EagleSpeak links to this sobering take on the current woes with the Littoral Combat Ship.

The cost overruns of the LCS eat at the raison d’être of the whole program, a light cheap fast (expendable) combatant. Note though that the LCS is still vastly cheaper than  it's big brother, the  DD1000.

The DD 1000 is the size of a small Battleship* and cost about as much as a BB would. Yet these vessels are being pitched as destroyers, and their vapourware half sisters, the CG21,are to replace the DDs and CGs in the escort role....apparently by replacing the big guns with missile tubes and adding a better air defense system...which promises to push the cost up even higher.

The LCS is cheap for a destroyer, but has the armament of an OPV. It has all sorts of potential for improvement by adding various  modules, but none of these give it any area defense capability, or any capability for surface combat beyond the 30 click range of the as yet non-operational NLOS missiles. With their big flex deck, impressive helicopter capability and good seakeeping  they might make useful auxiliaries but they are an insanely expensive solution to all the problems they are intended to tackle and little more than toothless coffins for their crews in a hot war. 

  In response to this, as I pointed out on the old blog in April, there is an upgraded design being offered by General Dynamics see here , here and here.

One would assume that similar options would be available for the currently defunct LockMart design. One would be right.

This part time Coasties suggestion?

Scrap DD1000.

For fire support use ATACMS fired from VLS tubes, and develop the POLAR missile...a ship based derivative of the off the shelf MLRS system that the Navy rejected in the 90s. (but give it the unitary warhead of the current GMLRS). Buy something in the class of these 2 designs as replacements. Get ferocious about cost discipline. Buy as many of them as possible.Most importantly, buy enough modules, particularly ASW modules, that the ships really are multi mission. Numbers are what the navy needs...but it needs numbers of vessels that can take care of themselves. This strikes me as a far better compromise than the high-low mix as the low end vessels tempt the congresscritters to count them as full on units.

 

*The USNs first Dreadnoughts, the South Carolina and Michigan were 16,000 tons.

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Astro has revamped his site. Go check him out!

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What NOT to wear to your mugshot.

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1 More like "I knew Christmas paper was flammable but this is rediculous!"

Posted by: Marina at Sun Jul 15 01:17:09 2007 (z3dTy)

2 Robin's wearing red?  I guess she's going full-on Scarlet Woman now...

There was a girl at AnimeNEXT who was cosplaying WH Robin.  In a corset.  A really tight, exposed corset.  Talk about missing the point... at least she had the handle-bar hairdo.

Posted by: Mitch H. at Mon Jul 16 09:26:27 2007 (iTVQj)

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Don has a nice post on Oh! Edo Rocket!, which I've mentioned in passing before.



My observations, having seen just 2 eps pretty much jive with his. That is, the show is cool.
 The weird amalgamation of seemingly incompatible character designs is, distracting to some. Aside from the odd Matsumoto show I haven't really seen design variations in a show this extreme in nearly 20 years.
This show is fun but not really fluff, the villains we've met are actually scary, and there is the cool bit about it being based around actual historical events. (It's almost certainly occurring in 1840s during one of the later crackdown on "luxuries" ). The protagonists are a bunch of carnival types put out of work by the sudden illegality of their trade.

They've combined October Sky, Freaks, Kolchack :The Night Stalker and any number of martial arts shows...(some of my favorite things )and made a cartoon out of them. I am going to HAVE to watch this show...after all it's target demographic is....me.

Update: Don also has a videoblog now....which includes amongst other things...The Abacus Dance.

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Over at Warships 1, someone in this thread noticed something odd on the foredeck of the USS Elrod.



It looks like (and the consensus of opinion seems to be that it is)  a fake gun mount intended to deter  maritime brigands.

While the Perrys have lost virtually ALL of their hot war punch with the removal of the MK 13 missile launchers, they still possess both a MK 75 76mm gun and an improved Phalanx upgraded to improve its effectiveness against surface targets. The ship is quite capable of dealing with pirates and such...of course neither the phalanx nor the 3inch gun look particularly fierce to an untrained eye, and at any rate the ship seems to have no weapons bearing forward aside from small arms and, perhaps .50 caliber weapons on the bridge wings.
So what IS this thing, a dummy gun to deter attackers, or an actual weapon like a 25-30mm cannon?

It certainly looks fake.
(Note: At time of posting there is a much better high res picture in the linked thread...)

As an aside, the USCG's 378' High endurance cutters now have the same fixed armament and have it better positioned, comparable range and speed, twin screws, better maneuverability and a shallower draft....and despite being twice as old with old and hard to maintain equipment, require a crew of 168 vs 300 . The Perrys certainly have better EW equipment, 2 vice 1 helicopters and their ASW tubes are still fitted, but it is hard to avoid thinking that the Coast Guard, with something similar to the 378's would be better (and more economical) to use on antipiracy duties.

Of course....we'd need to not have our new-builds be lemons first.

Perhaps we should just build more of the 'white needles of death' with updated systems (you know...systems still in production).


Anyway, does anyone have any contradictory ideas on the "dummy gun"?

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The UK Government vehemently denies....
well...
you read the post title.




The inhabitants of the Iraqi port city of Basra are in stark mortal terror of giant man eating badgers that they are blaming on the British Army.

The BBC covers the plague of badgers here, pointing out that....

Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy dean of Basra's veterinary college, speculated that the badgers were being driven towards the city because of flooding in marshland north of Basra. 

The badgers are an indigenous species known as the "honey badger".

So there you have it!

There is nothing to see here...just chuckle and move along...don't think anything of it and pay no attention to the impolitic analysis below the fold....
more...

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My passport came in today!

The only thing standing between me leaving for Japan August 1 is a catastrophe or a  reserve call up....

But one should not dwell on such things....

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I've been waiting for a good catsploitation flick.....


...while this doesn't actually look to be "good"...It does have the potential to be gloriously bad,

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Via Colleen Doran comes the unhappy news that Doug Marlette, creator of the syndicated strip Kudzu, has died in an auto accident.

 In addition to Kudzu, Marlette was a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist as well.

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Via Rand Simberg:

10 politically incorrect truths about human nature.

Reaction from the College of Arts and Letters in 3...2...1... 
                

Ouch...

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more...

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1 I lol'd.

BTW, blog all fix!  It was a glorp in your header template, setting the base URL for the page to "page.base" instead of "[page.base]".  The square brackets are very important.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jul 8 06:47:20 2007 (PiXy!)

2 Thanks!

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 8 06:56:38 2007 (73lWn)

3

The mystery isn't that what Brickmuppet did broke the page. The mystery for me now is why it didn't break it for all browsers.

Probably not worth figuring out, though.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Jul 8 09:24:31 2007 (+rSRq)

4 The code in the header template sets the base href for the page for relative paths (this is needed to make relative-path images work in category and archives pages, for example).  What's happening is that IE is using it incorrectly for paths that are absolute but not full URLs, where Firefox handles it correctly.  Or it could be that the standard is the other way around... who knows.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jul 8 10:24:48 2007 (PiXy!)

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I just found out via Ubu's site that Stephen Den Beste is ordering Godannar...I can't help but blame myself. I was remiss in my blogging duties, I did not warn him.

   Rather than struggle with explaining the rather complex setup I'll rely on ADV's own ad, which, to their credit is one of the best, most honest, series trailers ever.



More below the fold....
more...

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The pictures on this blog don't seem to be visible with AOL or Internet Explorer

Firefox works fine at the moment.

According to Wonderduck this issue began sometime on the 4th.

Feh...

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1 I'll take a look and see if I can find out what's going on.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sat Jul 7 14:53:22 2007 (PiXy!)

2 Okay there is something interesting going on here.  Yes, things are messed up in a browser-dependent way.  Everything's fine in Firefox, but a number of things are broken in IE - and not the normal things.

I'll grab a copy of your blog to the test environment so I can take a proper look.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sat Jul 7 15:20:37 2007 (PiXy!)

3 Thanks for the quick response.
"Interesting"...that sounds ominous.
I'm sorry my blog seem to be such a bother.

Thanks Again,
Ken

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 7 22:22:34 2007 (V5zw/)

4 That's what it means to be part of a "beta". You and I have been turning up problems, and that's exactly what Pixy hoped we'd do. It's the reason he offered us free use of the system.

Better by far to find those problems now than to have them turn up after this place gets established with hundreds of paying customers.

Both of us are what are known as "black box" testers. The opposite is "white box" testing, which means that the tester understands the internals and is deliberately shooting for the places where problems are most likely to be found. Pixy has been doing his own white box testing.

But there's no substitute for black-box testing. "Black Box" testers don't know what's going on in the code so they attack with less predictability, across a wider front. To some extent a white box tester is limited by his preconceptions, but black box testers have no such limitations and will find some of the damndest things. I speak as a software developer myself when I describe this, and believe me, black box testing is essential.

So don't apologize for making things break. I haven't been. You and I have been doing exactly what Pixy hoped we'd do: to use the system heavily and to turn up problems he himself can't find.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sat Jul 7 22:51:22 2007 (+rSRq)

5 Hmmm, I seem to have failed my post roll as well...

OK, here is what I did Tuesday that may or may not have precipitated the issue.

I attempted to insert a picture into both the  HEADER and BANNER sections of the  TEMPLATE page.  (I was unsure which controlled exactly what)

I failed of course (My Computer-Fu is weak) and carelessly lost the page with the original template for BANNER....this is why I asked if you has cheeseburger had stock templates or a reset to default function. As I generally use Firefox, I was unaware of the image issue at the time. I noticed it on AOL last night, and Wonderduck informed me mere minutes later that it was not a buggy Cybercafe computer, but an actual issue.

Both IE, and AOL refuse to show images. Additionally I've noticed today that when I follow an intra-blog link like the ENTRY hyperlink in the "Recent Comments" section I get a "Cant Find Web Page" error.....but #500 rather than #404.

Ultimately I'd like to put an image into the header or sidebar,  be able to play with the site colors,  have categories listed on the respective posts and possibly have category icons similar in principal to those on Shamus's site.

Note that despite the issues (which may or may not be self inflicted) I'm still quite happy with the move, for one thing customer service actually exists here, there has been no condescension,  and  the crack staff of support Pixies has  been very quick at addressing all issues.

This is highly appreciated, especially since I am woefully ignorant web design.

Thank you for your professionalism and your patience.

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 7 22:56:20 2007 (V5zw/)

6 "You and I have been doing exactly what Pixy hoped we'd do: to use the system heavily and to turn up problems he himself can't find."

Yay us! Woot! 

Thanks Stephen

I was worried that my lack of knowledge would make me of limited usefullness as a a beta tester (Ye Gods I can barely type).... But that makes perfect sense actually.. I'm just sorry I didn't post a full explanation sooner (I was unaware of the issue as I've been hella busy).

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 7 23:02:22 2007 (V5zw/)

7 Steven's exactly right.  The point of having beta testers is that they'll do things that I wouldn't expect.  Which you have done.

I'll have it all sorted out soon -  just a busy Sunday here, with annoying life-type-stuff interfering with my important coding.  (You know, having lunch, talking to my family, that sort of thing. )

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jul 8 01:35:27 2007 (PiXy!)

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From the Warships 1 Discussion Boards.

Rear Admiral Eugene Bennett Fluckey has passed away. He was one of the most decorated US submariners of WW2 and won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his courage in attacking a Japanese munitions convoy with a submarine in water only 30 feet deep.

Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, Commanding U.S.S. Barb. Place and date: Along coast of China, 19 December 1944 to 15 February 1945. Entered service at: Illinois. Born: 5 October 1913, Washington, D.C. Other Navy award: Navy Cross with 3 Gold Stars. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Barb during her 11th war patrol along the east coast of China from 19 December 1944 to 15 February 1945. After sinking a large enemy ammunition ship and damaging additional tonnage during a running 2-hour night battle on 8 January, Comdr. Fluckey, in an exceptional feat of brilliant deduction and bold tracking on 25 January, located a concentration of more than 30 enemy ships in the lower reaches of Nankuan Chiang (Mamkwan Harbor). Fully aware that a safe retirement would necessitate an hour's run at full speed through the uncharted, mined, and rock-obstructed waters, he bravely ordered, "Battle station--torpedoes!" In a daring penetration of the heavy enemy screen, and riding in 5 fathoms of water, he launched the Barb's last forward torpedoes at 3,000-yard range. Quickly bringing the ship's stern tubes to bear, he turned loose 4 more torpedoes into the enemy, obtaining 8 direct hits on 6 of the main targets to explode a large ammunition ship and cause inestimable damage by the resultant flying shells and other pyrotechnics. Clearing the treacherous area at high speed, he brought the Barb through to safety and 4 days later sank a large Japanese freighter to complete a record of heroic combat achievement, reflecting the highest credit upon Comdr. Fluckey, his gallant officers and men, and the U.S. Naval Service.

As commander U.S.S. Barb he took a ship with a mediocre war record and made it one of the most decorated of all US Submarines. In just under 2 years under his command, the ship sank more tonnage than any other submarine, over 80 enemy ships including a cruiser, a destroyer and a carrier! On his own initiative he put a a landing party on Karafuto (now Sakhalin Island), which  destroyed a railroad bridge and a train. (This was the ONLY US amphibious assault on the home islands and it was accomplished without loss!) The Barb was (unsurprisingly) the only US submarine to have a train on her battle flag.
See there...at the bottom center...
Fluckey also earned 4 Navy Crosses, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and numerous other awards, which made him one of the most decorated American servicemen of all time. He retired in 1972 a Rear Admiral, having served in several highly important positions after the war, including head of Naval Intelligence.

Update: Much more at Eaglespeak

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Over at Winds of Change, Mark Danzinger has an excellent piece on  the NYT's recent Op-Ed .

Ignoring for a moment the resulting bloodbath that the NYT glosses over, abandoning those we have sworn to protect is very very poor foreign policy.

That it is ethically reprehensible certainly seems irrelevant to the Times.

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 Thankfully, the attack in Scotland today by the burning rage boys was ineptly executed, but the increased vigilance is certainly warranted.

  The Brits, as always, seemed to handle it with stride. Mr. Clarkson, by his actions, may have not just saved lives, he may have helped provide an intelligence coup as this is the rare case of a suicide bomber survivor. Had he not punched the terrorist, the asshat might have blown himself up and killed people....or simply burned to death.

Of course now the BBC has reported this capture, (hardly something the public has a right/need to know), so not only do we know of Mr. Clarkson's heroics, the bad guys know of the capture of one of their number and can, flee/ make adjustments/ kill weak links....

The BBC, so impartial they're on the other side.

Of course they are hardly alone in this regard someone else would have likely leaked this info even if they'd been responsible.

More news here.

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Kirk Sorensen's infant son died last night.

Send him a few kind words.

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