US NAVY - Littoral Combat Ship Cut Plan Reopens Navy Rift

The two Littoral Combat Ship variants, LCS-1 Freedom (far) and LCS-2 Independence (near).

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.             on January 17, 2014 at 4:30 AM

CRYSTAL CITY: The Littoral Combat Ship was supposed to be one of the fastest things in the fleet, but it seems like the skeptics – and the sequester – have caught up with it. The question is, what’s next?After a Pentagon memo  recommended slashing the program by more than a third — from 52 ships to 32 — its backers came out swinging. “We have heard for the past 12 years about the importance of the LCS to our future Navy,” House seapower subcommittee chairman Rep. Randy Forbes said in a press release Thursday afternoon. “Although this platform has had its share of development difficulties, I believe it has a necessary role to play in the future fleet.”What’s more, LCS proponents have at least a year to reverse the decision. The Navy is locked into a long-term contract for Littoral Combat Ships that ends in fiscal year 2015 with the purchase of the 24th LCS. Short of breaking that contract and paying penalties, the Pentagon can do nothing to LCS in the budget it is currently preparing to send to Congress. “This year is another oversight year and next year is a decision year,” one Hill source told me. What will really decide the LCS’s fate is the next contract, which will be in the 2016 budget.It’s also possible that there could be no new contract and no 2016 money at all, which would end the program at 24 ships. The 32-ship number leaked this week certainly has the smell of an internal Pentagon compromise between going the full 52 and stopping dead at 24. Noted naval analyst, author, and LCS critic Norman Polmar still hopes the slam-on-the-breaks school will prevail: “24 might be a better total number for the current LCS program,” he told me in an email.Then there’s the bigger picture. However many Littoral Combat Ships are cut – and at least some will be in this brutal budget environment – the Navy needs to start thinking hard about what to buy instead. The deeper the cut, the faster they need to figure something out. Stopping LCS at 24 ships would have given the Navy only a year to figure out its next move. Even the 32-ship compromise means the last pair of ships would be bought no later than fiscal 2019, an eyeblink for developing a new warship design.“With 20 fewer LCSs in the plan, I presume the Navy must be looking at another small or medium-sized combatant,” Eric Labs, a naval expert at the Congressional Budget Office, said Thursday at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference. But what is the other ship? And for what purpose?LCS is meant to enter shallow waters — the littorals — in order to either clear minefields, hunt enemy submarines, or fend off fast attack boats, depending on which of three plug-and-play “mission modules” is fitted to the basic hull. (Just to complicate things further, there are two radically different hull designs: a kind of giant speedboat built by Lockheed Martin and Marinette Marine; and a spaceship-like trimaran built by General Dynamics and Austal).Are those three missions the right priorities?, asked Congressional Research Service analyst Ronald O’Rourke. If so, are they best done by the same ship? If so, should that ship be small and fast, like the LCS?“What’s amazing to me is just how often and how far way the discussion of LCS drifted from these central questions,” O’Rourke said. Much of the fault was the Navy’s. For a decade, he said, “the Navy continued to throw more missions into the discussion and to further confuse the issue of what it is we were really supposed to be trying to accomplish with this program.”But the mistakes began at the very beginning, O’Rourke went on: “The Navy, prior to announcing the LCS as its preferred solution for performing those missions, never performed a rigorous analysis of multiple concepts to show that a small, fast, modular ship was in fact the best and most promising way to do it.”So controversial was the small-and-fast approach, in fact, that some in the Navy dubbed the LCS the “little f*cking ship.” The Pentagon’s notoriously independent Director of Operational Test & Evaluation said the design was too small and too lightly built to keep fighting after it took a hit in combat — not a fatal flaw for the supporting roles it was meant to fill, but definitely a flaw.The LCS did get built — after massive initial cost overruns now under control — although maintenance problems have marred its performance, including electrical plant failures that left it adrift on its first overseas deployment. Now, after surviving all these problems and criticism, the program’s fate is again in question.Cutting the Littoral Combat Ship reopens a debate at the heart of the Navy: Should the fleet continue its traditional approach of buying a relatively small number of relatively large ships, like its current workhorse the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer, or buy more, smaller vessels, like LCS? In fact, LCS was itself a scaled-up version of the late Adm. Arthur Cebrowski’s “Streetfighter” concept, a vessel intended to be so small and cheap it was effectively expendable. In the information age, Cebrowski argued, you didn’t have to put all your weapons and sensors on a single big ship: You could have multiple small vessels linked by a network and working in concert. If any one of them got sunk, you had plenty more.Most Navy officers were aghast, unsurprisingly. Ever since the USS Constitution – “Old Ironsides” – with her famously cannonball-resistant hull, the US Navy has wanted ships that could take a hit and keep on fighting. The counterargument: In an era when a single suicide boat can cripple a destroyer (the USS Cole) or a single missile a frigate (the USS Stark), the Old Ironsides model just doesn’t apply anymore.“These two sides in the debate almost seem to be talking past each other,” O’Rourke said. “A key point of departure, a fork in the road that sends the groups down different paths, has to do with a fundamental difference they appear to have on future surface ship survivability.”The small-ship insurrectionists believe that bigger doesn’t mean much more robust, not in the face of modern weapons, and that incoming threats move too fast to stop. The Navy mainstream believes that size does matter and self-defense is possible. The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, in particular argues that ships can protect themselves in the 21st century if they limit their own tell-tale electromagnetic emissions, deceive enemy targeting systems with electronic jamming or cyber warfare, and as a last resort shoot down incoming missiles with anti-missile missiles of their own — or, in the future, lasers.That’s a debate that goes well beyond the Littoral Combat Ship and whatever comes after it. It also goes to how the Navy replaces its aging Arleigh Burke destroyers after it cancelled one replacement program and truncated the other, the DDG-1000, at just three ships. Upgraded Arleigh Burkes are now supposed to stay in service until 2072.The Navy is already contemplating a “Future Surface Combatant,” said Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, the Navy’s director of surface warfare (aka staff section N96). It will be “the later part of the ’20s when we’re going to start contracting for these… to replace our cruisers,” the aging Ticonderoga class, Rowden told the Surface Navy Association conference.The admiral had a slide of what the new vessel might look like, but he made clear fundamental choices were on the table. That includes questioning the Navy’s longstanding preference for large, versatile “multi-mission ships” like the current DDG-51s, he said. What he did not say was that the alternative would be something like the LCS, which can do only one mission at a time, depending on which mission module is currently aboard.One thing the Navy definitely does want is more electrical power to run everything from radars to jammers to future laser weapons and rail guns, as well as the ship’s propellers, off a single integrated system. “I think it is about integrated power on the right size ship. I think it is about the right weapons,” Rowden said. “I think it is about affordability, affordability, affordability.” For the foreseeable future, affordability 

Warga kapal KD Jebat selamat

KUALA LUMPUR: Kapal Frigat Tentera Laut Diraja Malaysia (TLDM) yang berpengkalan di Lumut, Perak, KD Jebat mengalami insiden pergeseran dengan kapal dagang tidak dikenali di 24 batu nautika Barat Laut Permatang Sedepa, Selangor, kira-kira 3 pagi tadi.

Jurucakap Jabatan Perhubungan Awam Markas Tentera Laut berkata, ketika kejadian anggota sedang membuat rondaan di Selat Melaka dalam keadaan hujan dan laut agak bergelora.

Katanya, akibat pergeseran itu, KD Jebat mengalami kerosakan kecil namun tidak menjejaskan pelaksanaan operasi.

"Semua warga kapal selamat dan tindakan pantas pegawai pemerintah serta kecekapan warga kapal berjaya menyelamatkan kapal daripada kerosakan teruk.

"Kami sudah menubuhkan Lembaga Siasatan bagi menyiasat punca sebenar kejadian dan kenal pasti kapal dagang berkenaan," katanya dalam kenyataan.

Pentagon Cuts LCS Buy to 32 Ships

Jan. 15, 2014 - 07:37PM   |  

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS  

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The littoral combat ship Freedom, left, and the future USS Coronado. (Navy)

WASHINGTON — The office of the secretary of defense (OSD) has directed the US Navy to limit its overall buy of littoral combat ships to a total of 32 ships, foregoing 20 more of the small, fast and controversial warships, Pentagon sources have confirmed.

The decision, in a Jan. 6 memo from Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox, came after the Pentagon received its final 2015 budget guidance from the White House. Several major acquisition decisions, including direction on what to do with the LCS program, were awaiting the numbers from the Office of Management and Budget.

The program of record calls for the service to build 52 littoral combat ships, built to two designs, one from Lockheed Martin and the other from Austal USA. Three of the ships are in service, and a fourth ship will be commissioned in April. Another 20 are under construction or on order, split evenly between the two prime contractors.

Asked for comment, Navy spokesman Cmdr. Ryan Perry said “we’ll continue to work with OSD on LCS acquisition plans.” No date has been announced for the submission of the 2015 budget to Congress, but it’s expected to take place no earlier than mid-February.

Over the past year, the Navy and OSD have debated cutting the LCS program — along with discussions about the future of virtually every significant defense acquisition program. Various alternatives have been put forth, including ending the buy at 24 ships. It’s believed that OSD’s initial guidance in January was to cut the program even further. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a strident defender of the LCS program, personally argued to restore at least a portion of the future ship buy, Pentagon sources said. One Navy source familiar with the situation declared that the decision to end LCS at 32 ships isn’t yet a done deal. “This isn’t over yet,” the source said.

The reduction is not surprising to the Navy, but it is a disappointment to many senior officials and officers who have defended the ships. Unlike most warships, LCS doesn’t carry a major load of weapons and sensors, but rather features a large mission bay and adaptable systems to accommodate a range of mission modules — equipment fashioned to perform specific warfare tasks such as anti-submarine or counter-mine missions. OSD has long harbored a variety of LCS critics, who each year have sought to limit the program’s scope. The concept, under development for over a decade, remains hotly contested within the Navy’s surface warfare community.

A major political feature of the LCS program was that the 52 ships represented a major portion — nearly one-sixth — of the 306-ship fleet. Among other issues, the Navy is in the earliest stages of thinking about what sort of ship might be useful and affordable instead of an LCS.

It’s also not clear that any decision has been made as to how the eight ships remaining to be ordered would be structured. Current plans call for two ships per year, one from each builder, starting in 2016. Options would include four ships per year, or a down-select to only one of the LCS designs. ■

M80 Stiletto next generation littoral combat vessel

The M80 Stiletto was developed for high-speed military missions in shallow, littoral and near-shore waters

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The future of offshore patrol could, however, lie in the design of the US next generation vessel - the M80 Stiletto.

Constructed with carbon-fibre materials, the M80 posses a unique hull design allowing the vessel to achieve speed, ride quality, payload capability and provision for unmanned vehicle support that is currently unmatched in the naval field.

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Related project

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M80 Stiletto Next-Generation Littoral VesselThe M80 Stiletto is a prototype naval ship manufactured by the M Ship Company, to meet specific requirements of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation.

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The vessel, currently in field trials conducted by the US Department of Defence, is designed for high-speed military missions in shallow, littoral and near-shore waters. The twin-M-hull vessel is capable of reaching speeds of up to 60kt, creating an air cushion by recapturing the bow wave and using its energy in order to produce less drag.

While also posing greater energy efficiency, fleet costs are reduced due to higher reliability of construction and maintenance, both sure to be increasingly attractive for a navy forced to contend with budget restraints.

The M80 has previously participated in Trident Warrior joint-force exercises and has seen action in Colombia, participating in shallow-water drug interdiction operations that resulted in the capture of 1,800lb of cocaine

see video M80

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http://bcove.me/qhyq6gcy

Holland Class Offshore Patrol Vessels, Netherlands

Holland Class offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) were built by Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding for the Royal Netherlands Navy. A series of four OPVs are named after Dutch coastal provinces.

The Royal Netherlands Navy deploys the OPVs in the Caribbean and the North Sea. The vessels can support international task forces in anti-piracy missions, counter-drug operations and block ships in coastal areas during crises.

With the ability to carry supplies and more than 100 people, the vessels can also carry out emergency missions.

Holland Class OPV design and features

"With the ability to carry supplies and more than 100 people, the vessels can also carry out emergency missions."

The vessel has a broad platform to provide stability in marine seas. Its stealthy design incorporates innovative techniques to reduce radar reflectivity. The body is built with thick steel, which has a lower tensile strength. It is heavier than the steel used for frigates and can resist the impact of small-calibre weapons.

The hull is stretched and the bridge and superstructure are placed aftwards, to help optimise the seakeeping capabilities of the vessel. The speed is cut down to reduce fuel consumption and increase the range of the vessel. Two rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) and one NH-90 helicopter are also carried to support interception operations.

The Holland Class is also equipped with a CAMS-Force Vision integrated fire control system and two monitors for non-lethal protection and fire fighting. The OPV also features a gas citadel, explosion-resistant structures, redundant and decentralised systems.

The vessel is fitted with highly automated systems, including a shore support and management system, calamity system, warning system and monitoring system. The patrol vessel has an overall length of 108.4m, a width of 16m and a draught of 4.55m. Displacement of the vessel is 3,750t.

The OPV can accommodate 50 ship crew members and up to 40 non-listed persons, including a helicopter detachment, law enforcement detachment (LED), a platoon of marines or a medical team. Approximately 100 evacuees can also be boarded. The ship can sail at a speed 21.5kt. Its maximum range is 5,000nm.

Holland Class offshore patrol vessel construction details

In December 2007, the Royal Netherlands Navy signed a contract with Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding in Vlissingen, the Netherlands, for the construction of four patrol vessels.

Construction was carried out in parallel, with the first two at Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding in Vlissingen, the Netherlands, and the remaining at Damen's sister shipyard in Galatz, Romania. The project cost was estimated at €467.8m ($687.9m). These ships were built between 2008 and 2012, and the fourth ship was built in 2013.

OPV guns and weapons

The main gun is a 76mm Oto Melara Super Rapid gun. It has a firing rate of 120 rounds a minute and a range of 16km. The vessel is also fitted with a 30mm Oto Melara Marlin WS gun, two 12.7mm Oto Melara Hitrole NT guns and two 12.7mm M2HB machine guns. The guns onboard can be remotely operated.

NH-90 helicopter facilities

The patrol vessel has a fully-equipped hangar to support the operations of a NH-90 helicopter. The helicopter is equipped with homing torpedoes and a sensor system. The sonar and radar on the helicopter allows it to make observations beyond the radar horizon of the OPV. Space is available under the helicopter to accommodate containers of relief supplies.

Holland Class OPV sensor technology

The OPV is the first vessel in the Royal Netherlands Navy to be fitted with Thales Integrated Sensor & Communication Systems (ISCS).

"The Royal Netherlands Navy deploys the OPVs in the Caribbean and the North Sea."

The system integrates communication and optical sensors, RF systems and radars.

The sensor suite includes a Sea Master 400 air warning radar, a Watcher 100 active phased-array surface detection and tracking radar, identification friend or foe (IFF) system, electro-optic or infra-red panoramic surveillance system, a combat management system, a command and information centre, a mine detection sonar, RADIAC sensors and an infra-red Gatekeeper / electro-optical warning system. The OPV can make observations within a range of 140nm.

Equipped with a combined electric or diesel (CODELOD) propulsion system, the patrol vessel is powered with two MAN 12V28/33 diesel engines rated at 5,400kW, fitted to a Renk gearbox.

Each propulsion system drives a Rolls-Royce controllable pitch propeller. The electric propulsion is principally deployed for low-speed missions and minimises fuel consumption, while maximising the vessel's endurance.

The keel for the first vessel, Hr Ms Holland (P840), was laid in December 2008. It was launched in February 2010 and commissioned in May 2011.

The keel for Hr. Ms. Zealand (P841) was laid in October 2009 and the vessel was launched in November 2010. Zealand commenced its sea acceptance trials (SAT) in August 2011. It was commissioned in October 2011.

The third vessel, Hr. Ms. Friesland (P842), was laid in November 2009 and launched in November 2010. The SAT for the Friesland began in September 2011 and was completed in November 2011. The vessel was commissioned in April 2012.

The keel for the last in the class, Hr. Ms. Groningen (P843), was laid in April 2010. It was launched in April 2011 and commissioned in November 2013.

The US Navy’s 2014: How they going to face challenges in 2014 and coming years? Subs, Cyber, & Cheap Support Ships

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on January 06, 2014 at 5:01 AM

The US Navy, is, hands down, the service in the best shape for 2014. Every act of belligerent idiocy from Beijing – and there’ve been a lot of them lately – makes the Navy budget an easier sell. In stark contrast to the Army, the Navy has the central role in the new Pacific-focused strategy, a high-tech threat justifying high-cost programs, a highly visible role in peacetime engagement around the world, and, perhaps most crucial, a clear set of missions.
Submarines are the spearhead of the Navy’s Pacific vision, but that’s not surprising given that the Chief of Naval Operations is a submariner. What’s less expected is how intensely Adm. Jonathan Greenert has gotten religion on electronic warfare and cyber, two things submariners historically don’t have to deal with. (Of course, the Navy boasts a redoubtable history as a service on the cutting edge of intelligence, which puts them squarely in the park for cyber operations.) Greenert sees those  as two sides of the same shield, a way for aircraft and surface ships to hide using the electromagnetic spectrum just as submarines have long hidden beneath the waves and under thermoclines.
The third point of Greenert’s trident is something unexpected not just for a submariner but for the Navy, which is traditionally obsessed with big, costly and highly capable combatants – battleships before 1941, aircraft carriers thereafter – at the expense of less exciting vessels. But Greenert is pushing for larger numbers of cheaper ships, ships he admits are less battle-worthy, to handle the low-threat regions of the world and thus free up the submarines, destroyers, and other high-end combatants to concentrate on the Chinese dragon.
In some ways, it’s actually easier to see what Greenert is doing from Beijing’s perspective than from Washington’s. Imagine yourself a People’s Liberation Army strategist standing on the shore of China looking east.
The first line of US naval forces confronting you, you can’t even see, though you know they’re out there: nuclear-powered submarines, especially the newer Virginia class that both the Navy and key Congressional backers insist the government must keep buying at a rate of two a year. China’s own sub fleet outnumbers but hardly outclasses the American ones, while China’s most dangerous weapons, its land-based missiles, can’t hit submarines. US subs can attack targets both at sea and ashore with a mix of missiles and torpedoes, and just as important they can spy, unseen, on Chinese forces – including, in the near future, by launching drones – and report back to the rest of the fleet.
The second line, at least, is on the surface – though Greenert’s emphasis on electronic warfare may well hide it behind a buzzing confusion of jamming and deceptive signals: the Arleigh Burke-class Aegis missile destroyers, which will be the workhorse of the fleet well past 2050. The surface ships are easier targets than the submarines but can carry far more missiles, not just for attack, but also for defense against incoming aircraft and ballistic missiles, making them important protectors of the fleet and bases on land.
Only in the third line do you get to aircraft carriers, shielded by the Aegis ships and by distance: While carrier advocates insist they can survive a war of long-range missiles, there’s enough doubt that few commanders would push them too far forward. That fact helps explain Greenert’s emphasis on new long-range and unmanned aircraft that can outrange conventional fighters.
Beyond these three lines containing China – or any lesser power that either replicates or purchases Chinese equipment – you’ll find the rest of the Navy doing missions around the world: amphibious warfare ships deploying Marines to disputed islands or disaster zones, Littoral Combat Ships clearing the seas of mines or small armed boats, and, increasingly, ships crewed not by Navy sailors but civilians.
“We have a need for 35 amphib[ious] ships,” Adm. Greenert told reporters at a US Naval Institute conference back in October, but the Navy just cannot afford that many. So to free up battle-worthy amphibs for missions in high-threat zones – say the South China Sea or the Persian Gulf – the Navy is increasingly building non-combatant ships to handle low-threat missions: the small Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), derived from an Australian ferry, and the large Mobile Landing Platform (MLP), derived from a commercial oil tanker. (Some MLPs will have flight decks, upgrading them to something called an Afloat Forward Staging Base or AFSB).
Operated by Military Sealift Command and crewed by civilians, the JHSVs and MLPs are cheaper substitutes for the amphibs and can perform just as well in peacetime missions like disaster relief or even wartime missions against poorly armed opponents. Said Greenert, “they resonate better with the type of operation that we are currently using very expensive high tech big capacity ships to do, when we could use a less expensive, very functional ship.”
Greenert thinks much the same way about the Littoral Combat Ship. Originally conceived as a close quarters “street fighter” for shallow water warfare, the LCS is instead becoming a kind of Swiss Navy Knife, equipped with plug-and-play equipment modules – still in development – that let it clear mines, hunt submarines, shoot down small fast attack boats, or, if you take the modules out, just carry stuff around at the same speed as the JHSV but with better protection. The LCS is significantly more fragile than an Aegis destroyer, an amphib, or even some of the older frigates it is replacing, but Greenert sees it as sufficiently survivable – and much cheaper – for most Navy missions around the world. That, in turn, lets him focus his limited number of high-end ships against the high-end threat.

Welcome 2014, Happy New year Mate

Previously i never failed to attend the new year celebration, at RMN Lumut  Officers Mess,  fully dress with Mess Kit and partner, invited artist and raffle draw  and saying goodbye to the current year with  most commonly sung song for English-speakers on New Year's eve, "Auld Lang Syne"  an old Scottish song.

This is a Navy event, so there is a bar to offer the beverages of choice.

Nowadays, fireworks show is most exciting especially with kids around.

But for one thing for sure, my perspective of coming years always positive and goodbye 2013..i never look back whatever passed by

I hope i can post better articles, more news and get more cooperation from other writer. 

Welcome 2014...

RM10 million lost in “sick project” to build Navy college

BY EILEEN NG
DECEMBER 02, 2013

The appointment of a contractor without going through proper procedures for a RM41.46 million Malaysian Navy college training centre has resulted in a loss of RM10.2 million, in what the Auditor General described as "projek sakit" (problematic project).

The 2012 Auditor General Report found that Syarikat Ijhraa (M) Sdn Bhd, a Class B contractor, was given "special permission" to participate in a tender project in May 2009 to construct KD Pelandok in Lumut, Perak.

Of the 43 companies who took part, nine were shortlisted. Syarikat Ijhraa was chosen despite not offering the lowest price and failing to adhere to procedures.

"Syarikat Ijhraa only submitted two of the four supporting documents that were required. The two documents that were not submitted were the audited balanced sheet and supervisor's project report.

"The audited balance sheet is required to determine the tenderer's capital capabilities.

"However, the procurement board opted for Syarikat Ijhraa because the tender committee had decided that the company can still be considered despite the absence of the two documents," the report added.

Syarikat Ijhraa was awarded the project in December 2009 but was only able to complete 55% of the project by the end of its extended deadline, which was in April last year.

The company's contract was finally terminated by the Defence Ministry and JJM Integrated was appointed to complete it at a cost of RM42.93, which was RM1.47 million more than the first tender.

This was on top of the 18 interim payments totalling RM8.73 million Putrajaya had paid to Syarikat Ijhraa, bringing the total loss to RM10.2 million.

As of September this year, JJM Integrated had completed 72.5% of the project.

In its reply on September this year to the Auditor General, the Defence ministry stated that the tendering process followed the computerised evaluation system procedures set up by the Public Works Department, which required that companies taking part in the exercise submit one of the four required supporting documents. – December 2, 2013.

Malaysian in US Navy corruption case

Malaysian Leonard Francis, nicknamed "Fat Leonard", is alleged to have used his US Navy connections to obtain military secrets by providing hookers, Lady Gaga concert tickets and other bribes to a US commander.

Francis is well-known to US Navy commanders in the Pacific, where his company has been servicing US warships for the past 25 years. CNN reported that the accusations unfolding in a Federal Court case in San Diego signalled serious national security breaches and corruption.

Navy commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz has been accused of using his position as deputy operations officer of the US Seventh Fleet to pass confidential information on ship routes to Francis's Singapore-based company, Glenn Defence Marine Asia Ltd (GDMA), according to court documents CNN obtained.

GDMA provides various shipping services including tugboats, security, transportation, supplies, fuel and waste removal.

CNN reported that the 46-year-old Misiewicz and Francis moved Navy vessels around like chess pieces, diverting aircraft carriers, destroyers and other vessels to Asian ports with lax oversight, allowing the latter to inflate costs.

GDMA is alleged to have overcharged the US Navy millions for fuel, food and other services it provided. Tariffs were also invented through the use of phony port authorities, court prosecutors read out in their charges.

CNN quoted retired Rear Admiral Terry McKnight as saying a lot of people are wondering how this could have happened.

McKnight, who does not have direct knowledge of the investigation, said it was a huge scandal when one person was being influenced by a contractor and dictating where ships were going to go.

Authorities have thus far arrested Misiewicz, Francis, GDMA's general manager of global government contracts, Alex Wisidagama, and a senior Navy investigator, John Beliveau. All four have pleaded not guilty and their defence attorneys have declined to comment.

The 44-year-old Beliveau has been accused of keeping Francis abreast of developments in the probe and advising him on how to respond in exchange for luxury trips and vice services, CNN reported.

Senior Navy officials have indicated that more people are likely to be implicated in the scandal.

There have been reports that other unnamed Navy personnel are mentioned in the court documents as receiving gifts from Francis, who is reported to be legendary in the military circle in the Pacific. The Straits Times reported that Francis is famous for his extravagance.

His 70,000sq ft bungalow in an upscale Singapore neighbourhood has been drawing spectators since 2007 to its lavish, outdoor Christmas decorations. The Straits Times described Francis's bungalow decorations as rivalling the island city's main shopping street with replicas of snowmen, lighted towering trees, and Chinese and Japanese ornaments.

McKnight told The Straits Times that Francis was a larger than life figure, saying you could ask any captain on any ship that has sailed in the Pacific and everyone knew exactly who Francis was.

The probe against Francis was initiated by Navy Criminal Investigative Service agents in 2010.

That was also the year Misiewicz caught the world's attention when he made an emotional return as a U.S Navy commander to his native Cambodia. Misiewicz had been rescued as a child from the violence of the Khmer Rouge and adopted by an American woman.

His homecoming was widely covered by international media and CNN reported that Francis was also recruiting Misiewicz for his scheme, citing court documents.

Misiewicz's family allegedly went to a Lion King production in Tokyo with a GDMA employee and was offered prostitution services.

Within months, court prosecutors said, the Navy commander was providing Francis with ship movement schedules for the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group and other ships. It was also alleged that shortly after that, the GDMA manager wrote to Francis saying "We got him!!:)".

Misiewicz referred to Francis as "Big Brother" or "Big Bro" in emails from a personal account while the latter would call him "Little Brother" or "Little Bro", according to court documents. GDMA is alleged to have bilked the Navy out of US$10 million (RM32 million) in just one year in Thailand alone.

The US has suspended its contracts with Francis who, along with the other three suspects, face up to five years in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery. – November 5, 2013.

The many faces of Leonard Glenn Francis

Fat Leonard

Born in Penang, he was nicknamed Fat Leonard, Lion King and Big Bro by those in navy circles because of his size.

He is more than 1.8m tall and weighs 158kg, according to court documents. His run-ins with the law have been just as big.

Malaysian newspaper The Star reported that he was sentenced to three years in jail and six strokes of the cane by the High Court in Penang on two counts of firearms possession in 1989.

He was only 21 when he was found with two revolvers.

Back then, Francis attended an expensive private school.

The paper reported that he was influenced by undesirable characters after he opened a pub.

That business left him in debt.

In mitigation, his mother claimed that she had neglected Francis and left him with the task of keeping an eye on his philandering father after she left home with his siblings.

Francis, who was described as an obedient son to his mother, was to make sure that his father did not bring other women home.

His differences with his father were stressful and could have resulted in Francis mixing with bad company when he was younger, according to veteran Malaysian lawyer C.V. Prabhakaran, who represented Francis years ago.

Huge case

Two admirals are under investigation and were placed on leave last Friday.

This follows the earlier arrests of two navy commanders and a senior Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent.

In addition, a captain was relieved of his ship's command last month in connection with the case.

Francis' company, Glenn Defence Marine (Asia), which provided naval logistics and "husbanding" services, has been accused of bribing these people.

He is listed as the director of Glenn Defence Marine, according to checks with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.

Apart from the US Navy, its clients include the militaries of countries like Argentina, Germany and India, according to its website.

Fat Leonard's role

Leonard Glenn Francis, or Fat Leonard, as he is known in navy circles, allegedly bribed officials with prostitutes, expensive holidays and tickets to concerts.

In return, they passed confidential information on ship routes to Francis' Singapore-based company, Glenn Defence Marine (Asia).

This allowed him to profit from his dealings with the US Navy.

Vessels were steered to specific Asian ports, such as Phuket in Thailand and Malaysia's Port Klang, where he would overcharge the navy for services, including providing fuel, tugboats, sewage disposal and wharfside security.

Francis eluded arrest for years because he had also bribed officials for information on law enforcement probes and contract audits.

So far, two navy commanders and an agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have been arrested. Two admirals were placed on leave on Friday.

The US Navy's chief spokesman, Rear Admiral John F. Kirby, told the Washington Post last week that more navy officials are expected to be implicated in the scandal.

NCIS started its probe in 2010.

Francis was arrested in San Diego in September after federal investigators lured him to the US on the pretext of a business meeting with navy officials.

Another Glenn Defence Marine executive, Alex Wisidagama, was arrested as well.

Francis is being held without bail after prosecutors argued that he posed a flight risk.

Role in bribery scandal

Arrested

Navy Commander Michael Misiewicz

• Provided classified information about where US ships would port.
• Recommended that ships visit ports preferred by Leonard Glenn Francis.
• Received kickbacks like tickets for his family to a Lion King show in Tokyo, prostitutes, free travel and tickets to a Lady Gaga concert.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agent John Beliveau

• Collected information on a US probe into Glenn Defence Marine (Asia) and passed it to Francis.
• Received kickbacks such as a threeweek trip to Asia, prostitutes and a laptop for his girlfriend.

Navy Commander Jose Luis Sanchez

• Provided classified information about ship movements to Glenn Defence Marine (Asia).
• Partied with navy friends and prostitutes in hotels across Asia, all paid for by Francis.

Placed on leave

Vice-Admiral Ted "Twig" Branch, the service's top intelligence officer, and Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless, the US Navy's director of intelligence operations.

• Under investigation as part of the scandal involving Glenn Defence Marine (Asia). They no longer have access to classified material.
• The Navy said their alleged misconduct occurred before their current assignments and before they became admirals, reported the Washington Post.

Who steered ships toward 'Fat Leonard'?

A few middle managers drive lucrative ship schedules UT St Diego

By Jeanette Steele8:09 P.M.NOV. 18, 2013

While Navy officers seem to be dropping right and left in the “Fat Leonard” Asia bribery scandal, people familiar with how port calls work say only a few middle-management paper-pushers really drive ship schedules, and all the money that follows in their wake.

Leonard Francis

Malaysian businessman Leonard Francis, charged in federal court in San Diego with bribing Navy officers, appears to have targeted the Navy’s soft center: deskbound administrators.

Retired Navy officers say the scenario of a few well-placed bad apples makes more sense than widespread graft among Navy skippers docking in Asia.

“I think Leonard pushed, pushed, pushed, and he eventually found a couple of guys who were seduced into behavior that they had to know was grossly inappropriate,” said retired Capt. Kevin Eyer, a San Diego resident who commanded three Navy cruisers during his career.

“I actually do find all of this to be outrageous and surprising and it really does challenge my imagination. Do I believe it happened? I do.”

U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy alleges that Francis defrauded the Navy of millions of dollars since at least 2009 with the help of Cmdrs. Michael Misiewicz and Jose Luis Sanchez, mid-level officers on the operations and logistics staff of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in Asia.

They allegedly steered ships to ports where Francis’ company has a stronghold or gave him ship schedules and behind-the-scenes details of Navy contracting strategy. Francis — known in Navy circles in Asia as “Fat Leonard” because of his size — and Sanchez have hearings in downtown San Diego on Wednesday and Thursday.

A Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent in Virginia, John Beliveau, has also been charged. He is alleged to have leaked details of the investigation to Francis.

The scandal rocketed up the Navy chain of command Nov. 8 when a three-star and a two-star admiral were implicated, stripped of classified access and placed on leave, though not charged.

The Navy won’t say what the allegations against Vice Adm. Ted Branch and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless are, just that they pertain to jobs held before they donned stars.

The word around Navy circles is that ship skippers who made port calls in Asia are being scrutinized, as they have advance notice of ship movements and can ask for certain port calls.

Branch commanded the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Nimitz in 2004 and 2005, back when he was a captain.

In early October, the Navy removed Capt. Daniel Dusek as skipper of the Japan-based amphibious ship Bonhomme Richard. The reason given was a U.S. Justice Department investigation that “negatively affected Dusek’s leadership ability and was a distraction.” Insiders say it was the bribery investigation.

There is some concern the case might become overblown and result in guilt by association.

“Here’s the problem that I worry could happen. Let’s say our last night in port we got invited to a dinner party. It’s somebody from the embassy and the husbanding agent (Francis’ job) was there,” said one retired three-star admiral who spoke on background because of his current job.

“I’m thinking back on this 15 years later, I didn’t pay any attention to who paid the bill. It could have been the husbanding agent who paid.”

According to federal complaints Misiewicz and Sanchez took more than just a free chicken dinner.

The two officers allegedly got cash, luxury trips, prostitutes and even Lady GaGa and Lion King tickets.

Francis and his company Glenn Defense Marine Asia apparently first targeted Misiewicz when the officer was skipper of the Mustin, a Japan-based destroyer.

But a Glenn Defense manager — the unnamed former Navy officer “EA” identified in court papers as a San Diego resident — already knew Misiewicz’s next assignment was deputy operations officer for the Seventh Fleet.

In that job, beginning in January 2011, Misiewicz had his hand on the deployment schedules of U.S. ships, subs and aircraft from Japan to Russia to Australia.

“We are changing faces, but keeping our lines of communications with C7F (commander, Seventh Fleet),” the manager wrote to Francis in an email.

Who was the prior “face” at the Navy’s headquarters in Asia?

Sanchez was deputy logistics officer there from April 2008 to April 2010, leaving one month before Glenn Defense began grooming Misiewicz.

The difference between an aircraft carrier pulling into Yokosuka, where it docks at a military base, and pulling into one of Francis’ “pearl ports” is pretty big money.

For example, in early January 2012 the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln visited Laem Chabang, Thailand, instead of Manila in the Philippines.

According to court documents, Misiewicz told Francis in an email that he was “fighting hard” to keep the carrier on course for Laem Chabang, where Glenn Defense was the big player.

Francis’ company invoiced the Navy $884,000 for services such as food, fuel and cars during that stop, of which $500,000 is alleged to be overbilled.

The calculus of port visits is fairly complicated, according to retired officers.

A ship on a six-month deployment will get roughly seven port calls. The skipper can ask for his preferred ports — Hong Kong and Phuket, Thailand, for example. Like his sailors, the ship’s commanding officer wants fun towns with lots to do during his time off.

But political considerations also come into play. U.S. interests dictate that American warships stop at ports where diplomatic ties need to be tended to, such as Vietnam. Other port calls, such as in Yokosuka and Guam, are working breaks that might include meetings and ship maintenance.

In Asia, the final itinerary is handed down from Seventh Fleet. The Navy’s local Fleet Logistics Commands oversee long-term ship services contracts with companies such as Glenn Defense.

A career supply officer, Sanchez went on from his Seventh Fleet job to work in Fleet Logistics Command units in Singapore and Yokosuka.

As of June 2011, Francis’ company had three regional contracts to provide services around Southeast and East Asia, the Pacific Isles and Australia.

Since the arrests began last month, the Navy has canceled nine Glenn Defense contracts worth $200 million and blocked future business.

Retired officers familiar with Navy operations in Asia say middle managers such as Misiewicz and Sanchez usually do the grunt work of ship scheduling. Officers above them would sign off without too much scrutiny.

However, given the political importance of some port calls, alarm bells may have gone off high up if certain locations became frequent stops without good reason.

“If all of a sudden everybody was going to one or two ports, red flags would start going off at the admiral level right and left,” the retired three-star said.

Former officers say it’s likely that the Fat Leonard scandal is now discussed almost daily at the highest levels of the Navy.

The current chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, was commander of the Seventh Fleet from 2004 to 2006.

Greenert’s spokesman said on Monday that the admiral has met Francis, as he met many Navy supporters during his time in Asia.

“It was not uncommon for CNO to see Mr. Francis at official events in Southeast Asia or aboard USS Blue Ridge,” the Seventh Fleet command ship, Capt. Danny Hernandez said in an email.

But several people interviewed for this story don’t think that the bribery scenario — despite its lurid details about prostitutes being ordered for “wolf packs” of naval officers — will be as big a black eye as the Navy’s 1991 Tailhook debacle.

That scandal, when groups of drunken aviators groped women in a hotel corridor, went on to color the careers of hundreds of Navy fliers. Just admitting that you had attended the Tailhook convention was said to be problematic for advancement.

“It makes you feel bad that people in the Navy would do this kind of stuff for not a lot of money, really,” said retired Rear Adm. Terry McKnight, who commanded amphibious ships during his career. “It just makes it look bad on the service.”

But, he added, “Tailhook, there were (many) people at Tailhook. I think this is an isolated incident where a couple people went wrong. These admirals … I have no idea why they were brought down, but I think it’s just a few people.”