Posted on 08/22/2017 11:24:02 AM PDT by nickcarraway
ith the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) knocked out of commission after a collision on Aug. 21 in the Straits of Malacca, the United States Navy is down two ballistic missile defense-capable Aegis destroyers in the Pacific.
With USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) being also being knocked out of action after a June 17 collision off the Japanese coast, the loss of the two vessels from operational service could not come at a worse time for the Navy, which needs of all the ballistic missile defense assets it can get to deal with the North Korean threat. Nor does the Navy have a good way to mitigate for the loss of those vessels—the 275-ship fleet is already stretched thin.
“The U.S. combat fleet is already over-stretched,” Seth Cropsey, director of the Center for American Seapower at the Hudson Institute told The National Interest.
“Being short of two Aegis-equipped DDGs that provide ballistic missile defense while North Korea is threatening to launch ballistic missiles at local U.S. targets or allies is deeply unhelpful and regrettably timed. The overall impact on the Navy should be measured not only in the loss of sailors’ lives and unavailability of the ships as they are repaired but in the possibility that requirements have exceeded capabilities so far that the training needed to avoid such accidents has been impaired.”
Bryan McGrath, managing director of the naval consultancy FerryBridge Group, agreed with Cropsey’s assessment.
“Two fewer DDGs—I believe both of which are BMD equipped—leaves a sizable hole in a fleet that is already too small for what is being asked of it in the Western Pacific,” McGrath told The National Interest.
“I imagine that the Navy will have to move ships out of their regular cycles from Hawaii and CONUS [continental United States] to cover down on Pacific requirements.”
It will not be easy to cover for the loss of the two destroyers, explains Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“With two FDNF (Forward Deployed Naval Forces) DDGs out, the Navy would either need to forego some operations, work the remaining 10 cruisers and destroyers harder, or bring ships from Hawaii or CONUS to cover for them,” Clark told The National Interest.
Indeed, the fact that the Navy is forcing its fleet to do more with fewer ships to perform its global mission might have contributed to both collisions.
“Since the workload in FDNF may be a contributing factor to the collisions, the Navy would probably use ships from Hawaii from CONUS to cover for the loss,” Clark said.
“If those ships are following the Optimized FRP (Fleet Response Plan), the Navy will need five ships to cover for the two lost from FDNF. Each FDNF ship maintains an about 50 percent OPTEMPO, and an OFRP ship is about 20 percent deployed (one 7-month deployment each, 36 months).”
In fact, because the fleet is being pushed so hard, the Navy might be using its time at sea to train during operational deployments because there is no other option, Jerry Hendrix, director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security, told The National Interest.
“Something has to give, and right now, it’s training,” Hendrix said.
“A year ago, or two years ago, it was maintenance, but now it’s training. We’re probably trying to make up training while we’re underway during the deployment because there just isn’t enough room in the schedule to get it all done.”
It is simply not sustainable to have a 275-ship Navy that has 100 ships underway at any given time. The Navy needs to expand its numbers with smaller, cheaper surface combatants such a new multi-mission frigate that the can relieve high-end warships such as DDGs from mundane missions such as forward presence. With frigates relieving the DDGs from those roles, cruisers and destroyers can focus on high-end missions such as missile defense.
“We need those 50 to 75 frigates—not to mention more fast attack submarines—to make up those gaps,” Hendrix said.
But ships take time to build. What the Navy can do immediately is to bring retired Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate back into the fleet as a stopgap.
“You can use things like the Perrys with some missiles to do the show-the-flag missions until we can get the new frigate up and you could probably get eight ships right there,” Hendrix said.
I double-handed a 41' sailboat across the Pacific 6 on, 6 off for the entire voyage and it lasted a lot longer than a couple of weeks.
Would that count?
Sailing shorthanded keeps you busy every minute - Sailing is not like steering a power boat.
And keeping a good 24 hour watch in between everything else is vital.
“””According to the article, it’s 20% deployment. One 7 month in 36 months. Or, if I understand it correctly, 29 months not deployed and 7 deployed over a span of 3 years. Doesn’t sound exhausting to me.”””
And on the other hand the sailors on these container ships and tankers colliding with the Navy ships are typically 10 months on the ship and 2 months vacation. So in three years a merchant mariner is at sea 30 months and at home 6 months. That is pretty much the opposite of a US Navy sailor.
That was critical on my son’s sub. He is a nuke and got out as soon as he could. He described 100+ hour weeks as a matter of course. People actually falling asleep on their feet. A CO who devised make-work. Of course, my boy hated him. The successor was better.
When he told me that I was gobstruck by the total idiocy and danger of this practice.
Sailor train, repair and have other duties on top of the at sea watch duties. It is not just a job, it's 5 jobs.
The merchants don’t have anything to do at sea but sleep and get high for the most part.
It’s far different than the pace of a warship.
CO: Sailor - that 80,000 ton vessel that has a radar profile like an aircraft hangar is lit-up like a las vegas whorehouse - at 10,000 meters. Take evasive action.
Sailor: Sir, I can’t see it!
CO: Sailor. What are you talking about?!
Sailor: I’m too tired!
Nope. I was on an aircraft carrier with a working squadron.
Not much sleep.
Speaking of chow - the beans on toast for breakfast was something you don't forget!
Overwork as I described above was so bad that my son’s sub had a actual suicide watch for exhausted sailors. Morale was on the floor because of the 100+ hours per week.
Your remark seems to ignore the actual impact of the deployments which you try to minimize. For every soldier in the field there are 2-4 people in the supply chain and logistics. Then you have the psychological impact on the soldiers and their families. And it does not stop after discharge.
I love the part when, after chasing a Soviet SSBN for 3 weeks and finally the ship gets relieved on station, the needle guns start up. “Relax from quiet ship” means make enough noise to raise the dead. No real sleep for weeks and some deck ape is firing up a needle gun 10 feet from you.
My son was so depressed by the unnecessary overwork that I feared for his mental health. My respect for him for his survival of Power School and the rest of his hitch is very high.
I can relate...partying hearty in Olongapo or Subic City until the wee hours of the morning exhausted me!
I don’t believe anyone would make the case, at least no rational person, that fatigue was the proximate cause of the failure to avoid the collisions.
That fault is more properly ascribed to abject incompetence. Likely due to affirmative action.
Don’t they just sit in deck chairs and drink Daiquiris?
“Relax from quiet ship”
You may now float the #2 diesel in your coffee.
How could the military escape the cultural rot all around it?
Trump will or has put a stop to some of the crap that infuriates all of us.
LOL, the “needle guns”...
I suppose that as bad or worse than the ‘dink dink dink dink’ of the chipping hammers! I never had to use them (being an airedale) but I heard them!
“The bells...the bells...”
I guess that is the problem, isn’t it. The cultural rot can’t help but infect the military.
I just cannot bring myself to believe it can’t be undone, because if it can’t...we are going to get our asses handed to us in a shooting war.
I can’t face that reality at this time.
No it would not be collapse or surrender. Anyone believing this war can be won with a big battle is a fool. All that can happen is to turn the ship of state as it can be turned -very slowly. It has taken a century to get to where we are and will take decades to beat back the nihilists.
A job most likely given to the seaman with the worst hangover from the night before...
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