Over the last few years, I've been involved with a series of meetups with people from the internet, first through the Data Secrets Lox forum and then for Naval Gazing itself. And those have been a lot of fun, so I thought I'd share the lessons I and some of the other key players have learned for doing large-group (10+ person) meetups with friends from the internet.

1. Have a Base

If you like these people enough to travel long distances to meet them, then you probably are going to want to talk to them, and you need a place to do that. Having a central location where everyone goes when not doing something else encourages hanging out and makes it a lot more fun. And having everyone gathered in one place when they aren’t doing something else makes a lot of your logistics easier. Read more...

It has been seven years since Naval Gazing started up, and it is once again time to celebrate both the US Navy and the fact that I keep finding things to write about.

The big event this year was our second meetup in New England, which was amazing. Thanks to everyone who came. I'm currently planning to do next year's back at Iowa. Check back here around the start of 2025 for more details. We should have the same catering crew, and an in-depth look at the greatest ship ever built. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

I recently got a report from a friend who went by North Carolina, and he spoke quite positively of the ship. They have a fair bit open, including an engine, turret, and fire control, and the signage was good enough to get his teenage daughters interested for a while. I do hope to get there myself soon, but in the meantime, hopefully this helps anyone who is thinking about visiting.

Overhauls are LA Maritime Sites, JDAM*, In Defense of Missile Defense and for 2023, Honda Point Part 3 and Conscription.

Reader theredlamb was kind enough to contribute this writeup of Air Mobility Command Museum.

Website

Dover Air mobility command museum is a small air museum that specializes in cargo and transport aircraft. The adjacent Dover Air Force Base donates some of their aircraft, and the rest have been delivered and restored from across the country. They have a wealth of information on their approximately 40 aircraft on the signs and on info cards that are available by the gift shop. The museum mostly focuses on planes, but there are a few small exhibits and displays in the main building. Read more...

While I was in DC for the recent DSL meetup, I ended up wandering around north of the Capitol building, and stumbled across a museum I hadn't even known was there. The National Guard Foundation has a museum charting the history of the National Guard and its predecessor state militia units about a block west of Union Station. And while it's not one of DC's superstar museums, it's certainly a nice enough place to spend half an hour or so, and an excellent companion to the Post Office Museum¹ across the street.

Website

First, for those who are confused, the US Army and Air Force are broken up into three components: Active, Reserve and Guard. The Active force is what it sounds like, full-time soldiers or airmen who do the job professionally. The Reserve is also pretty much what you'd expect, people who do one weekend a month and two weeks a year, but can be called up as needed. The National Guard is like the Reserves, but instead of being controlled by the Federal government, they are controlled by the states. Sort of. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

Overhauls are Secondary Armament Part 3, Secondary Armament Part 4, NWAS Trident Part 2, and for 2023, Norway Part 13 and Honda Point Part 2.

The Suez Canal was completed in 1869, and it was hailed as a technical triumph, linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and shaving thousands of miles off the trip between Europe and most of Asia. But it was initially a failure as a business, drawing only a tenth of the expected traffic in its first year. But things slowly improved as rates were cut and more shippers found the time saved to be worth the price. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to save Ismail's finances from the consequences of his borrowing binge, which by 1875 had reached nearly a hundred million pounds. Lenders were unwilling to extend further credit, so he was forced to unload his one remaining asset: his 44% stake in the Canal Company. It was expected that the French would buy it, but the British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, saw the value of the Canal to the British Empire and swooped in to buy Ismail's share on behalf of the British government. The government didn't have the 4 million pounds required, but it quickly secured a quite reasonable loan from Lionel Rothschild, and was soon the largest shareholder in the Canal.

But the money in question was a pittance against Ismail's debt, and a year later, he was forced to accept an Anglo-French commission to run Egypt's finances, effectively handing over control of the country to its bankers. Ismail was obviously unhappy and tried to retake his country, but his ministers began to turn on him and in 1879 he was deposed in favor of his son, Tewfik. Further indignities, like forcing Egypt to sell its 15% share of canal revenues, soon ignited Egyptian nationalism, which wasn't particularly happy with either the Europeans or the Turkish/Albanian upper class that dominated politics. The results were predictable, and in 1882, things spilled over into armed rebellion. The British, increasingly dependent on the Canal, sent the fleet, which ended up bombarding Alexandria. It was followed by an Army, which swiftly routed the Egyptians and turned Egypt into a de-facto British colony, although it was still formally part of the Ottoman Empire. The French, who had declined to join the intervention, were unhappy that the Canal was now under British control, and managed to get a treaty passed that declared the Canal to be neutral and open to ships of all nations. The British were not particularly happy about this, and the neutrality language would repeatedly find itself in tension with language allowing regulation in the interest of Egyptian security.² Read more...

By mid-1859, work was finally underway on the long-planned canal to unite the Mediterranean and Red Seas through Suez. Ferdinand de Lesseps, a disgraced French diplomat, had managed to overcome a tremendous tangle of financial and diplomatic obstacles to organize a company to build the canal, with the aid of Egypt's ruler, Said. The plan was relatively straightforward. While the final canal would run at sea level from Port Said in the north to Suez in the south, supplying water to workers in the desert would be extremely difficult, so another canal would be dug first, this one running from the Nile along the ancient canal route. Besides supplying the workers with water, it would also allow easier movement of material and allow irrigation of lands granted to the canal company by Said, which would help to finance the construction of the main canal. A great deal of work would also be required to turn Port Said into a suitable harbor for ocean-going ships.

Under the initial plan, the vast majority of this work was to be done by hand. Said had agreed to supply the company with labor from the corvee, an ancient practice where Egyptian peasants were liable for a certain number of days of unpaid labor each year. Corvee labor had built the Pyramids and the irrigation of the Nile Delta, and the Canal Company would be able to get its labor at far less than market rates. De Lesseps was concerned about how the wider world would react to his use of an institution that was essentially temporary slavery in a world where public opinion (at least outside the American South) was increasingly against any form of forced labor, but it was the only way to get sufficient manpower. At its peak, the company would have 60,000 peasants under the corvee, although only about 20,000 were actually working at any given time. And by the (admittedly fairly low) standards of forced labor, the workers were treated fairly well. They were actually paid a small wage, and the company was careful to make sure they were adequately supplied with food, water and medical care, although shelter was frequently lacking. The vast majority went home in good health, and some even chose to stay as paid labor when their term was done. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

I've found a couple of interesting things to read lately. First, a writeup of US satellite intelligence on the Kirov class, which covers several major topics here. Second, if you want to know about the continuing travails of the US icebreaker program, check out Sixty Degrees North, a substack that follows this in great detail.

Overhauls are my review of Mystic Seaport, The Arleigh Burke class, The Coast Guard and for 2023, VLS and Megasilverfist's review of the West Australia Shipwrecks Museum.

Man has traded across the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean for millennia, and with only a narrow stretch of land separating the two, the idea of completing a water connection between the two was equally ancient. In fact, the ancient Egyptians dug a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea, although the history of the so-called "Canal of the Pharaohs" is rather unclear. What is clear is that the canal was repaired and closed several times before finally being shut in 767 during a rebellion in Muslim-controlled Egypt.

The route of the Canal of the Pharaohs

For the next century, cargo traveling through the Red Sea crossed the isthmus of Suez by camel caravan, and the canal was largely forgotten until the French revolutionary government, in a Churchillian move, decided that the best way to attack the British was to have Napoleon invade Egypt. The expedition had a number of goals, including an offhand reference to cutting the isthmus of Suez, and it included a large contingent of academics, whose work laid the foundations of Egyptology. Their discoveries kicked off a mania for all things Egyptian that lasted through most of the 19th century, but those tasked with making a survey of a direct canal route made a mistake in their calculations, believing the Red Sea at high tide to be about 30' higher than the Mediterranean. Read more...