US MSC Charters Westpac Express Catamaran

Westpac, Expressin’

The Westpac Express fast ferry ship has been instrumental in changing the way the US Navy approaches sealift in the Western Pacific. It’s fast enough to substitute for airlift in many cases, and large enough to move a Marine battalion with its gear. Early trials went very well, and the innovative designs and performance of Australian shipbuilders Austal and Incat laid a foundation of manufacturing experience and customer comfort that led to the innovative GD/Austal trimaran design for the new Independence Class “Flight 0” Littoral Combat Ship, while spawning a major acquisition program in the Joint High-Speed Vessel (JHSV).

HSV Westpac Express isn’t a Navy-owned ship; technically, it’s a chartered vessel. In July 2005, we noted an 18-month extension to its charter. In 2006, that service period was extended still further via a new charter, lasting up to 5 years. During that charter’s period, a bankruptcy in Hawaii created an opportunity to buy the Austal-built catamaran Superferry MV Huakai, which will replace Westpac Express in the Pacific. Until then, the USMC needs one more contract extension.

ISIS Gains Ground Along Euphrates

• ISIS has reportedly gained control [Reuters] of part of Ayn al-Arab/Kobani [CNN], a Syrian town near Turkey that Kurdish forces have been defending for weeks.

• The jihadists are also gaining ground in the Anbar province west of Bagdhad: McClatchy | Institute for the Study of War.

• Ayn al-Arab is about 690 km (430 mi) away from Ramadi (near Fallujah), but they’re both close to the Euphrates river. ISIS’ operations have consistently followed the region’s two main rivers: NYT | New Scientist.

• Daily Beast: VP Biden Apologizes for Telling Truth About Turkey, Saudi and ISIS. Here’s the speech by Joe Biden that infuriated [Hurruyet] President Erdogan.

• AP: Shiite rebels are Yemen’s new masters. It’s back to the failed state list for Yemen, if it ever deserved to leave it in the first place.

• China’s Xinhua really wants you to know their fleet is executing escort missions in the Gulf of Aden, with another series of pictures taken just after a Chinese naval taskforce visited Iran.

Europe

• AP: Ukraine’s truce in trouble amid airport battle.

Acquisition Reform Redux

• Here we go again: a US Senate committee released another massive compendium [PDF] on acquisition reform. You’ve heard these arguments before: the acquisition workforce needs to be better incentivized and trained, requirements need to be contained to realistic expectations, and service chiefs should be more involved. Good points, but nobody seems to question the tenet that the biggest bureaucracy in the world can somehow be made effective. Of course participants in the system will tend to downplay its built-in diseconomies of scale.

Naval Protoss-Zerg Hybrid

• Today’s video comes from the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) and shows their work on “autonomous swarms” of small vessels that can used to escort a friendly ship or destroy an enemy ship without directly exposing humans to potential threats. ONR says their mission hardware and software can be retrofitted on existing vessels: