Uniform Disasters; Back to the Future

Thirteen years ago, I first began writing about the stupidity that was the change to the Navy's working, ie, shipboard uniforms. I bemoaned the adoption of Aquaflage then, then the stupidity of its replacement, namely, camoflague uniforms on board a ship.

In most of the posts, I bemoaned the stupidity of the decisions of the Navy's Uniform Board and called to go back to what had worked for decades: Dungarees and blue chambray shirts for junior enlisted, wash khakis for chiefs and officers. Not that anyone pays attention.

But the Navy was listening to someone. For the third time in thirteen years, the Navy is changing its working uniform to something called "2POC", which isn't a second privately-owned car (or a rapper), but an outfit comprised of trousers and an untucked tunic. They'll be... wait for it.... blue for junior enlisted and khaki for chiefs and officers.

In its benevolence, the Navy is going to give two, count 'em, two free uniforms to the sailors. And when they deploy, they'll get a third.

Good luck with that, guys. Working uniforms can get trashed pretty easily, but on the other hand, from how a lot of Navy ships look these days, they're not out chipping paint and preserving the ship. Still, two or three working uniforms aren't going to go very far.

But it's a start. Maybe, in six years or so, the Navy will get a fucking clue and go back to what worked for so long.

The “Joey Boat" is Still On Duty

ROCS Lan Yang (FFG-935) is the former USS Joseph Hewes (FF-1078).

I've mentioned her here and showed a photo of her during a port visit to Barcelona in the 1970s here.

The Taiwanese have heavily modified the Knox-class ships that they received. I have no doubt that they've probably rearranged some of the internal spaces. Long-term crew habitability might have been sacrificed, for it's not as though any of the ROCN ships make six-month deployments. But I'll bet that I could still find my way around one.

Attache

(NB: This story is at least third-hand, so I can't vouch for it.)

This is no shit:

Over forty years ago, there was a coup in Liberia. The president was reportedly murderd in his bed. Most of the senior officials were given an essentially meaningless trial and executed.

Liberia, then and now, was one of the more favored nations for flags of convenience. As an aside, all merchant ships have to be registered in one nation or another and they are supposed to operate under the rules of that nation. Liberia was somewhat rumored to have the rule that the only effective regulation was paying the fees for use of the Liberian flag.

The post-coup government of Liberia was basically a bunch of heavily armed amateurs. At one point, they discussed the matter of the Liberian-registered mechant fleet with officials from the American embassy. The Liberians announced that they planned to order every Liberian-registered ship to sail to Monrovia for inspection. One of the American officals, possibly the naval attache, said that would be a bad idea, for the ships would merely paint out "Monrovia" on their sterns, paint "Balboa" and hoist the Panamanian flag before the day was out.

The Liberians were shocked. One of them said that would be illegal.

The naval attache shrugged and observed that it was also illegal to shoot the president.

That argument carried the day.