Posted on 09/07/2017 4:44:55 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
Ship go thru training and get periodic re-certification various areas of warfare.
You seem to have some misapprehensions as to the way things work in the surface Navy.
The ships that are in Yokosuka now would have been buffed up nice and shiny when they pulled out of San Diego. Almost fully manned, and fresh out of refresher training.
Once in Yokosuka, they would have been beat to death by a ridiculous operating tempo. For instance, the USS Oldendorf, the first gas-turbine ship homeported in Yokosuka, got underway for the Persian Gulf at one minute past midnight on the 1st of January, 1985.
No time pierside to effect repairs, no budget to fly people stateside for schools and other training...When the Kittyhawk replaced the Oklahoma City as 7th Fleet Flagship, they even stopped screening sailors for suitability for overseas assignment.
When you’re homeported in Yokosuka, everything is harder to get, harder to do...not just because of the supply chain, but because you are underway constantly. If the Navy wanted you to have a life, they’d issue you one. Cast off all lines.
Rust isn’t the only thing that never sleeps. Ship’s company roll in and roll out, boot seamen on lookout report Mars as a UFO, FNGs don’t know where their GQ station is, and you’re lucky if you’ve got a single man on board who has ever been on the fantail in charge of towing another vessel.
Anchoring isn’t rocket surgery (hat tip to Nasty Pelosi), but it does require a number of men who know their jobs to do those jobs as a team. It requires functional equipment. Operating out of Yokosuka has a corrosive effect on both those things.
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