Yeah, but that doesn't make announcing "Hey potential enemies, here's something you'll probably want to attack" a good idea. If I was running a country or group being attacked by the US, that'd be the first target I'd try to take out.
Maybe they're actually going to break it into a bunch of smaller ships.... but that would be stupid, not to mention a massive waste of resources. Oh fuck, they're actually going to break it into a bunch of smaller ships, aren't they?
The USS Ponce? Guessing ponce doesn't have the same meaning in the US it does in some other English speaking countries?
USS Ponce (LPD-15), an Austin-class amphibious transport dock, is the only ship of the United States Navy that is named for Ponce in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which in turn was named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, the first governor of Puerto Rico and European discoverer of Florida. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ponce_(LPD-15)
Scuba diver with a limpet mine. A single approaching human diver in the midst of the ocean is almost impossible to detect. Even if sonar can pick him up he would be indistinguishable from a large fish.
Back when I was a young Lieutenant, the Marine Corps had fairly recently come up with some revolutionary doctrine--not the least among them OMFTS (Operational Maneuver From The Sea). The whole idea was that the Navy would have these big floating sea bases that you would conduct over the horizon maneuver from. They already had the Navy's LCACs--fast hovercraft that are big enough to carry an M1 tank--and needed to add a lightweight howitzer, the Osprey, the Amphibious Fighting Vehicle (later the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle), the F35, and a couple other things. They got everything but the EFV (with fingers crossed on the F35). But then we got mired into a land war in southwest Asia--two actually--and lost sight of our amphibious roots. And with the EFV cancelled, we're stuck with the old amtracks, lumbering toward shore at maybe 5 knots--not a very good solution when you're parked 50 miles off shore--it all falls apart. But I've been taking some classes where we're covering the old doctrinal pubs and it is very exciting. A great idea. We'll see if it works as well IRL as it does in science fiction. (There's lots of sexy artist's concepts of G.I. Joe-style sea bases.)
I don't think I've ever heard it used that way outside of British TV shows or shows with British characters.
How far, horizontally, can a scuba diver typically swim? I don't think the Navy will be allowing random pleasure craft to hang around the general vicinity.
This kind of publicity strikes me as having several different purposes: first off, it should make potential targets more nervous (always a goal of psyops). Even if the information is one hundred percent accurate it makes me wonder if it's not meant to distract attention from something completely new or something that's already in service that isn't being talked about.
The Ponce is 40 years old, but a good platform for what is being proposed. Being a Boiler Tech/ Machinist Mate on a gator freighter is the worst job I can think of.
