Exercise Nonsense

The US participated in an island defense exercise as part of ‘Balikatan 2026’.  The following statement from a USNI News article on the exercise demonstrates why this kind of exercise is worse than useless.
 

At this point in the Littoral Deep Battle plan, an overwhelming torrent of fires ripped apart any notional enemies that made it to the beach.[1]

“Overwhelming torrent of fires” ????
“ripped apart any notional enemies”  ????
 
Who wrote this article … Steven Spielberg?
 
Where was the intelligent, free acting, well equipped enemy force with their own “overwhelming torrent of fires” ripping apart any notional defenders after having pounded the defenses with an overwhelming torrent of missiles, rockets, and drones?  Where was the attacker’s Gen. Van Riper?
 
One might be tempted to say, yeah, this wasn’t a perfect exercise but it was a start and better than nothing, right?  Wrong.  

First, it’s not a “start” on anything.  We should have been practicing assault defense for decades.  We should be well past the “starting” point.  

Second, and worse, we now have a group of officers and men who think this is how reality will be and they’ll have no idea what to do when the perfect, scripted actions they're used to are demolished by the enemy’s vote.  An NBA basketball team wouldn’t practice against a high school team and believe that would somehow prepare them for a championship game.  Why would we practice against a ludicrously simplistic “assault force” and believe for a second that it was in any way realistic or helpful?  All this did was establish and reinforce bad habits in our doctrine and our people.
 
I guess we learned our lesson from Millennium Challenge 2002.  You avoid controversy by making the exercise ridiculously easy.
 
 
 
___________________________

 
[1]USNI News website, “‘Littoral Deep Battle’ - The Army’s Plan to Defeat an Amphibious Invasion in the Indo-Pacific”, Aaron-Matthew Lariiosa, 5-May-2026,
https://news.usni.org/2026/05/05/littoral-deep-battle

Trump’s Battleship – What is it Really?

A reader recently launched a mini-rant about the classification of Trump’s battleship as a battleship, claiming it should be a heavy cruiser, instead.  This led me to reflect on what it really is.  Heavy cruiser?  Light cruiser?  Oversized destroyer?  Arsenal ship?  Something else?
 
As you all know, President Trump has a fondness for hyperbole (turning Canada into the 51^st state, seizing Greenland, this pretend battleship, etc.) which is often just a prelude to subsequent negotiations (he loves making deals!).  Only the left takes the obvious hyperbole as meaning anything.  The wiser and calmer among us recognize it for what it is and get a chuckle out of it.  Thus, the classification of Trump’s battleship as a battleship is strictly for public relations purposes and, perhaps, a bit of a thumbing of the nose at China.
 
So, if it’s not a battleship, what is it?  Acknowledging that we lack enough specifications to draw much in the way of definitive conclusions, let’s go down the list of classifications, just for fun, and see what, if anything fits.
 
Battleship – It’s clearly not a battleship as it lacks armor, survivability, and effective fire support for land forces among other shortcomings.
 
Heavy Cruiser – A heavy cruiser is a mini-battleship with appropriately heavy armor, guns (land attack), and anti-ship weaponry.  Again, this ship is clearly not a heavy cruiser.
 
Light Cruiser – These are compromise ships that try to excel at one aspect of heavier ship’s tasks while retaining some armor and survivability and, most importantly, holding to a cost-conscious construction budget.  They may be specialized as anti-air, anti-surface, escort, or other tasks.  Trump’s battleship could fall somewhere in this category, in some respects, although it is stunningly not budget-friendly and lacks a specialization so it’s not really a light cruiser.
 
Oversize Destroyer – Trump’s ship certainly falls into this category in terms of the lack of armor and survivability but it has way too much in the way of weapons and is insanely expensive for a destroyer, oversize or not.
 
LCS – Trump’s ship checks a lot of the boxes for being an LCS!  It tries to be all things.  It depends on mostly non-existent systems.  It has no clear mission focus.  One could plausibly call it a hugely oversized, astoundingly expensive LCS although, thankfully, no one has yet mentioned interchangeable modules.
 
Arsenal Ship – The arsenal ship is a concept ship that is, essentially, a mobile missile barge with only that one function.  We’re getting close, here.  Trump’s ship is, essentially, a mobile missile barge albeit with large scoops of non-existent, fantasy gold plating (rail gun, laser, etc.) piled on and lots of independent capabilities that an arsenal ship would lack.  It also conflates anti-air and strike missions instead of focusing on just one.  Nevertheless, this is the closest fit as far as classification.
 
That said, as an arsenal ship it is a hideously poor design as evidenced by the cost and multiple fantasy systems.  An arsenal ship should be a minimally functional, cheap barge for carrying missiles for some other platform to control.
 
 
Conclusion
 
The only conclusion is that, like every recent Navy ship program, the “battleship” is just a collection of disjointed technologies, mostly non-existent, cobbled together and slapped with the inspiring label of “battleship”.  It lacks a CONOPS and, certainly, no formal Analysis of Alternatives has been performed. 
 
Given the extremely low probability of it ever actually being built, we should simply view it as an indicator of Trump’s enthusiasm for a strong Navy and hope that enthusiasm eventually gets channeled into more productive and useful assets.
 
As far as this post, take it as a bit of amusement.  Don’t get too worked up over it.

Satellites - Single Point of Failure

One of the worst things you can have in combat is a single point of failure;  a linchpin upon which an entire operation depends.  If it fails, you lose everything.  For example, let’s imagine a ship has several types of sensors and all are operated off electrical power that ultimately passes through a single cable.  That cable would represent a single point of failure.  Sever the cable and all the sensor systems would be rendered inoperative by a single component’s failure.  We have seen examples in industry and the military where supposedly redundant, independent systems have failed because of an unrecognized single point of failure.  In our example, we might be tempted to proudly proclaim that we have set up multiple independent sensor systems.  After all, they’re physically separated.  They use different frequencies.  They each have their own cooling systems.  Those that need motors each have their own.  Completely independent;  nothing in common ...  except for the single power cable that no one thought about and did not recognize as a single point of failure.
 
Our military is currently constructing a single point of failure on a very large scale in the form of satellite communications.  Consider the vast number of systems that all depend on satellite communications:  drones, weapons, command and control, sensors, and on and on.  If we lose satellite communications, we lose … well … a huge chunk of our entire military capability.
 
You might be tempted to argue that satellite communications are not a single point of failure because we have dozens/hundreds/thousands of satellites and no enemy could possibly eliminate all of them.  Setting aside the highly debatable nature of that assertion, think, what do all satellites have in common?  That’s right, a very small number of control/communication stations … approaching a single point of failure.  It doesn’t matter how many satellites you have if they all depend on a very few control stations.
 
Think further, what do all control stations have in common?  An even smaller number of software programs that run them.  If an enemy can hack/virus the software (we’ve seen that it’s almost impossible to prevent hacking of military or commercial networks and programs), it instantly renders all the control stations and their associated satellites useless.
 
Well, none of that could ever happen, you say.  Except that already has and we have at least one public example.
 

A global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network ​affecting millions of Starlink users had left two dozen unmanned surface vessels bobbing off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for almost an hour.
 
The incident, which involved drones ‌intended to bolster U.S. military options in a conflict with China, was one of several Navy test disruptions linked to SpaceX's Starlink that left operators unable to connect with autonomous boats, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter.[1]

Think even further.  What if a key individual (a single point of failure, by definition!) were to shut down or sabotage the entire satellite system, perhaps motivated by bribes/payoffs or coerced by Chinese threats against him or his family?  Couldn’t happen, you laugh?  How about this:
 

Reuters reported last year that [Elon] Musk unexpectedly switched off Starlink access to Ukrainian troops as they sought to retake territory from Russia, denting allies' trust in the billionaire.[1]

There you have a single (non-military!) individual shutting down a satellite system because he disagreed with the military and geopolitical actions.
 
Think further still.  The single point of failure doesn’t have to involve destruction of assets, cyber attacks, or rogue villains.  It could be as simple as routine mechanical/software failure.  Here’s an example.
 

In April 2025, during a series ​of Navy tests in California involving unmanned boats and flying drones, officials reported that Starlink struggled to provide a solid network connection due to the high data usage needed to control multiple systems, according to a Navy safety report of the tests reviewed by Reuters.[1]

Given the complexity of modern systems, sometimes you don’t even know why a system failed.
 

In the weeks leading up to the global Starlink outage in August, another ​series of Navy tests was disrupted by intermittent connection issues with the Starlink network, Navy documents reviewed by Reuters show. ​The causes of the network losses were not immediately clear.[1]

Now let’s close with one of the dumbest statements I’ve heard in a while, courtesy of Mr. Bryan Clark at the Hudson Institute.
 

Despite the setbacks, the upside of Starlink – a cheap and commercially available service – outweighs the risk of a potential outage disrupting future military operations, said Bryan Clark, an autonomous warfare expert at the Hudson Institute. “You ​accept those vulnerabilities because of the benefits you get from the ubiquity it provides,” he said.[1]

In peacetime you might accept the occasional failure because the downside isn’t all that serious.  It’s not life or death … just inconvenience.  In war, it most certainly is life and death and you can’t afford systems with known single points of failure and a known, not insignificant, failure rate to begin with.
 
 
Discussion
 
Given our overwhelming dependence on satellites, do you think the Chinese are going to allow us to continue to use them, unhindered?  Of course not!  They’ll attack them physically, electronically, digitally (software), and via human operator vulnerabilities.  Anyone want to bet that there aren’t Chinese agents embedded in the military or Starlink?  One way or another, I’d be very surprised if we have many operating satellites two weeks after the war starts.
 
We see that satellite communications could be disrupted in a variety of ways:  physical destruction, cyber attacks, software viruses, sabotage, and routine failure, among other methods.  Does it make sense that so much of our military, current and future, has, as its very foundation, satellite communications?  Would any sane individual purposely build a system with that many known, anticipatable vulnerabilities?  And yet we’re doing exactly that.  Worse, we’re increasing our use of, and dependence on, satellites instead of decreasing it.
 
Consider that the military, some years ago, recognized GPS as a significant vulnerability.  All of our navigation and most of our weapons depend on GPS.  GPS was recognized as a single point of failure and the military, to their slow and belated credit, has set about mitigating that dependence.  We’re now designing systems that use alternates to GPS.  We knew we couldn’t accept a single point of failure, like GPS, and yet we’re intentionally and enthusiastically embracing satellites as a single point of failure.  That’s baffling.
 
 
 
 
______________________________

 
[1]Reuters website, “Exclusive: Starlink outage hit drone tests, exposing Pentagon’s growing reliance on SpaceX”, David Jeans, 16-Apr-2026,
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/starlink-outage-hit-drone-tests-exposing-pentagons-growing-reliance-spacex-2026-04-16/

Our Future Warfighting Concept in Action

Apparently, two ships attempting transit of the Strait of Hormuz were attacked by Iranian small boats.
 

The captain of ‌a tanker said it had been approached by two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats that fired ‌on the vessel.[1]
 
A container ship was also hit by gunfire … [1]

The vessels turned back and no injuries or significant damage was reported (so why did they turn back?).
 
What is the significance of this?  The significance is that it’s the future of our military/Navy and it’s not looking good.  This should be eye-opening and shocking for those idiots who are developing our future warfare concepts.
 
What is the foundation of our future warfare concepts?  It’s regional (if not world wide!) sensor networking resulting in total situational awareness with the sensor network intimately linked to weapons.  Nothing exists without us being aware of it and destroying it.  To be fair, the military doesn’t actually talk about destroying things when it describes our future warfare concepts.  I added that part.  The military talks about total awareness somehow, in some undefined way, giving us an advantage by rendering the enemy “confused” and that will gain us victory without any explicit mention of firepower.
 
The regional sensor network will be comprised of all manner of sensors from ships, aircraft, satellites, etc.  We will blanket the region and we’ll see everything.
 
The Middle East, and the Strait of Hormuz, in this case, is a clear example of the regional sensor network concept being applied against a third rate enemy over a very small region.  This should be as dominating an effect as is possible to get.  Iran has no sensor countermeasures.  No jamming.  No signal disruption capability.  No reported cyber attack capability.  Nothing to hinder our sensors or the regional network.  Our networked sensing should be flawless.  Perfect.  Omniscient. 
 
So … how did Iranian boats manage to attack two merchant ships and return safely to wherever they came from?  How did we not see them?  How did we not kill them seconds after they emerged from wherever they were hiding?  For that matter, how could they hide from our all-seeing, all-knowing, regional sensor network?  These are not some kind of uber-stealth vessels aided by sophisticated electronic warfare equipment.  These were some Iranians in a speedboat sailing around, pretending to be a navy – the equivalent of Boy Scouts pretending to be an Army.  The Navy claims to be able to spot periscopes at vast distances ... but not speedboats racing around confined waters?
 
The Strait of Hormuz is not the vast Pacific Ocean.  It’s a very small area and we should be able to blanket it with sensors.  That’s the whole idea of our regional sensor network.  How much more challenging will this be when we attempt it across, say, the entire first island chain when we fight China?  That’s thousands of miles and millions of square miles.  How’s that going to work if we can’t even successfully execute the concept over a tiny strait against an unresisting enemy?  And we’re basing our entire future warfare concept on this?  Yikes!
 
Hand in hand with the sensor issues, where was the firepower component?  Where were the patrolling P-8s, Triton, helicopters, ships, F-35s, drones, etc?  Where were the escorts providing protection for the merchant ships?  It’s not as if there are currently hundreds of merchant ships lined up bow to stern, transiting the strait.  It’s just a few odd ships sporadically making the attempt.  Shouldn’t we be keeping an especially close eye on them to ensure their successful passage for public relations purposes, if nothing else?  Shouldn’t we have vaporized those Iranian boats the moment they appeared?  Shouldn’t we have had firepower ready and waiting when the merchant ships radioed a warming call for help?  Could it be that we did see the boats and just had no firepower available to destroy them?  That’s pure speculation on my part and there is absolutely no indication that we ever saw the boats.
 
No matter how you attempt to spin this, it’s a very bad look for the US and a gut-level warning for our supposed military leaders who are crafting a military concept predicated on networked sensors.  We’re in trouble.
 
 
 
______________________________

 
[1]Newsmax website, “Iran Navy Warns Hormuz Shut Again; Ships Report Gunfire”, 18-Apr-2026,
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/strait-of-hormuz-iran-navy-oil-tankers/2026/04/18/id/1253365/

Iranian Drone Carrier

The Iranian drone carrier, Shahid Bagheri, has been attacked and set afire by US forces and is, apparently, now burned out and grounded.
 
Setting aside the fate of the vessel, the ship offers some interesting thoughts for the US Navy.
 

The Shahid Bagheri represents Iran’s most significant naval aviation platform. The 40,000-ton vessel was commissioned in February 2025 after being converted from the Perarin, a South Korean-built container ship. Iranian engineers modified the hull to accommodate a 180-meter flight deck equipped with a ski-jump ramp for drone launches.
 
According to CENTCOM, the vessel had been operating as a “mothership” in the Gulf, serving as a floating launch platform for both unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic missiles.[1]

Regardless of the actual capabilities of the vessel, it stands as an object lesson about the ease with which a run of the mill merchant ship can be converted into a drone carrier; something the US Navy could surely use, at least as a prototype for operational experience and doctrine and tactics development.
 
Such a carrier does not need to be the typical gold-plated monstrosity that the USN always tries to produce.  It can be a simple converted merchant ship which is exactly what Iran did with the Shahid Bagheri.  If Iran can do that, surely we can?  Against the scale of USN budgets, such a conversion would be nearly free.
 
The Navy seems committed to unmanned everything so why not acquire and convert a merchant ship as a drone carrier to gain operational experience and develop doctrine and tactics?
 
Heck, had they been thinking ahead, the Navy could have seized the Shahid Bagheri for our own use!  Iran was kind enough to do the conversion so why not take advantage of it?  What a great mission for a bunch of SEALs!  Well, too late now, I guess.
 

Iranian Drone Carrier

This is just idle thinking on my part.  The Navy is probably better off just building more Burkes.  We’re up to … what? … Flt 27 now?  Anything different, or experimental, or innovative would be too much of a risk for the Navy.

 
 
 
_____________________________________

 
[1]Naval News website, “CENTCOM Releases Footage Showing Strike on Iran’s Drone Carrier”, Tayfun Ozberk, 6-Mar-2026,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/03/centcom-releases-footage-showing-strike-on-irans-drone-carrier/

Criminal Negligence – USS Boise

The Los Angeles class submarine, USS Boise (SSN-764), has been waiting pier side since 2015 for routine maintenance.  The Navy has now announced that a 2024, $1.2B maintenance contract has been terminated and the vessel will be retired.
 
Boise was commissioned 1992 and served around 22 yrs until being abandoned pier side by the Navy in 2015 where it has been rotting since.
 
A perfectly good, world class submarine abandoned by the Navy because they prioritized new hulls over maintenance of existing ones.
 
We’re in a pre-war arms race with China and the Navy does this?
 
I’m not a lawyer but this is unforgivable criminal negligence, dereliction of duty, and fraudulent management of the nation’s resources by a decade of Navy leadership.  Every CNO since 2015 should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed.  It’s depressing how many of my posts end with that sentence, isn’t it?

Bye Bye Boise

Combat? What’s That?

I saw the following headline and read the article with great anticipation.  I’ve been calling for a drone carrier for some time now and only Turkey has made a move in that direction so I was very interested to see what kind of vessel this would be, what kind of drones it would operate, and how it would fit into combat operations.
 
“Damen launches ‘Drone Carrier’ for the Portuguese Navy”
 
To say I was disappointed is a huge understatement.  The following describes the ship’s mission focus.
 

The vessel has a high degree of system autonomy. It is designed for unrestricted service in tropical and moderate environments and is especially suited for multi-purpose activities such as oceanographic research, environmental control, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and maritime surveillance and support tasks.[1]

Does anyone else notice the one glaring omission?  There’s no combat mission! 
 
In addition, the vessel is butt-ugly and woefully non-stealthy.
 

I get that Portugal is not going to conduct worldwide combat operations against the Chinese but what about combat ops against terrorists, Middle East combat support missions, or supporting the US Navy in a war?  What about combatting rogue fisheries violators or dealing with Russian or Chinese shadow fleet merchant ships?  What about dealing with Chinese or Russian subs violating Portuguese territorial waters?  What about combatting piracy?
 
Sadly, this non-combat mindset has become the norm in Western militaries. 
 
What’s the old saying?  During peace, prepare for war.  How is this preparing for war?  The West, and that emphatically includes the US, needs to wake up, face the reality that the world is not a peaceful place and start preparing for war.  The US Navy is only now, this next budget year, asking for increased weapons production because of the Iran strikes.  If a couple weeks of moderate intensity (yes, moderate, if even that – this would have been nothing but one battle among many simultaneous battles in WWII) munitions expenditure is enough to seriously deplete our stocks then how ready are we for war with China?
 
 
 
________________________________

 
[1]Naval News website, “Damen launches ‘Drone Carrier’ for the Portuguese Navy”, Staff, 7-Apr-2026,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/04/damen-launches-drone-carrier-for-the-portuguese-navy/