Bearing Straight

08/11/2026

Something funny for your afternoon 🫡

Ryan Szimanski
Iowa Class Battleships

06/06/2026

The GLEAVES-class Destroyer EMMONS (DD-457), the brightest star among several Navy stars during D-Day, 6 June 1944, which intervened directly, more or less as floating artillery for the Army, and helped save the day and send the liberation of Europe on its way.

The operational plan for Normandy was a hybrid plan meant to achieve surprise, so naval bombardment didn’t begin until D-Day itself. Unfortunately, the American assault on Omaha Beach unraveled quickly, largely because the pre-invasion air and naval bombardment was ineffective. At Omaha, US forces assaulted a well-entrenched, veteran German infantry division, which held the bluffs overlooking the beach, and were caught by 88s, mortars, and dozens of machineguns in enfilading fire. As the casualties piled up, threatening the success of the landing, the Navy ordered its destroyers to steam as close as possible to the beach, even at the risk of grounding, to support the men who were struggling to get ashore, establish a foothold, and advance inland.

What’s not well-known about D-Day is that the assault plan for the ...

05/11/2026

When in London… 🇺🇸 ⚓️ 🇬🇧

04/06/2026

03/19/2026

03/19/2026

Hello everyone, Jack here. As the Sales and Marketing Manager for the U.S. Naval Institute Press, I often find myself making choices for book covers - specifically the artwork and images used. But for the first time, an original piece of mine was used for a cover - on the new book, Rush to Disaster, coming this fall.

Rush to Disaster reexamines the 1963 loss of USS Thresher—the deadliest nuclear submarine disaster in history—using thousands of pages of newly declassified Naval Court of Inquiry (NCOI) records released through a landmark Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Written by a former nuclear commander, the book reveals how Cold War urgency, flawed assumptions, and institutional pressure combined to produce a catastrophe that reshaped submarine safety.

https://www.usni.org/press/books/rush-disaster

12/23/2025

With yesterday's announcement about the Navy's intention to build a new class of Battleships, we thought we'd look back at a discussion from earlier this year - where Jack Russell from the U.S. Naval Institute and Ryan Szimanski from Battleship New Jersey asked: What is a Battleship? Does this new class fit the description; or can a modern Battleship be whatever it wants, so long as its large and well armed?

Iowa Class Battleships

In this episode, we discuss the question - what is a Battleship? While the answer might seem obvious, its not as clear as we'd like to think. Follow us on Fa...

12/07/2025