B-5, You Sank My Battleship

Came across a bunch of military vessels on this journey. These two are particularly striking.

The first is a vessel that, when I was growing up, was the coolest destroyer ever devised, with the best weapon systems. This was before AEGIS, the American on-ship communication system, which is reportedly way better than anything else, but is in reality probably just an overhyped, poorly coordinated piece of software. Anyhow, it was sad to see this French destroyer turning into a rust bucket.

Once upon a time, this used to be the best of its class

The second is a vessel that was anchored off of Cannes. It's probably a transport or a destroyer tender, or maybe a submarine tender. I don't know where the French are sending their materiel -- not sure where, at the moment, the Frenchies are busy being ineffective and later surrendering -- but I suspect the most likely destination is Libya.

Where is the French tender #41 destined for?

The odd thing is that, any undergrad who has taken a course on computer vision can design an unjammable rocket that can autonomously find, lock onto, and destroy such ships. A Soekris board, a cheap webcam, and a simple kernel method for detecting corners is sufficient to aim at this poorly concealed boat. Surface ships are all essentially sitting ducks for any enterprising individual with a tiny amount of know-how. The American navy conducted war games to test its readiness against asymmetric threats, that is, threats from small groups of determined people with few resources. Instead of playing war games according to a pre-set scenario, kind of like a modern day version of the Moros y Cristianos festivals in Spain where the Moros are destined to lose every year, they brought in a retired admiral to head the asymmetric attackers. They would carry out his orders (say, "deliver message by bike messenger") in the field, during peace time (e.g. using a courier in this case), and use the actual success rate in the war game simulations. Within about a week, the admiral had destroyed or disabled all the surface ships of the once-famous Sixth Fleet, using small zodiacs, suicide attacks, light couriers, mopeds, motorcycles, fishing boats and RPGs. It was so embarrassing for the US Navy that they had to stop the games, resurrect their sunken boats, and change the rules on the admiral. Surface ships are passe. They have no chance of staying afloat in a real conflict against a determined force. So taking these pics felt like photographing endangered species.