[Steve Van Doorn]

said, "The culmination of the week was “killing off” all the senior officers and NCOs to see how the crew handled things for about 15-20 minutes prior to the abandoning ship drill"

I'm curious now. Did they abandon the project allowing the crew to handle the ship with out the officers? I can see how the first drill would end in complete failure. Though the concept in my opinion should be continued. Not doing does nothing but boost the self worth of the commanders does nothing to improve over all performance of the ship.

Reminds me the time when a Navy SEAL team came out to a paint ball match against us. The SEAL team was destroyed. They came back a few weeks later with similar tactics as we played and did very well. They didn't give up.

[LonePalm]

The officers are still on station but aren't allowed to say anything.

Should anything endanger the ship the CO would end the exercise and the officers would resume their normal duties.

I did REFTRA once as ship's CIC Officer. The Chief Operations Specialist evaluating us used to be my 1^st class. I had beat him at maneuvering board when I first took over the division. Combat had no significant issues noted during REFTRA. We were good but there was no way he was going to ding the officer and Chief that helped make him a Chief.

WWG1WGA

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[reed13k]

no the “killing off” and timing and everything was a preplanned part of the training exercise. Part of it was to show the “youngsters” they still had more to learn, part was to figure out who really knew their stuff, and part was just to get to the abandon ship exercise to get through that part of the training and exercise it. Was always on the last day of training so everything else was already completed.