[QUOTE=Xmsccapt(ret);104261]But of course. After all we are officers and gentlemen not heathens :). It’s not uncommon for gentlemen and merchant sailors to sit across a table from one another, call each other names… Only to leave the bar together as friends later the same night.[/QUOTE]
You can say that again! Cheers! 
[QUOTE=Xmsccapt(ret);104244]You may appreciate this short story: Some years ago the DCM ( department of civilian marksmanship) had a program that if you shot in a certain number of NRA sanctioned matches you could buy an M1 grand from them. The cost was around $135.00 ( mainly paper work cost). During that time frame there were various makes being send out such as IBM and Singer etc. Some of the guns were even M1D sniper types. Well a friend of mine wanted an M1D in the worst way and even told the other shooters he would buy one if they got one, even called the dcm and asked how he could get one. He was told they simply do the pager work and your name goes on a list so there is no control on what you got. So, fast forward to when my gun arrived… I opened the tip of the box and noticed the unmistakable tip of the flash suppressor of an M1D. I don’t go any further, I called the guy that wanted the sniper version. When he came over I showed him my box and said " you open it". He did and let out a massive yipppeeeee as he slid the M1D out of the box. It came with scope and mount. His only comment was that it by all rights it should stay with me. Nice gun, shoots well![/QUOTE]
But - But - Who kept the gun?
I’d love to have it. Wanna trade? I got some old electric trains I’d be willing to let go - Naa - I gotta enough guns - But - I still will love to have it.
I fully appreciate the “yipppeeeee” - Ain’t it nice we still can do that?
[QUOTE=catherder;104251]Well you two settled your differences like gentlemen 
Nice to see a bunch of fellow history buffs here.[/QUOTE]
catherder, anyone who have read Xmsccapt(ret) and my chats understand that Xmsccapt(ret) fully understands what a Full Moon can do to me. Doesn’t make me bad, just different.
True, actually sweat n grease and I are both of strong mind and convictions. Generally head strong people are very good at their jobs. While we never sailed together and will never have the chance, my bet is that sweat n grease is a very good engineer. I further bet we would link professionally and operate a ship very well on a professional level. Yes, in port we may well sneer at one another’s political views, but in the end rise above all that and display professional respect for each other’s abilities. I can say I sailed with many various chief engineers in my time. I was blessed to sail with what I consider some of the best. I always respected their abilities and asked only that they were honest in the status of the engineering plant. Only a very few let me down and those few I never sailed with again. I held great respect for the good ones , and still remain good friends with them to this day. As we all know you have to respect others you sail with as more times than not you entrust your life to those you go to sea with. I was lucky to sail with such men, and in fact many men I sailed with both engine and deck were " repeat performers" meaning we sailed together on various ships over the years and maintained not only professional friendships but personal ones as well. I still keep in touch with them and enjoy hearing variations of the same sea story we all lived through.
I kept the gun you darn fool… Think I’m going to give an M1D away? 
[QUOTE=Xmsccapt(ret);104289]True, actually sweat n grease and I are both of strong mind and convictions. Generally head strong people are very good at their jobs. While we never sailed together and will never have the chance, my bet is that sweat n grease is a very good engineer. I further bet we would link professionally and operate a ship very well on a professional level. Yes, in port we may well sneer at one another’s political views, but in the end rise above all that and display professional respect for each other’s abilities.[/QUOTE]
Folks who are wishy washy with their convictions can very well be lackadaisical on the job, not always the case, nothing ever is. When I said “I’m glad I never sailed with you” to Xmsccapt(ret), he and I were in a harbor saloon and I was told that I am an old goat. Well I agreed but mentioned at least I’m not a smelly old goat. Going back to my navy years there were times I was invited to go outside for a dance. I never refused, after our fisty-cuffs the two of us returned back to the bar all bloodied-up and laughing (Ah, to be a young man again). I still communicate with one such adversary, we stayed friends after all these years. Something else, we still laugh.
[QUOTE=Xmsccapt(ret);104290]I kept the gun you darn fool… Think I’m going to give an M1D away? :)[/QUOTE]
No but I’m easily confused.
Me too, must be all those bar room brawls of years past.
[QUOTE=Xmsccapt(ret);104295]Me too, must be all those bar room brawls of years past.[/QUOTE]
Could be but how to explain when you can’t remember what you had for dinner last night?
Can’t blame everything on good old fisty cuffs, can you?
[QUOTE=catherder;104251]Well you two settled your differences like gentlemen
Nice to see a bunch of fellow history buffs here.[/QUOTE]
All they left out was the hand job.
Must have given a lot of those on the Mir space station… Is that what started the fire?
[QUOTE=DeadQuarters;104299]All they left out was the hand job.[/QUOTE]
Say now, The Captain and I don’t know each other THAT well, and we are not on those kind of ships anyway, so there ~
[QUOTE=catherder;104084]I don’t understand why we keep re-inventing the wheel. The Chinese models you posted could easily be adapted to US use and built here. It seems that we are in love with our white elephants.[/QUOTE]
Large numbers of people under their command looks good on an Admiral’s resume and you can’t fit thousands of sailors on ships this size.
Certainly some truth to that…
well this story seems to not want to go away…
[B]Littoral Combat Ship Network Can Be Hacked, Navy Probe Finds[/B]
By Bloomberg On April 23, 2013
By Tony Capaccio(Bloomberg) — The computer network on the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is vulnerable to hacking, according to findings by Navy cybersecurity specialists.
A “red team” assigned to test weaknesses in computer systems found major deficiencies last year on Lockheed Martin Corp.’s USS Freedom, said a government official familiar with the findings who asked not to be identified because the Navy report hasn’t been made public. The Freedom, the first of the new ships to be deployed, sailed to Singapore last month for eight months of testing of its manning and logistics operations.
The concern about cybersecurity adds to previous questions about the $37 billion program to build ships intended to perform missions in littoral waters, those close to shore. The estimated price to build each vessel has doubled to $440 million, and its ability to survive to fight after an attack has been questioned.
Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of weapons testing “provided Navy leadership an assessment of information assurance vulnerabilities testing revealed in LCS” and “recommended those vulnerabilities be remediated without delay,” Defense Department spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said in an e-mailed statement.
The Navy hasn’t yet responded to the testing office’s concerns, according to Elzea, who said Gilmore’s assessment was classified. She said he also will include his concerns in a classified LCS Early Fielding Report next month.
Battle Network
The Littoral Combat Ship depends for its combat capability on communicating with better-armed vessels through its “Total Ship Computing Environment,” a maritime battle network linked by computers and sensors. The Navy and the Pentagon’s weapons testing office declined to say whether the vulnerabilities would affect operations of the ship or coordination with other vessels.
The threat of cyberattacks has become an even greater concern than terrorism, James Clapper, the top U.S. intelligence official, told the House Intelligence Committee during an April 11 hearing. The Chinese army may be behind the hacking of at least 141 companies worldwide since 2006, according to a Feb. 19 report from Alexandria, Virginia-based Mandiant Corp. Chinese officials have rejected that finding.
Defense Security Chuck Hagel told a House panel last week that the potential for “silent and destructive” cyberattacks is “the greatest threat to our security.”
The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program office said in a statement that the vulnerability assessment of the Freedom has been reviewed with Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor.
Evolving Ability
“The LCS program has worked with the Navy and industry subject-matter experts to implement mitigation plans,” the office said. “As information assurance threats continue to evolve, so too will the LCS’s ability to counter them.”
Asked why the Navy didn’t delay the Freedom’s Singapore deployment, the program office said it determined the vessel “was capable of fulfilling the assigned mission.”
“As with every other ship assessment, findings are provided to program management for awareness and action where required,”Lieutenant Rick Chernitzer, a spokesman for the Navy’s Pacific surface forces, said in a second e-mailed statement.
The Navy’s Operational Test and Evaluation Force conducted the vulnerability assessment, he said.
Four More
The Navy is requesting $1.9 billion to buy four additional Littoral Combat Ships for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, the same number purchased this year.
The program may face added scrutiny this year, starting tomorrow with a hearing on Navy ship programs convened by the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower panel. The U.S. Government Accountability Office also is working on a review that may be published in June.
The vessel “has lots of possibilities but also has a number of challenges,” Representative Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican who heads the seapower panel, said in a phone interview today.
“I do think it is something we are going to continue to monitor, look at very carefully, but we are going to give the Navy a little bit of flexibility” to use the Singapore deployment to put the Freedom through its paces, he said.
“I would not put me down as a skeptic,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of questions.”
Mission Modules
The LCS depends on mission modules that are supposed to be swapped out depending on the duty at hand. The GAO said last month that the Navy plans to purchase 30 of a planned 52 vessels by 2018, before the first fully combat-capable modules for surface warfare, counter-mine operations and anti-submarine patrols are ready.
The modules the Navy has accepted so far “do not yet meet requirements,” GAO said.
Two versions of the Littoral Combat Ship are being built simultaneously. A steel-hulled vessel is being made in Marinette, Wisconsin, by a team led by Lockheed, and an aluminum trimaran is being built in Mobile, Alabama, by a group led by Austal Ltd.
Four of the vessels have been built, and the Navy has agreed to buy 20 more through 2015.
Copyright 2013 Bloomberg.
stoopid, ridiculous beercan disposable $370M ships…somebody getta rope!