when your offense is down, that's one thing. but when your defense is down too...
Posted on 04/26/2008 12:04:38 AM PDT by GATOR NAVY
NORFOLK
The Navy will review maintenance and training across the surface fleet after a recent inspection found the Norfolk-based destroyer Stout unfit for sustained combat, a top admiral said Friday.
Three months after the ship returned from a deployment to the Horn of Africa, inspectors found inoperable missile and close-in weapon systems, an unsafe flight deck and widespread corrosion.
Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn, commander of the naval surface force, said the surface fleet will investigate whether the problems are widespread across all ship classes or limited to individual ships.
A second ship, the Hawaii-based cruiser Chosin, also failed inspection.
Jan van Tol, a retired Navy captain, said he was struck by the scope of the problems found on both ships. He said he came away from the reports wondering if "we've started to lose the ability to collectively assess ourselves."
(Excerpt) Read more at hamptonroads.com ...
Glad I'm not there to join in the fun.
B-chan
Former MM3
USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65)
GONAVY
How in HELL does something like this happen?
1. Mission takes priority over maintenance, security, training, and everything else.
2. Ships spare parts and maintenance funded at 65% of the requirement vice the 90% of requirements used to fund naval aviation spares and maintenance.
3. Do more with less continues to be a successful strategy for promotion PROVIDED you are not in command when the INSURV team arrives.
4. Yard periods cancelled and deferred to save funding and enable very short turnarounds between longer and longer deployments.
The United States continues to have the world’s finest military manned by the greatest Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen the world has ever known.
However, our acquisition and budgeting systems REFUSE to acknowledge the TRUE costs of the complex weapon systems we field. (You can take the published cost and multiply by 3 to get in the neighborhood of the initial acquisition cost, which will be well less than 40% of the total cost to operate and maintain after fielding).
EVERYTIME the military has attempted to measure the total cost of ownership, or true operating costs, with accurate metrics and a verifiable methodology the leadership has blanched and lost its nerve. Not because there were too many significant figures in the answer, but because there were too many commas.
I make no excuses for the Commanding Officers of the USS STOUT or USS CHOSIN, it s*cks to be them. But those who sit in judgement know full well that “there are those that have and those that will.”
The finest mentor I ever had in the Navy told me they “give you your first command and see how lucky you are!”
Looks to me like the Captain and his senior officers and enlisted were afraid of hurting the crew's feelings.
Familiarity breeds contempt. See it every day with the youngsters escaping from public high schools. Full of self-esteem without the basic wherewithals, expecting to start at the top without being able to spell or explain TANSTAAFL.
Here's a link to their home page.
What, the Navy ran out of paint? Oh, the world is coming to an end! We are all doomed.
Cutting funding to the bone and not investing in people usually leads to physical deterioration in the fleet. Now we’re seeing it.
Yep. Hardly a week goes by that I don't meet some youngster that is essentially functionally illiterate.
Recently, I visited a friend who has a 17 year old about to "graduate" from publik skool. The kid had a friend over and they were playing video games on a computer. I started talking to them about what they were going to do after publik skool and about computers and such. Being that I'm an Electrical Engineer, I was curious as to how much he really knew. Occasionally, you do actually run into a bright kid, but I was amazed when one of the boys claimed he was some sort of computer genius simply because he could kill more bad guys on whatever game they were playing. I asked them both if either could write code or troubleshoot software or hardware issues. Both were clueless as to how hardware and software interact and neither had any idea what I was talking about. Some genius.....and not a good sign at all for the future, IMHO......
when your offense is down, that's one thing. but when your defense is down too...
My CO would have had every swinging dick E-5 and below broken into tiger teams and manning the needle guns for those 3 months.
We earned the name “Banana Boat” not just because of our name, USS Deyo, but because of our love of yellow zinc chromate.
One more.
Was the CO, XO, AND Sqd CO of either ship ever ranked by political corruptness (er, correctness), or by poetical competence?
Because Iraq is sucking up every available dollar and maintenance budgets have been slashed. Same thing happened during Vietnam.
The Arleigh Burke DDG’s have steel superstructures. Previous ships like OHP FFG’s, Spruance DD’s, and Ticonderoga CG’s all have aluminum superstructures.
I think that adding steel to the more recent Burke DDG was in response to what the Navy learned from the Exocet attack on the Stark, an OHP FFG.
Reads like a command/unit culture thing, ie, leadership.
The other flaws spotted included missing safety gear, a broken close-in weapons system, widespread lube leaks and corrosion.
The ship had returned from a successful deployment to the Horn of Africa in December, and the strike group had no complaints about the ship's performance, he said.
By successful, they must mean it bobbed on the water without sinking. Thank God it wasn’t called upon to perform its designated functions. With the Aegis weapons system hobbled, a broken close-in weapons system, what did they expect to do if they encountered the enemy, have all hands shout BOO and hope it would scare them away?
I agree. This problem is more about the ship's attitude than anything else.
Lack of spare parts and decreased budgets may be partly to blame for inoperable combat systems and other more expensive to maintain equipment.
But it does not take much money or parts to grind away rust and throw down a little paint.
I would question the ship's level of pride.
From the article:
The ships’ material condition was not due to lack of funds, Lewis said.
“We are 100 percent funded to our requirement for maintenance,” he said.
bttt
They may have had 100 percent of their current maintenance budget, but maintenance budgets throughout the fleet have been cut deeply over several years ago. The war has priority over everything.
Amen, brother....
Original Message -——
From: Michael M. Dunn
To:
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 12:22 AM
Subject: Note from AFA President — A/C Restrictions and CSAF White Paper
January 16, 2008
AFA members and Congressional Staffers, many of you have commented favorably on the “elevator speech numbers” I sent you.
It’s January ... so here are some revealing data on the “State of the Air Force.”
Fighter Aircraft - average age: 20 years; average flight hours 5400+
Bomber Aircraft - average age: 32 years; average flight hours 11,400+
Tanker aircraft - average age: 44 years; average flight hours 18,900+
C2 Fleet - average age: 22 years old; average flight hours 32,000
ISR Fleet (excluding UAV) - average age: 30 years old; average flight hours 18,000
Key Groundings/Restrictions
F-15A-D - 163 of 441 are grounded for structural issues
B-52 - 6 are grounded - past due PDM grounding date - authorized a one-time flight to the bone-yard.
EC-130 - 2 of 14 are grounded due to center wing box cracks
C-130E - 3 are grounded and 13 are restricted due to Service life and wing cracks
KC-135Es - 26 of 86 are grounded due to engine strut corrosion.
AC-130U - 4 of 17 are restricted due to lack of 30MM weapons
B-2 - entire fleet is restricted due to windshield bolt hole cracks
C-5s - 39 of 108 are restricted due to crown skin restrictions (weight limiting)
Additionally:
219 of 223 F-15Es have training restrictions due to vertical stab structural issues
Majority of Block 25/30/32, block 40/42, and block 50/52 F-16s need structural modifications
All 356 A-10s will need new wings and new aircraft skin - many have landing gear issues ... and all need new engines.
C-130Hs have Center Wing Box issues
C-32As have bulkhead structural issues.
Looking across the FYDP - between 2008-2013 - the Air Force will divest itself of 749 aircraft and procure only 698 aircraft (260 of which are UAVs).
To give you the idea of the scale of all of this:
When the AF grounded its 600+ F-15 fleet, it grounded more aircraft than the entire F/A Navy. The F-15s it presently has grounded equate to a bit more than 3 aircraft carriers of aircraft.
The 356 A-10s that need renovations equates to more aircraft than the fixed wing USMC
The Air Force has about 5800 aircraft ... and presently about one-third are either grounded or restricted in one way or another
The central important part of this data is that this is not a third-world Air Force ... And the question we should ask ourselves, why don’t we fund it to ensure our children and grandchildren are safe and secure?
2nd Subject -
Chief of Staff White Paper - Gen Moseley published an exceptional White Paper ... which lays out the strategic foundations for the Air Force of the future. If you haven’t seen it, you can find it on the AFA website: http://dailyreport.afa.org/NR/rdonlyres/868196FC-AABB-4230-84EA-F5358B0C4B34/0/CSAF_white_paper.pdf
My favorite quotes in it are:
“No modern war has been won without air superiority. No future war will be won without air, space and cyberspace superiority.” Page 2.
“With the oldest inventory in history, battered by 17 years of continuous combat, the Air Force’s ability to fulfill its missions is already being tested.” Page 2
“... our reliance on assured access to space will increase exponentially.” Page 8
“The Air Force is smaller in December 2007 than it was in December 1941.” Page 10
For your consideration.
Mike
Michael M. Dunn, Lt Gen (Ret)
AFA President/CEO
Career...over.
Poetical?
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USS Stout (DDG-55)
Too many people today think that being good at using a computer (i.e. clicking icons and links with a mouse) means they are somehow smarter than the average person.
As a 3rd class midshipman in 75, I spent a LOT of hours chipping paint and grinding rust on the USS Schenectady (LST 1176) .... Instead of enjoying San Diego's as a “liberty” port.
But wait, we have 16 hours of sensitivity training we need to get through and we have to deliver some trees for Arbor Day planting.
Leaders of the past 20 years starting in 1989 with Poppy Bush and his corporate shill Dowsize It fer me Cheney, Congress's both parties, Clinton and congress again both parties especially the so called GOP majority who was there 6 of his 8 years, The Smirking Chimp CIC who is entirely clueless about military readiness and takes his advice solely from Downsize and neglect it fer me Cheney.
My uncle was Old Navy and C.O. of an LST in the late 60's. Me and him talked one day about the Kitty Hawk and Kennedy problems. He practically yelled "How can this happen the Navy won't allow you to fail". Words from a man who went from E-1 to Commander the hard way. Today after Reagan left office and had built the greatest military ever there has been no true pro-military POTUS nor congress. The Republicans and DEMs both should hold their sorry heads in shame for the neglect they have allowed. Three presidents allowed it. Poppy started it, Clinton continued it, and Junior followed Poppy and Cheney's advice. Add to the a do nothing congress and senate.
This brings us up to today. The worse choices for CIC since before WW2. Who suffers from our bad choices at election time especially in the primaries where Idiots should be weeded out? Our Military suffers. Thanks for nothing RNC and the Moderate/Liberals you push time after time.
Looks to me like the JCOC, Sec of DEF, and Sec of Navy need relieved and Bush needs to grow up and go before congress and demand more funding for maintenance. But no the cycle continues and some mid grade office {The Captain} takes the fall for what is political causes. The Captain and his crew fill out work request for the yards. A lot of maintenance can only be done there. What happens after the Captain request the yard work is the ongoing issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46vYZFU1Dew
sent to me by a senior NCO in the 82nd ABN.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I lived in a WWII barracks for a while in the USAF -- but, believe me, we were required to keep that place spotless and well-maintained. This Army barracks would have Child Protective Services dragging every adult in it off to jail -- if they found children living there!
And the worst part is that the ABN troops who are billeted there just returned from spending 15 months at a primitive FOB in Afghanistan...
Something (in addition to ships, planes, and barracks) is definitely rotten in our DOD...
Just a few thoughts for consideration.
INSURV tends to embellish the significance of what it finds to enhance its authority. What is most significant is (a) the number of “starred” (i.e., restrictive) deficiencies, (b) the number of items the ship didn’t identify beforehand (technical proficiency), and how many of (a) were contained in (b). It’s one thing to have problems you recognize but can’t correct because of time, manpower, parts, or operating tempo. It’s something entirely different not to be able even to recognize problems. The facts that the crew documented many of the problems before INSURV and there is no indication of command negligence are favorable.
The INSURVs for STOUT and CHOSIN took place after deployment and before overhaul. These ships may have lost key people due to turnover after deployment and before INSURV. The type commander may even have intended to use the INSURV report as leverage to acquire more overhaul funds(it’s happened but it’s a gutsy ploy). It’s not good if the overhaul is truly short-funded.
It may not be entirely fair to lay the success or failure of a command inspection at the feet of the Goat Locker. It doesn’t take a 4 hashmark CPO to identify bleeding rust or FOD on engine intake screens. Department heads and division officers have to know what’s going on in their spaces, too.
I come from an era where the entire ship’s company took the superstructure and hull of a DLG down to bare metal with chipping hammers, scrapers, and needle guns during ROH before redeployment to Vietnam. But that was long, long ago in what is beginning to look like an America far, far away.
There may be more to this INSURV report than we realize. On the face of it, though, it certainly looks challenging.
The stench is coming out of the Pentagon and higher all the way into the Oval Office. You can't run a military bargain basement and not expect disaster. This very exact same thing caused Kitty Hawk and JFK issues.
Our post Reagan presidents and congress both parties which are equally to blame have sat on their big fat ***** doing zilch for our military and that includes both POTUS Bush's one of whom's Poppy and Sec of Def now current VP started us on this course. Not even Carter let things go this far this long. We at least past INSURV and let me tell you those inspecteors were rough.
A stench is a stench be it a Democratic or Republican one it stinks all the same. I wish the GOP would stop giving pigs a bath, putting pink ribbons on them, spraying them with cologne, and trying to make people think they're Poodles. We need a Reagan and a Cap Weinberger for our military and nations sake. McCain is far from that. We are in very deep trouble.
Look at my bookmarks on Naval readiness. Nothings changed since Poppy took over but the names. Poppy and Clinton ran a CV to death literally to the point of a boiler room Boom not a word mentioned in early 1994 after three deployments. One band-aid later it went to Philly retired ahead of it's class. Look at the botched SLEP done on JFK. Strange Kitty which was senior of it's class outlasted them all including JFK class.
We had parts shortages but we never flunked INSURV. I knew one of the inspectors as he was our former MPA. The man was a genius and could rattle off valve numbers and locations off the top of his head including the AC&R gear.
The Navy like all other services is over deployed using too little assets for too long at a time. You start missing yard periods, in port maintenance time, or have rushed ones and bad things happen. The main difference between now and the Carter years is we weren't being ran ragged for every little gnat poop emergency. We had the ships to cover the downtimes as well. Carters Navy would have flew apart just like the one of today has done since Poppy started downsizing. There's many misconceptions out there the public buys into and some may soon be proved to be untrue. One being a Nuclear Powered ship for example can deploy indefinitely. No they can't they'll fly apart every bit as quick as a conventional. The Reactor might take the abuse but the Auxiliaries simply won't.
You'll also remember for example to replace certain pieces of equipment meaning everything from ovens in the galley to much of the equipment in the engine room you must cut open the decks to get to it. That means required yard time.
I think today's military unless some of the so called leadership wakes up is gonna start cracking or showing major fatigue. That can be anything from crew morale to major equipment failures. All must be considered and addressed. To their credit the services have endured which speaks volumes for their stick to it and determination.
The leadership at the top like Bush hasn't nor has congress helped matters. I say Bush because he is current CIC. Bush is no better a CIC than Clinton. Actually nothing much has changed except a smaller Navy in ships since Bush took over. The military in general has been on emergency deployment status since Gulf War One and has yet to gear up for it. On the contrary. More is being demanded of both service-member and equipment while downsizing continues. We are operating on 1996 End Troop Strengths in all branches active duty. The so called adults help never came. Now we are in a war that again neither Congress nor POTUS is making any plans whatsoever in addressing the mentioned issues. Rummy's "you go to war with what you have" speech was one of the sorriest cop out's I ever heard in my life. How come six months into his tenure he didn't know two carriers were undeployable? You see there is the real problem. Political leadership completely detached from military realities.
Forward to September 2001. The United States comes under attack and able bodied men are pounding on military recruiters doors and being turned away. Yet all the time our POTUS is strutting around getting ready to take us to war. The opportunity of a lifetime for the GOP to turn our military back around was wasted. All because the GOP congress and GOP POTUS was more interested in nation building as foreign policy and doing a LBJ Great Society Part 2 on domestic policy with the military left out in the cold. There is no excuse for example that troops are seeing one year plus deployments into Iraq for three and four times. PPP=PPP
It is not justifiable what congress in both parties and their parties POTUS for 18 years has done to the military. I blame them all beginning with Poppy Bush. Yes even the Virginia Senator Old Sleepy Eyes who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee during much of the so called GOP Majority did nothing and he too knew things were going to crap. These people knew better. Bush knows better. You can't blame DEMs when the GOP didn't even try.
Correction:
“this is will be” = “this will be”
I like that and it's probably for the most part true.
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