Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Go Navy!
Sheesh, I just five minutes ago read in the paper that there might be a lauch Wed night. Or Thursday. Or any day before Feb 29th. It’s hard to keep up in this world. Guess that’s why I hang out here.
lauch = launch
Hey, I haven’t even had any coffee yet!
Another Great Navy Day!
The blackshoes aren’t going to be fit to live with after this. Nice shot.
Video linked at my blog
VERY awesome. Precision at it’s best.
Is this a great country or what? Is that a professional Navy or what? Those who engineer, design, build, operate and maintain our fancy weapons systems are amazing. With the will and technology to do these things, what can’t our country do?
Man, these kids make me proud.
Subsunk
Did you have any doubt?
I didn’t.
Enough celebrating. Now get out there and repolish that bell!
I just love the Hi-Rez image from DOD of the ship’s bell and “Don’t give up the ship” illuminated by the exhaust of the engines.
The Commodore is passing out cigars tonight at Fiddler’s Green, beaming with pride.
Well Done Navy!
BZ to the Lake Erie!
The media attention and success combine for a great story. Credit those who worked hard and invented a new, complex capability from an existing, similar system in less than 2 months and executed success without a test run.
Fantastic.
Yup,
China knocked out a high-orbit sattelite from a ground facility.
US Navy takes down a degrading low-orbit tarhet from a ship ar sea. With a missile from inventory.
Sounds good to me.
BZ LE!
My olde Gunners’ Mates would be proud of those kids!
Score another one for the military-industrial complex!
Now, we need to get busy building more ships and aircraft to ensure that we can actually defend against all enemies (foreign), not just our own space junk.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Heh, more than you’d think. Great back story to this, hope it gets to be told some day in an UNCLAS forum (with pictures/vids)…
-SJS
Shipmates,
This being a more or less professional site, please maintain a restrained, appropriate decorum.
A hearty Bravo Zulu to Lake Erie and her (non gender specific) Fire Controlmen. Skin-to-Skin ain’t easy in the best of times.
Senior D-
Woo Hoo Navy!!! Yeah, get some, wow!!!
Turning upside down, screaming uncontrollably… Making all others around me clap and scream for joy!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!!!!!
I’m with Babs, WOO HOO!!!!
America! (and for the rest, watch Team America)
What I wouldn’t give to be a bug on the wall during the next Chinese central committee meeting!!
….I was in the Air Force, and this is freakin’ incredible. Congrats to the Lake Erie and her crew, and here’s hoping that there are some people with bad consciences sleeping a little less well tonight.
Mike
“The blackshoes aren’t going to be fit to live with after this.”
Black shoes… still optional for those with identity crisis’.
; )
Just another day that I am proud of my Navy and those that are out there today carrying on the tradition.
Todd
CTR2 ’84-’93
Only the Navy could pull that off!
On a side note I hope that some other potentially unfriendly countries were paying close attention.
“One Shot, One Kill.”
So when do they get their sniper badges?
Do ya think maybe we’re showing what we are capable of doing? Just so other folks know we can shoot down those birds?
Very good. Would have been perfect if they tied some of the morons that made the POS faulty satellite to the SM-3.
Bruce- I was wondering the same thing. Isn’t this like a Navy sniper or something?
absolutely amazing
ELP: Depending on the sub-systems that failed, they could be the same guys and gals that designed the SM-3 or the current guidance package.
We have soft landed packages on planets, we photograph detail of happenings on the surfact of the sun at 2M degrees F, we dock with other spacecraft.Hitting something in orbit with a missile is old hat…but I’m so prowd of US!As many have commented, aboard Lake Erie today it’s “turn to” two more weeks and we hit port.
Phil:
All due respect, it was not “old hat”… There was a considerable amount of effort that went into this operation that required synchronization of sensors around the globe (as well as above it), sophisticated modeling and simulation that was cutting edge because the object was tumbling and, depending on the angle of intercept, post-impact debris effects and BDA varied radically, and that doesn’t even begin to address the changes to the missile firmware and AEGIS BMD system that had to be developed, coded, installed and tested from zero in a very short time(barely a month). Lots of risk, lots of sweat, by a lot of dedicated people afloat and ashore that made this look seemingly effortless. And we will say there was a point just prior to impact where it looked like it might be all for naught…
So, old hat, um, no.
-SJS
SJS – Thank you for taking the time to read my response.
I appreciate that a lot of talented people worked very hard to accomplish this mission.That a lot of hard work went into a complex effort is a given.My point is that orbital mechanics is well understood, the technology of finding and touching a moving object in space has been done before.So I don’t see that the technology of how to do it is new.New code written, yes.Lots of resources involving coordination, yes.We’re good at system integration.On the plus side it was the NAVY that did the job.BDA is on going and I suspect intial findings will be substantiated,”pieces no bigger than a football”.It was a good job and all who contributed deserve a well done.
To me, excellent performance from engineering is old hat.
I’m guessing the USS Lake Erie just earned it’s Gold Battle E…
Phil:
Thanks, and a last thought- orbital mechanics, yes – dynamics/after effects of high energy impacts in LEO (+32,000 fps), less so…
-SJS
If you download the original picture you can read the exif data. 1/8000 @ F8.
In non-photo geek terms that means almost no light got to the sensor.
If you look at other photos taken after the shot, it was taken in the late afternoon, not the middle of the night like you might think from looking at this one.
Kevin:
Launch time was 03:26:48Z or 17:26:48 HST
-SJS
SSG Jeff – should be that way, but, that ain’t the only area of expertise needed to gain that award. So, while they may be good at shootin’ down wayward sats, that ain’t a lock on the Battle E.