A fire aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport ship USS New Orleans (LPD-18) has, after 12 hours, been extinguished according to the U.S. Navy 7th fleet. The ship was anchored in the harbor at Okinawa at the time of the fire and it at least appears that the marines were not currently on the ship, however 2 sailers received minor injuries during the incident and were treated on board.
Video during the efforts to control the fire as tugboats cool down the metal of the hull with water.
The crew fighting the fire was assisted by sailors from another San Antonio-class amphibious transport ship, USS San Diego (LPD-17) which was moored at the White Beach Navel Facility. The crew was also assisted by the Japanese Coast Guard and military.
At this time the cause of the fire is still under investigation. The ship remains in Nakagusuku bay.
The New Orleans is apart of the Navy’s forward-deployed amphibious forces based in Japan.
The fire began at 4:00 PM on August 20th. Judging by where the tugs are spraying it appears the fire started near the living spaces and stores of the ship.
The navy overhauled how it fights fires after a 2020 fire on the big deck amphibious warship, USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) burned for four days and resulted in the total loss of the ship.
Yesterday, the Chinese PLAN (People’s liberation, Army Navy) claimed that they expelled a U.S. Navy Destroyer that entered its territorial waters near the Scarborough Shoals in the South China Sea.
Here’s the facts we know. The U.S. Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG-76) previously located at Cebu City in the Philippines sailed near the disputed territory around the Scarborough Shoal during a freedom of navigation patrol. This was two days after a Chinese coast guard cutter collided with a Chinese guided missile destroyer while chasing a ship from the Filipino coast guard. USS Higgins came within 12 miles of Huangyan Island (another name for Scarborough Shoal) , a highly disputed territory claimed by China, Taiwan, and the Philippines. It should be noted that the Philippines coast guard said that an Independence-class Littoral combat ship , the USS Cincinnati was also nearby.
The Chinese say that they forced the patrol to leave the area. The U.S. disputes this saying nothing thr Chinese said or did affected them in any way.
“China’s statement about this mission is false,” a spokesperson for U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement. “USS Higgins (DDG-76) conducted this FONOP in accordance with international law and then continued on to conduct normal operations. The operation reflects our commitment to uphold the freedom of navigation and lawful uses of the sea as a principle. The United States is defending its right to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as USS Higgins did here. Nothing China says otherwise will deter us.”
The spokesperson for U.S. 7th Fleet said that the Freedom of Navigation Operation challenged the prior requirement of a notification and authorization that China and Taiwan seek before a warship makes an innocent passage in their territorial sea.
A FONOP or Freedom of Navigation Operation is a naval operation carried out by the U.S. to assert the right of free transfer through an area. usually, heavily disputed area. “The unilateral imposition of any authorization or advance-notification requirement for innocent passage is unlawful,” the spokesperson for the Japan-based fleet said in the statement.
This video which I believe is filmed by a PLA helicopter or drone shows a Chinese Type-055 guided missile destroyer shadowing the USS Higgins (DDG-76) a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-Class destroyer. We also see the USS Cleveland (LCS-31) a Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship that was also in the region.
A Chinese SU-27 is also briefly shown in the footage.
Early reports are coming out about a US Navy F-35C that has crashed in the area. The jet was out of Naval Air Station Lemoore in Central California and was apart of VFA-125, The ‘Rough Riders’. VFA-125 is a navy training squadron teaching pilots how to fly the F-35.
Report from California Highway Patrol indicating the jet thag crashed was an F-35.
Details are still coming in but CBS news reports that the crash happened sometimes around 6:30 PM in a small field near the NAS. Fire fighters announced later that 10 acres of grass had been burned because of a small fire caused by the crash.
The area being reported as the site of the crash.
We have no info on what caused the accident but we do know that the pilot safely ejected. The Navy will launch its investigation as soon as possible.
Analysis
The F-35 with all of its stealth and technical advancements is certainly a wonder of modern engineering. It’s basically a supercomputer that flys. That being said, it’s also highly distracting to fly, according to current and former pilots with experience with the airframe. The F-35 is capable of presenting a large amount of data to its operator. Pilots have reported that the overload of data can cause some distraction and a feeling of being overwhelmed. This is a completely personal opinion, but I’ve long pondered how much the F-35 would have benefited from being a two-seater and implementing a Weapons/Systems Officer to help with the workload.
The multi-mission and networked super speed information transferring capabilities of the jet gives you so much data, that pilots can become distracted trying to take it all in. We don’t know that this is what’s happened, it probably wasn’t, but I wanted to mention it. More than that, the jet has also had mechanical and software problems that have contributed to issues in the past. I won’t try to say for sure what happened but keep it mind that, sometimes, student pilots crash airplanes. We will know more after the investigation.
F-35 Cockpit
Update
“NAS Lemoore can confirm an aviation incident on the Operations side of the installation. At 1830, an F-35C attached to the VFA-125 “Rough Raiders” went down not far from NAS Lemoore. NAS Lemoore can confirm the pilot successfully ejected and is safe. There are no additional affected personnel. The cause of the incident is under investigation.”
I know I’ve been radio silent for a little while now. I’ve been filling for my boss at work as she recovers from a knee surgery so I haven’t had a lot of time during the day to write as I usually would. But things are clearing up and you’ll be hearing more from me.
According to US President Donald Trump, the attack last night at about 2:00 am (local time) on three of Iran’s nuclear sites was a success. Speaking to Fox News an hour or so after the attack Trump said that a total of six of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator- a 30,000 pound, GPS guided, “bunker buster” on Fordow others were used elsewhere. The bombs were dropped by USAF B-2 Spirit stealth bombers into Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. It was later reported that 7 bombers total took part in the strike, as well as a support package provided by CENTCOM.
The Natanz and Isfahan Nuclear facilities were hit with 30 BGM-109 “Tomahawk” land-attack cruise missiles (TLAM) fired from the USS Georgia (SSGN 729).
The result, Trump claims, was the complete destruction of all three plants.
Satellite images from the awesome people over at Planet labs shows us the impact spot for the GBU-57’s.
Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility several months ago. Fordow image taken today, the morning after the attack 06/22/2025) .
These next images show the spot a little better. From Maxar.
This one clearly shows the impact crater where the bomb burrowed its way through the soil and into the mountain. The ridge of the mountain is different in this video showing just how destructive the blast actually was.
This last image below is from Maxar as well and shows the 6 holes left by the bunker busting behemoths as they slammed through the mountain.
You can see the entrance holes from six individual bomb in this zoomed in image of the site. The holes are in two groups fairly close together.
In this image we can see just how accurate a B-2 launched GBU-57 MOP really is. Being GPS guided, they can almost put one in the hole left by one of the others. As a B-2 can carry two of these bombs it would appear that at least three of the stealth bombers took part in this strike. My thinking is that the two made their individual drops and the third one put one more on top of each group. Total it’s being reported that 14 of the bunker busting bombs were used according to Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Cain.
In the weeks and days leading up to the strikes satellite images show a large number of trucks in site leading analysts to believe that a large portion of the valuable equipment had been moved from Fordow. In the following pictures 16 trucks can be seen with heavy equipment located near the entrance.
The strikes were proceeded by a reported heavy wave of GPS jamming and other electronic interference. I haven’t heard exactly what support craft took part in this mission. The F-35 is capable of Electronic Warfare as is the EA-18G Growlers flying from the US aircraft carriers in the region. The electronic jamming added to the stealth feature of the bombers and Iran reportedly never got a shot off at them. Another suspected factor that’s come up is that it’s being reported that Israel destroyed the air defense around Fordow, specifically, at the request of the U.S. administration. This is a closer coordination between the two countries militaries than most suspected, given some of the recent comments through the media. Israeli officials had stated just hours before the attack that Israel would not wait for the two week deadline that Trump gave himself to make a decision.
That decision was apparently made in the very last minutes as the bombers were in the air over Iran, US president Donald Trump have the order to SECDEF Pete Hegseth to bomb the facilities.
In the aftermath of the strike Iranian officials were livid. Iran’s foreign minister accused Washington of crossing “a very big red line” and that the U.S. would face consequences. US officials, like SECDEF Pete Hegseth messaging on this has remained focused on the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, as they try to separate Americas goals from those of Israel who likely seeks complete regime change.
“the United States is not at war with Iran….We are at war with its nuclear ambitions,”
US Vice President JD Vance.
Iran responded to the attacks by launching a ballistic missile attack in Tel Aviv several hours later, one of the largest since the start of hostilities.
Israel today, has continued its strikes on Iran with reports of strikes in Tehran as well as Tabriz.
Thanks for reading. Your support is always appreciated and your shares of my articles and post helps grow this page giving us more resources to continue to out back into it. As GCR continues to grow I’m looking to expand into making a podcast. If you know anybody with knowledge or experiences that are relevant to what we write about here let me know. -Scott
The U.S. Air Force has sent several F-15 fighters to the base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The fighters are being deployed to help protect the isolated base as well as the important strategic asserts currently deployed there.
In recent months the base has been the subject of many talks as the arrival of a number of long range strategic bombers was noted by analysts. Satellite imagery taken in late March shows at least 4 B-2 Spirit long range stealth bombers.
Image taken in late March showing some of the B-2s as well as the refueling aircraft.
The bombers were used to strike targets in Yemen before the White House announced thag the U.S. had completed its mission in the region (to the dismay of Israel and several other American partners in the region).
The B-2s have reportedly since left the base but for a time their presence overlapped with that another titan of American air power, 4 B-52H’s that are currently still stationed at the base as of writing.
At the time this article was started their was believed to be 4 F-15’s that had been moved to the Indian Ocean to help protect the island base and the bombers however TWZ (Who originally broke this story) have since wrote another article and added two more fighters bringing the total to six. While official sources decline to state where the F-15s were moved from, open source trackers believe the jets came from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. This belief comes from watching the flight tracking data. While fighter jets don’t usually broadcast their live position through ADS-B, the refueling aircraft often do and can be tracked.
Kadena airbase in Japan is located 4,000 miles away from the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.
Last month Kadena received a contingent of F-15E’s forward deployed from the 336th Fighter Squadron (FS) (Also called the Rocketeers) at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. Their relatively close proximity to an otherwise remote island makes them ideal candidates for this ACE force protection mission.
“As the Keystone of the Pacific, Kadena is a pivotal hub for Agile Combat Employment (ACE),” from an Air Force press briefing on the deployment of the 336th to Kadena.“The 18th Wing will continue to receive rotational units that strengthen capabilities, such as ACE, and project combat power in concert with allies and partners.”
From The War Zone on ACE (From the article that originally broke this story).
‘ACE is a term that currently refers to a set of concepts for distributed and disaggregated operations centered heavily on short notice and otherwise irregular deployments, often to remote, austere, or otherwise non-traditional locales.’
Diego Garcia is one of the most “Austere or otherwise non traditional locales” while still being critically important to Department of Defense operations in the region. While remote the base is used for multiple different DoD needs such as hosting space force activities, being an important navy port(Especially to the nuclear submarine fleet) and using its lagoon as a shelter for the Sealift Command Prepositioning Ship Squadron.
While the bases remote location protects it from attack, some have suggested that Iran would be capable of hitting the base using missile carrying smaller warheads. Besides Iran, other peer and near-peer adversaries and potential adversaries have the ability to carry out longer range strikes using bombers, drones or missiles, making the presence of these fighters a welcome sight.
The War Zone originally broke this story, go check them out, their articles have always been a huge inspiration and they do some really amazing work.
Thank you for taking the time to read and for your constant support. I wouldn’t be here without you all. To further support my work I would invite you to sign up for my Patreon, where I will be releasing some podcast episodes very soon. Membership and access to the podcast is $1 a month. I wanted to keep it cheap as a thank you for joining me on this adventure and allowing me to do what I love.
Today according to the U.S. Navy an F/A-18 Super Hornet was lost overseas from the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). The jet and its two aviators were attempting to land when an “arrestment failure” occurred. The plane failed to catch it wire or the wire broke, either way the plane went off the end of the ahip causing the pilot and weapons officer to eject into the Red Sea.
Both pilot and weapons officer were picked up by a rescue helicopter from the Truman. They suffered minor injuries but are alive. The jet was not recovered.
This is the second loss of a Super Hornet this week. The first was caused by an accident during a high speed turn where the hanger crew lost control of the jet and a towing trailer. No injuries reported there.
Super Hornet and towing tractor.
The Truman was also reportedly fired upon earlier on Tuesday according to CNN. This was in the hours before the ceasefire was announced. I don’t believe the two events from today are related.
The F/A-18 cost around 70 million dollars.
Reached out to centcom for a statement, I’ll update with a response if received. I’ve had good luck when emailing them but it’s hit or miss with the DoD.
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After a months long bombing campaign against the Iranian backed Houthi terrorist in western Yemen, the White House has today announced that those strike will stop immediately. This was announced after Houthi leadership made contact with the U.S. leadership and according to trump agreed to stop striking ships in the Red Sea. This puts a close to “Operation Rough Rider” under president Trump as well as hundreds of strike carried out by the former Biden administration.
The announcement was made during Trump’s meeting with Canadian PM Mark Carney. The conversation with the Houthis had been had the night before.
“They have capitulated, but more importantly … we will take their word,” Trump said. “They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”
It’s very likely Iran played a part in this turn. Possibly telling the Houthis to cease their actions against shipping following threats from the U.S. during the ongoing negotiations.
Trump wouldn’t say specifics on who he talked to only that the k do that the Houthis would be backing down came from “a good source”. The Houthis, reeling from yesterday’s attack by Israel released this statement yesterday.
“The operations of our armed forces will continue and the support by Yemen to Palestine will only end with the end of the aggression and siege against Gaza,” -Houthi statement from Al Masirah TV.
While the U.S. has agreed to stop bombing the Houthis, Israel is another matter and have carried out more strikes since what was reported yesterday. Locals in Yemen as well as the IDF report the bombing of Sana’a airport as well as various power stations, and another concrete factory. Videos included below.
CRAZY FOOTAGE 🔴
Full footage of the aftermath at Sana’a International Airport following IDF strikes.
Video showing the full footage of the aftermath of the attack on Sana’a international airport.
🚨 Breaking: Reports from Yemen that the entire international terminal of Sanaa Airport, including all airplanes there, have been destroyed pic.twitter.com/ehpwgh3Car
The U.S. has brought in a large amount of military assets to carry out its attacks against the Houthis. Currently from the navy two aircraft carriers are operating in the region, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and USS Harry S Truman (CVN 75), these ships are both escorted and supported by numerous destroyer squadrons and several cruisers, not to mention their air wings. Several other destroyers have been ordered to the region and are operating separately of the carrier strike groups. Also USS Gettysburg (CG-64) and USS Princeton (CG-59) both Ticonderoga class guided missile cruisers have also been ordered to the region as apart of Operation Prosperity Guardian and have been used to strike Houthi targets as well. At least one Ohio class submarine USS Georgia (SSGN-729) has been spotted in theater as well. The Air Force has sent a large number of planes to the region included F-35s and F-22s as well as B-2 Spirit bombers stationed at Diego Garcia. As of several hours ago a pair of B-52s were heading towards the region from the continental US. It’s likely at least some of these assets will remain in the CENTCOM area of responsibility as negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program continue. The White House and Trump have threatened to use military force if the negotiations fail.
Image from USNi news shows the current general location of the U.S. aircraft carriers.
The Truman just several days ago had its deployment to the Middle East extended by another week, to continue to keep up a high tempo of attacks against the Houthis. This could possibly be extended further if negotiations are unsuccessful.
After writing this it was announced that Oman had carried out the negotiations between the Houthis and the US. They had been the go between in the conversation which led to the U.S. ceasing it’s military strikes.
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