DOCSLIB.ORG

December 2014 Newsletter.Pub

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
December 2014 Newsletter.Pub NEMESIS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION P.O. Box 604 Port Hueneme CA 93044-0604 December 2014 Vol. MMXIV: No. 4 DECEMBER LUNCHEON A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE Come join us for our Christmas luncheon. I hope this Christmas season will be a pleasant and hap- Place: CBC Bard Mansion O’Club py one for you. As we enter this joyous time of the year Date: Thursday, December 11, 2014 we all pray for peace throughout the world. Unfortunately the world doesn’t seem to be a very peaceful place. The Time: 11:30—13:00 Middle East is in turmoil with our troops still involved. The price will be $15 per person. The war against extremists now involves Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Iran is threatening to annihilate Israel. Egypt Come celebrate the holiday season and reunite with is still in turmoil. Russia is threatening to take over old friends at the Nemesis Alumni Association Christ- Ukraine. However, we can take comfort in knowing that mas luncheon, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 11 our Navy has played a very vital role in supporting our at the Port Hueneme Bard Mansion. efforts in this war torn region, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq. If it was not for the American presence in the There will be musical entertainment by TJ Zeiler , region, we would see a vastly different one dominated by presenting a mixture of oldies and Christmas mu- radical extremism. That is truly frightening. Our Navy is sic. And, of course, our legendary raffle! one of the most powerful and best equipped fleet that has the ability to fully support the United States foreign policy. To attend the $15 buffet luncheon please RSVP to Hopefully we can look forward to being able to continue Teri Reid at [email protected] or 805-861-6972 ; or our efforts to sustain and foster a more democratic environ- call Gerry Roberts at 805-642-6504 by Thursday, ment in that war torn region. We salute all those Navy personnel who are now stationed on board ships in the re- Dec. 4. gion. We should always remember and support those who put their lives on the line to try to make this world a friend- If you do not have base access please make arrange- lier place to live. So at this joyous time of the year, please ments to obtain a retiree identification card through the remember those who serve this nation by putting their lives NBVC Personnel Support Detachment or call Teri on the line in order to protect our liberties and freedoms. Reid or Gerry Roberts to arrange carpooling with Say a prayer of thanks for those who have sacrificed the drivers who have base access. ultimate and pray for those who return to their homes that they may know we honor and support them. The alumni association will have a table set up at the Bard Mansion to take luncheon payments. Please do not pay the Bard Mansion directly. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! 1 DID YOU KNOW OR REMEMBER Part 2 By Gerry Roberts Station Team Brings Ship Into Fleet This article will consist of two parts this time. Part 1 NSWSES Center of Excellence has played a major role in will cover the CNO Navy birthday message. Part 2 covers bringing the second AEGIS cruiser into the Pacific Fleet. the station’s participation in bringing the AEGIS Cruiser, USS VALLEY FORGE (CG-50) is undergoing Post- USS VALLY FORGE (CG-50) into the fleet. These two Shakedown Availability (PSA) at Todd Shipyard, San Pedro, articles were covered in our Interface Bulletin dated Octo- prior to joining USS VINCENNES (CG-49) with operational ber 3, 1986. forcers in the Western Pacific. Part 1 NSWSES engineers, technicians and logisticians have CNO NAVY birthday message: mailed postmarks from Pascagoula, MS, to Pearl Harbor as they worked to prepare the ship for operational readiness. On October 13 we will observe the 211 th anniversary of the founding of the Navy. On that day in 1775 the Conti- The NSWSES AEGIS Mobile Engineering Team joined nental Congress authorized the fitting out of a few tiny VALLEY FORGE for the AEGIS Combat System Light Off sailing ships, armed with cannon and held together with (ALO) about two months after the ship’s christening. pitch, hemp, and wooden nails. It was a small fleet, but For the next 13 months the five-man team, under the di- even then it made a difference. rection of Project Supervisor Bob Kimbley of the AEGIS In the intervening years, we’ve come a long way from Combat Systems Branch, was an integral part of VALLEY cannons to rifled guns to guided missiles; from privateers FORGE through Builders’ Trials, custody transfer, transit to ironclads to dreadnoughts to carrier battle groups. from Pascagoula to San Diego and finally through the Com- bat Systems Ship Qualification Trials (CSSQT). But two things haven’t changed. The first is the influ- ence of sea power on history. All of us know the truth of Wrote Captain T.C. Lockhart , commanding officer of the prayer; “Oh, Lord, your sea is so great and my boat is VALLEY FORGE in a letter of appreciation to Kimbley ; so small.” The boat is small, but at its approach good men “VALLEY FORGE completed a very successful Combat rejoice and evil men think twice. Systems Ship Qualification Trial. Your contributions to th CSSQT were varied and significant; and, in fact, started 18 In our 211 year as in our first, the Navy has been par- months ago in Pascagoula, MS. ticularly active in defending – not territory, not property, but fragile, indelible ideas; an idea relighted this past sum- “During VALLEY FORGE’s construction at Ingalls Ship- mer in the upraising right hand of Lady Liberty. We have yard Division, you aided in the identification of potential been active, and we have been successful, as we must al- problems, conducted in-depth liaison and material expedit- ways be successful, because our country counts on us. ing, and insured the correct completion of numerous pre-PSA jobs. Your dedication to the task at and was and is, com- The second thing that hasn’t changed is the dedication mendable. Your obvious pride and commitment is the hall- of our Navy people. Life at sea is hard, and waiting at mark of a true professional and VALLEY FORGE is a better home is hard too. If on October 13 we were to take a glob- warship because of your efforts.” al birthday snapshot, what a wide variety of activity we would see; the tanker pilot, orbiting the carrier at night, Mobile Engineering Team members were Vince Yar- waiting for the next customer; the sounding and security bough , Joe Lara , Alva Maynor and Dave Kooeinga , all of watch, investigating a plant parameter for which he feels the AEGIS Combat Systems Department. personally responsible; after lookout, alone on the fantail, Lieutenant Rich Wilder was CSSQT officer-in-charge life ring at his side who will gladly search a thousand emp- and later was commended by Naval Sea Systems Command ty wakes in case someday he may be needed to rescue a for his efforts. Al Murray was the assistant officer-in- shipmate; the data processing technician thinking hard at charge. her keyboard, debugging a program that she wrote herself . the mural would be endless . operators, support per- VALLEY FORGE received high marks throughout her sonnel, loyal families, civilians, reservists; but in each face per-commissioning and post-commissioning tests. Her Trial we would see the confidence of good training, the determi- Charlie – the Hull, Machinery and Electrical tests – held in nation to do the job right, and a quiet conviction born of the Gulf of Mexico, were completed in 25 hours, the briefest love of country and pride in service. test time for an AEGIS ship. People make the Navy, and after 211 years the Navy is Kimbley noted that test team personnel on the beach took still great because you – yes, you! – are great. Happy on added importance during at-sea tests of the AEGIS cruis- birthday, and may God bless you all. er. C.A.H. Trost “Bunk space is at a premium,” he said. “Team leaders rode VALLEY FORGE. Other personnel had to be ‘coptered Admiral, U. S. Navy back and forth daily as they were required aboard ship.” Chief of Naval Operations 2 DID YOU KNOW OR REMEMBER In addition to initial tests at the Island Beach, New (cont) By Gerry Roberts Jersey, and Fort Miles, Delaware, temporary sites, Camp Davis, North Carolina, was used for Operation He added that the beach support was especially im- Bumblebee from June 1, 1946, to July 28, 1948. Top- portant during CSSQT tests on the Pacific Missile sail Island, North Carolina, became the permanent Range.” “Our tactical analysis people were ashore at Bumblebee testing and launch facility in March 1947. Barking Sands and could review our data each night.” The Topsail Historical Society hosts the Missiles and More Museum at the site. Testing was transferred to TERRIER WEAPON SYSTEM Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and then to White Sands Missile Range in 1951 where EVOLUTION USS DESERT SHIP (LLS-1) was built as a prototype TALOS launch facility. By Bob Boulter The RIM-2 TERRIER, devised as a test vehicle, I thought it might be interesting to re-visit some of the evolu- became operational as a fleet anti-aircraft missile tion of Naval surface to air missile (SAM) development that led aboard USS BOSTON in 1955, and evolved into the to our current AEGIS systems.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Three Simulation Models of Naval Air Defense
    Three Simulation Models of Naval Air Defense LTJG Baris Ozkan, Neil C. Rowe, LT Sharif H. Calfee, and John E. Hiles Institute for Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation (MOVES) and Computer Science Department U.S. Naval Postgraduate School 833 Dyer Road, Monterey, CA 93943 [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT Naval air defense is a critical facility for ship survivability and has been subject of a number of studies. We investigate here three different approaches to modeling it with computer software. One approach focuses on the problems of information processing and communication for the air-defense team, and is good for analyzing its efficiency. Another approach focuses on the inference of the nature of observed tracks, and is based on the novel psychological theory of conceptual blending. A third approach uses an expert-systems approach that can learn from experience and be more substantially automated than the other two approaches. Each approach has its own advantages: The first provides insights for organizing and managing air-defense personnel, the second provides insights into cognitive biases in analysis that should be examined during training, and the third suggests a way to mostly automate the air-defense process to save money. This work suggests the value of multiple simulations of the same process when that process is important to understand. BACKGROUND Naval air warfare is rapid and serious, and is a major focus of the operations of ships (Mairorano, Carr, and Bender, 1996). Air-defense teams of "watchstanders" must train extensively in search, detection, and classification of all aircraft and surface vessels within the operational area of a ship's "battle group" (coordinated group of ships).
    [Show full text]
  • The Uss Vincennes Incident
    92 HDR 2020, Nr. 2, 92–101. 1st Lt Viola Vincze THE USS VINCENNES INCIDENT A case study involving Autonomous Weapon Systems DOI: 10.35926/HDR.2020.2.6 ABSTRACT: The objective of the paper is to introduce the facts of the USS Vincennes incident in 1988 and examine how the deployment and use of an Autonomous Weapon System has influenced military decision-making in the specific case. As a result of misidentifi- cation of the contact and confusion on board, Vincennes (a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser outfitted with the Aegis Combat System) fired two radar-guided missiles and shot down a civilian airliner from Iranian territorial waters (in Iranian airspace) only minutes after the airliner’s take-off. Not one from the 290 passengers and crew on board survived. Several contradictory articles have been written on the incident from legal, political and scientific vantage points and this article attempts to strip these accounts of the emotional tone and look into the facts in order to establish how personnel and machine interacted during the events that eventually led to the tragedy and how similar incidents involving AWS could be avoided. KEYWORDS: International Law, Law of Armed Conflicts, Autonomous Weapon Systems, case study, scenario fulfilment, responsibility INTRODUCTION Today we can witness a lively, although not always well-informed debate on the deploy- ment of lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) during international armed conflicts (IACs). Their supporters and opponents are invoking various arguments regarding their use, but more often than not they tend to focus on the analysis of the Law of Attack1 as contained in the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), most notably in Protocol I additional to the 1949 Ge- neva Conventions2 (Additional Protocol I), while paying less attention to the assessment of NATO documents and national military manuals on targeting, although these can be regard­ ed as the direct translations of the Law of Attack into the language of daily target selection and engagement.
    [Show full text]
  • Winter 2020 Full Issue
    Naval War College Review Volume 73 Number 1 Winter 2020 Article 1 2020 Winter 2020 Full Issue The U.S. Naval War College Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Naval War College, The U.S. (2020) "Winter 2020 Full Issue," Naval War College Review: Vol. 73 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol73/iss1/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Naval War College: Winter 2020 Full Issue Winter 2020 Volume 73, Number 1 Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2020 1 Naval War College Review, Vol. 73 [2020], No. 1, Art. 1 Cover Two modified Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IV interceptors are launched from the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) during a Missile Defense Agency (MDA) test to intercept a short-range ballistic-missile target, conducted on the Pacific Missile Range Facility, west of Hawaii, in 2008. The SM-2 forms part of the Aegis ballistic-missile defense (BMD) program. In “A Double-Edged Sword: Ballistic-Missile Defense and U.S. Alli- ances,” Robert C. Watts IV explores the impact of BMD on America’s relationship with NATO, Japan, and South Korea, finding that the forward-deployed BMD capability that the Navy’s Aegis destroyers provide has served as an important cement to these beneficial alliance relationships.
    [Show full text]
  • Uss "Vincennes"
    S. Hao, 100-1085 INVESTIGATION IfTO THE DOWNING OF AN IRANIAN AIRLINER BY THE U.S.S. "VINCENNES" HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDREDTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION SEPTEMBER 8, 1988 Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 90-853 WASHINGTON : 1989 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 03o -" COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES SAM NUNN, Georgia, Chairman JOHN C. STENNIS, Mississippi JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia J. JAMES EXON, Nebraska STROM THURMOND, South Carolina CARL LEVIN, Michigan GORDON J. HUMPHREY, New Hampshire P)WARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts WILLIAM S. COHEN, Maine JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico DAN QUAYLE, Indiana ALAN J. DIXON, Illinois PETE WILSON, California JOHN GLENN, Ohio PHIL GRAMM, Texas ALBERT GORE, JR., Tennessee STEVEN D. SYMMS, Idaho TIMOTHY E. WIRTH, Colorado JOHN McCAIN, Arizona RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama ARNOLD L. PuNARO, Staff Director CAu M. SMrm, Staff Director for the Minority CHRISTINS COWART DAUTH, Chief Clerk (II) CONTENTS CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES Page Fogarty, Rear Adm. William M., USN, Director of Policy and Plans, U.S. Central Command, and Head of the Investigation Team accompanied by Capt. George N. Gee, USN, Director, Surface Combat Systems Division, ice of the Chief of Naval Operations and Capt. Richard D. DeBobes, Legal Adviser and Legislative Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of S taff . .......................................................................................................................... 4 Kelly, Rear Adm. Robert J., USN, Vice Director for Operations, Joint Staff ..... 17 (III) INVESTIGATION INTO THE DOWNING OF AN IRANIAN AIRLINER BY THE U.S.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Overwhelmed by Technology: How Did User Interface Failures on Board the USS Vincennes Lead to 290 Dead?
    Overwhelmed by Technology: How did user interface failures on board the USS Vincennes lead to 290 dead? Luke Swartz Background On July 3, 1988, the 290 passengers and crew of Iran Air Flight 655 were seemingly distant from the bitter and prolonged Iran-Iraq war. Many of the passengers were ultimately bound for Mecca, making their sacred pilgrimage as prescribed in the Koran. However, at 10:24 AM, seven minutes after the Airbus took off from Bandar Abbas Airport for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the United States Navy guided missile cruiser Vincennes fired two missiles at the plane, destroying the hapless target and its civilian occupants with horrific precision. What Went Wrong? Immediately after the tragedy, the US quickly blamed Iran for letting the plane fly over the combat situation below; then-Vice President Bush explained to the UN Security Council that the Vincennes “acted in self-defense,” thinking that Flight 655, after failing to respond to seven warnings, was “an Iranian military aircraft…approaching with hostile intentions.” Iran’s foreign minister charged the US with intentionally downing the plane, adding, “This was a premeditated act of aggression against the integrity of Tehran…a massacre.” While few objective observers think that the Vincennes’ action was intentional, and fewer still believe that its shooting down the civilian airliner was correct, numerous experts have debated what went wrong that fateful day. Many theories deal with aspects of the situation and the key players both on the Vincennes and in the cockpit of Flight 655. Failure to Respond? We may never know why Flight 655 failed to respond to the Vincennes’ repeated warnings, as its “black box” flight recorder could not be recovered.
    [Show full text]
  • MAPPING the DEVELOPMENT of AUTONOMY in WEAPON SYSTEMS Vincent Boulanin and Maaike Verbruggen
    MAPPING THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMY IN WEAPON SYSTEMS vincent boulanin and maaike verbruggen MAPPING THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMY IN WEAPON SYSTEMS vincent boulanin and maaike verbruggen November 2017 STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. The Governing Board is not responsible for the views expressed in the publications of the Institute. GOVERNING BOARD Ambassador Jan Eliasson, Chair (Sweden) Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar (Indonesia) Dr Vladimir Baranovsky (Russia) Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria) Espen Barth Eide (Norway) Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger (Germany) Dr Radha Kumar (India) The Director DIRECTOR Dan Smith (United Kingdom) Signalistgatan 9 SE-169 72 Solna, Sweden Telephone: +46 8 655 97 00 Email: [email protected] Internet: www.sipri.org © SIPRI 2017 Contents Acknowledgements v About the authors v Executive summary vii Abbreviations x 1. Introduction 1 I. Background and objective 1 II. Approach and methodology 1 III. Outline 2 Figure 1.1. A comprehensive approach to mapping the development of autonomy 2 in weapon systems 2. What are the technological foundations of autonomy? 5 I. Introduction 5 II. Searching for a definition: what is autonomy? 5 III. Unravelling the machinery 7 IV. Creating autonomy 12 V. Conclusions 18 Box 2.1. Existing definitions of autonomous weapon systems 8 Box 2.2. Machine-learning methods 16 Box 2.3. Deep learning 17 Figure 2.1. Anatomy of autonomy: reactive and deliberative systems 10 Figure 2.2.
    [Show full text]
  • SAFE WINGS Flight Safety Magazine of Air India, Air India Express and Alliance Air Issue 38, JULY 2015
    SAFE WINGS Flight Safety Magazine of Air India, Air India Express and Alliance Air Issue 38, JULY 2015 This issue… BAGHDAD DHL A-300 ATTACKED BY MISSILE PROTECTION TO CIVIL PASSENGER AIRCRAFT AGAINST SHOULDER- FIRED MISSILE (SFM) THREAT * For Internal Circulation Only July Edition 38 SAFE WINGS 1 | P a g e Flight Safety Magazine of Air India, Air India Express and Alliance Air July Edition 38 SAFE WINGS BAGHDAD DHL A-300 ATTACKED BY MISSILE n the Morning of 22nd November 2003 European Air Transport/DHL A300B4 O arrives in Baghdad from Bahrain earlier. Locally the weather and visibility is good and, on the ground, work to turn the aircraft around begins quickly. The cargo is unloaded and aircraft reloaded with about 7 tons of general cargo for the trip back to Bahrain. At take-off the aircraft's weight is only 105 tons, the maximum allowable take-off weight is 165.9 tons. The crew taxi the A300 out to runway 15L for take-off. Because of the light weight and the need for a maximum-angle climb from lift-off to gain as much height as possible before reaching the airfield boundary, the selected configuration is "slats only" - no flap - and full power. Climb is to be straight ahead to waypoint LOVEK. The crew consisted of 38 year old Belgian Captain Eric Gennotte with 3300 hrs flying experience, 29 year old Belgian First Officer Steeve Michielsen with 1275 flight hours and 54 year old scot Flight Engineer Rofail with 13423 hours flight experience. As the aircraft powers up through 8,000ft an explosion rocks the aircraft, a cacophony of aural warnings erupts and lights flash for multiple systems.
    [Show full text]
  • Lessons from Air Defence Systems on Meaningful Human Control for the Debate on AWS
    MEANING-LESS HUMAN CONTROL Lessons from air defence systems on meaningful human control for the debate on AWS Ingvild Bode and Tom Watts Published February 2021 Written by Dr Ingvild Bode, Centre for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark and Dr Tom Watts, Department of Politics and International Relations, Hertfordshire University Catalogue of air defence systems available on: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4485695 Published by the Centre for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark in collaboration with Drone Wars UK, Peace House, 19 Paradise Street, Oxford OX1 1LD, www.dronewars.net Acknowledgements Research for this report was supported by a grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (under grant agreement No. 852123). We want to express our thanks to the following readers for providing invaluable feedback for previous drafts of this report: Maya Brehm, Justin Bronk, Peter Burt, Chris Cole, Aditi Gupta, Hendrik Huelss, Camilla Molyneux, Richard Moyes, Max Mutschler, and Maaike Verbruggen. We would also like to thank Julia Barandun for her excellent early research assistance. About the authors Dr Ingvild Bode is Associate Professor at the Centre for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark and a Senior Research Fellow at the Conflict Analysis Research Centre, University of Kent. She is also the Principal Investigator of an ERC-funded project examining autonomous weapons systems and use of force norms. Her research focuses on processes of normative change, especially in relation to the use of force, weaponised Artificial Intelligence, United Nations peacekeeping, and United Nations Security Council dynamics.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of the US Navy Into an Effective
    The Evolution of the U.S. Navy into an Effective Night-Fighting Force During the Solomon Islands Campaign, 1942 - 1943 A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Jeff T. Reardon August 2008 © 2008 Jeff T. Reardon All Rights Reserved ii This dissertation titled The Evolution of the U.S. Navy into an Effective Night-Fighting Force During the Solomon Islands Campaign, 1942 - 1943 by JEFF T. REARDON has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Marvin E. Fletcher Professor of History Benjamin M. Ogles Dean, College of Arts and Sciences iii ABSTRACT REARDON, JEFF T., Ph.D., August 2008, History The Evolution of the U.S. Navy into an Effective Night-Fighting Force During the Solomon Islands Campaign, 1942-1943 (373 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Marvin E. Fletcher On the night of August 8-9, 1942, American naval forces supporting the amphibious landings at Guadalcanal and Tulagi Islands suffered a humiliating defeat in a nighttime clash against the Imperial Japanese Navy. This was, and remains today, the U.S. Navy’s worst defeat at sea. However, unlike America’s ground and air forces, which began inflicting disproportionate losses against their Japanese counterparts at the outset of the Solomon Islands campaign in August 1942, the navy was slow to achieve similar success. The reason the U.S. Navy took so long to achieve proficiency in ship-to-ship combat was due to the fact that it had not adequately prepared itself to fight at night.
    [Show full text]
  • Naval Accidents 1945-1988, Neptune Papers No. 3
    -- Neptune Papers -- Neptune Paper No. 3: Naval Accidents 1945 - 1988 by William M. Arkin and Joshua Handler Greenpeace/Institute for Policy Studies Washington, D.C. June 1989 Neptune Paper No. 3: Naval Accidents 1945-1988 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Nuclear Weapons Accidents......................................................................................................... 3 Nuclear Reactor Accidents ........................................................................................................... 7 Submarine Accidents .................................................................................................................... 9 Dangers of Routine Naval Operations....................................................................................... 12 Chronology of Naval Accidents: 1945 - 1988........................................................................... 16 Appendix A: Sources and Acknowledgements........................................................................ 73 Appendix B: U.S. Ship Type Abbreviations ............................................................................ 76 Table 1: Number of Ships by Type Involved in Accidents, 1945 - 1988................................ 78 Table 2: Naval Accidents by Type
    [Show full text]
  • Agora: the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655
    AGORA: THE DOWNING OF IRAN AIR FLIGHT 655 INTRODUCTION How quickly one forgets. On Sunday, July 3, 1988, an Iran Air A300 Airbus, with 290 persons on board, was shot out of the sky by two surface- to-air missiles launched from the U.S.S. Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser on duty with the United States Persian Gulf/Middle East Force. The first reports from Washington were that the Vincennes had acted in self-defense against hostile Iranian aircraft.1 Some 12 hours later, the Pentagon admit­ ted that the Vincennes had made a mistake, that the aircraft it saw approach­ ing was a wide-bodied airliner on a regularly scheduled flight, not an F-14 Tomcat with hostile intent and capability. There were, of course, tense times in the Persian Gulf in early July 1988. Iraq had been conducting air strikes against Iranian oil facilities and ships, Iranian F-14s (sold by the United States to the Iran of the Shah a decade earlier) had retaliated, and small boats launched from Iran were challenging ships approaching the Strait of Hormuz. No doubt every American ship's captain in the Gulf remembered the episode a year earlier when an Iraqi missile had—it was said, by mistake—blown a hole in the frigate U.S.S. Stark, with the loss of 37 lives. Still, the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 was clearly a tragic error. Within a few days, President Reagan announced his country's regrets, and promised that the United States would make an ex gratia payment to the families of the victims.
    [Show full text]
  • The Iran-Iraq War - Chapter XIV 05/01/90 Page XIV - 1
    The Iran-Iraq War - Chapter XIV 05/01/90 Page XIV - 1 XIV. THE TANKER WAR AND THE LESSONS OF NAVAL CONFLICT 14.0 The Tanker and Naval Wars The Iran-Iraq War involved two complex forms of naval conflict: Iraq's attempts to weaken Iran by destroying its ability to use tankers to export oil, and a U.S.-led Western naval presence in the Gulf that was intended to ensure the freedom of passage for tankers to Kuwait and the overall security of shipping to and from neutral Gulf countries. Both forms of conflict led to substantial escalation. Iran reacted to Iraq's tanker war by putting increasing military and political pressure on the Southern Gulf states to halt their support of Iraq. The U.S. and Western European presence in the Gulf led to growing clashes with Iran that escalated steadily to the point where they were a major factor in Iran's decision to agree to a ceasefire. The history of these two naval conflicts, and their overall impact on the war, has already been described in some detail. The naval fighting involved the use of a wide range of naval, air, missile, and mine warfare systems, however, and presents a number of interesting lessons regarding the use of these systems in naval warfare. It also provides important insights into the effect of strategic air attacks on naval shipping, and the problems of conflict management and controlling escalation. The key lessons and issues raised by the war may be summarized as follows: • The tanker war was the most important aspect of the fighting at sea, but it never produced a major interruption in Iran's oil exports.
    [Show full text]