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Bill over at my other blog, The Lexicans, has been posting archived posts from Neptunus Lex. And today’s entry was “The Goat Locker.” The Goat Locker is the traditional name for the Chief Petty Officers Mess aboard a warship, or a naval organization in general. Chief Petty Officers (E-7), Senior Chief Petty Officers (E-8) and Master Chief Petty Officers (E-9) are a breed apart in the Navy. When a sailor advances from Petty Officer First Class to Chief Petty Officer, they not only advance in paygrade, but they don the khaki uniform, much as officers wear. Gone are the blue crackerjacks of the sailor, and on comes the double breasted navy blue coat so similar to officers.

The Army really has nothing like that. From Private to General, the uniform for every troop looks pretty much the same, though of course, some have more badges and geegaws to adorn it.  But I grew up in a Navy family, so I was well aware of how special Chiefs are.

So, here’s a story.

After Desert Storm, I had a chance to come home on leave for a month. I was, at the time, a rather long in the tooth Specialist (E-4). I happened to get in touch with a friend from high school, Kevin, who had gone the NROTC route, and was then serving as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade (LTJG, or O-2) aboard USS Nimitz as a division officer in her Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department. Maintenance of aircraft components that was beyond the capability of the squadron’s organic maintainers would be performed by the AIMD ships company folks.

Kevin was kind enough to offer to give me a tour of the Nimitz. We went aboard early in the morning at the Naval Shipyard at Bremerton. We had a very nice breakfast in Wardroom Number One.* We toured the bridge, visited his stateroom, and wandered the flight deck and hangar deck.

And then we visited the the AIMD spaces. He introduced me to his boss, the department head, a Lieutenant Commander. And as it happened, the AIMD Master Chief just happened to be in the spaces.

What astonished me was when a Master Chief Petty Officer of the United States Navy, a man at the very pinnacle of his career, a man that most junior officers are timid before, actually asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. Yes, please. And then he proceeded to pour me a cup of coffee.

Understand this- Master Chief Petty Officers simply do not pour coffee for lowly Army Specialists. Or anyone else for that matter. To say I was gobsmacked would be something of an understatement.

And I’ll say this, my estimation of my friend Kevin as an officer rose quite a bit that day. There’s simply no way the Master Chief would have extended that courtesy to a guest of Kevin if he didn’t think he was a pretty good officer.

*Carriers have two wardrooms, that is, the officers dining room. The Number One Wardroom is the “formal” dining room, in which the uniform of the day must be worn. The other wardroom is less formal, and flight suits or other working rig is permissible. And so, it’s known at the “Dirty Shirt” wardroom. As a practical matter, the air wing officers almost exclusively utilize the Dirty Shirt, and ships company officers use Number One. It’s not against the rules to for an aviator to use Number One, nor for an black shoe surface type to use the Dirty Shirt. It just rarely happens that way.

The famous Patrol Torpedo boats of World War II are probably better known for their service in the Pacific due to John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 episode. But they also provided valuable service in the Mediterranean Sea. Generally, there were two main models of PT boats built during the war, the 80’ long Elco boats (such as PT-109) and the 78’ long Higgins. They both shared the same powerplant of three Packard gas engines, and generally the same armament (though the actual armament of each boat tended to vary wildly as crews improvised).

The National World War II Museum, near the home of Higgins Industries in New Orleans, is attempting to restore a 78’ Higgins PT boat.

The National World War II Museum, located in New Orleans, on Tuesday launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 to complete its PT-305 restoration project, and hopes to have the boat sailing Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain by early next year.

"It helps us cover all of the costs that are needed to transport the boat to the water and cover all the testing and certifications so the boat is ready to operate," Tom Czekanski, the museum’s director of exhibitions and collections, told FoxNews.com.

The battle-hardened boat, which operated in the Mediterranean along the coasts of southern France and Northern Italy, conducted more than 77 offensive patrols and operations, fought in 11 separate actions and sank three German ships during its 14-month deployment, according to the museum.

Good luck to them.

Interestingly, there already is a restored 78’ Higgins PT, in Portland, Oregon of all places.

The PT-658 never quite made it overseas for the war, but did serve as a picket boat with the Navy until 1958. After years as a private vessel, and falling into disrepair, a private non-profit took possession and spent more than a decade restoring her to virtually her original wartime configuration.

Next time I’m headed to Oregon, I’m going to be sure to visit PT-658, and the LCI-713 as well.

Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company (NYSE:LMT), today announced the second CH-53K helicopter has joined the flight test program and achieved first flight. In addition the first aircraft into the test program has achieved flight envelope expansion to 120 knots for the U.S. Marine Corps’ CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopter program.

"Adding a second aircraft into flight status signifies another milestone for the CH-53K program," said Mike Torok, Sikorsky's vice president of CH-53K Programs. "With both aircraft in flight test, our flight envelope expansion efforts will accelerate as we continue to make good progress toward our initial operational test assessment and full aircraft system qualification."

via www.lockheedmartin.com

One of the most important aircraft programs in the DoD has been quietly chugging along with relatively little drama, unlike programs like the F-35.

The CH-53K is a HUGE helicopter, designed to replace the CH-53E that entered service in the early 1980s, and is reaching the end of its service life.

Externally, the K is very similar to the E, though its fuselage is considerably wider, to allow it to carry a HUMVEE internally.

In reality, it is almost an entirely new design. The layout of the airframe is similar, but with new engines, transmission, rotors, cockpit and avionics, virtually everything is different than the predecessor.

The first flight of the K was delayed by almost a year for a major redesign of the transmission, and that remains a cause for concern, but otherwise the program has been without any major disruptions or disappointments.

U.S. troops in Jordan launched a GPS-guided rocket artillery attack into Syria for the first time on March 4, defense officials said, revealing an new facet of the American-led coalition’s ground-based fight against Islamic State militants.

The rockets came from a small detachment of fewer than 100 troops deployed near Jordan’s border with Syria. They used an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which is a truck-mounted, guided-missile system with a range of up to 185 miles. Both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps operate HIMARS.

via www.militarytimes.com

The use of a HIMARS launched GMLRS isn't really news, but the fact that US forces launched from Jordan is. The US has been using GMLRS strikes from Iraq to attack ISIS forces in Syria for some time now. But this strike into Syria is a new thing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of forces from Syria starting Tuesday.

“I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow,” Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

RT and several other news outfits are reporting that Putin has ordered the redeployment of the majority of Russian forces from Syria.

     The Russians don’t have a lot of allies, Syria being one of the few. And thus they were absolutely committed to sustaining the Assad regime. When you only have a handful of allies, you can’t afford to blithely let them fall by the wayside. So the primary goal of the Russian intervention was to stave off the collapse of the Assad regime. To that end, almost all the Russian airstrikes wee against anti-Assad forces, that is, the groups the US has been supporting for four years now. The occasional strike against ISIS aligned forces were either in support of Assad, or simply to provide political cover to mute criticism by the Obama administration.

But the Russian military, while it has recovered from its near total collapse of the 1990s, is still nowhere near as strong as it once was. The Russian deployment was a major effort, consuming many of the best Russian jet squadrons. And a deployment of the best of the best can only be sustained for so long. Jets need maintenance, and crews need rest. That doesn’t even take into consideration the costs of operations, which a cash strapped Russia has trouble sustaining. Low oil prices mean Russia’s cash flow could hardly sustain expensive foreign operations for long without impacting spending on other programs.

And then there’s the costs Russia is sustaining conducting operations in eastern Ukraine. The Russian forces are quite over extended, and a withdrawal from Syria will alleviate some of the worst of the symptoms.

Having said that, if the Assad regime again begins to be imperiled, you can be sure the Russians will return.

Serbia's authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for the US containing two missiles with explosive warheads was found on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia.

N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at Belgrade airport.

via www.businessinsider.de

What the hell?

Tracking the serial numbers should be fun.

Doc, the friendly B-29 bomber restored by retired Wichita aerospace workers, some of them the original workers that built the aircraft decades ago, will get its physical examination from the FAA starting March 14. The FAA will start with a review of the aircraft’s paperwork as a first step toward an airworthiness certificate.

It now appears the first flight could occur at the end of April or early May. The temperature must be at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit for an engine start. The winter weather in Wichita has been mild—good news for an aircraft spending it outside on the ramp across the airport from McConnell Air Force Base.

via www.aopa.org

Great news on getting a second B-29 airworthy.

It really was a rather ambitious design. The mid-mounted engine, the large 37mm cannon, and tricycle landing gear made for an interesting layout. The problem was, the rather anemic Allison engine, without a decent supercharger, meant the P-39 had terrible performance at anything above about 13,000 feet. Still, it’s an interesting video, and be sure to watch the performance of the cannon strafing a surface target.

FORT Sill, Okla. (March 10, 2016) — Sometimes a person is just in the right place at the right time.

And so it was for Pfc. Katherine Beatty when she learned her chosen military occupational specialty, or MOS, in signal intelligence wasn’t going to work out. Then came an offer too good to pass up.

Why not be the Army’s first female cannoneer?

“They said I could pick a different MOS,” she said of her nine-week holdover after basic combat training. The combat specialty of 13B cannon crewmember was on the list. “They said there was a lot of heavy lifting, and it’s a pretty high speed job, and I would be the first female. I was pretty excited about it. I called my husband (in Inverness, Fla.) He’s infantry and works side by side with 13 Bravos. He told me what to expect and I just went for it.”

via www.tradocnews.org

Well, we wish her the best of luck.