Posted on 08/21/2017 9:44:56 AM PDT by Mariner
The U.S. Navy announced an operational pause and has begun a broad investigation after the destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant vessel, leaving 10 sailors still missing, the second such incident in as many months.
The response by the U.S. military signals the Navy believes it needs to examine whether there may be institutional problems behind the deadly collisions.
Navy Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, made the announcement about the operational pause during a nearly four-minute video message posted on Facebook Monday morning. Adm. Richardson said he also ordered a broader investigation.
I directed an operational pause be taken in all of our fleets around the world, Adm. Richardson said. I want our fleet commanders to get together with their leaders and their commands to ensure that we are taking all appropriate immediate actions to ensure safe and effective operations around the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Don’t misunderstand me-I am 100% in the non-conspiracy theorist camp, and believe this is caused by poor training and leadership.
So you’re saying the McCain ship had brain cancer?
Meanwhile, the missing 10 are floating around waiting to be rescued.
Still should have been avoidable, but it is at least theoretically possible the McCain didn't have enough maneuvering room when it got rammed.
CDR Sanchez, the CO of the McCain (not the other Sachez, the XO) was a Pensacola Primary Flight washout.
BTW, you would think someone in BuPers would be smart enough to not put two Commander (O-5) Sanchez on the same ship, one the CO, the other the XO.
Has this type of pause happened before?
Yes, the pause came after even more accidents.
48-HOUR STOPPAGE PLANNED BY NAVY
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG, Special to The New York Times
Published: November 15, 1989
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 After a succession of accidents around the world, the Navy announced today that it was suspending routine operations for 48 hours to review safety procedures with each sailor and aviator.
It was the first time the Navy has taken such a step, officials said, and it reflected the mounting concern over the deaths and injuries sustained by both Navy personnel and civilians in the accidents in the past three weeks.
Navy officials said that the suspension would only affect routine operations and training exercises and that essential military functions, like ship movements in the Persian Gulf and drug interdiction efforts, would not be stopped. All deployed ships, submarines and aircraft would still be available for emergency operations, the officials said. Two More Accidents.
The safety review was ordered early this morning before word was received about a fire today aboard the Inchon, an amphibious assault ship undergoing maintenance in Norfolk, Va. The blaze injured 31 sailors and 8 civilians. The Navy said one sailor was in guarded condition and another was in serious condition.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/15/us/48-hour-stoppage-planned-by-navy.html?mcubz=0
Typical Watch was beefed up for transit of a major straight.
A standard watch included 2 forward, 2 port, 1 on the bow, 1 on the stern, a rover/runner (which checked to make sure they were alert and where they are supposed to be), a Watch Supervisor which all had to check in and be logged in the Ship’s Log every 5m with a report.
This was in 1991.
Sailors are overwhelmed.
In order to operate a radar, or any system component, today's sailor probably had to earn 37 different qualifications, each consisting of a 65 line "Personnel Qualification Standards" syllabus that he had to get signed off, line by line, ninety percent of which have no real applications to operating that piece of gear.
Without all of these sign-offs, he can't earn his qualifications. The qualification "on paper" is a requirement to as much as look at this piece of gear. Plus, his LPO said if he's not qualified before deployment, he'll get a counseling chit and DIVO won't approve his POM leave.
So what's a sailor to do? Simple. They get the qual gundecked. "Hey buddy. Just sign this off for me. I'll figure out how to use it later." His buddy doesn't think twice. Everyone does it. OJT is how we really learn stuff, not these stupid sign-offs.
Now in addition to the 90% of white noise that he doesn't need to know is the 10% that is absolutely essential to operating that radar! Of course, he's so overwhelmed with bulls**t that he doesn't recognize what he needs to know from what he doesn't so he gets everything gundecked; the crap and the important stuff. When it is time to take a proficiency test, his LPO gives him the answers because Chief is on his ass to get his workcenter qualled up!
Now he's fully qualified to operate this piece of gear but has no idea how to actually operate it. And there's 16 more pieces of gear he needs to get qualified to operate. And the quals he's already earned, he needs to requal every year. More gundecking!
And in between earning his work-related qualifications, he has to take CNO-mandated training on sexual assault, alcohol abuse, equal opportunity, suicide awareness, transgender acceptance, hazing, fraternization, social network usage, financial management, sex trafficking, drug abuse, and stress. And he needs college courses. And he needs to sell breakfast burritos to raise money for the Second Class Petty Officer's Association. And he needs to go out and paint orphanages or serve food at a homeless shelter for volunteer hours on his eval.
And he has collateral duties, half of which are total BS eval bullets that have nothing to do with seamanship but they take up a lot of time. And he has programs that are getting audited. That's OK. QA is overwhelmed too so they'll just gundeck everything as well.
And he has to work out. His command no longer PTs as a command in the morning before flight ops. There just isn't time but he still has to pass the PRT so he needs to find his own time to stay in shape.
And he needs to study for advancement.
And he has to stand watch.
And it is getting worse. The Navy is adding more and more tasking to their Sailor's plate and then gundecking all of it because the Sailor can't keep his head above water.
The Navy needs to return to the fundamentals of warfighting and seamanship.
One low cost partial fix would be to allow the Officer On Watch to mark his palms with the letters P (port) and R (starboard) again.......
Is it odd that both were anti ballistic missle destroyers as Fox reported late late yesterday?
Part of abm defense, if I understood correctly.
“The Navy shuts down the fleet in order to investigate the collisions and all of a sudden you have a bunch of floating targets not ready to respond.”
Pause operations =/= turn off the ships and everyone have a week off with the navy totally unmanned.
I do not know any of those you mentioned,I supposed that I am cursed. I also do not have any muslim , communists, or obama voter friends. I guess one could say that I am doubly cursed.
Training ... New skippers no longer go to Newport to learn ship driving but are sent directly to their boat ... If the CO does not know how to drive his boat, what are we to expect from the enlisted?
Broad diversity == homogeneity
I just drove 4500 miles around the United States, and I can attest that this nation is the very epitome of “diverse.” I saw the burgeoning heights of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile and I saw the ever green desolation of Colorado’s eastern plains. I saw the corn and the soybean fields across Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, and I saw the cattle ranches across Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. I saw Big rivers, and even bigger mountains.
And everywhere I met people. Nice people. Different people. But everywhere, the people I met call all their different places here in America “home.”
“Diversity” means everywhere sameness; a homogeneous nation artificially created over time to efface and erase the memory of our past.
‘Cuz when everyplace is “diverse”; nowhere will be.
I think the entire command chain needs disciplined, they should all go.
When I was in, signing off on someone without making sure they knew what it is they are supposed to would get you a Captain’s Mast or worse.
An officer will ask questions to determine in the end if you know what they say you know.
If he finds you don’t, he is going back to those who said he did and they are going to be deep in the bilge.
Maybe this crap flew on a Supply Ship but not the elite Navy Combat Ships.
I last served in 1994 so maybe that has changed, if so the entire command chain needs to be canned for being obvious to their battle readiness.
At this rate, we are going to loose a ship
Don’t shoot all my conspiracy theories down! It isn’t nice!
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