Posted on Jul 2, 2019
Reports state, "experiment" "test" "Admittedly, there are some potential problems", I get anxiety panic attacks, was my life the result of?
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I read these recent reports and officers are openly talking about it, current Terminology "Optimal Manning" and its "Merciful End" and I think few people knew that this type of "TEST" happened on a few ships as shown before it became fleet wide. But the story and its outcome is never told from a young Navy Guy in a Reserve enlistment with an Honorable.
https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/annual_reports/1976-77_DoD_AR.pdf?ver=2014-06-24-150722-417
Another, more important, initiative is our plan to man some of
our active surface combatants at 80% of active manning, relying on
Selected Reserve personnel to fill the remaining billets upon
mobilization. These 80/20 ships, in terms of combat readiness,
would fall somewhere between the fully manned active ships and the
Naval Reserve ships which typically are manned at 60% active and 40%
reserve. Hence, the 80/20 ships would be expected to be available
somewhat earlier than the Naval Reserve ships in a major contingency
involving mobilization. Moreover, by filling in the remaining billets
with active shore establishment personnel designated in advance, they
could be used to augment fully manned active ships during a prolonged
contingency for which reserves are not called up.
Admittedly, there are some potential problems involved in the
80/20 concept, most of which center around the interrelated factors
of maintenance and operational tempo. The concept is predicated on
the assumption that the understrength active crew, augmented by
reserves during drill periods, would be able to maintain their ship
in adequate material condition and conduct required training for
basic combat missions. Thus, the 80/20 ships could not be considered
"deployable" to meet peacetime commitments.
We plan to test the 80/20 concept on five destroyers in FY 1976
and FY 1977. If the concept proves successful we are prepared to
expand the program in subsequent years. We must, however, retain a
sufficient number of fully manned active ships to handle non-mobilization contingencies, to meet early combat requirements in a major war,
and to support our peacetime forward deployments.
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032080.pdf
ANNUAL REPORT ON RESERVE FORCES TO THE
PRESIDENT AND TO THE CONGRESS
FOR FISCAL YEAR 1975
This legislation will enable the Services to plan for broader
application of the "Total Force Policy" in satisfying contemporary
national defense requirements, The "Total Force Policy" dictates that
all available forces--U.S. Active Forces, U.S. Guard and Reserve Forces,
and the forces of our al a -- would be considered in determining the
Defense needs to maet ful e contingencies. In carrying out these
missions, the volunteer puLential of the Reserve Forces will continue to
be fully exploited
3. To Increase Integration of Reserve Forces into Active Force Missions
H. NAVY
1. Test manning active Navy destroyers with a mix of 80 percent active personnel and 20 percent Reservist in comparison
with 100% active manned ships
THESE TYPE OF SHIPS WERE INVESTIGATED BY THE IG WHEN I WAS SERVING ON THEM I JUST FOUND OUT
https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/3715654/FID863/SURFACE/50401.PDF
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
1995
3. Background
a. The RATE program was initiated in response to a Navy Inspector General report documenting systemic weaknesses in the training and administration of SELRES personnel assigned to NRF ships. Historically, NRF ships and their SELRES components fell outside the cognizance of normal Reserve Readiness Inspections and, as a result, did not receive periodic formal oversight of the administration and training of the SELRES component.
https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/3715654/FID863/SURFACE/50401A.PDF
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
1998
4. Backqround a. The RATE program was initiated in response to a Navy Inspector General report documenting systemic weaknesses in the training and administration of SELRES personnel assigned to NRF ships. Historically, NRF ships and their SELRES components fell outside the cognizance of normal Reserve Readiness Inspections and, as a result, did not receive periodic formal oversight of the administration and training of the SELRES component.
Current Reports and tying them together
https://blog.usni.org/posts/2011/01/27/a-merciful-end-to-optimal-manning
History
A Merciful End to “Optimal Manning”
By UltimaRatioReg | January 27, 2011
Within the excellent remarks by Admiral Richard W. Hunt, Commander of Third Fleet, who delivered the Keynote Address to open USNI West 2011, was a confirmation of those made by VCNO, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, regarding the ending of the experiment of “optimal manning”. While acknowledging that the experiment was not a success, Admiral Hunt somewhat diplomatically refrained from mentioning that the idea was ill-conceived and doomed from the start because it ignored the fundamentals of crewing warships since navies first put to sea.
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-optimal-manning-experiment.html
Monday, March 5, 2018
The Optimal Manning Experiment
Long ago, the Navy committed to minimal manning as a cost savings measure. They later changed the phrase to “optimal manning” as a public relations measure, presumably believing that “optimal” sounds better than “minimal”. Regardless of the terminology, it was an attempt by the Navy to operate ships as if they were business cases. This was stupidity on a platter and most outside observers said so and have continued to say so.
So, that’s a brief summary of the history and current situation regarding minimal manning. Now, we have a GAO study of the practice and it’s fascinating.
Hey, just out of curiosity, how did the Navy think they were going to be able to reduce crew size and continue to operate ships with the same amount of work needing to be done but now with less people to do it? It can’t be done, you say? Well, the Navy found a way. What they did was ingenious in an incredibly stupid way. They merely and arbitrarily increased the theoretical amount of work an individual sailor could do – if each sailor can do more work then you need fewer sailors, so the Navy thought.
“To further drive down ship crew sizes, the Navy changed workload assumptions and the equation used to determine manpower requirements in 2002. For example, it increased the Navy standard workweek from 67 to 70 productive hours per sailor, which further reduced shipboard manning by up to 4 percent.”
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a-culture-in-crisis/
Your Navy
Maybe today’s Navy is just not very good at driving ships
In the wake of two fatal collisions of Navy warships with commercial vessels, current and former senior surface warfare officers are speaking out, saying today’s Navy suffers from a disturbing problem: The SWO community is just not very good at driving ships.
“There is a systemic cultural wasteland in the SWO community right now, especially at the department head level,” said retired Navy Capt. Rick Hoffman, who commanded the cruiser Hue City and the frigate DeWert and who, after retirement, taught SWOs ship handling in Mayport.
“We do not put a premium on being good mariners,” Hoffman said. “We put a premium on being good inspection takers and admin weenies.”
The series of accidents this year — and specifically the Aug. 20 collision of the destroyer John S. McCain — has shaken the Navy to its core.
Pacific Fleet boss Adm. Scott Swift sent an internal message to his commanders saying the accidents occurred while conducting “the most basic of operations,” according to a copy of the message obtained by Navy Times.
Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson ordered a worldwide halt to Navy operations, a one-day “pause” that aims to get the fleet back on track.
Yet many current and former officers say the problem dates back to 2003, when the Navy made severe cuts to SWO’s initial training under the belief the young officers would just learn their trade at sea.
The growing problem has festered in a SWO culture that many believe is notoriously toxic. Competition and careerism make officers afraid to voice concerns and create an “everyone for themselves” mentality.
“Most department heads I had were afraid to go to the captain with anything that might look bad for them — they did everything they did to protect their own reputations and wanted nothing to hamper them from eventually getting in the CO seat themselves,” said former Lt. Jonathan Parin, who served onboard the destroyer James E. Williams.
“We’re fostering an environment that is counter to becoming a competent professional mariner and instead it’s about looking out for yourself,” Parin told Navy Times.
TRAINING IN A BOX
For nearly 30 years, all new surface warfare officers spent their first six months in uniform at the Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, learning the theory behind driving ships and leading sailors as division officers.
But that changed in 2003. The Navy decided to eliminate the “SWOS Basic” school and simply send surface fleet officers out to sea to learn on the job. The Navy did that mainly to save money, and the fleet has suffered severely for it, said retired Cmdr. Kurt Lippold.
“The Navy has cut training as a budgetary device and they have done it at the expense of our ability to operate safely at sea,” said Lippold, who commanded the destroyer Cole in 2000 when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.
After 2003, each young officer was issued a set of 21 CD-ROMs for computer-based training — jokingly called “SWOS in a Box” — to take with them to sea and learn. Young officers were required to complete this instructor-less course in between earning their shipboard qualifications, management of their divisions and collateral duties.
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/
The last half-decade you have seen some people try to mitigate the original sin of "Optimal Manning," “I think when the Navy started off, they had a really good plan,” Paul Francis, of the Government Accountability Office, told the Senate in 2016. “They were going to build two ships, experimental ships.” But in 2005, having assured itself that “optimal manning works,” the Navy decided to skip the experimentation and move straight to construction. From this point on, whenever the Navy tried to study the feasibility of minimal manning, its analysis was colored by the fact that—on these ships..."
This is what everyone was screaming 15 years ago;
the Navy’s initial, full-throttle approach to minimal manning—and are an object lesson on the dangers of embracing any radical concept without thinking hard enough about the downsides.
The fact new people are still pointing this out is nice validation, but a shame it even has to happen."
Better late than never ... maybe.
CAPT Caltrop • 5 days ago • edited
I remember all this in the 1990s under the heading "smart ships." There were officers simply salivating on how to get themselves aligned with the Navy of the Future.
The Navy had two great expenses that exceded comparable the expenses of the other services exponentially, hardware (ships) and skilled labor. It couldn't do much about the number of ships it needed as a global force, so it decided to make naval crews like merchant marine crews, i.e., small groups designed to get a ship from point A to point B. No maintenance. Crews were simply ready to push a few buttons and turn the lights off. Maintence'd would occur ashore by contractors. Contractors? Ashore. What if the nearest "ashore" was in a combat zone? Crickets.
The skilled labor issue was dispensible. All that expensive training and redundancy was passe.
NEC338x CAPT Caltrop • 5 days ago
Goes hand-in-hand with the gutting of A and C schools. Someone thinks they will be able to buy skills when they need them.
−
Avatar
NavySubNuke • 5 days ago • edited
Vern Clark's legacy of failure and poor decisions lives on.
The hubris of his tenure, which Mullen doubled down on, will live on and continue to damage the Navy for decades to come.
Pave Low John • 5 days ago • edited
For a horrible second, when I first saw the title, I thought Sal was reporting that the newest LCS had been named after Chelsea Manning and The Atlantic was criticizing that decision.
But then my brain finally started working....for what it's worth....
7
•Reply•Share ›
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Avatar
timactual Pave Low John • 5 days ago
Hey, why not? Neither LCS nor Manning can figure out what they want to be, and both will probably need major reconstruction to do anything at all.
Avatar
Billy • 5 days ago
As soon as we get off the "run the Navy like a business" model, these issues will get fixed.
7
•Reply•Share ›
−
Avatar
Brett baker Billy • 4 days ago
"Effective and efficient", since it is alliterative, impresses people as a goal. The fact that they're not usually the same thing is lost on your typical semifunctional illiterate.
−
Avatar
Secundius • 4 days ago
Back in 2015, the US Navy said that an Arleigh Burke could be Safely Crewed and Maintained with a Crew Complement of just 157 and Automation. USS "John S. McCain" and USS "Fitzgerald" proved them wrong...
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/us-navy-crashes-japan-cause-mccain/
hen Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin was elevated to lead the vaunted 7th Fleet in 2015, he expected it to be the pinnacle of his nearly four-decade Navy career. The fleet was the largest and most powerful in the world, and its role as one of America’s great protectors had new urgency. China was expanding into disputed waters. And Kim Jong-un was testing ballistic missiles in North Korea.
Aucoin was bred on such challenges. As a Navy aviator, he’d led the “Black Aces,” a squadron of F-14 Tomcats that in the late 1990s bombed targets in Kosovo.
But what he found with the 7th Fleet alarmed and angered him.
The fleet was short of sailors, and those it had were often poorly trained and worked to exhaustion. Its warships were falling apart, and a bruising, ceaseless pace of operations meant there was little chance to get necessary repairs done. The very top of the Navy was consumed with buying new, more sophisticated ships, even as its sailors struggled to master and hold together those they had. The Pentagon, half a world away, was signing off on requests for ships to carry out more and more missions.
But the fleet’s relentless pace still forces crews to work 100-hour weeks or more. And the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog, reported in December that the Navy “continues to struggle” with fixing its ships and putting enough sailors on them.
“The men and women of the Navy deserve better,” Aucoin said. “The truth needs to come out to prevent this kind of tragedy from ever happening again.”
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/
We obtained two confidential reports on the collisions that included more than 13,000 pages of documents, photos and transcripts of sailor interviews. The material included ship logs, disciplinary records and raw data. Navy sources provided emails, internal memos and accounts of private meetings. We also relied on the Navy’s publicly released reports, here, here, here and here, which detailed shortfalls in training, equipment and manpower. We drew upon testimony given by Navy officials to Congress, as well as testimony and motions delivered during courts-martial.
20 years gone.
As I write from Whole Foods in my truck trying to turn in paper work to some offices I recall study and write this tonday 7 2 2019
I went from a 18 year young varsity athlete Meritorious Bootcamp Graduate to blanking out disturbed disturbing losing relationships job fiance family. The Navy Recruiter said I would get 4K to attend college already be in the Navy with what seemed to be a path like ROTC to becoming an officer, which was the goal. After Great Lakes Bootcamp, I served on 2 Guided Missile Frigates the Copeland and Sides, (80/20 ships) in a Reserve Enlistment for 5 years. I got a sea service ribbon, but never 2 years full time duty, so in the last few years entering the VA, the first 2 I had to wither the VA actually trying to kick me out of the VA for lack of full time 2 years duty, which saw me actually be kicked out of the Veteran Center, and then at the VA hospital I had to whither a HEC Health Eligibility Center Atlanta Teleconference defended by Colonel Burroughs and Wong(Vietnam), to continue care. Yes at the VA for years I was sweating again. The only reason I went to the VA, is I randomly met an Army Vet who invited me, and I had nothing to lose, as I was already on SSDI for psych, but not wanting to recall the embarrassment and fear, I felt on the ship that I took to the streets, because life had degenerated to the point where I had no truck to sleep in like usual, and I was relying on someone, an older guy I met at the gym, I got to know, who said I could work on his house for rent trade barter, who liked men, unlike me, who turned it against me, and when I moved in trying to get in my pants assault exploit me, just as my back spine mobility became really bad to the point I could not walk a full block ending up in the hospital. In service, I started having severe panic attacks sweating blanking out, trying to figure out an impossible rubix cube with leadership not accounting for my time off ship actually led to believe it was possible using days weeks months years daily trying to read Ship Manuals PQS to be at least knowledgeable on acronyms and procedures, knowing I was getting underway every few weeks, stuff all the other guys learned on the ship in full time duty or A school. I guess it is possible to make hell week not 1 but 2 weeks and see who is left. I guess it is possible to take a freshman in college and just put him in senior classes for no real good reason and make him believe he should fit in and learn and excell even! I guess it is possible to take a high school varsity football player and give him the play book make him study it endlessly, and just throw him on an NFL Team Game Day with no expectation that he might really freak out. In 1998, Things got so rough I tried to switch into the Army as I was being attacked by the young full time guys who were openly jealous of me having more liberty free time off the ship, and I was jealous they actually had time to relax and learn all they were experiencing and excelling as a result, who should of been my shipmate for things I could not control being a reservist with the same paygrade and rate as them, and not knowing what they knew, and the transfer was DQ by MEPS, and I was sent back to the ship. I seemed to feel alienated feeling I was not important enough to educate and train properly so I could fit in under hazardous duty like flight ops and weapons and GQ Stations, but if I did not show up for duty I would get that Dishonorable Discharge which was very apparent. No one, that I can find, Officer or Enlisted has ever had a successful productive life marriage work etc having had this enlistment and duty assignment mixed operational conditions: *by passing a normal Welcome Aboard Package * no A school apprenticed OJT to qualified watchstander, helmsman damage control etc etc etc, retain all the knowledge of rate operationally occupationally with just Reserve Enlistment Duty Benefits ( no health care access off the ship below poverty income off ship) underway qualified in rate Annual Service Reserve Pay about 3K * Sea Bag Ready for Deployment 24/7
https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/annual_reports/1976-77_DoD_AR.pdf?ver=2014-06-24-150722-417
Another, more important, initiative is our plan to man some of
our active surface combatants at 80% of active manning, relying on
Selected Reserve personnel to fill the remaining billets upon
mobilization. These 80/20 ships, in terms of combat readiness,
would fall somewhere between the fully manned active ships and the
Naval Reserve ships which typically are manned at 60% active and 40%
reserve. Hence, the 80/20 ships would be expected to be available
somewhat earlier than the Naval Reserve ships in a major contingency
involving mobilization. Moreover, by filling in the remaining billets
with active shore establishment personnel designated in advance, they
could be used to augment fully manned active ships during a prolonged
contingency for which reserves are not called up.
Admittedly, there are some potential problems involved in the
80/20 concept, most of which center around the interrelated factors
of maintenance and operational tempo. The concept is predicated on
the assumption that the understrength active crew, augmented by
reserves during drill periods, would be able to maintain their ship
in adequate material condition and conduct required training for
basic combat missions. Thus, the 80/20 ships could not be considered
"deployable" to meet peacetime commitments.
We plan to test the 80/20 concept on five destroyers in FY 1976
and FY 1977. If the concept proves successful we are prepared to
expand the program in subsequent years. We must, however, retain a
sufficient number of fully manned active ships to handle non-mobilization contingencies, to meet early combat requirements in a major war,
and to support our peacetime forward deployments.
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032080.pdf
ANNUAL REPORT ON RESERVE FORCES TO THE
PRESIDENT AND TO THE CONGRESS
FOR FISCAL YEAR 1975
This legislation will enable the Services to plan for broader
application of the "Total Force Policy" in satisfying contemporary
national defense requirements, The "Total Force Policy" dictates that
all available forces--U.S. Active Forces, U.S. Guard and Reserve Forces,
and the forces of our al a -- would be considered in determining the
Defense needs to maet ful e contingencies. In carrying out these
missions, the volunteer puLential of the Reserve Forces will continue to
be fully exploited
3. To Increase Integration of Reserve Forces into Active Force Missions
H. NAVY
1. Test manning active Navy destroyers with a mix of 80 percent active personnel and 20 percent Reservist in comparison
with 100% active manned ships
THESE TYPE OF SHIPS WERE INVESTIGATED BY THE IG WHEN I WAS SERVING ON THEM I JUST FOUND OUT
https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/3715654/FID863/SURFACE/50401.PDF
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
1995
3. Background
a. The RATE program was initiated in response to a Navy Inspector General report documenting systemic weaknesses in the training and administration of SELRES personnel assigned to NRF ships. Historically, NRF ships and their SELRES components fell outside the cognizance of normal Reserve Readiness Inspections and, as a result, did not receive periodic formal oversight of the administration and training of the SELRES component.
https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/3715654/FID863/SURFACE/50401A.PDF
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
1998
4. Backqround a. The RATE program was initiated in response to a Navy Inspector General report documenting systemic weaknesses in the training and administration of SELRES personnel assigned to NRF ships. Historically, NRF ships and their SELRES components fell outside the cognizance of normal Reserve Readiness Inspections and, as a result, did not receive periodic formal oversight of the administration and training of the SELRES component.
Current Reports and tying them together
https://blog.usni.org/posts/2011/01/27/a-merciful-end-to-optimal-manning
History
A Merciful End to “Optimal Manning”
By UltimaRatioReg | January 27, 2011
Within the excellent remarks by Admiral Richard W. Hunt, Commander of Third Fleet, who delivered the Keynote Address to open USNI West 2011, was a confirmation of those made by VCNO, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, regarding the ending of the experiment of “optimal manning”. While acknowledging that the experiment was not a success, Admiral Hunt somewhat diplomatically refrained from mentioning that the idea was ill-conceived and doomed from the start because it ignored the fundamentals of crewing warships since navies first put to sea.
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-optimal-manning-experiment.html
Monday, March 5, 2018
The Optimal Manning Experiment
Long ago, the Navy committed to minimal manning as a cost savings measure. They later changed the phrase to “optimal manning” as a public relations measure, presumably believing that “optimal” sounds better than “minimal”. Regardless of the terminology, it was an attempt by the Navy to operate ships as if they were business cases. This was stupidity on a platter and most outside observers said so and have continued to say so.
So, that’s a brief summary of the history and current situation regarding minimal manning. Now, we have a GAO study of the practice and it’s fascinating.
Hey, just out of curiosity, how did the Navy think they were going to be able to reduce crew size and continue to operate ships with the same amount of work needing to be done but now with less people to do it? It can’t be done, you say? Well, the Navy found a way. What they did was ingenious in an incredibly stupid way. They merely and arbitrarily increased the theoretical amount of work an individual sailor could do – if each sailor can do more work then you need fewer sailors, so the Navy thought.
“To further drive down ship crew sizes, the Navy changed workload assumptions and the equation used to determine manpower requirements in 2002. For example, it increased the Navy standard workweek from 67 to 70 productive hours per sailor, which further reduced shipboard manning by up to 4 percent.”
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a-culture-in-crisis/
Your Navy
Maybe today’s Navy is just not very good at driving ships
In the wake of two fatal collisions of Navy warships with commercial vessels, current and former senior surface warfare officers are speaking out, saying today’s Navy suffers from a disturbing problem: The SWO community is just not very good at driving ships.
“There is a systemic cultural wasteland in the SWO community right now, especially at the department head level,” said retired Navy Capt. Rick Hoffman, who commanded the cruiser Hue City and the frigate DeWert and who, after retirement, taught SWOs ship handling in Mayport.
“We do not put a premium on being good mariners,” Hoffman said. “We put a premium on being good inspection takers and admin weenies.”
The series of accidents this year — and specifically the Aug. 20 collision of the destroyer John S. McCain — has shaken the Navy to its core.
Pacific Fleet boss Adm. Scott Swift sent an internal message to his commanders saying the accidents occurred while conducting “the most basic of operations,” according to a copy of the message obtained by Navy Times.
Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson ordered a worldwide halt to Navy operations, a one-day “pause” that aims to get the fleet back on track.
Yet many current and former officers say the problem dates back to 2003, when the Navy made severe cuts to SWO’s initial training under the belief the young officers would just learn their trade at sea.
The growing problem has festered in a SWO culture that many believe is notoriously toxic. Competition and careerism make officers afraid to voice concerns and create an “everyone for themselves” mentality.
“Most department heads I had were afraid to go to the captain with anything that might look bad for them — they did everything they did to protect their own reputations and wanted nothing to hamper them from eventually getting in the CO seat themselves,” said former Lt. Jonathan Parin, who served onboard the destroyer James E. Williams.
“We’re fostering an environment that is counter to becoming a competent professional mariner and instead it’s about looking out for yourself,” Parin told Navy Times.
TRAINING IN A BOX
For nearly 30 years, all new surface warfare officers spent their first six months in uniform at the Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, learning the theory behind driving ships and leading sailors as division officers.
But that changed in 2003. The Navy decided to eliminate the “SWOS Basic” school and simply send surface fleet officers out to sea to learn on the job. The Navy did that mainly to save money, and the fleet has suffered severely for it, said retired Cmdr. Kurt Lippold.
“The Navy has cut training as a budgetary device and they have done it at the expense of our ability to operate safely at sea,” said Lippold, who commanded the destroyer Cole in 2000 when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.
After 2003, each young officer was issued a set of 21 CD-ROMs for computer-based training — jokingly called “SWOS in a Box” — to take with them to sea and learn. Young officers were required to complete this instructor-less course in between earning their shipboard qualifications, management of their divisions and collateral duties.
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/
The last half-decade you have seen some people try to mitigate the original sin of "Optimal Manning," “I think when the Navy started off, they had a really good plan,” Paul Francis, of the Government Accountability Office, told the Senate in 2016. “They were going to build two ships, experimental ships.” But in 2005, having assured itself that “optimal manning works,” the Navy decided to skip the experimentation and move straight to construction. From this point on, whenever the Navy tried to study the feasibility of minimal manning, its analysis was colored by the fact that—on these ships..."
This is what everyone was screaming 15 years ago;
the Navy’s initial, full-throttle approach to minimal manning—and are an object lesson on the dangers of embracing any radical concept without thinking hard enough about the downsides.
The fact new people are still pointing this out is nice validation, but a shame it even has to happen."
Better late than never ... maybe.
CAPT Caltrop • 5 days ago • edited
I remember all this in the 1990s under the heading "smart ships." There were officers simply salivating on how to get themselves aligned with the Navy of the Future.
The Navy had two great expenses that exceded comparable the expenses of the other services exponentially, hardware (ships) and skilled labor. It couldn't do much about the number of ships it needed as a global force, so it decided to make naval crews like merchant marine crews, i.e., small groups designed to get a ship from point A to point B. No maintenance. Crews were simply ready to push a few buttons and turn the lights off. Maintence'd would occur ashore by contractors. Contractors? Ashore. What if the nearest "ashore" was in a combat zone? Crickets.
The skilled labor issue was dispensible. All that expensive training and redundancy was passe.
NEC338x CAPT Caltrop • 5 days ago
Goes hand-in-hand with the gutting of A and C schools. Someone thinks they will be able to buy skills when they need them.
−
Avatar
NavySubNuke • 5 days ago • edited
Vern Clark's legacy of failure and poor decisions lives on.
The hubris of his tenure, which Mullen doubled down on, will live on and continue to damage the Navy for decades to come.
Pave Low John • 5 days ago • edited
For a horrible second, when I first saw the title, I thought Sal was reporting that the newest LCS had been named after Chelsea Manning and The Atlantic was criticizing that decision.
But then my brain finally started working....for what it's worth....
7
•Reply•Share ›
−
Avatar
timactual Pave Low John • 5 days ago
Hey, why not? Neither LCS nor Manning can figure out what they want to be, and both will probably need major reconstruction to do anything at all.
Avatar
Billy • 5 days ago
As soon as we get off the "run the Navy like a business" model, these issues will get fixed.
7
•Reply•Share ›
−
Avatar
Brett baker Billy • 4 days ago
"Effective and efficient", since it is alliterative, impresses people as a goal. The fact that they're not usually the same thing is lost on your typical semifunctional illiterate.
−
Avatar
Secundius • 4 days ago
Back in 2015, the US Navy said that an Arleigh Burke could be Safely Crewed and Maintained with a Crew Complement of just 157 and Automation. USS "John S. McCain" and USS "Fitzgerald" proved them wrong...
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/us-navy-crashes-japan-cause-mccain/
hen Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin was elevated to lead the vaunted 7th Fleet in 2015, he expected it to be the pinnacle of his nearly four-decade Navy career. The fleet was the largest and most powerful in the world, and its role as one of America’s great protectors had new urgency. China was expanding into disputed waters. And Kim Jong-un was testing ballistic missiles in North Korea.
Aucoin was bred on such challenges. As a Navy aviator, he’d led the “Black Aces,” a squadron of F-14 Tomcats that in the late 1990s bombed targets in Kosovo.
But what he found with the 7th Fleet alarmed and angered him.
The fleet was short of sailors, and those it had were often poorly trained and worked to exhaustion. Its warships were falling apart, and a bruising, ceaseless pace of operations meant there was little chance to get necessary repairs done. The very top of the Navy was consumed with buying new, more sophisticated ships, even as its sailors struggled to master and hold together those they had. The Pentagon, half a world away, was signing off on requests for ships to carry out more and more missions.
But the fleet’s relentless pace still forces crews to work 100-hour weeks or more. And the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog, reported in December that the Navy “continues to struggle” with fixing its ships and putting enough sailors on them.
“The men and women of the Navy deserve better,” Aucoin said. “The truth needs to come out to prevent this kind of tragedy from ever happening again.”
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/
We obtained two confidential reports on the collisions that included more than 13,000 pages of documents, photos and transcripts of sailor interviews. The material included ship logs, disciplinary records and raw data. Navy sources provided emails, internal memos and accounts of private meetings. We also relied on the Navy’s publicly released reports, here, here, here and here, which detailed shortfalls in training, equipment and manpower. We drew upon testimony given by Navy officials to Congress, as well as testimony and motions delivered during courts-martial.
20 years gone.
As I write from Whole Foods in my truck trying to turn in paper work to some offices I recall study and write this tonday 7 2 2019
I went from a 18 year young varsity athlete Meritorious Bootcamp Graduate to blanking out disturbed disturbing losing relationships job fiance family. The Navy Recruiter said I would get 4K to attend college already be in the Navy with what seemed to be a path like ROTC to becoming an officer, which was the goal. After Great Lakes Bootcamp, I served on 2 Guided Missile Frigates the Copeland and Sides, (80/20 ships) in a Reserve Enlistment for 5 years. I got a sea service ribbon, but never 2 years full time duty, so in the last few years entering the VA, the first 2 I had to wither the VA actually trying to kick me out of the VA for lack of full time 2 years duty, which saw me actually be kicked out of the Veteran Center, and then at the VA hospital I had to whither a HEC Health Eligibility Center Atlanta Teleconference defended by Colonel Burroughs and Wong(Vietnam), to continue care. Yes at the VA for years I was sweating again. The only reason I went to the VA, is I randomly met an Army Vet who invited me, and I had nothing to lose, as I was already on SSDI for psych, but not wanting to recall the embarrassment and fear, I felt on the ship that I took to the streets, because life had degenerated to the point where I had no truck to sleep in like usual, and I was relying on someone, an older guy I met at the gym, I got to know, who said I could work on his house for rent trade barter, who liked men, unlike me, who turned it against me, and when I moved in trying to get in my pants assault exploit me, just as my back spine mobility became really bad to the point I could not walk a full block ending up in the hospital. In service, I started having severe panic attacks sweating blanking out, trying to figure out an impossible rubix cube with leadership not accounting for my time off ship actually led to believe it was possible using days weeks months years daily trying to read Ship Manuals PQS to be at least knowledgeable on acronyms and procedures, knowing I was getting underway every few weeks, stuff all the other guys learned on the ship in full time duty or A school. I guess it is possible to make hell week not 1 but 2 weeks and see who is left. I guess it is possible to take a freshman in college and just put him in senior classes for no real good reason and make him believe he should fit in and learn and excell even! I guess it is possible to take a high school varsity football player and give him the play book make him study it endlessly, and just throw him on an NFL Team Game Day with no expectation that he might really freak out. In 1998, Things got so rough I tried to switch into the Army as I was being attacked by the young full time guys who were openly jealous of me having more liberty free time off the ship, and I was jealous they actually had time to relax and learn all they were experiencing and excelling as a result, who should of been my shipmate for things I could not control being a reservist with the same paygrade and rate as them, and not knowing what they knew, and the transfer was DQ by MEPS, and I was sent back to the ship. I seemed to feel alienated feeling I was not important enough to educate and train properly so I could fit in under hazardous duty like flight ops and weapons and GQ Stations, but if I did not show up for duty I would get that Dishonorable Discharge which was very apparent. No one, that I can find, Officer or Enlisted has ever had a successful productive life marriage work etc having had this enlistment and duty assignment mixed operational conditions: *by passing a normal Welcome Aboard Package * no A school apprenticed OJT to qualified watchstander, helmsman damage control etc etc etc, retain all the knowledge of rate operationally occupationally with just Reserve Enlistment Duty Benefits ( no health care access off the ship below poverty income off ship) underway qualified in rate Annual Service Reserve Pay about 3K * Sea Bag Ready for Deployment 24/7
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