Pentagon sending aircraft carrier to Mideast early

From AP.ORG

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is sending an aircraft carrier to the Middle East several months early to make sure at least two carriers will constantly be present in the troubled region.

There are two carriers in the area now, but one was scheduled to leave before its replacement arrived to fill that gap, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has approved sending by late summer the USS John C. Stennis strike group, which also includes the Aegis guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay and some 5,500 sailors.

The extra presence was approved late last week on a request by Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, Pentagon press Secretary George Little said Monday.

Hmmm So they want to ensure their presence within the gulf (as usual) but to keep two main aircraft carriers there seems more than just a 'presence'

"This is not about any one particular country or any one particular threat," he said.

Yup, probably true. It is there for not just Iran, but Syria too, and anyone else who gets uppity with the Us/Israel
Its a quick way to have a defensive/offensive net deployed very very quickly to areas around the gulf.

Thoughts?!

reply to post by Nspekta


US is going into a big economical problem and will need the Military complex to run again.

Like you need a beating heart to keep yourself alive and get nutrients to your body cells.

BTW , I didn't see any ship coming to me.

It is the least likely to start a war in the time of election.

And the end of time war will not begin before it is time.

It would be awfully handy if an incident 'just sorta happened' while 4 carriers were in the same AO handling rotations, wouldn't it? 5th Fleet HQ is right there to help re-supply the two that HAD been leaving in the past tense, and all of the sudden we have a full blown Naval Armada instead of a couple Carrier groups to give support.

It's an interesting scenario to ponder if Panetta and Obama are thinking in the same directions

There is an existing thread on this topic here. To reiterate the basics, the headline is misleading. The particular carrier that is going to the middle east is the USS Stennis in August. This is "early" FOR THIS PARTICULAR CARRIER because it just got back FROM the middle east in March. So the families are angry and the sailors have been complaining that they should not have to return so soon.

HOWEVER, this is NOT early for a carrier. This is a normal deployment. The Eisenhower is about to relieve the Lincoln. It's already there and the Lincoln has announced it has flown its last sortie. The Lincoln will now return to Norfolk where it will be laid up for three or four years for refueling. The Lincoln has been there since January. This is normal.

The Stennis, the so-called" "early" carrier, will relieve the Enterprise, which has been there since March. The Enterrpise will return to Norfolk where it will be scrapped. This is also a normal replacement. The Enterprise will have been in the Middle East for 6 to 7 months before the Stennis replaces.

The point is: This is NOT an escalation. It is NOT "early" for a carrier to be sent there. It is only "early" FOR THE STENNIS.

Now, why would they do that? Because no other carrier is available. Here are our carriers:

* CVN-65 Enterprise is in the 5th fleet AOR: 3/11/12. It's going to Norfolk to be scrapped

* CVN-68 Nimitz is now underway in the Pacific for RIMPAC (7/4). It could go, but it's busy right now. It will likely go next time. It just got out of dry dock, has an inexperience crew, and has yet to do carrier qualifications.

* CVN-69 Eisenhower port visit in Spain. (7/4) Headed for the Gulf, it's spoken for

* CVN-70 Vinson is in home port San Diego, CA for DPIA non deployable until 2/13. Can't use him because he's in port for fixes and repairs

* CVN-71 Roosevelt is at Newport News for RCOH & non-deployable, Avail: late 2012. Can't use him because he is in port for fixes and repairs.

* CVN-72 Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea, 5th Fleet AOR, arrived 1/12.—headed home. Can't user him because he's nearly out of fuel and has been there since january.

* CVN-73 Washington is underway 7th fleet AOR (7/4.) That's our forward de[ployed carrier to japan. It's purpose is to hang out there, not go to the Middle east.

* CVN-75 Truman is in home port Norfolk (7/11/12) It just got out of maintenance last week. It needs to do carrier qualifications, etc. before it is ready. It may go next time.

* CVN-76 Reagan is in Bremerton for DPIA & non-deployable until 2013. Can't use him because he is in port for fixes and repairs.

CVN-77 Bush is in the Atlantic conducting carrier qualifications. (6/27) We could use him, but he's an East Coast Carrier and that would leave them short. he's a candidate for next time.

The ships with asterisks do not qualify for Middle East deployment. That leaves the CVN-74 Stennis which is now in the Pacific conducting carrier qualifications (7/4) It's ready, qualified, and experienced. As you can see, there aren't that many choices.

We go through this every six months. The Lincoln will be out of the area well before the Stennis arrives. There will not be "4 carriers in the Gulf." This is not an "Armada.' This is not a prelude to a "False Flag" event. Two carriers are out of food. Two will replace them, as they always do 75% of the time.

There is no escalation. This deployment is normal.

This has got me pretty nervous, to say the least, I live next to an Air Force base, and just the other day 6 Apache heliocopters came flying over my house, These are NOT common around my area, usually just the A-10s doing there training, but this has now been going on for days. I think we have a pretty big build up of Military Arms in the central US right now, anyone else live close to a military base, and seen a surge in Military presence.

reply to post by schuyler

Well, I'll tell ya what...I'm reading RSS from the Pentagon public affairs and I'm reading State and White House releases a few times a day when they come. I'm going by those, not some MSM report. Their statements are saying, in no uncertain terms, the rotation is occuring 4 months ahead of schedule. It is being done, they go on to state, in such a way as to leave no gap in coverage and overlap the Carrier presence so as to avoid any opening for events to jump into.

That tells me....There will be 3 combat capable and fully functional CVBG's on station at one time...IF they are rotating during two totally different periods for the two being sent back home. If it isn't being planned to happen in totally different windows of time, then I would count 4 CVBG's in the 5th AOR at the same time. Even if two are arriving and getting comfy while two are saying 'screw it..let's go home', it's stll an absolute of 3 and..I'm just guessing for timing...in saying likely all 4 at once.

Of course, it's normal, routine and just par for the course....except the 4 month acceleration to rotate which the Pentagon, again, made a special point of saying was special...earlier today.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by schuyler

 

Well, I'll tell ya what...I'm reading RSS from the Pentagon public affairs and I'm reading State and White House releases a few times a day when they come. I'm going by those, not some MSM report. Their statements are saying, in no uncertain terms, the rotation is occuring 4 months ahead of schedule. It is being done, they go on to state, in such a way as to leave no gap in coverage and overlap the Carrier presence so as to avoid any opening for events to jump into.

You are misunderstanding what "4 months early" means. The Pentagon Statement says this:

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Navy will deploy the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and its strike group four months early and shift its destination to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, DOD officials said at the Pentagon July 16.

but it ALSO SAYS THIS:

The Bremerton, Wash.-based Stennis strike group was due to deploy at the end of the year to U.S. Pacific Command. The group returned from duty in the Middle East in March.

In other words, this is four months early FOR THE STENNIS, but this simply is not "4 months early' for a replacement. It is, in fact, on schedule. The Lincoln is packing its bags and coming home. It's done. This is directly from the Navy

USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, At Sea (NNS) -- Aircraft assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, embarked aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), completed their final combat flight operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) this deployment, July 9.

Currently deployed with Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 9 since December 2011, CVW-2 launched its first flights in support of OEF in February.

The Lincoln will be home in Norfolk before the Stennis arrives on station to replace the Enterprise, which has been there since March. the overlap when there are three carriers in the Gulf, will be measured in days, not months. This happens every six months, and every six months we get posts like yours "sounding the alarm" yet again, when it is perfectly normal in all respects.

The Eisenhower replace sthe Lincoln which has been deployed about seven months over all.
the Stennis replace sthe Enterprise, which will have been deployed about seven months overall.

If you are claiming this is "4 months early" you are claiming that a Carrier Strike Group can stay out for eleven months at a time. That's never happened. They run out of Diet Coke.

It's one thing to read dispatches from the Pentagon and quite another to understand them in context. You apparently lack the context, so you've jumped to an unjustifiable conclusion.

Well, I stand corrected..and thanks for the additional information. I'll go back and check the precise wording, but Uncle Sam's RSS and Press feeds don't explain as you just did and your explanation makes perfect sense. I'll take your information as there seems to be confusion. Heck..when aren't official statements making for confusion these days?

Thanks for taking a moment to elaborate from what definitely sounds like a background with experience.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well, after sitting here contemplating Panetta's statement it strikes me that there may be a slightly different interpretation to what he said, that would tend to exonerate you in jumping on the '4 month early' statement, and that I did not take into consideration originally.

The policy of the DOD has been for several years that there should be "two carriers in the Gulf" 70-75% of the time. In other words, 25-30% of the time there would be one carrier in the Gulf. If the statement of '4 months early' constitutes a closing of this 25-30% time period when they were going to have only one carrier in the Gulf, then Panetta's statement makes some sense. If this is indeed the case, he could have been clearer in his statement.

It has never been the case that we were going to have three or four carriers there at any one time, which everyone generally assumes is going to happen, and the reason I jump in here, because of the constant false flag accusations and so on. If you look at the status of the ships in my first post, you can see that the Navy is stretched very thinly. And with the Enterprise being scrapped, we'll be down to ten carriers until the USS Ford shows up in 2015.

But if it IS the case that we were supposed to have only one carrier in the Gulf for this Fall, then jump back up to two at the end of the year, then everything falls into place. If you approach it from the opposite point of view, that we are not escalating, but are simply not de-escalating, it makes more sense.

reply to post by schuyler

I really appreciate the time you took for information and coming back to post again. It is getting challenging at times to keep track of what is correct and isn't, isn't it? The Mideast being right at the top with statements changing on fast changing issues almost as quick as we're commenting here at times.

I'm going to guess that the change goes smoothly and without incident. Speculation and mental war gaming is one thing of course, and actual events occurring with more than one of those giants in the neighborhood, quite another. lol...

Frankly, I've been confused on the Naval deployments and the Carrier groups in particular for quite some time now. In watching the StratFor deployment maps, we seemed to all but withdraw almost everything to port for an extended period here recently. Now they're rolling back out. Generally routine, but interesting to watch with recent events.

Just got word that the Lincoln has transitted the Suez and is now in the Med. 6th Fleet Area of Operations. That leaves the Enterprise and the newly arrived Eisenhower in the Gulf. The Lincoln, which has been homeported in Everett, Washington for a number of years, has changed its port to Norfolk and will remain there for about four years for refueling.