Navy wants commando ‘mothership’ in Middle East
AP - The United States amphibious assault ship USS Ponce sails through the Suez Canal in March 2011. If retrofitted as “the mothership,” the vessel could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs
The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.
In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show.
Special Operations forces are a key part of the Obama administration’s strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade.
Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, declined to elaborate on the floating base’s purpose or to say where, exactly, it will be deployed in the Middle East. Other Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region by early summer.
Navy documents indicate that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf, where Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for much of the world’s oil supply. A market survey proposal from the Military Sealift Command, dated Dec. 22 and posted online, states that the floating base needed to be delivered to the Persian Gulf.
Other contract documents do not specify a location but say the mothership would be used to “support mine countermeasure” missions. Defense officials have said that if Iran did attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, it would rely on mines to obstruct the waterway.
With a large naval base in Bahrain, and one or two aircraft carrier groups usually assigned to the region, the Navy has a substantial presence in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters. Adding the mothership would do relatively little to bolster U.S. maritime power overall, but it could play an instrumental role in secretive commando missions offshore.
The deployment of the floating base could also mark a return to maritime missions for SEAL teams, which for the past decade have spent most of their time on land in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Other details of the project became public Tuesday when the Military Sealift Command posted a bid request to retrofit the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport docking ship, on a rush-order basis.
Until December, the Navy had planned to retire the Ponce and decommission it in March after 41 years of service. Among other missions, it was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea last year in support of NATO’s air war over Libya.
Instead, the ship will be modified into what the military terms an Afloat Forward Staging Base. Kafka said it would be used to support mine-clearance ships, smaller patrol ships and aircraft.
The documents posted by the Military Sealift Command in December, however, specify that the mothership will be rebuilt so that it can also serve as a docking station for several small high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEAL teams.
Comments
can you play dodgems with aircraft carriers, Keith, and is that a part of the training they do, navel exercises, trying not to hit each other? LOL
Here is a real good take on the situationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxMnwKiK49U
Just the name itself is rather Uh? disturbing to me like "Juan Ponce de Leon"??
Still, Nice black ship of death.
it seems so utterly insane. the more I think and read about it and compare it to the sheer utter decency of plain ordinary people, let alone the teachings of the Andromedans and others I'm afraid I am shell shocked. it is too hard to contemplate the way these tow realities can operate side by side, yet be so radically different. I often wonder, Loraine if there is an ET intervention, in very very subtle ways, that will forestall this war. Those who are preparing for this are either brainwashed, ignorant, evil or downright insane-maybe all of these. I am tempted to say-get on with it, do your worst, and we can pick up th pieces, and start again, maybe you who control things won't be around then... in the end I am hopeful some brave people, white hats, in the US and Israeli military will sabotage and prevent this from taking pace, it can be done.
The election is getting close. They have to act before their window closes