Generally, if I remember correctly, the buck usually stopped at the ship’s Captain. This time, they jumped up a couple of steps in the Chain of command and fired the Fleet commander. It indicates to me a perception that this is systemic, not individual ship failures.
I am a retired Army officer, most General and Flag Officer reliefs of which I am aware involve personal misconduct (adultery, financial irregularities, etc...). This is a firing for an operational failure, something that has been very rare over the recent past.
I am a retired Army officer, most General and Flag Officer reliefs of which I am aware involve personal misconduct (adultery, financial irregularities, etc...). This is a firing for an operational failure, something that has been very rare over the recent past.
After 9/11 when two aircraft carriers could not get underway due to readiness issues {equipment failures} their Captains were relieved of duty but not a Star fell. The cause of the carriers unable to get underway were likely funding issue related to parts as well as some task require a shipyard to accomplish.
The Navy or rather The Pentagon and more specifically Congress has been playing a very dangerous game since the early 1990's and beginning under Poppy Bush and continuing for every administration and congressional session since of sending ships unfit for getting underway to sea. Then IIRC under Obama many ships sat idle in port for a long time which will greatly diminish training and overall readiness.
To figure it out in that respect the ships involved underway {at sea} schedule for the past 4 years {not the same thing as their deployment schedule but includes deployments}, their shipyard rotations as well as looking at their 2 Kilo {work request} for shipyard repairs, vs what actually got funded would need to be known.
It sounds like many things combined have likely cause a breakdown in equipment and skills needed. Causes that may be out of the hands of the ships Captains if the Navy doesn't pay for training or funding is held up by Congress. As I understand it some ratings in Navigation related duties require land based refresher classes. I'm thinking Quatermasters.
>> It indicates to me a perception that this is systemic, not individual ship failures.
A widely accepted perception.
It speaks to one of the differences between the land and sea services.
Unless at pierside or drydock, Navy ships are operational. The USN has a Chief of Naval Operations rather than a Chief of Staff.
Are Army units ‘operational’ outside of combat? I don’t know.
Since the dawn of the Royal Navy, ships represent expensive extensions of the sovereign. HMS stands for “his majesty’s ship,” and that is exactly what is meant.
The Captain and his ship are one and the same. So intertwined is the Captain with the ship, that when the Captain arrives, he is ‘piped aboard’. A quarterdeck watchstander will notify the crew that the Captain is aboard by sounding on the 1MC (shipwide intercom) “[name of ship] arriving,” rather than saying, “Captain Jones is aboard.”
A peacetime accident is prima facie proof that the Captain is unworthy of command, to be in charge of this floating platform of US sovereignty. It is why the USN’s first reaction is to relieve the Captain and let a court of inquiry figure things out.
Few positions are more precarious than USN Commanding Officers. We hear about personal misconduct in the press, but for every one of those there are probably several men who were relieved for operational mistakes.
There was the third incident of the ship grounding in Tokyo Bay.
This is just utter widespread failures of seamanship, and the poor training falls upon everyone in the chain of command responsible for the training and operation of these ships.
I wonder if PACFLT was not happy with this Admiral even before these incidents. This could be an excuse to FINALLY get rid of him. Of course, I think it is a more cover your butt result.