Only read on if you enjoy some news from abroad, but Mike shared these articles that were just posted from a reporter that spent time aboard the Eisenhower recently. There are many remarks from the Admiral! Thought I'd share!
I'm Fifty Miles Off The Coast Of Iran On A US Aircraft Carrier And It's Business As Usual
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Robert Johnson — Business Insider
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Heading
north on the aircraft carrier Eisenhower about 50 miles off the coast
of Iran, it's very easy to forget the problems with Tehran and its
nuclear program.
For
several months Iran has been stalling international inspectors looking
for access to its nuclear enrichment facilities. Israel has been growing
more ardent in its calls for military action against Iran, and the U.S.
has been doling out sanctions against Iran hoping the issue will
resolve itself.
Out
here under the light blue gauze of this sun-filled sky there is none of
that. There are 44 F-18s on the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, along with
sundry other aircraft, and regardless of what Iran or Israel do, the
Ike's deck and flight crew focus on arming these jets, launching them,
and bringing them home all day long.
All
44 may not be flying today, but it certainly feels like it out here in
the Persian Gulf as 4,200 U.S. troops lean into an extended nine month
deployment. Out here it is just business as usual.
Few
of the crew I met have time to look up the news on the sluggish
Internet connection, or concern themselves much outside of their daily
duties.
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Robert Johnson — Business Insider
An F-18 gets catapulted from the Eisenhower's deck
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The
mission is the same, day in and day out, regardless of what else
happens in the world and most crew are too busy to give it much thought.
That's
not true for the ship's command; and when the admiral in charge of the
Ike and the ships escorting her briefed us at the end of the day, he
told us almost word for word what the ship's captain had said: "The
Iranian Navy has been nothing but courteous and polite in all of our
interactions with them."
Apparently
those interactions are not altogether uncommon, which is understandable
when much of the U.S. Fifth Fleet it steaming just off Iran's coast.
The
admiral had just returned from the first stages of the IMCMEX 2012, the
largest marine mine countermeasures exercise in the history of the
region. It's why we're here, to check out the exercise later in the
week.
Just
before lights out last night, the admiral gets on the ship's public
address system and tells the crew that he appreciates their hard work
and he's signed them up to join the mine exercise — so they'll be
working just a bit harder in the coming days.
On
deck this morning at 8:00 a.m. there was no trace of the admiral's
announcement of more work. The crew had already been at work for some
time washing the planes, and drying the deck. It was so hot that withing
30 minutes of talking to sailors I could feel the sweat running down my
legs and into my shoes.
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Robert Johnson — Business Insider
AD3 Elicarl Ovigo
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I watched a sailor spray an F-18 with some sort of aerosol cleaning product and lean in to wipe it with a sponge.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
He stopped immediately and turned to face me with a smile.
"Cleaning my jet, sir." He was maybe 5' 2" and all of 19 years old. The average age of the Ike's crew is 22.
"You don't mind that in this heat?" I ask wiping the worst of the sweat from my eyes.
"No,
sir," he answered with surprising sincerity. "It's like a good thing to
do so we can show our pilot we care about the jet — it reflects us. It
let's him know how much care goes into this aircraft."
I'm
headed back to Bahrain now. Waiting for a ride back from a helicopter
after our plane broke down. Tomorrow is a day of briefings and
information on what's to come during the mine exercise later in the week
aboard the USS Ponce.
The
U.S. and its allies hope to show Iran and the world the short work
they'll make of any efforts to mine the Strait of Hormuz. From what I've
seen there's no doubt American sailors will do their part.
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USS Eisenhower on Gulf Alert Sees ‘No Problems’ From Iran
By Tony Capaccio - Sep 19, 2012
Computer
terminals glow in the darkened Combat Direction Center of the USS
Dwight D. Eisenhower as they process feeds from sensors tracking any
air, surface or underwater vessel within striking range.
The
center is dominated by a Ship Shelf Defense System made by Raytheon Co.
that would display the first signs of an Iranian threat, such as a
Silkworm anti-ship missile, a submarine or a swarm of fast patrol boats
speeding toward the 1,092-foot-long aircraft carrier and its crew of
more than 6,200 men and women.
“No
problems at all” have been detected so far as the carrier and the
cruiser in its strike group, the USS Hue City, made three transits
through the Strait of Hormuz since arriving in July from its home port
of Norfolk, Virginia, Navy Commander Steve Wyss told visitors to the
carrier in the Persian Gulf.
The
Eisenhower is the largest instrument of U.S. power in the gulf, aimed
at reassuring allies and keeping open the Strait, through which as much
as 20 percent of traded oil is shipped daily, in the face of
intermittent threats by Iran to mine it, sink a tanker, or make other
moves to close it.
“We still
think it’s an international strait,” and “we will continue to move in
and out of it,” the Eisenhower’s commander, Captain Marcus Hitchcock,
told reporters on his bridge during a Sept. 18 visit to the carrier in
the middle of the Gulf about 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Iran.
Iranian
officials periodically have threatened to close the Strait, which is 21
miles wide at its narrowest point, in response to economic sanctions
from the U.S. and allies aimed at forcing Iran to abandon its suspected
nuclear weapons program, as well as Israeli threats to mount a military
attack.
Iranian Guard
“If
a war takes place in the Persian Gulf with one side being the U.S. and
the West, it is natural that the security of the Strait of Hormuz will
be harmed,” the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said Sept. 16, according to
the Islamic Republic News Agency. He also said that “nothing will
remain” of Israel if it attacks.
So
far, oil markets remain unmoved by the Iranian threats. Brent oil for
November settlement fell $3.84, or 3.4 percent, to $108.19 a barrel
yesterday on the London-based ICE Futures Europe. It was the lowest
close since Aug. 2. Brent, a benchmark for more than half of the world’s
oil, has risen from $89.23 on June 21, which was the lowest settlement
since December 2010.
The
Eisenhower is providing air cover for a mine-clearing exercise in the
Persian Gulf involving the U.S. and 29 other nations. The Eisenhower
alternates on duty in the Gulf with the USS Enterprise, which is in the
Arabian Sea providing air support for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Frequent Dealings
For
all the tension over Iran and warnings from its officials, “we deal
with the Iranian navy and Revolutionary Guard almost on a daily basis.
They are very professional navies,” Hitchcock said. “We have not
threatened. They have not threatened.”
The
message was repeated in a briefing for reporters by Rear Admiral
Michael Manazir, commander of Carrier Strike Group 8, and in a message
he delivered later to the carrier’s entire crew over the Eisenhower’s
public-address system.
Should
the situation turn hostile, officials said, they’re well-trained and
equipped to handle a swarming attack by some of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps navy’s small boats.
“Fast-attack
craft -- they are small, they are maneuverable, they carry explosives,
they carry small arms,” Manazir told reporters. “They are a threat, but
we train to that threat and we can address them with our surface ships,
helicopters, and our fixed-wing aircraft.”
Upgrading Vessels
The
Navy also has accelerated delivery to the Gulf of specialized Griffin
missiles made by Waltham, Massachusetts- based Raytheon (RTN) and
machine guns with laser trackers to upgrade U.S. coastal-patrol vessels
to defend against the boats.
Manazir,
who served on the carrier USS Nimitz in the Gulf and studied the U.S.
Navy’s response in 1986 and 1987, when Iran mined parts of the Gulf,
said the threat “is essentially the same.”
“What
has gotten more sophisticated is the actual weapons systems and
guidance systems,” he said. “Those boats have gotten more capable, and
they’ve bought more of them or produced more of them,” he said.
The
Pentagon’s 2010 assessment of Iran’s military power listed four midget
submarines, 80 patrol craft and 18 guided missile patrol boats under
control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy. The IRGC also
“controls hundreds of small patrol boats,” it said.
Italian Speedboats
Since
the 1990s, the Guard navy has purchased Italian-made speedboats and has
been making them domestically, according a 2009 report by the U.S.
Office of Naval Intelligence.
It also has Chinese-built C-14 missile boats and North Korean-made “semi-submersible” vessels that can carry two torpedoes.
“When
you have a lot of boats” they must be defended against in a
multifaceted manner because that’s “a rather difficult threat,” Manazir
told reporters. “But we train against it. We have weapons that are
effective against them, and I think we would do just fine.”
“It’s
very difficult for Iran to operate small boats in high seas,” he said,
referring to the Gulf’s sometimes heavy seas. “Sometimes the conditions
out here don’t lend themselves to small-boat operations.”
Asked
if Iran’s capabilities have made the Eisenhower more vulnerable,
Manazir said, “We provide protection around the carrier, either carrier
defenses” or “the umbrellas around it” from the 42 Boeing Co. (BA)
F/A-18 Hornet aircraft on board and the four vessels of the strike
group.
“When we go through the
Strait we are very well- protected,” Manazir said. “I don’t think the
threat changed to the point were we say we can’t bring the carrier in
here.”
“These are fairly big ships,” he said. “You start moving an aircraft carrier 33 knots -- pretty difficult to catch.”
