October 27 Weekly Update

SHIP LOGS & EXERCISES:

Ship & Group Locations Checked & Updated (October 21 to 27)

ACTIVE EXERCISES:

COUGAR 2012 (October to November) @ Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas

• (Oct 12) UK Task Force visits Gibraltar (Panorama )
• (Oct 19) UK & French Task Forces join up in Mediterranean, CORSICAN LION begins (Royal Navy )(French Defense Ministry )(French Army )
• (Oct 24) HMS Montrose launches UK / French raiders during CORSICAN LION (Royal Navy )
• (Oct 26) UK and French Defense Ministers visit the combined task force during amphibious operations (MOD ); Active exercises end (Royal Navy )

INDIAEX 2012 (October 19 to November 13) @ Mumbai, India

CARAT 2012 (October to December) in WESTPAC

• (Oct 22) CARAT Cambodia begins

IONIEX-2012 (November 7 to 9) Joint Russian-Italian Naval EX in Mediterranean

SHIP LOGS:

HMS Edinburgh (FFG)

• (Oct 25) visits Cape Verde, en route to S. Atlantic patrol zone (Royal Navy )

RFS PM-56 (Floating Workshop)

• (Oct 22) Deploys to Tartus, Syria for 6-months, replacing PM-138 as onduty repair ship for the Russian navy base (Rusnavy )

RFS Smetlivy (DDG)

• (Oct 18) leaves Sevastopol for Italy for IONIEX

USS Bonhomme Richard ARG

• (Oct 23) @ Sepanger, Malaysia

USS Enterprise CSG

• (Oct 25) CSG in Atlantic, prep for ammo off-load

USS Makin Island (LHD-8)

• (Oct 23) “Leaders at Sea” program in Pacific (US Navy )

USS Ohio (SSGN-726)

• (Oct 24) visits Busan, SK (Naval Today )

USS Peleliu ARG

• (Oct 23) @ Phuket, Thailand

USS Stennis CSG

• (Oct 25) in Arabian Sea, conducting OEF air ops

USS Truman (CVN-75)

• (Oct 24) completes TSTA and FEP (US Navy )
• (Oct 25) completes 24-days underway, tested flight operations with CVW-3

USS Washington CSG

• (Oct 22) FFG Vandergrift @ Sihanoukville, Cambodia for CARAT 2012
• (Oct 23) in S. China Sea
• (Oct 24) @ Manila, Philippines (US Navy )

USS Wasp (LHD-1)

• (Oct 23) in Atlantic, Burial at Sea
• (Oct 25) in Atlantic, Total-Ship Survivability Drill

GROUND UNITS LOGS & EXERCISES:

US Ground units logs updated per DOD reports, up to (October 21 to 27) (DOD News Releases )

France, UK, Russia, China Army logs updated per various news releases and open sources

ACTIVE EXERCISES:

AUSTERE CHALLENGE EXERCISE (October 21 – November 11) in Israel

• (Oct 21) EX Begins (RIA Novosti )

UNIT LOGS:

None Noted

NEWS that makes me go Hmmmm......

IRAN

• (Oct 24) Sudanese factory that produced Iranian Shehab missiles destroyed by air attack (Debka )

SYRIA

• (Oct 24) Russian General reports Syrian rebels have been supplied various MANPADS systems, including US Stingers (RIA Novosti )
• (Oct 25) Shaky 4-day cease fire begins (CNN ) (Yahoo ) (Yahoo - Fighting continues in Aleppo )

USA

• (Oct 26) US Marine F/A-18 fighter-bombers from VMFA-314 at Miramar, CA were spotted flying out to an undisclosed country in the Mediterranean or Middle-East (UT San Diego )
• MY THOUGHTS... Hmmmmm, they could be reinforcing current deployments... they might be positioning the fighters to cover an unannounced operation... They could be replacing or rotating with current units on deployment, the media is notorious for mistaking rotations for something more exciting.... I see in the news article pic (if it's accurate) that they're the old hornet variant, not the new Super-Hornet. In my mind the importance of this movement just lost a lot of points. IF this was for Iran, they’d be Supers. If it was for Afghanistan or Somalia, then the oldies are fine. The oldies are excellent aircraft, but you will NOT assign a super-important mission like Iran to 10-15 year old aircraft, you assign it to Supers, and F-22's, and B-2's, not to mention Growlers and other advanced ECM aircraft. They might be good as wild weasels, but I'm not aware of old F/A-18's taking on that role. So, my take is that they're for a low-grade / low-tech threat, ground attack role, possibly rotating in for a spell, possibly for Afghanistan at Kandahar, or Djibouti, or simply rotating assets in alliance countries ...or possibly to free up more advanced assets so they can focus on something more important.
• (Oct 26) Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti is quietly becoming the busiest attack drone hub outside Afghanistan (Stars & Stripes ), and an enormously important SOF hub in Africa (Wired )

MAPPING UPDATES

• Indian Ocean / West Pacific
• Mediterranean