eGear’s new 130 Lumen
XT 130 LED Tactical Light

Just arrived:

XT-130 POLYMER K2 TACTICAL TORCH
+130 Lumens Luxeon K2 LED 1500mA working current
Features:
+Polymer Body – Tough, Heat-Resistant
+Corrosion-proof
+Electroplated Aluminum Reflector
+Water-Resistant
+Tactical Switch – Momentary or Constant-ON with Safety Lockout to prevent accidental activation
Operation:
+ON > OFF – Press for Momentary-ON or Twist clockwise for Constant-ON, Twist further for Safety Lockout

eGear, a great supplier of outdoors and survival lighting, continues to make headway into the tactical market with an excellent LED tactical light. This thing is danger bright and the price (which includes two CR123A batteries) is definitely right.

Murdoc checked out some of eGear’s, um, gear, at the SHOT Show each of the past two years. They’ve got a nice line up and it’s growing.

After I’ve played with this thing a bit I’ll have more to say. (The rep told me to try and break it, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to risk this nice piece of equipment…)

This is sort of funny. Murdoc noticed this story earlier in the week:

General Dynamics gets $29.8M Navy deal

Published : Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:37

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. Navy on Wednesday awarded a $29.8 million contract boost to a unit of General Dynamics Corp. for maintenance and repair on the USS Texas battleship.

General Dynamics’ subsidiary Electric Boat Corp. will provide alterations and testing on the ship as part of an effort to correct deficiencies on one of the oldest battleships left since World War I.

The company will perform the work in Groton, Conn., and is expected to be completed by February 2008.

Leave it to the AP. I tried to find out what the hell they were talking about, but I figured the “Groton, Conn.” bit was a hint.

Today an AP correction ran:
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USS Alexandria (SSN 757) in Prudhoe Bay-Deadhorse, Alaska, March 18, 2007

Earlier this week we looked at both the attack subs and the missile subs in the US Navy. Here are a few follow-up thoughts, reaction to some comments, and additional news on the subject.

Regarding the place for SSGN cruise missile subs in the fleet, a number of folks wonder about the real feasibility of using huge boomers to perform special operations missions.

There’s no doubt that the sheer physical size of the missile boats works against some aspects of covert operations, particularly close to shore. The failure to field the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) mini-sub certainly hurts this mission, and the current SDV just isn’t good enough. The relative spaciousness of the SSGNs does allow the SEAL teams to have more gear along, though, allowing them a lot more options when it comes time to head out.

Some readers wonder why we need SSGNs as cruise missile platforms when so many current ships are already capable of launching cruise missiles.

The answer here is, of course, that while we don’t necessarily NEED another cruise missile platform, a heavily loaded SSGN secretly deployed to potential trouble spots could make all the difference when it matters. The stealth of the SSGN will allow our missiles to be launched closer to their targets with little warning when compared to surface ships. For instance, while all the world’s attention remains fixed on the aircraft carriers in and around the Arabian Gulf, who’s to say that an SSGN with 154 Tomahawks isn’t in position to strike with no warning? And even if there isn’t, doesn’t Iran have to spend valuable resources defending against the threat anyway?

One commenter suggested switching most or all of the boomer fleet over to SSGNs, except keeping four Tridents aboard each one so that one boat could handle both tactical and strategic missions as needed.
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A status update on Operation Phantom Thunder

Want to know what’s happening? Read Roggio.

First Female Squad Designated Marksman

56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Pennsylvania National Guard:

SPC [Krystal] Ginter of Lancaster PA, became the first female in the U.S. Army to graduate the Squad Designated Marksman Course. She graduated June 16 along with 18 others at Fort Indiantown Gap, PA.

–It’s an honor to be the first female soldier in the Army to graduate the course,” said SPC Ginter, who serves as a Counter Intelligence Agent for Stryker.

–The best part is just having the chance to improve my skills and take what I have learned back to my unit and share what I have learned. We all need good marksmanship skills in combat.”

Via Stryker Brigade News

LCS 4: Threatened?

This doesn’t seem terribly encouraging: Navy downplays chance of LCS cancellation:

The Navy does not share a Senate committee’s view that a combat ship slated for construction in Mobile could be canceled if higher-than-expected cost estimates prove correct, a spokesman said this week.

In e-mailed answers to questions posed by the Press-Register, Lt. Bashon Mann said the Navy will continue to monitor costs and “assess the need for further action” on two littoral combat ships to be built by Austal USA. He did not elaborate.

Mobile shipbuilder Austal is part of a team headed by General Dynamics Corp., a defense contractor headquartered in Virginia.

It is LCS 4, the second of the trimaran Independence-class ships, that’s in danger of being cancelled. The lead ship of the class is well over half complete. Earlier this year, the second of the Lockheed Martin built monohull Freedom-class ships was put on hold and then cancelled due to cost overruns. During the reviews of the program, we learned that the trimarans were also suffering cost issues.

Meanwhile, it appears that the builders of the LCS-esque FSF 1 Sea Fighter are lobbying hard to get more of their catamaran ships built. The Navy apparently isn’t listening.

Murdoc’s always thought that there might be a place for a few Sea Fighter-class ships in both the Navy and the Coast Guard.

Yesterday it was attack subs, so why not missile boats today?

Of the 18 Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines built from 1976-1997, all are still in service. Four of them have been removed from strategic service and have been converted to SSGN cruise missile subs. USS Ohio (SSGN 726) and USS Florida (SSGN 728) rejoined the fleet last year, USS Michigan (SSGN 727) just rejoined the fleet a couple of weeks ago, and USS Georgia (SSGN 729) should rejoin this fall. The remaining 14 Ohios continue to serve as strategic nuclear deterrents much as they did during the Cold War.

Unlike the attack sub force, which has been nearly halved since 1990 with more cuts to come, the missile sub force has not been cut back nearly so much. Though Northrop Grumman’s Newport News recently said it was ready and willing to start designing the next class of boomer, no current plans call for new boats.

If the attack sub fleet finds itself scrambling to justify its existence in an age of asymmetric land warfare, the missile subs have an even tougher task in convincing budgeters of the need for a massive nuclear deterrent in a post-Mutually Assured Destruction world. In fact, the four boats converted to SSGNs were to have been retired beginning in 2002 rather than undergo the upgrade to the D-5 Trident II missile.

How many ballistic missile subs are required to provide the US Navy the deterrent it needs? A study published last year suggests that a force of 10 SSBNs would strike the right balance between capability, cost-savings, and treaty agreements. Current treaty plans indicate a total of around 1440 nuclear warheads for US subs, meaning about 4 per missile if all 14 boats are retained. Each missile now carries up to 8 warheads. The report notes:
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Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War by Joe Bageant:

After thirty years spent scratching together a middle-class life out of a –dirt-poor” childhood, Joe Bageant moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, where he realized that his family and neighbors were the very people who carried George W. Bush to victory. That was ironic, because Winchester, like countless American small towns, is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. Two in five of the people in his old neighborhood do not have high school diplomas. Nearly everyone over fifty has serious health problems, and many have no health care. Credit ratings are low or nonexistent, and alcohol, overeating, and Jesus are the preferred avenues of escape.

A raucous mix of storytelling and political commentary, Deer Hunting with Jesus is Bageant’s report on what he learned by coming home. He writes of his childhood friends who work at factory jobs that are constantly on the verge of being outsourced; the mortgage and credit card rackets that saddle the working poor with debt, i.e., –white trashonomics”; the ubiquitous gun culture–and why the left doesn’t get it; Scots Irish culture and how it played out in the young life of Lynddie England; and the blinkered –magical thinking” of the Christian right. (Bageant’s brother is a Baptist pastor who casts out demons.) What it adds up to, he asserts, is an unacknowledged class war. By turns brutal, tender, incendiary, and seriously funny, this book is a call to arms for fellow progressives with little real understanding of –the great beery, NASCAR-loving, church-going, gun-owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks.”

If that ain’t enough, it got a glowing endorsement from Howard Zinn.

I’m not quite sure how much of the book (and even the title) is a sarcastic, point-making effort and how much of it is meant to be serious, but there’s no doubt a lot of potential for comedy when you compare the stereotypical redneck, gun-toting Conservative with the stereotypical hippie, Starbucks-drinking Liberal.

Is it just Murdoc, or is energy conservation one of the most liberal of all issues? (And by liberal, I mean that proponents campaign for other people to give up things for the supposed greater good, i.e. today’s practical definition of “liberal”, not the actual definition.)

Lunatics everywhere think that raising CAFE standards will somehow help gas prices or Global Warming or something. If almost everyone is so positive that higher gas mileage is a good thing, why isn’t almost everyone driving vehicles that get 35 MPG or more? There are a lot of them out there folks, and many of them aren’t too terribly expensive.

Jay Tea at Wizbang writes:

You want fantastic fuel economy? Get rid of the V-8 engine, drive a 6 or a 4 cylinder. Dump the front air bags, the side air bags, the crumple zones, the collapsing steering column, the reinforced body, the bumpers, the seat belts. Lose the leather seats, the air conditioning, the comfortable suspension, the CD player, the DVD player, navigation system, the extra lights. Downsize and lose the giant cargo area, the third row of seats, the roof rack.

Basically, Murdoc is saying that the problem isn’t car manufacturers (who have enough of their own problems these days, thankyouverymuch) but car buyers. It’s those damn people again.

If only we could get those lousy people, their stinking free will, and their freedom to choose their own vehicle out of the equation we could save the planet.

CAFE, of course, is essentially an attempt to circumvent the peoples’ freedom to choose. Not all the people, of course. Just those without the extra cash to circumvent the circumvention.

Instead of tinkering more with CAFE, why not repeal some of the tax breaks that buyers of many of the largest SUV-type vehicles get? Wouldn’t removing incentives to purchase lower-mileage vehicles be a saner approach than requiring manufacturers to comply with laws that will likely raise the prices on regular cars?

The higher gas prices again this summer seem to have done very little so far to alter US drivers’ habits. More fuel efficient vehicles will mean that higher prices will do even less to alter behavior. And healthy amounts of taxation on gas already mean that drivers pay the penalty for less efficient cars and trucks.

If people really wanted high mileage cars, they’d be buying them. If there was money to be made selling high mileage cars, car makers would be building them. High mileage cars are readily available. If they’re the answer, sales will take care of fleet averages.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo of Murdoc’s Dodge Grand Caravan after the deer strike a couple of weeks back:
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Navy Bids Farewell to Minneapolis-St. Paul

Navy News Stand:

After more than 23 years of service, the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (SSN 708) inactivated in a ceremony June 22 at Pier 3 at Naval Station Norfolk.

Concerns remain that our shrinking fleet is going to leave us with our pants down at some point, and that our anti-sub warfare capabilities (or, rather, our lack thereof) could leave serious gaps waiting to be exploited. Two world wars showed that submarine fleets were able to have a drastic effect on the wider military and economic efforts of the combatants.

While no one is going to challenge our supremacy in the realm of carrier-centered naval power, even just the threat of submarines could potentially keep those carriers from operating when and where we need them to. We’ve seen anti-mine capabilities whither over time. Are ASW capabilities going to suffer the same fate?

The attack sub fleet is part of the ASW effort, and when you couple the shrinking hunter fleet with the retirement of the S-3 Vikings, the delays in the P-3 Orion’s follow-on (the P-8A Poseidon MMA), and questions about the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, I suspect that we’ve got reason to be concerned about our ability to combat enemy submarines that could threaten our surface forces and logistics fleet, let alone commercial ships.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that the USS Hawaii (SSN 776) was just commissioned last month, so it’s not like the fleet just shrank the other day. USS North Carolina (SSN 777) will join the fleet next year. But the long-term plan is to reduce the number of attack boats in the fleet by a significant number. Not every boat retired in the coming years will be replaced by a new one.

A 2005 study by the Navy itself said that 48 is the “minimum number of attack submarines needed to maintain an acceptable level of risk at an acceptable cost.” But the current plan to acquire Virginia-class subs like the Hawaii and North Carolina will put us under the 48-boat level for sixteen of the twenty-seven years between 2007 and 2034, bottomming out at 40 boats in 2028 and 2029. For more, see the Heritage Foundation articles The Navy Needs to Close the Projected Gap in the Attack Submarine Fleet and Congress Should Accelerate Submarine Procurement.

UPDATE 2: By Murdoc’s count, we currently have 53 operational attack subs.

UPDATE 3: Cross-posted to Defense Tech.