There was a time in the distant past when men tentatively set sail into the forbidding seas on light wooden and papyrus- bound boats for the purpose of trade and exploration. Relatively unprotected ships laden…
Browsing Category Knotical Notes
Maritime Power Play in the Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean, since times immemorial, used to be an oasis of peace and prosperity, propelled largely by an overt interdependence on trade. Geography too had conspired to make the Ocean what it was, being…
Traditionally Bound
The Navy as they say is a world of its own. And this doesn’t just refer to a ship at sea which is virtually a floating city; everything that one does or utters, though second…
Naval Anecdotes from Another Era
While under basic training at the Pakistan Naval Academy, our class of cadets was taken to a coastal battery for a week-long attachment. The powerful 6 inch guns of that time used silken bags as…
Indigenous Destroyer Construction – A Giant Technological Leap
PNS ASLAT, a F22P class destroyer, is expected to be commissioned this month (April 2013). What makes this event significant is that it would be the first destroyer to have been constructed in Pakistani yards,…
Dominant Naval Presence in the Indian Ocean
Introduction The Indian Ocean region had been renowned since antiquity for its free trade and fair practices. This is where all the great civilizations of India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, Melaka, Bengal and China met,…
Terrorism and other Maritime Threats in the Indian Ocean Region
Introduction. Terrorism poses the gravest of threats to the global community, let alone the Indian Ocean region. Its poster child for a long time in the nineteen sixties and seventies was the Palestine Liberation Organization,…
Seafearing Vibes 6
My stay on board PNS TIPPU SULTAN as it’s Executive Officer was a fairly tumultuous one, due, in no small part, to the fact that the ship was serving at the time as the flagship…
Seafearing Vibes 5 (Mean Times In Greenwich)
A military staff course is quite an experience in itself. Undergoing it at the Royal Naval Staff College at Greenwich is transcendental: the place is steeped in history. The world remembers Greenwich for its mean…
Seafearing Vibes 4
While borne on board PNS DACCA as a watch-keeper, I couldn’t help but notice that the Commanding Officer in particular took great pride in the bakery items, cakes, biscuits et al, churned out by the…
