Really? While I fully support the notion of dogs being available for pets and snuggles, is there a reason a dog is onboard?
Yes, for the morale and mental wellness of the crew. It’s called an Expeditionary Facility Dog. The Lincoln has a fox red yellow lab named Fathom on board.
Thanks for the info. That is so awesome. I hope he provides sailors with tons of love and comfort.
There’s about 5000 people on that ship. No doubt some of them are not dog people, but the rest are all competing for the attention of one dog?
They’re already even retiring some LCS ahead of schedule even as the full order is still being delivered. Apparently the bugs on those are such the Navy finds a true mid-life refit would be too expensive. I suppose the delay to properly start a line of new-gen frigates will keep many of them on duty, though.
(BTW for those next-gen frigates the Navy DID at one point have the reasonably good idea of adapting an already-in-service NATO platform for the actual ship, rather than design from a blank screen. But what I read is that then the US being the US decided all the important systems had to be US-designed and made latest-and-greatest, multiple contractors in multiple congressmen’s districts had to be involved, and they had to be do-everything units. By the time they gave up only 2 of those will be built at a great overcost since they have to absorb the development spend. Now the new, new!! next-gen frigate concept is going to be to take the Coast Guard’s current top-of-the-line cutter and tuner it out with whatever real-fighting weapons and sensors can fit.)
Haven’t they already rejected that concept? Or maybe I’m just recalling conversations from people who are saying it damn well ought to have been rejected out of hand. Because you know what Coast Guard cutters aren’t designed for? Anti-submarine warfare. That means no accounting for a sonar dome, no towed array, and also the equipment is not designed to minimize acoustic interference with said sonar dome and towed array. You can’t just glue those things onto a hull. There is also a lot of internal equipment and re-working of equipment that needs to go onto accommodating such an addition.
Just for starters.
So, an Offog? (obscure Science fiction joke).
Press on.
They first rejected it in favor of using the Fincantieri hull designs, then now are bringing it back up apparenly because Huntington-Ingalls said “hey, we have a spare Legend-class keel and production line we could mod for you quickly. ”
So apparently more a stretch than just cramming the mission into the same ship as I implied.
More experienced minds than mine ARE saying USN and American yards should just shove their pride up their well decks and straight out buy or license-build any of various frigate hull models made by our allies as-is. Of course we know it’s now kind of a particularly awkward time to do that …
I’m hearing more and more than the US Navy is very open to such a plan. Whether its former allies, as it really doesn’t have any true allies anymore, would be willing to do so is a different matter.
What you AREN’T hearing about is the idiotic “Trump class” “battleship.”
Well, Cuba has been asshoe since the 1950s, but that isn’t news.
SOS! Now that’s some fine dining right there. I overheard this phrase from one of my playmates, and repeated at the dinner table and whilst dear old dad was a USN veteran, dear old mom was Not Happy to hear expletives out of young tater’s mouth. Oops. Another time, I must have been watching Gunsmoke or something like that, I inquired about “what kind of Grub do we got around here, Ma?” I was reliably informed by my father “In this house we do not refer to your mother’s cooking as “grub”, is that clear?” LOL
I have an irrational nostalgic attachment to it. I have never heard of SOS been served anywhere outside a Navy galley, but several years ago I acquired a copy of Submarine Cuisine compiled by Edward Monroe-Jones. It has scaled down recipes provided by submarine Mess Specialists and includes one for both SOS and its creamy cousin Foreskins. I have made and enjoyed both of them. Mrs. Thumper wasn’t so enthusiastic, so for further authenticity I only make them after 11 PM (midrats). She did like it when I made Hamsters (chicken cordon bleu), so that makes regular appearances at the dinner table. Horsecock, on the other hand, will never again pass my lips.
It’s a mascot. Sounds like you are trying to make a thing out of something that’s not a thing?
Ha! I’d still be grounded, if I’d used some of those words. I heard someone refer to Brussel Sprouts as “Satan’s Dingleberries” which I would have employed had I been aware. Dad would have laughed, I just know it.
He’s a bit more than a mascot. Fathom has dedicated handlers and a schedule for when and to whom he is available. I’ve never been on a ship with an EFD, so I have no idea how that is handled on an aircraft carrier, but I’d have been delighted if it had been an option when I was on USS Yorktown (CG-48).
We didn’t even have a cat on board, nevermind a dog. 1980s, USS Ranger CV-61.
My understanding was there was a time when ships still had cats, post WWII, but gone by my time.
Are the cats back also?
All ships should have a ship’s cat.
No thanks. A ship that smells like cat piss is worse than whatever benefit having a cat aboard would provide.
I learned about Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast from a fellow Boy Scout, whose father was in the Navy. We were never served such rations in Boy Scouts, but in one of his books Dave Barry (of all people) nostalgically recalls eating this at home, and being a fan. Even after the pressure cooker exploded and coated the walls and ceiling of their kitchen with the mixture.
That would have to be one hell of a cat to accomplish that, lol.