It is euphuism for a tail hook landing on a short vertical and pitching carrier deck. Which is why after a cruise, other banged-up and salt corroded airframes such as F-18's are swapped-out with like wise Marine Corps frames. The Corps then send them to a rework facility and flys junk after that. But than, Navy blue dollars help pay for the Osprey. : )

It's 444 of these, controlled from the pilot's seat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKxhBgvqHL8&feature=related

Plus another 552 watching from the copilot's seat. But who's counting?

I should have said: short horizontal carrier deck; not to be confused with the horizontal mambo which is something entirely differant. Again, information overload.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpCLeWqY0w

I'm just a land-lubber.

Even better Tom - "trust me!" : )

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW_C0LP3tfQ

Well, since my son is a serving U. S. Navy SEAL officer with six years experience and numerous deployments I think I might be somewhat familiar with them. My comments were directed at firms such as Blackwater not U. S. Special Op's units. My kid’s team operates under a regime of military law with rigorous discipline and rules of engagement.

Blackwater seems to hire a lot of marginal characters with previous military experience of one sort or another who are basically freelance gunslingers. Their reputation has sunk so low as to require them to change their name to Xe Services LLC and no longer are licensed to operate in Iraq. This was not done because they earned a lustrous reputation. Also, Army Rangers are highly prized troops but are not commonly thought of as part of the Special Op’s community.

Well, having worked closely with that outfit, I beg to differ. They are not pulling E4s off the street. Any position of sensitivity requires a Special Operations resume, such as the State Dept contract they operate under in Iraq and A'Stan. You will note that the attempt on Pres. Kkarzai's life in A'Stan a few years ago was 'shot down" so to speak. The pictures were widely circulated. The guys you saw in those pictures were a former Delta operator & a former SEAL. Note also the howling we have heard from SOCOM that all their operators keep getting poached by the private sector.

Pretty much everyone I have ever encountered is "tabbed" by someone, be it Rangers, SEALs, SF, SOCOM Aviation, Marines, Brits, etc. That's who's running escorts. Now, they did get into some problems when they hired Serbs to run static security positions. That has been rectified.

One of the reasons they have an "Illustrious" reputation is because there has been a concerted media campaign to discredit them at every turn. This was largely due to the media's usual aversion to anyone who carries a gun for a living or anyone who even owns a gun here at home (note the lopsided coverage of gun rights issues). Jeremy Scahill's book had a lot to do with this in which he portrayed the company as some sort of shadow army for evil corporate warlords bent on pillaging the planet. Truth be told, those outfits...you never hear about them. They're corp shells that come and go with little notice.

Generally speaking, Blackwater never really had more than 1,500 operators in the field worldwide. The bulk of their activity was, and still is, training.

Despite annoying details like this, pretty much every incident involving western security operators in Iraq has been consistently laid at the feet of Blackwater. No matter that at any given time there were dozens of companies operating in country, a great many of them the fly by night, amateur hour outfits that have screwed up just as you say.

"Blackwater" It's perhaps the worst possible name Eric could have picked. It rolls off the tongue, it's sinister (if you don't know that it refers to the canals and backwaters in NC where the training facility is), it's a smooth as silk phrase for a news soundbite. It's perfect for anyone in the media or politics who can't stand the fact that this is earth, people die and some of them deservedly so, to utter.

Hence, it's easy to get their panties in a twist over.

As to being "Licensed" to operate in Iraq? Well, that might have some weight here in the west where people down at the town hall who issue biz licenses are civil servants in the way we know and understand. In Iraq, however, ANY position of authority is merely a position to leverage bribes and loot. Period. This concept of a "license" in Iraq is nothing more than a fancy word for "Bribe." Eric refused to pay it ($1.5 million). Inside of 14 days, ooops, ambush in the public square where they know damn well people are going to get caught in the crossfire. (and take it from me, Iraqis are about as dumb as a board when these things break out, it's what makes them such a good publicity stunt.)

Connect the dots.

This isn't about big bad mercenaries shooting up the streets for fun, it's about domestic US leftist politics and traditional Arab looting of anything that comes within reach (which they know full well how to leverage "Progressives" and their knee jerk sympathies for anyone or anything or anyone not from here)

Been there. 3 tours. Seen it time and time again. Sickened by it. Don't ever want to set foot in it again, no matter how much they'll pay me to do. Whole damn place does nothing but blame it's problems on everyone and everything from the Jews to the west to god himself. ZERO concept of personal accountability.

You try operating there and then tell me about the poor little Iraqi and the big bad gunmen.

Well, I've had my feet in the risk management world for a while too. The bulk of it seems to be risk managing the piracy undertaken by lawyers. They've got more people terrified than Bin laden could ever hope to.

This nonsense of spray the boarders with hoses until they make it over the fantail then meekly give up is typical of what you get when you go with the myriad of phantom fears law firms can come up with.

Fact is, even when these crews do pay attention, do as they're told, they'll still getting boarded and taken. And in Malacca off the Philippines, it's almost as good as a death sentence as these groups will take the ship, toss the crew overboard, paint a new name on it and fence the goods in Singapore, Hong Kong, wherever. (thanks to the networks of illicit biz connections they've built up) Half the time these groups know the cargo manifest before the victim leaves port...

Which brings us back to western sensibilities...victim status applied evenly to all parties, regardless of how they got there. This is especially true for Great Britain where defending yourself in your own home from people who are in the process of dashing your brains with a bat will net you 25 to life.

Fast forward to the recent incident a few weeks ago involving the Maersk Alabama...again. You'll notice that it didn't get wall to wall coverage like when they were taken the first time. Why? Because the poor little natives trying to board her this last time got hosed down with a machine gun in the hands of security contractors. Apparently no casualties, but they though the better of playing with them so they broke off the attack and went looking elsewhere for prey.

This is the simple nature of human predators...if you threaten my physical well being with the threat of immediate and deadly consequences, I will look elsewhere for a victim. It's what they tell every female in a self defense class...walk tall, make yourself appear to be a "Harder" target.

Period. That's the only thing that commands the predator's respect, especially when the world has been lavishly rewarding them for their behavior.

"You mean all we have to do is head out there in our Glastron, get on board, cap off a few shots, push those guys about and the owners of the boat will give us millions of dollars?? Hell yea, lets do it."

There it is. The bottom line. Behavior + reward.

Switch that around a bit...to Behavior = Consequences. (something we've done a wonderful job of eliminating here in the west, unless of course you are an African American male from the inner city...)

Then you'll have...

"Hey, where's Abu?"
"Well, he and Ackmed took the boat out towards that cargo ship, we heard some shooting and they haven't been back."
"Oh."
"You want to go out and see if we can board 'em? Could be some money in it."
"I don't know. Last week Whack-met and Ali didn't come back either, now Abu and Ackmed. Naw, I think I'll go play football and the wife's been after me to weed the maize field."

Behavior = Consequences.

It's the only damn thing that works and until we stop feeling sorry for every poor little blighted one in their jacked up little s**thole countries, there will be no consequences and merchant sailors will keep dying or being held hostage.

At the same time, the shipping industry needs to put it's foot down and stand up to the hive of lawyers that infest the world's nations like a termite mound. Having a handful of small arms under the captain's lock and key while in port is not a threat to anyone's national security (or social control efforts they exercise by denying the right to bear arms to their exploited underclasses...who are difficult to exploit when armed, go figure).

A "Fine, you have a problem with the captain and master at arms having a few guns on this ship? No problem, we'll asses a "You are risking our lives at sea with your silly notions fee." You can bet consumers and retailers who receive these cargos would stand up and get these silly notions undone pronto.

.

Regards this training you spoke of. It amounts to keep watch and when they try to board spray them with a fire hose and blow the horn. They'll board anyway, at which point roll over and cooperate."

Quite literally, that's the extent of it, with maybe some "Make a hard turn or two against guys in a Zodiac with 300hp worth of engines against your leviathan plodding along at 12mph."

Right....

But OK, let's look at that...

I sprayed them. Now their wet AND pissed off. I'm gonna at the very least get knocked around.

No man in his right mind is going to buy into the fire hose method of dealing with guys armed with PKMs. Is it any wonder these crews are so apathetic?

Far better to just kick back and play XBox 360. When they show up, just offer them a beer, a turn at HALO 4 and hope they don't throw you to the sharks. Dealing with dry pirates is probably going to have a far better outcome for you than wet and angry ones.

As far as "Administrative Issues" for the captain?

I've got an extra 6-8 guys on board with company approval. HR on the mainland handles that. All I have to do is give them a cabin, feed 'em and let them do their thing, which I have been fully briefed on as we're working as a team here. To imply that merchant captains can't handle that extra burden would to me indicate that if they can't they probably shouldn't be driving a ship filled with toxic chemicals, oil or millions in cargo either...

What is the logic disconnect here???

.

is with USAF, for the near space AO.

Littoral warfare is barely on big navy's budget map, except as a pushback against Army encroachment.

Proximity to shore or civilian shipping inevitably leads to embarrassing mistakes, deaths, groundings, and someone else getting the next star.

Perry Class, good ship. Average operational cost while at sea? $x whatever million per day. (not taking into account VA bennies for life for crew)

Vs.

2 surplus Russian PKMs and 4-5 cans of 7.62...average cost in an Asian arms bazaar...maybe $500 bucks.

Look on face of pirates in Zodiac who are suddenly and unexpectedly having their internal organs chopped up at 150m by said cans of 7.62...priceless.

Of course the navy doesn't want to talk about this as their usefulness vs. cost of operations would become immediately apparent.

.