntington Ingalls Industries] reported to the Navy that welds on new construction and in-service submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers were made not following welding procedure, according to a Tuesday memo from Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Nickolas Guertin to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

The managers involved in this probably figured that they'd not get caught or that, since they supposedly were "non-critical", that nobody would either notice or care.

But they're wrong. If they want to produce shit and get paid for it, Russian shipyards are probably hiring.

A Thought on the Ukraine War and Fort Fumble

If the procurement boys at Fort Fumble, both Army and Marine Corps, aren't figuring out how to gear up industry to produce hundreds of thousands of expendable drones a month, then all of them need to be fired (or shot) and replaced with Ukrainians.

For that seems to be about the current burn rate in that war. Scouting drones, FPV attack drones, decoy drones. Imagine, if you will, that there is a way to have a patrolling cloud of drones to attack, head-on, any aircraft over or near the battlefield. Turbines are not too happy with debris coming in the air intakes.

Mass-produced FPV drones are probably killing more soldiers than tube artillery and less expenisvely.

Also, a first-world military force with oodles of drones will stamp *paid* to all those dreaming of acting out far-right rebellion fanfic.

Drones Kill Helicopter

One of Connecticut’s major manufacturers is laying off hundreds of employees.

Stratford-based Sikorsky says it’s making the cuts after the U.S. Army canceled plans for a new helicopter called the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft.
...
As many as 400 workers in Connecticut will be affected, the vast majority of them in Stratford. Many of the workers are part of the company’s engineering and digital technology staff.

A new manned aerial reconnisance helicopter in the age of drones would seem to be as sensible as buying new flintlock rifles after the invention of percussion caps. So, good on the Army.

It's Easier to Bribe Make Large Campaign Contributions to Politicians Than Build Good Airplanes

That is the essence of this long story about how Boeing has repeatedly made large campaign contributions to politicians.

I've been told that the CEO of Boeing has been making the rounds of the plants to try and rally the troops. But no new programs are being launched to improve inspections of work being done. No plans or promises to hire more QC inspectors. Just the usual management smoke, mirrors and fresh horseshit.

Along with upping the amount of cash going to the campaign coffers of strategic politicians, no doubt. At this point, Boeing is operating like a Russian corporation: Make shitty products and bribe the right people.

Fly in a recently-manufactured Boeing aircraft at your own risk.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The B-3 B-21.

Amazing footage! Stablized and post-processed to reduce that jitter. pic.twitter.com/u0gjTD1KoP

— C Schmitz (@chrisschmitz) November 10, 2023

It still irks me that the mentally-deficient leaders in the Zommies got to trash the aircraft designation system because some alcohol-besotted functionary thought that "B-21" was a cooler designation than "B-3" for their latest flying money-sink.

Boeing Starliner, Again

Boeing’s astronaut capsule faces more launch delays after the discovery of problems that should have been caught earlier, officials said.
...
Until recently, the Starliner capsule was on track for a July test flight with two astronauts to the International Space Station, a planned trip that was already well behind schedule.

But final reviews uncovered issues with the parachute lines and other problems that were present on last year’s test flight with no one on board and, officials said, should have been caught years ago.

Some of the issues involve flammable materials, because the World's Most Space Companytm apparenlty forgot about the Apollo 1 fire. (Fun fact: The Apollo 1 capsule was built by Boeing. Well, actually North American, but Boeing absorbed them, so if Boeing can claim the MD-90 and the DC-3, they can damn well claim the Apollo capsure.)

Other problems "should have been caught years ago"... tell me again about Boeing's historic experience with manned space flight.

A Hint to the Beancounters and Politicians

U.S. lawmakers are sounding the alarm about challenges facing the U.S. defense industrial base as the war in Ukraine strains weapon supplies.

It could take years to replenish certain types of weapons the U.S. has sent to Kyiv, with no easy way to ramp up production quickly. That has policymakers deeply concerned about whether the U.S. would be able to field enough weapons if conflict broke out in the Taiwan Strait.

The House Armed Services Committee is set to examine the defense industrial base during its second hearing of the year on Wednesday.

“This ought to be a flashing red light for us, and it’s shocking to me,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said during an event at the American Enterprise Institute in late January. “This is a huge, glaring problem. And right now I don’t see the sort of all-hands-on-deck commitment to try to address that.”

While it's nice that the lightbulb has gone off for Cornyn, none of this shit is rocket science. The burn-through rate of munitions in modern warfare has always been a lot higher than politicians and budgeteers have wanted to acknowledge. Building up the production capability for sustaining a war is expensive. Not only is it expensive, but then you have to keep the production lines in condidition to ramp up, which means making some of the stuff. A lot of weapon systems have defined shelf lives, requiring them to be reworked or scrapped, which adds to the cost.

That is a hard sell in peacetime. But it's fatal to not do it when war comes.

Which it always does.

Tanks for That, Joe

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the U.S. will send 31 M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, reversing months of persistent arguments that the tanks were too difficult for Ukrainian troops to operate and maintain.

I suspect that the senior bureaucrats/generals in the Army are making the Classic Russian Mistake: Underestimating the Ukrainians.

31 tanks is a start. 155 would be better. The Ukrainians need enough high-quality weapons to push the Russians out of every square meter of Ukraine. Shame on everyone who isn't making that happen. (Looking at you, Herr Scholtz.)

Or maybe the Army tankers are worried that their Abrams tanks will be shown to be not as good as advertised?

Meanwhile, In the Russian War on Ukraine

In what would be a reversal, the Biden administration is poised to approve sending M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday, as international reluctance to send tanks to the battlefront against the Russians begins to erode. The decision could be announced as soon as Wednesday, though it could take months or years for the tanks to be delivered.

U.S. officials said details are still being worked out. One official said the tanks would be bought under an upcoming Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative package, which provides longer-range funding for weapons and equipment to be purchased from commercial vendors.

The U.S. announcement is expected in coordination with an announcement by Germany that it will approve Poland’s request to transfer German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, according to one official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision has not yet been made public.

It's about fucking time.

In other "it's about fucking time" news:

Several senior Ukrainian officials, including front-line governors, lost their jobs Tuesday in a corruption scandal plaguing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government as it grapples with the nearly 11-month-old Russian invasion.

Ukraine’s biggest government shake-up since the war began came as U.S. officials said Washington was poised to approve supplying Kyiv with M1 Abrams tanks, with international reluctance eroding toward sending tanks to the battlefront against the Russians.
...
Transparency International, in its 2021 report on worldwide corruption, ranked Ukraine 122 out of 180 countries, with 180 representing the most corrupt. Russia ranked 136.

Anyway, Meduza is reporting that Ukraine will forbid its officials to travel abroad without special permission.

Before we start throwing rocks at Ukraine, it is worthwhile to remember that corruption and profiteering during wartime are well known in our own country. There were plenty of allegations of defense contractors overcharging the shit out of things during the Wars of the Chimperor. it was endemic during the 19th Century (one example) and the Truman Committee found plenty to do during the Second World War.

Finally, the Pentagon will sextuple the production of 155mm artillery shells. Again, IAFT.