Sequestration already biting Navy, Marines readiness

Federal News Radio ^ | 2 May 13 | Jared Serbu

[SkyPilot]

Defense Department leaders spent months warning Congress that military readiness would begin to erode if sequestration went into effect on March 1. The Navy and Marine Corps are telling lawmakers that it's now happening and that things will only get worse from here. Across government, agencies say the impact of sequestration will be somewhat insidious. But in the case of DoD's two sea services, they're already feeling it, officials told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.

"Due to reduced training and maintenance, almost all of our non-deployed ships and aviation squadrons are soon going to be less than fully mission capable and not certified for major combat operations. That's about two-thirds of the fleet," said Vice Adm. William Burke, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems. Two months into sequestration, the Marine Corps told a similar story. Lt. Gen. William Tryon, the deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations, said more than half of all non-deployed Marine units are currently at "unacceptable" levels of readiness.

"And our crisis response mission is incompatible with tiered readiness," he said. "Marines don't start to get ready when a crisis occurs. We must be ready, we must be forward deployed and we must be prepared to respond immediately."

Limited surge capacity

Both services say they have not yet been put in a position in which they've been forced to deploy forces and equipment without the requisite training and preparation.

Sailors and marines who are currently deployed or who are next in line to deploy have had their training funded. But to accomplish that in the context of severely constricted operating and maintenance budgets, the services say they've had to virtually eliminate training for service members in line behind them.

[SkyPilot]

The little faggot in the White House is causing the military’s pain.

He is the chief architect, and unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress have become his enabler to gut the military.

At this point, neither side cares much. The men and women who have sacrificed more than any other group of Americans will pay the price.

[SkyPilot]

I predict that within two years, missions suffer horribly due to going the cheap route for critical training.

I agree, but we don't need to wait 2 years to find that out.

Training is always the first thing hit.

One of the reasons the Army needs to furlough civilians (including nurses, maintainers, etc) is that they are so short of Operations and Maintenance money. It doesn't get any better in FY14 either. In fact, it all get worse because of Sequestration, which came on top of a previous cut of $487 Billion the military (over ten years) that started in 2011.

The Army cannot even afford to rotate the units that are due to come out of Afghanistan because it does not have the money to train the incoming units.

Brigade Combat training is down 80%. For the Air Force, squadrons of aircraft are now non-mission ready.

Air Force squadrons to stand down because of sequestration