Naval Lessons from Ukraine/Russia

[Happy Guy]

I've worked in workshops and garages when I was in various units and we always took health and safety seriously. When I got safety qualified I became even more aware how dangerous a workplace can be under normal peace time conditions. I just appalled at how the senior staff can ignore the hazards that you've mentioned. As for mould, ever thought of getting the PMed section involved? I'm surprise that the unions have not file grievance / complaints.

Good luck

 

[daftandbarmy]

Which is as it should be.

I know that DND has some exemptions for operational reasons, which is totally reasonable in a shooting match, but absolutely no reason not to meet/exceed those standards when you can.

Catching a bullet or similar is an occupational hazard, but not meeting SOLAS rules and other national safety standards during peacetime is negligent IMHO, and should lead to all kinds of charges if someone does get hurt (mil or civilian). Also personnally think it's a huge disregard for your responsibility to protect your people from known risks that have basic controls already in place. Things are complicated enough without ignoring basic precautions, and some things are international standards for a reason. It's laughable to argue this kind of thing with random non-specialists in FSE who are essentially ivory tower policy weenies with zero experience on ships in operation.

VAC already rejects valid claims, so no idea why anyone in the miltary side takes that kind of risk as I'm sure a CF98 for something were you weren't wearing basic PPE (or not wearing it properly) and got injured would be another easy out for them.

Take pictures and post it on social media, like this example. Today, this the the way

Mold Is Consuming Fort Stewart’s Barracks as a Pattern Emerges Across the Army

Broken air conditioners, poor ventilation; and little to no barracks maintenance have created a decades-long breeding ground for mold.

www.military.com

 

[Navy_Pete]

Take pictures and post it on social media, like this example. Today, this the the way

Mold Is Consuming Fort Stewart’s Barracks as a Pattern Emerges Across the Army

Broken air conditioners, poor ventilation; and little to no barracks maintenance have created a decades-long breeding ground for mold.

www.military.com

Sadly that's the trend showing what works with AOPs; the work on the non-potable valves in the potable water system suddenly got a lot more priority when it hit the newspaper.

I don't get it, but if the 'Globe and Mail' test is the one thing that gets things moving we should start including 'intitutional reputational damage' or something in risk assessments so we can address something when we know about, and not wait until someone goes to the newspapers.

Talking to peers it's crazy how many of us are just starting to document the shit out of everything with BNs, memos, DRMIS notifications etc, as that at least starts getting people to consider there is a papertrail for bad decisions, and then we have a CYA if someone tries to use us as scapegoats.

'This is the risk of x and y happening'.
'We accept the risk'.
(later after x and y happening)
'We didn't know about it!'
Paper trail to the rescue!

For an institution that is so big on ethics, leadership etc funny how many people don't want to make the same decision if they actually have to sign their name to something after being confident before it's the right way to go. Not saying I don't have a list of documents offline that I can ATI if I have to though, as fool me once...

 

[dapaterson]

Twenty years ago, I know a Maj who ATI'd another group in NDHQ to force a disclosure of what they were working on, when they refused to share / engage with other stakeholders.

 

[Underway]

Here's a lesson (or at least a forced re-evalulation). Given the ability of shore based defences to push fleets further away ("A ships a fool to fight a fort" has returned) how does this change the calculus in the South China Sea.

Perhaps the Carrier Task Groups don't go into the "box" so to speak and strike. But instead use their assets to shield the pre-existing land based forces. Guam, Japan, Korea etc... that make up the Nine-dash line. The USN uses their stealthy assets like subs and long range missile assets to degrade/strike at Chinese naval forces inside that box, as well as land based missile launch locations.

Protecting their own land based assets to allow for long range bombers/theatre ballistic missiles/cruise missile to deploy from these unsinkable ships.

Japan is looking at this concept with their ballistic missile defence ship. Use the navy to shield, and other assets to strike.

 

[Kirkhill]

Drones chasing Zelenskyy into Dublin
Drones buzzing French nuclear sub bases
Drones buzzing Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark
Drones sinking ships in the Black Sea.

Great hybrid fodder. They might as well hoist the Jolly Roger.

At least the old time privateers had to hoist their sponsor's flag to assert some degree of legality. Now there is no way to trace the difference between an act of piracy and an act of war.

Frontline report: Russia's shadow fleet begins to collapse as Ukraine expands maritime campaign beyond Black Sea - Euromaidan Press

Naval drone strikes have turned the Black Sea into a high-risk zone for Russian oil shipping, while incidents off Senegal suggest Ukrainian targeting now follows Russia's global export routes.

euromaidanpress.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Irish naval ship monitored suspicious vessel off Dublin during Zelenskyy visit

The ship had been involved in damaging an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea earlier this year.

www.thejournal.ie

Modern Q-ships?
If it is legal to blow a suspected drug runner out of the water how about a suspected Q-ship ripping uo cables and commanding drones?

 

[Kirkhill]

Or, for that matter, blockade runners.

Ukraine Strikes Russian Shadow Fleet Tankers in Black Sea - Naval News

On the night of November 28 the Ukrainian armed forces deployed so-called Sea Baby Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) in the Black Sea and specifically attacked two tankers, believed to be part of Russia’s alleged shadow fleet.

www.navalnews.com

....

Hegseth and Trump are silly enough to declare their actions.
Others are not so precious.

 

[quadrapiper]

Drones chasing Zelenskyy into Dublin
Drones buzzing French nuclear sub bases
Drones buzzing Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark
Drones sinking ships in the Black Sea.

Great hybrid fodder. They might as well hoist the Jolly Roger.

At least the old time privateers had to hoist their sponsor's flag to assert some degree of legality. Now there is no way to trace the difference between an act of piracy and an act of war.

Frontline report: Russia's shadow fleet begins to collapse as Ukraine expands maritime campaign beyond Black Sea - Euromaidan Press

Naval drone strikes have turned the Black Sea into a high-risk zone for Russian oil shipping, while incidents off Senegal suggest Ukrainian targeting now follows Russia's global export routes.

euromaidanpress.com

Is this something where radars and whatever else is "eyes" on (EW systems to detect control signals?) need to be working at a much finer resolution than previously, with enough discernment* to distinguish a raven from a quadcopter or little prop job?

* ML-driven pattern work, maybe, though that's vulnerable to someone gaming the input? Radars sensitive enough to see flapping wings versus an entirely stiff contact?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Irish naval ship monitored suspicious vessel off Dublin during Zelenskyy visit

The ship had been involved in damaging an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea earlier this year.

www.thejournal.ie

Modern Q-ships?
If it is legal to blow a suspected drug runner out of the water how about a suspected Q-ship ripping uo cables and commanding drones?

We have to rotate this ammunition stock anyways...

 

[Kirkhill]

We have to rotate this ammunition stock anyways...

Just do it quietly, would you?

I got to thinking about the Yanks loudly taking out drug boats on TV while others are quietly overloading computers, shutting down power grids and pipelines, stopping civil flights with drone swarms, blowing up pipelines, tankers, refineriries, railways and bombers with drones, or assassinating people with pagers and drones through hotel windows.

It may be time to revert to SOE rules. The Special Operations Executive was considered most ungentlemaly, unsporting. But that didn't stop Churchill from instituting it and letting it operate. Canada has history in the field.

Bill Stephenson, Camp X, British Securty Corporation, SOE, MI6, ties to the OSS and CIA. That Canada operated in a different world than the one envisaged by the Trudeau acolytes. William Stephenson - Wikipedia

.....

Designated left field thought

Boost defence spending or Russia will win, warns Navy chief

UK is at risk of losing historic advantage over Putin’s fleet in Atlantic, according to First Sea Lord

www.telegraph.co.uk

Royal Navy set to debut autonomous ships and fighter drones

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

The RN is concerned that they don't have enough ships, and enough subs. They feel that they are over-matched by Russia's 83 subs. Setting aside the quality of those subs for a moment what would happen if those subs stopped returning to harbour. No fanfare. No TV coverage, just no subs at the pierhead and empty tables in Murmansk.

I think the British Bastion programme is poised to make that situation possible.

The Brits posit a surveillance system supplied bt commercial companies based on a field of self-propelled sono-buoys regularly reporting their surroundings via Link 16 to London and local task forces. The local task force could consist of one Type 26 destroyer and a couple of uncrewed escorts carrying remote sensors and spare weapons that can be launched remotely. They will sail in company with multiple UxVs - uncrewed helicopters, uncrewed submarines and uncrewed speed boats.

What if those uncrewed submarines were armed with readily available heavy torpedoes? Likewise for the speedboats, turn the into autonomous MTBs (Motor Torpedo Boats) and create an ever changing minefield of off-route mines. Self-propelled CAPTOR mines of a sort. Russian subs detected and sunk well out of range of the videographers.

...

Which brings me to the if-then bit.

If we can quietly make subs disappear without making the news the can we do the same for Q-ships, blockade runners and drug boats.

Can we jam navigation systems, blackout transmissions and quietly launch a torpedo so that the target simply disappears.

Lots of deniability.

...

It may not be sporting, or even lawful, but our enemies aren't being sporting and we have played by these rules before.

 

[Kirkhill]

i have been a proponent of what I consider the Agincourt strategy: arrows not knights. Knights weren't defeated by well trained and equipped knights but by lots and lots of arrows.

Today it means countering million dollar tanks and planes with thousand dollar missiles and drones.

At sea it means torpedoes instead of missiles and arrows, submarines and ships instead of tanks and knights.