The USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the Sixth Fleet (and heavily laden with intelligence gathering gear) has arrived in the city of Poti, despite the presence of Russian forces at checkpoints outside the city.
Humanitarian antennas
The USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the US Sixth Fleet, is the latest of three vessels sent by the US to deliver blankets, hygiene kits, baby food and other supplies to Georgia after its brief war with Russia.
“I can confirm it has arrived in Poti. Anchoring procedures are still ongoing but it has arrived,” said a US naval official quoted by the AFP news agency.
The Russians are still annoyed that we are using warships to delivery aid.
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Navy’s slot back ran for 348 yards on 19 carries. Navy won 41-13 or so, but quite honestly, I’m exhausted. Towson State threw the ball nearly every play and dropped it nearly every other time, so the clock moved about as slowly as humanly possible for a football game. Socked in the heat and humidity, and eventually playing to the point that the lights had to be turned on, many of the 31,000 didn’t even stay past halftime.
I’m off to bed now.
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Go Navy!
From the Annapolis Capital re: tomorrow’s home game against Townson.
I like seeing the C/D and E/F variants flying together. You get a good idea of the size difference between the two when they fly side by side.
PREGAME FLYOVER: FA-18F Super Hornets from Oceana, Va., will be featured at 3:30 p.m. Piloting the lead aircraft is Lt. Nate Spurr (Class of 2000) and his weapons system officer is Lt. Cmdr. Joe Ruzicka (1996). The wing aircraft is piloted by Lt. Melanie Byrd (2002) and her weapons system officer is Lt. jg. Jessie Grove (2003). The flyover also features two Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornets from the Knighthawks of Strike Fighter Squadron 136 out of NAS Oceana. The pilot of the lead aircraft is LT Pete Scheu (2002). The pilot of the wing aircraft is Lt. Ryan Segrest (2004).
The Knighthawks just recently returned from two back-to-back combat deployments with Carrier Air Wing One on board the USS Enterprise. During both deployments, the Knighthawks expended more than 15,000 pounds of ordnance in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
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The USCGC Dallas will soon be in Georgia
A US Coast Guard cutter will be arriving in the Georgian port city of Poti despite the presence of Russian forces throughout the outskirts of this Georgian city. Russians have called this plan ‘devilish’ and the amount of aid being delivered comparable to what you could buy ‘in a flea market’.
Stars and Stripes reports the Cutter Dallas is in the area and delivering aid, and while officials haven’t said which ship will goto Poti you can probably surmise there are not a lot of US Coast Guard ships in the region. The Dallas dates back to Vietnam where it shelled sampans with her five inch guns and also took part in US operations in Kosovo. The Dallas has also trained with many of the Naval forces of countries in the Black Sea so she has some familiarity with operations there.
Still, this is going to be an interesting few days.
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Humanitarian aid ship
By now you’ve probably heard the USS McFaul has arrived in port in Georgia as part of a three ship convoy of humanitarian supply ships. What I didn’t know until checking the website of the vessel is that both the Captain and Executive Officer on the McFaul were graduates of Ohio State. Not entirely sure if that is a good or a bad thing. On the one hand, they are probably used to dealing with a lot of stubborn jerks (i.e. their fellow students) so that will help with some of the attitudes they may encounter from the Russians, but on the other hand they might have graduated from the OSU on the ‘football plan’ and gotten most of their academic credits for things like “light bulb replacement theory” and “Ikea Wicker Basket management” or something.
Interesting to note one of the next ships in port will be the USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the 6th fleet and which is a command and control and Intel vessel. One suspects the leaders in Washington would like a little more on the ground intelligence coming back from the region rather than hearing about things second-hand.
Mount Whitney can receive and transmit large amounts of secure data from any point on earth through HF, UHF, VHF, SHF and EHFcommunications paths. This technology enables the Joint Intelligence Center and Joint Operations Center to provide the timely intelligence and operational support available in the Navy.
In other news from the region,
* A train full of fuel blew up after hitting a mine left on the railroad tracks.
* Russian troops have pulled out of the Senaki military base
* Russian forces remains in the port city of Poti
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