Posted on 12/23/2019 8:54:41 AM PST by Oatka
When a navy sanctions join same-sex couples together with men it is not surprising that they wrongly join two ships together as well.
U.S. Naval Academy Hosts First Same-Sex Wedding https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-naval-academy-hosts-first-same-sex-wedding-maryland-n102276
True.
When the ‘top’ allows such Schiff, no telling what is going on in the Fleet.
Like ‘Sailors’ have been saying for years before me and after me
“This ain’t MY NAVY”
The Johnston being one at the Battle of Malaca in PI.
That in and of itself is not bad, as a matter of fact, in a warship that could sustain damage or casualties, I would think that would be a critical requirement, never mind the fundamental concept of a rudder failure which would mandate uncoupled screws to steer the ship.
What WAS bad were two specific things (IIRC):
1.) The indication that they were unpaired with each other and the function of each shaft split onto different control stations was either non-existent or obscure, so a helmsman might not realize they were "unpaired" and supposedly being operated by someone else somewhere else.
2.) The training was clearly unsatisfactory. Clearly. It almost makes me nauseous to consider it, from the top echelons down to the bottom, failure all along the way. The Naval Training command that probably puts regulations in place, the execution of it at the fleet level, the command level, and the department level was appallingly poor. Shameful. They set that young sailor up to fail.
I will say this about that young man: I know just what he means when he said "...Not many people of my age can say, ‘Hey, I just drove a giant-ass battleship,’” said Bordeaux, 23..."
People are jumping on that young man for saying that, but I understood his sentiment more than parsing out just how he expressed himself, which misses the point.
One of our planes had oil coming out of the belly pan, so I took off the wraparound panel (probably 30-60 Dzus fasteners, the kind that take a quarter turn to undo) so there were a lot. I took off the panel, and could see oil leaking at a decent rate from a fitting.
I figured it would take me just a couple of minutes to determine if the leak could be stopped...cut the safety wire, tighten the fitting, if it stopped, I could re-wire it, check the oil level, put the panel back on, and be good to go.
I started working, focusing on the work at hand (my head and upper torso inside the plane) when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked down to see a pair of khaki trousers being buffeted by the wind. It was a Chief Aviation Bosun’s mate, and he was one of the senior people on the flight deck.
I stood up and put my ear next to his mouth, and he yelled “CAN THE PLANE TAKE OFF?”
I yelled back “YES. I NEED TO FINISH SAFETY WIRING THIS FITTING AND PUTTING THE PANEL BACK ON...JUST ANOTHER TWO OR THREE MINUTES.”
He yelled “OK. LET ME KNOW WHEN IT IS GOOD TO GO. THE CAPTAIN NEEDS TO FINISH LAUNCHING SO HE CAN CHANGE COURSE.”
I didn’t give it another thought, got right back in, finished the job, and the plane taxied to the catapult, took off, and I went below.
It was only later that I thought of it: That entire carrier task force, the escorts, billions of dollars of equipment and probably 10,000 men were waiting for me to finish my job so they could change course and begin the next phase of operations.
All waiting on me, an average 20 year old guy.
We load the young people in our military up with awesome responsibilities, and we expect them to perform. And they largely do almost ALL the time. When they don’t, people can get maimed or killed. And as many Marines and Army infantry veterans know well, getting killed or injured is likely enough in combat without a young man bungling the great responsibility given to them and increasing the chances.
That said, it is one of the things that has made our military one of the best in history, ever. We give people at all levels the responsibility to do their job, and allow them to often function under their own initiative when the critical situation demands it. It has given our military the ability to defeat enemies who may vastly outnumber us or have other advantages in combat. Sure, much of that comes from having the tools to do the job, but I think our philosophy of leadership and responsibility is a huge part of it.
We as a country failed that young man. We gave him complex systems that require more extensive training and certification than he was likely given, and we gave him complex systems that were flawed in critical ways that his training may or may not have been able to cope with. To add to the insult, we put him in an operational situation that was going to eventually cause a mishap. It was only a matter of time.
We should be encouraged that this sailor was so proud of what he was doing. If our military is not already lost due to its social experimentation and active suppression of war fighting mindset, we should at the very least address these issues going forward to prevent this unnecessary loss of life and property.
Rather fitting that the McCain kept turning to the left!
Good points...I read the report and cannot believe the captain was conducting effective loss-of-steering drills on the bridge watch teams or adequately training watchstanders on this complex, albeit less than intuitive, equipment.
On quiet nights at open sea, the mid-watch was always used to conduct drills of this nature. In fairness, I have been out of the Navy for a long time; but even back then, many distractions were being introduced that adversely impacted readiness.
You mean the Battle Off Samar? If so, yes - the Hoel at the same action, for the same reasons, though not as successfully.
USS San Francisco, CA38, had her bridge blown off with all command personnel on the bridge killed at the naval battle of Guadalcanal. The survivor, a communications officer, was left on what remained of the bridge to provide eyes to guide the ship. Steering and engine control was shifted to her alternate control center, Battle 2, which was subsequently destroyed by enemy gunfire. Control was then shifted to the conning tower, which was hit by shellfire and temporarily knocked out. In the end, the engineering crew was steering and driving the ship with only verbal commands from abovedecks guiding them. It managed to make it home.
Read the article. Technology is being blamed in it but it becomes clear as you read it that tech wasn’t the problem - the crew and their training were the problem.
Three on watch in those waters is suicide, we had 12-24 depending on how busy it was and not everything gets picked up by radar and tracked
I know. It seems outlandish. As you said, the time for conducting those types of drills under the BEST of conditions would have to be in an appropriate setting away from an actual docking process. And that after a lot of simulation.
I hope people don’t think I am making excuses for that sailor, but I don’t see him as the primary culprit here. If they had the correct training processes, and the software was properly designed, there should have been little there on that console that was a mystery except for perhaps configuration types of things, which he as an end user would not necessarily have to know, or if he did, would be opened to him via software application permissions.
And if they were open to him, he darn well should have been expected to know about those configuration options and what they did.
I have spent many years after my tour in the Navy and ten years working clinically in health care setting up, training, and supporting software, so I have seen this type of thing from both being a young sailor (I was a jet mechanic) to software interface design, configuration, support, and training.
It is evident to me that the software design had holes in it. This is not unusual, nearly all software has holes or shortcomings...it is the job of the implementers and training coordinators to see those holes and set up processes and procedures to make sure people are aware of those holes and to train around them.
The training was obviously substandard. If I had to guess the BEST case scenario, I would say the software was not well designed to limit the exposure of users to appropriate features and menus (no robust permissions functionality) depending on their job, but was open to everyone, and the trainers said things like “Don’t worry about that menu. It has a lot of things you don’t want to mess with, so don’t go in there”. That is the best case. The worst case is that the software DID have capability to limit functionality to users, but people were too lazy or poorly trained to configure it correctly, and thus people at any time were dependent on users to heed their warning not to “mess around in there”. I have seen it, and due to limitations in software, have had to trust people with more permissions than they needed (because they had a specific function they needed to get their job done) but I overcome that distasteful compromise by extra training to instruct them on what could happen if they did “mess” with something they didn’t understand, and to make sure they understood the ramifications.
The unfortunate thing there is that to set up permissions in software appropriately, you have to understand completely the different roles people play and create specific permission sets exactly for each role, and codify that in solid policies and procedures. I have to think (given my own experience in the way the US military trains people to do their jobs, and how those jobs are carried out) that would be completely set in cement for US Navy bridge teams, but I have never served there, so I am only guessing. I just assume it is very rigid.
Lastly, I sympathize with this sailor. It is easy as an older man to forget, but I recall too vividly learning tasks and feeling very insecure in my ability and knowledge for that task the first number of times I had to perform it without someone supervising me directly. A good example was the concept of calculating a plane’s weight so that the correct amount of catapult pressure could be applied for a successful launch. That was my job for a few months. You had to check the fuel load...the bomb load, add it all up, and present it via a small chalkboard (IIRC, that was a long time ago now) to the pilot as they taxied to the catapult. The pilot was also responsible for adding it up, and the pilot would give you a thumbs up if their calculation squared with yours. You would then give that number to the catapult team, and they would set the catapult strength.
If you screwed up and the pilot was distracted and assumed you did it correctly and gave you a thumbs up, the strength could be set incorrectly. To strong, and it could damage the plane. Too weak, and you would get a cold cat shot, and the plane would end up in the drink with loss of life and property. So it was important.
I was terrified for the simple reason that my math skills were terrible. I agonized over every calculation to make sure I got it right, and I didn’t want to be responsible for a mishap. No person wants to be the “weak sister” at best, and at worst, responsible for someone’s death.
And so these young people like this sailor may not be the best judge of what they do or don’t know enough of. That has to be the person training and qualifying them, because you have to take that uncertainty out of the hands of the young sailor, Marine, airman, or soldier. There have to be processes in place to have a measure of that for a trainer so they can determine qualification.
Given how this happened, I simply cannot see how it is possible they had those processes in place and were followed.
I meant to say docking or transit process...obviously, the McCain was transiting a busy seaway, not docking...
Yes, I did mean Samar. Thanks. As I recall the skipper of the Johnston was seen standing on the fan tail yelling orders to the sailors inside who were operating the rudder by hand.
Excellent comments...I concur.
Correct, he was seen to conduct not one but several attacks on the Japanese fleet with his ship in this condition. Hoel was similarly damaged and was being directed similarly but the ship was shortly thereafter focused fired by several Japanese ships that had finally switched to high explosive shells and sunk.
Over the years I have been very impressed with the quality of military personnel shortly after separation from service. I’ve made it a habit whenever possible to hire veterans. I have a wide assortment of former service members and MOS’s that either work for me currently or have in the past. My family’s direct experience with the military is mostly a naval aviation I believe that the aviation personnel are some of the best trained and well disciplined of the veterans; such as yourself. I do have a young former sailor working for me that was rated in nuclear power and he is the most meticulous and best record keeper that that I have ever seen. The other interesting person is a former Marine, his specialty was demolition of combat vehicles don’t know what MOS that is but he’s a very meticulous person also.
As far as this incident with the McCain goes and the OP in this thread I reread the admirals summary of the incident. It seems very clear that there was a very severe shortage of proper training and the subsequent assignment of unqualified personnel to various tasks particularly on the bridge. As it says in the incident report splitting of the functions driving the ship were not well defined and clear. This is a problem with the advancement of technology where human factors are not necessarily taken into account for design and operational purposes. In my work I spend a great deal of time automating various processes as part of that we devote a lot of energy to how the machines and the people interact and believe me the people still find ways to defeat various safeguards and features in the system(s).
The sad thing in this case is that people were injured and died. I hope the Navy learned its lesson(s) and improves training and functional experience of sailors particularly in the surface fleet. As they say, every rule is written in blood.
If I haven’t said it before, thank you for dedicating part of your life to military service.
Merry Christmas!
I feel much the same way that you do-if I have to hire someone or provide input on an applicant, I view prior military service as a plus off the bat.
I know there was deployment saturation with that vessel, but I just don’t know how you could scrimp on that type of training. For God’s sake, it isn’t like chipping paint! I sure do hope they take something positive from this tragedy.
I remember in training that a CPO said to us new Plane Captain trainees (I paraphrase): “You are going to think that some things you have to do are stupid, unnecessary, or inefficient, and that you have a better way to do it. Don’t. Many of the things you learn were paid for in blood.” That was an odd thing for a teenager to hear...
And you are spot on when you said people still find ways to defeat various safeguards and features in the system(s). They aren’t malicious most of the time, or even lazy. They simply think they have found a better way, and it turns out not to be!
Thank for the discourse over the years, FRiend, and Merry Christmas to you and yours!
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