Great post! Minor nit: a ship is "under weigh," not "underway." Under weigh means that the anchor is raised and secured ("Weigh anchor" being the command to do so.)

The terms harks from sailing days when a ship either had to be anchored or sailing, having no onboard power.

Reverend Sensing,

You'd better email your comment to the Navy. The link to status of the Navy indicates "underway." I mean, I didn't know this tidbit, but I was just an Army REMF :-)

And yes, good post. Does seem like a waste to have all that firepower at sea without hitting some of the bad guys around the globe. I do wonder...

It is 'underway', but the anchor is 'weighed'.

As for the 92% deployment - that makes sense. A carrier group can range from 7-12 ships including the CV, plus 1-2 SSNs.

The question is whether there are sufficient air assets deployed with the carriers.

As of October 2004, we'll have 14, rather than 18, Ohio SSBN (w/ Trident IIs). Four of the subs have been converted (in accordance with the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review) into SSGNs (guided missile subs) each carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Isn't "deployed" a subset of "underway"? If so, that means you can not add up the 53% "underway" and the 41% "deployed" to get 94% "away from home port".....

Having said that, over 50% of the carrier groups underway is impressive.

My concern would be whether this "Exercise" is not disrupting the OpTempo of the carrier groups and their personnel tremendously.

'Deployed' and 'underway' mean two different things. The former is generally applied when a ship or task force is sent away from their home port for an extended period. The latter can be anything from local operations, training, local port visits, etc.

As for Op-tempo, the Navy recently changed their doctrine to allow more time in homeport for the carrier groups and to surge them where the need arises. Hence the 'exercise'.

(1) the ships are safer there - wherever they are - then in port; remeber the USS Cole.

(2) instead of forward positioning our assets for a retaliatory or pre-emptive attack,

why doesn't GWB just announce that he's closing down the CIA and returning the FBI to its civil crime mission,

and then

tell the leaders of the nations that are harboring or financing or otherwise supplying people, logistics - or support of any kind - to our Jihadist enemies

(like Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Iran, et al - maybe france, too)

that they had better find the evil-doers and kill them, because if we get hit with another attack -

we will automatically nuke them all: their biggest cities and their industries and their resources and all their miltatry assets.

I think the evil-doers will be caught pretty fast.

And then we can bring all the boys home.

Concur with Anonymous and Breault re underway and deployed.

A deployed ship is (probably - unless in a liberty port) underway, but an underway ship is not necessarily deployed.

Also, have to call BS on "under weigh".

"Underway" is the correct term.

Excellent post, Mr. Vanderleun, thank you. Linking to it ...

Kevin is correct. However, don't forget "Forward Deployed" such as USS Kitty Hawk, USS La Salle, etc. These ships are homeported overseas (Yokosuka and Gaeta) and might or might not be underway at any given time. However, P.A. Breault has raised the $64 question: Are the Air Groups aboard the carriers or still sitting on the ground at their home bases ?

Some years ago, I was touristing the Connecticut area and was taken to a lover's lane/drinking lounge for derelicts on the west side of the Thames river just upstream from New London. Nice little clearing at the end of a dirt road, looking out over the river at the ass end of about ten submarines. Seemed to be a lot of them in port, with no putting-to-sea frantic activity going on.
Fat target, thought I, whether in range of the old M72 LAW, or somebody's nuke.
Dispersal is a good idea.

"tell the leaders of the nations that are harboring or financing or otherwise supplying people.. because if we get hit with another attack - we will automatically nuke them all:"

There is reason to believe that has already happened.

"There is reason to believe that has already happened."
There is? Please explain.

Mark-
"There is reason to believe that has already happened."
Care to comment further? I can see the reasons in our behaviour, have you noticed reasons in other countries behaviour? It might explain increased activity in the EU (they might not be on the list, but they would sure be affected by the disappearance of countries on that list, as would Israel, Iraq, India and others) could be explained away as increased awareness of internal threats as well.

Daniel:

During the Cold War we could think like that because were were dealing with civilized (i.e. city based) enemy.

But think about Pakistan for a while. It is not really civilized. There is no civil society. Its cities are not productive places. The state is really the army (a portion of which is well disposed to us).

The problems are the tribes in the mountains (unreachable by nuclear warefare). Mad mullahs in urban slums (killing mice by burning down buildings) and the ISI and some elements in the Officer Corps (too small a target).

Incinerating Karachi would probably solve more problems for the regime, than it would cause, but it would not solve the main portions of the terrorist problem, in the mountains or the Army.

Could it actually be an exercise? Yes, it could. With the changes going on with in the naval structure and reduction in manning, this could be just that, an exercise, to ensure we have the abilities to have these large assets underway and available in short notice.
Could this be leading to something greater, sure, but until that happens, we may never know. Fortunately ships schedules are not published information, greatly enhansing the security of our ships and personnel, this largely due to the bombing of the USS Cole.
Our military's largest asset is the Navy and ships. Forward projection of power anywhere in the world. Without that ability, where would we be as the leaders of the free world? Maybe that forward projection and a little persuasion on our part to some of these countries that are assisting, or harboring these people might just be good thing. Nuking them isn't the answer. A few targeted bombing runs might not be a bad idea, but you can't beat looking out on the horizon and seeing a fleet of US Navy ships and all their might aimed at you can be a real deterent.

About a year ago, one of the officers in a large command said to himself "why do the surface ship people waste so much of their operating cycle"? Thus the FRP was born. You think up a new idea, you have to prove it works. Details at the link below. I'm being deliberately vague because I was in on it a little bit.

Think of the inertia of large objects, and think of the system that gets ships underway as a very large bureaucratic object.

And it is "underway", as in "underway making way", even though you "weigh anchor".

Underway aboard a ship that was part of the PULSEX,
Chap.

http://gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/index.php?p=203

Oh, yes...watch this stuff on a more regular basis, and you see different patterns than you do with a snapshot...

A few commenters have asked about the status of the air wings associated with the carriers:

Navy NewsStand - Eye on the Fleet

Stennis and her embarked Carrier Air Wing Fourteen (CVW-14) are currently on a scheduled deployment during Summer Pulse 2004. Summer Pulse 2004 is the simultaneous deployment of seven aircraft strike groups (CSGs),

It seems to me that the possibilities being speculated about here - training vs dispersal, deterrence, or forward posturing - are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Question: where are the gators and the MEFs/MEBs/MEUs? To what extent are they participating?

What you have all said is very interesting, I have a son on the USS CARL VINSON who was a part of the summer surge. As you know he can not reveal any info about where they were or what they were doing, but we do know that they were fully loaded with there air support and as our son put it they were practicing bombing targets. I am very concerned having a son on a carrier during this time and reading some of your posts puts alot of questions in my mind. they will deploy in Jan for 6 months and leave there home port of Bremerton, Washington and end up in Norfolk.Thankyou for the post-makes you think. LKTurrell

Seven full-deck carriers operating together . . . Task Force 38 rides again!

Aren't they all going to the Taiwan area?

"Deployed" means a carrier is ready for to conduct operations AND is in the area where it is to conduct operations - i.e. the Indian Ocean, the Med, the Taiwan Strait, et al.

"Underway" is a much larger term that can mean anything from a day training at sea, moving to and from operational areas, right down to the ship being moved by a couple of tugs from one place in the harbor to another.

Using the "1 in 3" ratio, the US Navy can possibly have 8 of its carriers "deployed" or "underway" at the same time. Likewise surface ships and submarines.

C.T.

Anyone have a real source on the 'under weigh' debate? I believe, historically, it was truly 'under weigh', but has become 'underway' in common modern usage. ( Admiral, for example was originally 'Emir'. )

under weigh
a variant spelling of: under way
[ETYMOLOGY: 18th Century: variation due to the influence of phrases such as to weigh anchor]
Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 2000 HarperCollins Publishers

and my Encyclopedia Britannica says:

Main Entry: under weigh
Function: adverb
Etymology: by folk etymology
Date: 1777

: under way

So I'd say both are acceptable, but 'under weigh' is somewhat deprecated.

Regarding the deployment, I figure this is an admiral back in DC proving his idea is better than all other other admiral's ideas. I doubt this is a move towards war with anyone. It's certainly meant as a message to the region and to France ( who recently exercised with Mainland China's navy off the coast of Taiwan. )

Since the fleets are heading off in two different directions, what if there is a suggestion of a double front war? Hypothetically, a grab for Taiwan at the same time as a major attack against Iraq or Saudi Arabia, say by both Syria and Iran, as example.
The concept might be for the latter to shut down the Saudi oilfields and threaten to cut off most of the oil from Europe and the US. Maybe then, NK could attack south and/or a massive barrage of Taiwan would be followed by the scheduled PLA landing invasion exercise turning real, augumented with a flotilla of civilian and military vessels.

An essential part of the eastern scenario would be to disable the ports of Bremerton and San Diego, along with the Panama Canal, effectively cutting off the Pacific Fleet from maintenance and rearmament. There are no other available deep water ports available to perform these tasks in the Pacific.

What is crucial is determining what the window would be for this to take place, and why.

globalsecurity.org has good running order of battle for US forces. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/where.htm
also for worries about surgex detracting from training see http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/frp.htmwhich has graphic showing the training cycles and surge availabilities.

The rates of deployment are unprecidented except perhaps in the early desperate days of WW2.

This particular strategy might be called the anti-Pearl Harbor Strategy: don't be in port when the attack comes. This problem has been on the Admiral's minds since about 8AM 7 Dec 1941 Hawaii time.

The time to use nukes was during the Afghanistan battle, on the plains in the middle of nowhere. The site of the Taliban being vaporized in 5 or 6 tactical nuclear explosions would have sent a real message. Our Glorious Leader has shown he does not have the balls.

We did send a message recently, though. We showed the gook who runs North Korea that big ass trains loaded with weapons for Iran Blow Up Real Good. Perhaps we shall see more of this?

Xin

Mike (2d) and daniel,

No, they aren't all operating together, and no, they aren't all heading for Taiwan. I can't believe how far that grossly incorrect Straights Times article has gotten. I sent an error correction email to Glenn Reynolds after he posted that article, and fortunately he posted the correction:

http://instapundit.com/archives/016355.php

Richard,

All those subs were there because that's where they are manufactured. EB -General Dynamics Electric Boat (gdeb.com) - is the contractor that builds them. My grandmother worked there during the 80's and complained about Reagan constantly. Oh the irony!

She never could talk about much, and tours were out of the question, but she did come home with some very interesting pictures of Trident subs half built, guts hanging out. The plant is in Groton, CT across the river from New London. I was privileged enough to see a christening and launch one rainy Sunday morning. Ships are released to slide down a ramp stern first. Subs are side-dumped.

New London has a large US Coast Guard base where the Eagle is stationed. Much training is done at this base. At the time, all Coasties were required to climb the rigging of the old square rigger prior to graduation. She'd set sail once or twice a year. What an event! I tell ya, you've seen nothing till you've seen the Eagle leading a Trident sub out of port!

Taiwan Dispute Between U.S., China Heating Up
Friday, July 16, 2004
By John Gibson

Heads up everybody who thinks the U.S. is getting pushy around the globe... you're about to get all worked up again.

As you may have noticed, the U.S. and China have a continuing dispute called Taiwan. It's been papered over with our official policy called 'One China,' but at the same time — we make noises about democratic values.

And one of the noises we're going to be making over the next month is sending seven Navy aircraft carrier battle groups — count them, seven — into the China Sea, between China and Taiwan.

In an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, author Chalmer Johnson (search) points out that this signal from the U.S. government is like screaming at the capitalistic commies in Beijing: "We're big, we're really really big."

China calculates it could handle two carrier battle groups — which include guided missile cruisers and attack submarines — but not seven, especially not when the U.S. still has five extras steaming around offshore someplace.

So Johnson says China will be provoked to go on a militaristic buildup to push back on the U.S., and that provoking them is the wrong thing.

Hmmmm. Some people think Ronald Reagan (search) challenged the Soviets to a spending race called the arms race, and they stood down because they couldn't afford it.

How about China, which just passed the U.S. as the world's most popular international investment location?

We may not be able to outspend China like we outspent the Soviets, but maybe we will... because China might rather spend its money modernizing its country and forget about a chest-bumping game with the U.S. over Taiwan for now.

But down the road? The Bush doctrine — that the U.S. will allow no country to compete with us militarily — may be put to a serious test.

China's economy is far more precarious than most outsiders realize. The internal stability of chinese society and the chinese government is also overestimated by most uninformed persons. Stressing the chinese government will expose its military weakness and its inability to catch the US within the next 30 years at least. That is exactly what the US should be doing, providing a reality check to overambitious planners within the Beijing government.

I read this and kept thinking "Loose Lips Sink Ships"

OMG. OMFG. How many people are going to keep buying this BS that we're sending 7 carrier groups to the Straights? If the LA Times actually published an op-ed with that claim in it, somebody at DoD better get on the horn to them fast and set their dumb asses straight.

This is unbelievable. This disinformation has been floating around for at least 2 weeks, all because The Straights Times found some comment posted at Sina.com and blathered it as gospel rather than contacting the Navy and asking.

THINK PEOPLE. We have 12 carriers. In a pinch, like our last 2 wars in the Persian Gulf, we mass 4-6 of them, at most. That's because there's, like, an actual shooting war and stuff, ya' know? Not, like, just an exercise.

The links to the right info are out there. You just have to look.

The reporters and the organizations they work for who are peddling this absolute baloney are inexcusably unprofessional and lazy.

WE

ARE

NOT

SENDING

SEVEN

CARRIER

GROUPS

TO

THE

STRAIGHTS

OF

TAIWAN!

Does anybody know the names of the five carriers that are not out right now? And are the seven that are out the newest(most modern) of our fleet?
J.B.

**Does anybody know the names of the five carriers that are not out right now? And are the seven that are out the newest(most modern) of our fleet?**

The Kitty Hawk and Kennedy are the 2 oldest that we have (though the Enteprise may be older than the Kennedy), and the last 2 non-nuke carriers we have, IIRC. But all our carriers are pretty far ahead of most things that float.

Thanks Crusader. Does Russia have any left, or were they all sold for scrap in the eighties?

Is it true the U.S. has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world COMBINED??? I read a list that mentions only ten foreign "active" carriers in the world today(the UK has 3, France 1, Russia 1, and a few others scattered around the world)If that's true, no wonder the Soviets went bankrupt trying to keep up. The words "Don't f**k with the United States" have never been more true...

We'll in the carrier counting debate, there are two factors. One is that, yes, we do have more than half the world's carriers. The other factor is that we field the only supercarriers. These ships carry huge air wings (70-90 places v. 20-36) so, essentially, our naval air contingent is a great deal larger and more powerful than the entire air force fielded by some nations.

JB Saunders said:

**Is it true the U.S. has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world COMBINED??? I read a list that mentions only ten foreign "active" carriers in the world today(the UK has 3, France 1, Russia 1, and a few others scattered around the world)**

Russia just sold the Admiral Gorshkov to India recently (2-3 yrs?), which gives India 2 (this "new" one plus the old Viraat, which was formerly a British carrier). There are rumors about Pakistan wanting one, just to counter. The French one,bas I understand it, is basically a piece of crap which they can barely keep running...

Are the air wings attatched to our carriers actually ON the carriers at sea right now? Would they be on board if this were just an exercise? Did the Constellation get decommissioned yet?

The wings are with the carriers. The Constellation was decommissioned in 1933.

Owen, you seem a little emphatic. So why no links?

Gerard,
We didn't have aircraft carriers in 1933. I was talking about the USS Constellation, the second of the "Kitty Hawk" class carriers, scheduled to be decommissioned this summer sometime. Has it happened yet?

Whoops, sorry Gerard,
I guess we did have a couple of carriers in 1933, but the Constellation I was talking about was launched in 1960. I should have been more specific...

Trivia contest: Anybody know the name of the ONLY U.S. carrier to be sunk by an atom bomb blast? There was one, in 1946. It survived the FIRST a-bomb explosion, but was sunk by the SECOND, which was detonated less than 500 yards from her, near the Bikini Atoll during a test.
Pretty interesting stuff. That tough bitch actually made it through the first blast...

It's an excercise. We don't go to war with just the Navy. If this was real, there would be activity from the other services. Since there are no reports of the Air Force forward deploying or the Army moving out of the lower 48, I'm afraid the Navy's story is correct.

BTW the USS Saratoga was sunk at Bikini. It's the only carrier you can dive on.

I have it on very reliable authority that the most modern ship in the fleet (USS Reagan) is somewhere near South America right now engaged in 5 nation exercises with ships of its own group and ships not attached to a battle group. As of two weeks ago the port near Lima, Peru looked like San Diego there was so many LGSs. Don't think S.A. is a "hotspot." Not to pour water on the conspiracy theories but you know the Navy does do a lot of exercises.

The next carrier to be completed is supposed to be named the George H.W. Bush, making it one of the few navy vessels named for a living person(The Reagan was another)What improvements will the Bush have over the Reagan, if any? Does any body out there think W.J. Clinton will get a carrier named after him?(ha, ha)

Crid,

In my 7/16 0659 comment, I put up this link:

http://instapundit.com/archives/016355.php

Follow it. Follow the links there. Windsofchange has a thread on this as well (no time to paste the link now), as do Vodkapundit and LGF.

Owen: Thanks!

Yeah Saunders. He just may. And they'll call it the BJ Boat ; )

I read somewhere that the new carrier USS George H.W. Bush(The last of the "Nimitz" class) wil be outfitted with something called an "open architecture information center" which will allow a crew of 3200 instead of 6000+ like the other Nimitz class carriers. That is a huge reduction in crew requirements. How is this possible? Are they simply assigning more personnel to the air-wing to handle the jobs the crew used to do? Or is this something of a technological revolution? Anybody out there know anything about this thing?

Status of the Navy: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/news/.www/status.html

Regarding the constellation, it's being decommissioned this month I think. http://www.navy.mil/homepages/cv64/noflash/home.htm

As for the next generation of carriers, they're supposed to be run by windows and are being built by Microsoft. ( Well, sort of. The Gates family reportedly owns Newport News according to Seattle Times. )

Great. Now our carriers can "freeze" just like Windows, and I can imagine a pop-up or two clogging their radar screens every few seconds. Undoubtably, the new carriers are going to come with a *ctrl-alt-delete* key. I hope they have a lot of tech support on those ships. Nerds in the Navy!

Owen-
Perhaps you intended to say "straits" of Taiwan. Otherwise, the taiwanese hetero's will think we don't like them (grin).

In response to our new carriers, they along with all the new ships the Navy is building are going to be the most technilogically advanced in the world.
Just for general info, Bill Gates and CO doesn't own Newport News. He may own stock but doesn't have controlling interest.
Additionally, the Navy, our sailors, and the civilian employees who work on our ships are probably the most well trained technicians in the world. "Nerds" no. Yes there are those of us who have extensive computer and electronics training but it is neccessary to maintain the complex control systems required to run those ships. Would you want us to call "Geeks on Call" when our missle control systems go down and start launching missles on it's own? I don't.

Look up until the last few months I was the most laid back guy you will ever meet; however, something?, something?, is going on here that nobody, or very few people know about. If the goverment really cares about security why is it that four years after 9/11 our border with Mexico IS A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have 80 year old women being yelled at for having nail clippers in the airport but thousands are walking across that border everyday! With everything our goverment is capable of why cant we put a huge mine field across that border with razor wire etc? Last note...has anybody else seen all the web sites that swear that the stock market is going to crash worse than 1929 and the fed knows it and wants it to happen?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was deployed with the Enterprise this past cruise, and it was a bunch of B.S. wargames. I like all of your views on what you think the navy is doing though.

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