Posted on 09/07/2017 4:44:55 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
Thanks for clarifying. “”As of late June, eight of the 11 cruisers and destroyers in the Seventh Fleet””
What the reporter should have written is that there are 8 destroyers and 3 cruisers stationed at Yokosuka.
If the Yokosuka ships are lacking certifications, then what is the situation at the other Navy bases (San Diego, Pearl Harbor, Norfolk, etc)?
According to Wikipedia, the total number of ships in 7th Fleet is 60 to 70, not 200. With as many ship types as there are, eleven is not an unreasonable number for cruiser/destroyer classes.
It depends on politics and how harsh the fighting is.
If we’re getting creamed, then it’s,
“Grab a gun. The enemy is over there!”
If the military has time to play politics, they will play politics.
You see it as you should. These things have been in place for well over a century. Even our WWII heros trained and drilled their asses off to become competent military fighting men.
Agreed.. so we are broadcasting to the world that we are not war ready. This is my gravest concern. The responsibile leadership should wither away in some Antarctic post until they resign.
I just watched U 571, so I know nothing of the navy.. but common sense dictate if you are at sea on a warship, you are war ready. 17sailors lost their lives. In a terrible and avoidable tragedy.
Our troops need to train, drill, train, drill.. sleep one hour and train more. It’s a recipe that has worked since our founding.
The rest of the world is ready to erase us and we are only good at finding funny you tube videos.
It’s a shame isn’t it. A generation of men who didn’t go to high school can fight and win wars.. we have a most educated class of military members that can’t nav a ship? God rest the greatest generation.. we are flushing their sacrifices down the toilet.
Before my DDG's WestPac deployment in 1972, we did a huge amount of training and what seemed like innumerable inspections.
Pathetic affirmative action hires. Can’t even pass basic seamanship.
“God rest the greatest generation.. we are flushing their sacrifices down the toilet.”
That “Greatest Generation” failed to raise their children, and consequently their grandchildren, properly. Lazy bastards!
Sounds reasonable before deployment to level up! Everyone does that. Navigation is a 101 skill, 301 if it’s a destroyer.
Do you mean to tell me, your ship couldn’t navigate before it was certified? Who in the world mans a multi billion dollar destroyer without experienced leadership? By experienced I mean experience at nav and staffing and training.
The ocean is busier than ever, so why risk lives without experienced crew on a destroyer? 17 men aren’t coming home. Why is that!
While ships can certainly operate without formal certification, the inspections associated with certification find weaknesses that could cause the ship and it’s crew to operate unsafely or ineffectively.
Certification isn’t so much the key as are the inspections that allow the certification to be made.
So you are saying 17 people died due to lack of inspections? Maybe contributed.
Aren’t there redundant systems on a ship to avoid collision? If one system fails, I get it. If redundant systems failed, I find that unlikely. Not buying their story.
This is leadership failure, not equipment failure. Yes inspections ensure systems are functioning.
Are you saying a destroyer, which has scheduled maintenance, including function checks, had a physical failure? Two Arles Berke class destroyers?. Um, no. Not buying it.
Who sunk or attacked our ships? And why didn’t we go into readiness exercises after the Fitzgerald? My coworkers son was on that ship.
Paperwork
Helicopter pilot: I have the target locked on, permission to fire, sir.
Negative!, Your paperwork is incomplete.
Leadership (or in this case, the lack of leadership) starts at the very top....Obama.
I have been laying a little low, considering all this. I have been a very harsh critic, from day one I could see the roots of why these things have occurred, and I knew it wasn’t some hacking or cloaking by a foreign country or muslims.
It was poor readiness, training, and leadership.
But I have pulled back to think on this. Have I been too harsh? Have I been sounding off on things I have no direct experience in (bridge watching or navigation) even though I am steeped in what was Navy culture?
The more I dwell on this, the more I am convinced every bit of harshness is deserved.
I fault the lack of readiness from fleet commanders all the way up to the Commander in Chief dating back to Clinton, and include in this our legislators at ALL levels.
I don’t necessarily blame individual sailors on these combat ships, women, homosexuals, transgenders, affirmative action advancees, etc, because they are only taking advantage of what the Navy and civilian leadership lets them do, but I do hold them entirely accountable for their own lack of readiness, training, and leadership.
And I do fault everyone along the chain for lack of leadership, and that goes up to the Navy arm of the joint chiefs and the Secretaries of Defense all the way back to the G.W. Bush administration. They should have been advocating for the Navy to civilian leadership as a military outfit, but instead were caving to PC pressures and acting like a jobs program.
So, I don’t think I have been too harsh. I just had to make sure I think it out. This was not an easy thing, given my Navy family background and service, something I am very proud of and grateful for.
From what I have read, the Navy is putting up various stories to see what sticks. Most are along the lines of:
1. We need more money.
2. We need a lot more money.
The government is one of the few organizations in the entire world that get rewarded for incompetence. When a government agency messes up, they get more money to supposedly fix what should not have broken.
The Navy, in particular, and the Military, in general, has allowed its competence to be degraded. The degradation accelerated under Obama, but began at least 25 years ago.
When Admirals spend their time debating whether to remove or keep urinals on warships, we should be very concerned.
Aha! Nailed it.
Everyone was drilled, engineering, supply, air, deck, coms, etc. Although I don't know what drills in particular Navigation and Operations went through, I am sure they were tested too. Every year similar ships, (say aircraft carriers ), would compete and Airlant would announce the results for the Battle "E" (E = Efficiancy), for the overall winner. Departments could still win fleet wide recognition, say for Engineering , Air, or Supply for example. Ships would have these "awards" painted on the island structure.
I agree with that. Our education system clearly demonstrates how money equals preparedness.
Well I don’t buy this certification story. 17 sailors families better not buy it either.
When Admirals spend their time debating urinals, we get a pi$$ poor Navy.
“”””No urinals on the new Navy aircraft carrier By: Peter Rathmell NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (April 8, 2017) The new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford has all sorts of high-tech gear equipped for 21st century naval warfare. But there is one thing that male sailors will notice is no longer available: Urinals.
For the first time, every bathroom on the Ford — known throughout military circles as a head — is designed to be “gender-neutral,” meaning all of the urinals have been replaced with flush toilets and stalls, Navy officials say.
The vast majority of the 5,000-plus sailors who will deploy aboard the carrier Ford are men, as women account for only about 18 percent of sailors in the Navy.
Bathroom design experts say water closets with seated toilets are less sanitary and take up far more space than wall-mounted urinals.
Nevertheless, the Navy says there are advantages to eliminating urinals.
It will allow the Navy to quickly and efficiently change a head’s assigned gender, so depending on the ship’s demographics at the time, berthing areas can be switched between male and female to accommodate the crew’s needs.
“This is designed to give the ship flexibility because there aren’t any berthing areas that are dedicated to one sex or the other,” Operations Specialist 1st Class Kaylea Motsenbocker told Navy Times recently.
Every head on the Ford is being integrated into a berthing, she said. As such, the Navy claims that gender-neutral heads will make living aboard the Ford more convenient for sailors.
“So if this space was needed for males, we could shift the females to other berthing areas and make this all male without any modification being necessary,” Motsenbocker said.
It’s a decision that comes as a surprise to many professionals who design restrooms. “[A toilet is] by far a less clean environment than a urinal. By far,” said Chuck Kaufman, president of the Public Restroom Company, an organization that specializes in designing bathrooms.
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