Notes and Links

The blog will look slightly different as of Tuesday. Not much different, but I have been wanting to rearrange some stuff on the right side of the blog and hope to have time to do that Monday night.

In the spirit of some of the Marine Corps discussions I will be having over the next several days, Herschel Smith is discussing the EFV while Colin Clark is discussing the latest drama with the MV-22. The EFV could be cancelled if the Navy developed a littoral strategy that was realistic to actually infiltrating and operating in a contested littoral. Until then, the EFV may live on. As far as the MV-22 is concerned, this looks like a case where we will see a bunch of smoke, and no fire.

Don't Give up the Ships: A Look at a 200-Ship Navy at the Hudson Institute looked like a good time. I'm a huge fan of Eric Labs, so check out Colin Clark's summary of the event but also head to this link and check out Eric Lab's presentation in PPT linked from the Hudson Institute website.

The Coast Guard has a new official blog: The Coast Guard Compass. Update your RSS and bookmarks. When I went to DC back in March, one of my appointments was with LT Anastacia Thorsson who is the personality behind The Coast Guard Compass. I have more on this later.

Did anyone else notice that the House Foreign Affairs Oversight Subcommittee held testimony on efforts being developed to combat maritime piracy at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on May 28th. I didn't see much attention given to this, which tells me this was a serious effort by Congress to look into the problem.

I thought this was interesting: 10 Shocking Facts About Modern-Day Pirates.

Finally, from the "taxpayer money at work" category: Navy grant to fund probe of squid and octopus camouflage. It actually sounds very interesting to be honest.

The photo above is the first I have seen with the MV-22s all spaced out on the deck of a LHD.

Photo caption: ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 23, 2024) Sailors aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) watch from the conning station as the military sealift command fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lenthall (T-AO 189), center, conducts a replenishment at sea with the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) before Fort McHenry's approach to begin her own connected replenishment with John Lenthall. Fort McHenry is on a scheduled deployment with the Bataan Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) supporting maritime security operations in the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kristopher Wilson/Released)