
Dawes
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Well, that's unexpected (to me, anyway): "Germany's top naval officer said "more than one" of its warships were recently sabotaged. A day before, a local report said a corvette-class vessel had metal shavings poured into its engine system. Without expressly accusing any party, the German naval chief warned of a growing threat from Russia. Germany's naval chief said on Tuesday that several of Berlin's warships were sabotaged. Vice Adm. Jan Christian Kaack, the inspector of the German navy, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the damage involved "more than one unit." Kaack also said there had been attempted break-ins at German naval bases via land and sea, and he spoke of "attempts to approach" uniformed personnel while they were heading home." https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-said-warships-were-sabotaged-043336363.html
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Looks like Israel isn't too particular about the different Hellfire variants: https://www.dsca.mil/sites/default/files/mas/Press Release - Israel 24-104 CN.pdf https://www.dsca.mil/sites/default/files/mas/Press Release - Israel 24-13 CN.pdf
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The whole PC/renaming thing occurred with USS Chancellorsville.
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The A-12 - "It wasn't an airplane, it was a train wreck"
Dawes replied to Dawes's topic in General Naval and Air
True that. Heck, even the cancelled A-6F would have given them a long range, heavy strike capability. Although decidedly non-stealthy. And much uglier. -
Wasn't aware of the amount of underhandedness and outright breaking of laws in this disaster until I read the attached article. Seems even the Navy wasn't 100% confident in the program at the outset. "In 1987, even though the CF and DemVal work had disclosed the need for further design and prototyping, the two teams were required to submit bids for the full-scale engineering development (FSED) and manufacture of the first eight aircraft.7 Northrop maintained its position that it would not risk a fixed-price contract. It would build six aircraft, not the eight demanded by the Navy; it would not build the aircraft to the Navy's schedule; and it would not even guarantee the design and performance results—the Navy would get only what Northrop was able to produce. At that, Northrop estimated that the work would cost fully $2 billion more then the Navy's available funds.8 Northrop was, in the language of the regulations and contemporaneous documents, "nonresponsive" and "unawardable." Instead of telling Northrop (and McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics) that the Northrop bid was nonresponsive and unawardable, and that there would be a sole-source negotiation—something the regulations required—the Navy did just the opposite. It told both teams that there was viable competition for the contract on a fixed-price basis and that both teams had submitted bids "within the competitive range." And it did not end there. Even the price proposed by the McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics team was more than the funds available. The Navy therefore conducted a further competition—seeking "best and final offers" —in an effort to get the McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics team to reduce its price. With Northrop out of the competition, seeking best and final offers (while representing that there was viable competition) plainly was an effort to induce McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics to bid against itself. The resulting price obtained, however, still was not low enough to fit the Navy's funding profile, so the service sought a second best and final offer. Interestingly, this second effort at price reduction failed, and the Navy, in fact, went into the contract with inadequate funds for its performance—a violation of law. If all of this were not bad enough, the Navy had learned, in its examination of the McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics bid, that the proposed aircraft's design weight would exceed that predicted by the companies. The question then was what to tell McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics. If the Navy told what it knew, the companies would not contain their bids within the funds available, and there would need to be further development of the designs. Either of these circumstances would mean that the Navy would not be able to initiate the contract in the coming year, with the very real risk that funding would be lost and with it the program. For these reasons, it was decided to not tell McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics that they would be unable to design and build the aircraft within the weight predicted by the contractors and specified as a contract requirement. There was more bad faith. When the Navy examined the cost and pricing data that had been submitted by the McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics team, it realized that the companies had underestimated costs by more than half a billion dollars. If the contract were awarded at the proposed prices, the companies would experience losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars (not only the half-billion in costs, but all of the predicted profit as well). Again the decision was made not to tell the contractors. It should be noted that decisions not to reveal what are termed "suspected mistakes" violate the Federal Acquisition Regulations, and such violations would have entitled the companies to void the resulting contract. At the time of award, knowing that the aircraft would never be built at its specified weight, the Navy faced yet another serious problem. Regulations required that the Navy report to DoD that the aircraft would not meet its weight threshold. DoD, in turn, was then required to disclose these facts to Congress. Because it would have put congressional support for the program at risk, no such disclosure was made. Instead, the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare told the Naval Air Systems Command to proceed with the program and report the overweight condition only when it became a reality. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1999/february/12-legacy-it-wasnt-airplane-it-was-train-wreck
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Any structural upgrades/improvements?
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Listening to an interview with a Mossberg rep at Shot Show, this design originated with a European contract for a breacher weapon. Mossberg has apparently been fulfilling this contract. Seems a little unusual since Beretta and Benelli are both European companies and have a reputation for high quality, durable shotguns. Maybe they were too expensive? https://www.mossberg.com/590rm-mag-fed-50213.html
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I would seriously like one, but not at the price point they'll probably charge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPYrHG23NGc
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The USN had a couple SSBN's named USS Robert E. Lee and USS Stonewall Jackson. No way those would fly today.
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Interesting that DD 666 was named USS Black.
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I believe that early 20th century US naming convention (through WW2 at least) was to name DD's (and DE's?) after Secretaries of the Navy, inventors, and heroes of the Naval Service.
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Well, someone threw a curve ball into the DDG-51 class naming system: https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/4020805/secnav-names-navys-newest-guided-missile-destroyer-ddg-145/
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The Kubelwagen made an appearance on the US civilian market in the late 1960's/early 1970's as the VW "Thing".
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Sounds expensive: "The U.S. Navy’s surface fleet has fired nearly 400 individual munitions while battling Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea over the past 15 months. That includes the firing of 120 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles, 160 rounds from destroyers and cruisers’ five-inch main guns, as well as a combined 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles." https://www.twz.com/news-features/navy-just-disclosed-how-many-of-each-of-its-surface-to-air-missiles-it-fired-during-red-sea-fight
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Israel's F-16's always did have one of the more attractive camo schemes.