Posted on 04/30/2022 10:18:16 AM PDT by FarCenter
In an interview with the US Naval Institute, the US Chief Of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Mike Gilday, addressed the issue of US Navy ships returning to port covered in rust, saying that rust-free ships are critical for deterrence and naval readiness.
“On the appearance side, you have to be ready, you have to look like you mean business,” said the Vice Admiral Peter Daly of USNI. “Now that COVID has eased off and port calls are less restrictive, is there time to lay to and paint?”
The question comes after many photos of rust-worn American naval ships have hit the internet, with the latest being the USNS Alan Shepard, a Military Sealift Command supply ship named in honor of the first American in space, photographed in the Singapore Strait looking worn, tired, and streaked with rust.
Many have blamed COVID but the problem extends back before the coronavirus choked supply lines and squeezed US Navy operations. “The nonchalant attitude many are taking to the physical condition of the public-facing part of our Navy is, in a word, disgraceful,” said former surface warfare officer Commander Salamander back in 2019. “I’m not quite sure when our culture decided that doing less with worse was acceptable – where for your wants NOW, you will saddle future leaders who follow you with the Bondo, duct tape, and baling wire remediation you did to get by – but here we are.”
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
“It’s really amazing just how many parallels there are between the US and Rome just before it fell.”
So very, very true.
The collapse of Rome was due largely to the fact it became an over-sized administrative bureaucracy, concerned primarily with its own survival.
Kind of sounds familiar, eh?
Where are they gettin' tinfoil? All I ever see is that aluminum stuff!
They're typically the ones keeping the ship looking tidy. And they're not third class...E-1 Seaman recruit, E-2 Seaman apprentice, E-3 Seaman, E-4 Petty officer third class...
A little Naval Jelly will fix that right up
YEAH..! And I want every Monday and Friday off.....and egg in my beer.
back in olden days, when we pulled into Hong Kong, 50 or so lbs. of scrap brass got our ship sides painted by Mary Sue.
When you are slamming into 40+ seas you want a malleable hull, not some brittle aluminum hull where the welds start popping.
How many people died in the towers because the builders weren’t allowed to use proper fireproofing?
During one of the attacks on the Turkish forts at the entrance to the Dardenelles there were sailors hanging over the starboard side of a BB scrapping and painting while the BB engaged the forts over the port side. Safest place on the ship as they had the whole ship between them and the Turks
fibre glass. I’m learning by building some toy sailboats. I can lend my expertise.
splice the main brace.
I believe the Navy is abandoning the aluminum ships experiment. Corrosion problems.
Pretty hard to chip pain and rust then paint in high heels and assorted top and bottom trans surgery wounds healing .
I don’t blame him, in fact, as a CTT3 (1988-1992), I’ve scrapped rust and used a literal ton of Brasso.
A rust bucket doesn’t inspire fear or confidence.
Time to put fish oil back in the paint
Interesting point. Thank you.
We “win” the EPA Clause in the contract.
And lose the war. Lose the ship 15 years early.
I recall back in the late 90’s the EPA wouldn’t let us empty the water in the sonar dome due to ‘high levels of tri-N-butyl tin. Took over a year before big Navy proved to EPA that the concentration is heater in the ocean than in a sonar dome.
Point well made.
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