It's kind of frightening that standards have dropped so precipitously that basic seamanship is at risk.
I suppose eight years of relentless social engineering and political correctness take a toll.
top US warship in collision. Clowns at the wheel?
- Thread starter traderob
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It's kind of frightening that standards have dropped so precipitously that basic seamanship is at risk.
I suppose eight years of relentless social engineering and political correctness take a toll.
As long as the crew has completed diversity training everything is going to be OK.
I remember someone (retired Navy) on teevee talking about a change in the way Ensigns are trained.
Found this. Very telling.
Basically, instead of spending months in training, the Navy gave them some CD's to learn how to pilot a ship.
The Navy is still investigating four accidents involving ships in the Pacific this year - accidents that led to the deaths of 17 sailors and untold millions of dollars in repairs. So what happened? Some naval experts are pointing to overworked crews and to the stress of frequent deployments because of too few ships. But as NPR's Tom Bowman reports, others point to a simpler reason - lack of training.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: When Bryan McGrath left college as a Navy ensign back in 1987, he spent more than a year learning how to drive a warship. There were classes, simulators, time in the water steering a patrol craft. Then he was off to the fleet.
BRYAN MCGRATH: So I showed up at that ship with a unbelievable amount of education about the basics of what my ship was doing - how to navigate it, how to maintain it, how to operate it.
BOWMAN: Fast forward two decades - McGrath is in command of a ship. And the new ensigns coming aboard - no more months of classes. They've been given a load of CDs. That's right - online learning. McGrath was stunned how their skills compared to what was expected when he first went to sea.
MCGRATH: It was night and day. They did not have a well-developed sense of what the job and what the blocking and tackling skills of a surface warrior were.
BOWMAN: It was 2003 when the Navy issued those CDs to junior officers. McGrath and other retired officers say the Navy was trying to save money by doing away with months of classes and making sure crews quickly got to their ships. It borrowed those efficiencies from the business world.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/54911...mine-training-procedures-after-ship-accidents
Found this. Very telling.
Basically, instead of spending months in training, the Navy gave them some CD's to learn how to pilot a ship.
The Navy is still investigating four accidents involving ships in the Pacific this year - accidents that led to the deaths of 17 sailors and untold millions of dollars in repairs. So what happened? Some naval experts are pointing to overworked crews and to the stress of frequent deployments because of too few ships. But as NPR's Tom Bowman reports, others point to a simpler reason - lack of training.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: When Bryan McGrath left college as a Navy ensign back in 1987, he spent more than a year learning how to drive a warship. There were classes, simulators, time in the water steering a patrol craft. Then he was off to the fleet.
BRYAN MCGRATH: So I showed up at that ship with a unbelievable amount of education about the basics of what my ship was doing - how to navigate it, how to maintain it, how to operate it.
BOWMAN: Fast forward two decades - McGrath is in command of a ship. And the new ensigns coming aboard - no more months of classes. They've been given a load of CDs. That's right - online learning. McGrath was stunned how their skills compared to what was expected when he first went to sea.
MCGRATH: It was night and day. They did not have a well-developed sense of what the job and what the blocking and tackling skills of a surface warrior were.
BOWMAN: It was 2003 when the Navy issued those CDs to junior officers. McGrath and other retired officers say the Navy was trying to save money by doing away with months of classes and making sure crews quickly got to their ships. It borrowed those efficiencies from the business world.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/54911...mine-training-procedures-after-ship-accidents
The Navy is going completely downhill as outlined in this article... Meet the modern era Captain Bligh.
‘I now hate my ship’: Surveys reveal disastrous morale on cruiser Shiloh
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your...s-reveal-disastrous-morale-on-cruiser-shiloh/
“It’s only a matter of time before something horrible happens,” one shipmate warned.
“Our sailors do not trust the CO,” another noted.
It’s a “floating prison,” one said.
“I just pray we never have to shoot down a missile from North Korea,” a distraught sailor lamented, “because then our ineffectiveness will really show.”
These comments come from three command climate surveys taken on the cruiser Shiloh during Capt. Adam M. Aycock’s recently-completed 26-month command. The Japan-based ship is a vital cog in U.S. ballistic missile defense and the 7th Fleet’s West Pacific mission to deter North Korea and counter ascendant Chinese and Russian navies.
These comments are not unique. Each survey runs hundreds of pages, with crew members writing anonymously of dysfunction from the top, suicidal thoughts, exhaustion, despair and concern that the Shiloh was being pushed underway while vital repairs remained incomplete.
Frequently in focus is the commanding officer’s micromanagement and a neutered chiefs mess. Aycock was widely feared among sailors who said minor on-the-job mistakes often led to time in the brig, where they would be fed only bread and water.
The survey reports offer a window into life in the Navy’s 7th Fleet, a Pacific command where leadership has admitted sailors are overworked and often insufficiently trained due to relentless mission pace.
“It feels like a race to see which will break down first,” one sailor wrote, “the ship or it’s [sic] crew.”
While government watchdogs have warned of such issues for years, the Navy’s problems have come back in to the spotlight in the wake of this summer’s at-sea collisions involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain, disasters that killed 17 sailors. The Shiloh belongs to the same chain of command as those two ships, where several top admirals were recently fired.
Despite the Shiloh’s sailor comments suggesting a ship in crisis, and at a time when the Navy stresses CO accountability, Aycock was not fired.
Navy officials declined to discuss survey details, but acknowledged that Aycock’s superiors at Task Force 70 were aware of problems after the first negative survey taken two months into his command.
Aycock’s bosses were tracking the dysfunction and counseling the captain, officials said, yet Aycock remained on the job and rotated out in a standard change-of-command ceremony on Aug. 30.
Aycock declined to comment for this story through a spokesperson at the Naval War College, where he now works as a researcher with the Institute for Future Warfare Studies. He commanded the Shiloh from June 2015 to August of this year. Previously, he served as commander on the destroyer Mahan and at Afloat Training Group Mayport in Florida.
Three retired Navy surface warfare skippers reviewed the surveys for Navy Times. They expressed dismay and questioned if the Navy did enough to correct the situation.
“The disrespect shown to Sailors in this ship was unforgivable,” said Wallace Lovely, a retired Navy captain and surface warfare officer who led Destroyer Squadron 31 after serving as the commander of the Frigate Samuel B. Roberts.
“The large number of lengthy comments from the respondents is not normal and the number of consistently negative comments is shocking.”
Such reports always include some disgruntled sailors, but Lovely said he had never seen it at the Shiloh’s level.
“I felt the tension while reading these surveys and can’t imagine what a Junior Sailor would be thinking while living through this scenario,” he said. “We’re lucky that a suicide or other casualty didn’t occur due to this oppressive environment.”
The Shiloh made news this summer when a sailor named Peter Mims went missing and was presumed overboard. The incident sparked a 50-hour search involving ships, aircraft and a carrier. In the end, Mims was found hiding on the ship.
Navy officials said Mims received non-judicial punishment for his actions but reasons for the incident remain unknown.
After Mims went missing, several sailors contacted Navy Times and voiced concern about the Shiloh, its CO and the crew, prompting Navy Times to submit a Freedom of Information request for copies of recent command climate surveys.
Rick Hoffman, a retired Navy captain whose years in uniform included command stints on the frigate De Wert and the cruiser Hue City, said he was “flabbergasted” by portions of the surveys and how they were “uniformly focused on the Captain and his leadership style.
“Almost all were negative and suggested he was insensitive to the crew’s needs,” Hoffman said. “It certainly appeared he was increasingly toxic over time.”
The reports depict a poster child for bad surface warfare officers, he said.
“Long hours, no communication, CO is a micromanager, chain of command is not functioning unit,” Hoffman said. “Crew pushed to exhaustion with no end in sight.”
(More at above url)
‘I now hate my ship’: Surveys reveal disastrous morale on cruiser Shiloh
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your...s-reveal-disastrous-morale-on-cruiser-shiloh/
“It’s only a matter of time before something horrible happens,” one shipmate warned.
“Our sailors do not trust the CO,” another noted.
It’s a “floating prison,” one said.
“I just pray we never have to shoot down a missile from North Korea,” a distraught sailor lamented, “because then our ineffectiveness will really show.”
These comments come from three command climate surveys taken on the cruiser Shiloh during Capt. Adam M. Aycock’s recently-completed 26-month command. The Japan-based ship is a vital cog in U.S. ballistic missile defense and the 7th Fleet’s West Pacific mission to deter North Korea and counter ascendant Chinese and Russian navies.
These comments are not unique. Each survey runs hundreds of pages, with crew members writing anonymously of dysfunction from the top, suicidal thoughts, exhaustion, despair and concern that the Shiloh was being pushed underway while vital repairs remained incomplete.
Frequently in focus is the commanding officer’s micromanagement and a neutered chiefs mess. Aycock was widely feared among sailors who said minor on-the-job mistakes often led to time in the brig, where they would be fed only bread and water.
The survey reports offer a window into life in the Navy’s 7th Fleet, a Pacific command where leadership has admitted sailors are overworked and often insufficiently trained due to relentless mission pace.
“It feels like a race to see which will break down first,” one sailor wrote, “the ship or it’s [sic] crew.”
While government watchdogs have warned of such issues for years, the Navy’s problems have come back in to the spotlight in the wake of this summer’s at-sea collisions involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain, disasters that killed 17 sailors. The Shiloh belongs to the same chain of command as those two ships, where several top admirals were recently fired.
Despite the Shiloh’s sailor comments suggesting a ship in crisis, and at a time when the Navy stresses CO accountability, Aycock was not fired.
Navy officials declined to discuss survey details, but acknowledged that Aycock’s superiors at Task Force 70 were aware of problems after the first negative survey taken two months into his command.
Aycock’s bosses were tracking the dysfunction and counseling the captain, officials said, yet Aycock remained on the job and rotated out in a standard change-of-command ceremony on Aug. 30.
Aycock declined to comment for this story through a spokesperson at the Naval War College, where he now works as a researcher with the Institute for Future Warfare Studies. He commanded the Shiloh from June 2015 to August of this year. Previously, he served as commander on the destroyer Mahan and at Afloat Training Group Mayport in Florida.
Three retired Navy surface warfare skippers reviewed the surveys for Navy Times. They expressed dismay and questioned if the Navy did enough to correct the situation.
“The disrespect shown to Sailors in this ship was unforgivable,” said Wallace Lovely, a retired Navy captain and surface warfare officer who led Destroyer Squadron 31 after serving as the commander of the Frigate Samuel B. Roberts.
“The large number of lengthy comments from the respondents is not normal and the number of consistently negative comments is shocking.”
Such reports always include some disgruntled sailors, but Lovely said he had never seen it at the Shiloh’s level.
“I felt the tension while reading these surveys and can’t imagine what a Junior Sailor would be thinking while living through this scenario,” he said. “We’re lucky that a suicide or other casualty didn’t occur due to this oppressive environment.”
The Shiloh made news this summer when a sailor named Peter Mims went missing and was presumed overboard. The incident sparked a 50-hour search involving ships, aircraft and a carrier. In the end, Mims was found hiding on the ship.
Navy officials said Mims received non-judicial punishment for his actions but reasons for the incident remain unknown.
After Mims went missing, several sailors contacted Navy Times and voiced concern about the Shiloh, its CO and the crew, prompting Navy Times to submit a Freedom of Information request for copies of recent command climate surveys.
Rick Hoffman, a retired Navy captain whose years in uniform included command stints on the frigate De Wert and the cruiser Hue City, said he was “flabbergasted” by portions of the surveys and how they were “uniformly focused on the Captain and his leadership style.
“Almost all were negative and suggested he was insensitive to the crew’s needs,” Hoffman said. “It certainly appeared he was increasingly toxic over time.”
The reports depict a poster child for bad surface warfare officers, he said.
“Long hours, no communication, CO is a micromanager, chain of command is not functioning unit,” Hoffman said. “Crew pushed to exhaustion with no end in sight.”
(More at above url)
Surveys like that are subject to abuse. We don't what percentage of the crew was negative or how credible the complaints were.
These are warships, not the Princess Line. No doubt the crew was overworked, how many pregnant females weren't pulling their weight? Like with Bill Belichik, I judge a captain by results, not personality. Can you imagine a Navy where a captain could lose his command because a few enlisted sailors resented him?
This guy was commanding an aegis cruiser. That's the biggest asset the Navy has below a carrier. Can you imagine the competition to get that slot? I find it a bit tough to swallow that some psycho fooled them for so many years only to go nuts when he got his big command.
These are warships, not the Princess Line. No doubt the crew was overworked, how many pregnant females weren't pulling their weight? Like with Bill Belichik, I judge a captain by results, not personality. Can you imagine a Navy where a captain could lose his command because a few enlisted sailors resented him?
This guy was commanding an aegis cruiser. That's the biggest asset the Navy has below a carrier. Can you imagine the competition to get that slot? I find it a bit tough to swallow that some psycho fooled them for so many years only to go nuts when he got his big command.
Actually the article provides complete details of what percentage of the crew answered questions negatively under Aycock and the previous captain -- in all categories the answers sunk under Aycock.
The confirmed stories about Aycock locking sailors up for days with only bread & water if they slightly displeased him should be enough to set off a full blown shiat-storm -- irrespective of the survey answers.
The "results" of Captain Aycock's tenure are dismal - among the worst in the annuals of naval history in terms of ship readiness or any other standard. A naval captain is expected to be a leader, not a micro-managing dictator. Yet the navy did nothing to correct the situation -- aptly demonstrating that our military readiness and command structure has sunk to a new low.
I see that the Navy has fired the top two commanders of the Uss McCain.
Commander Alfredo Sanchez and second in command Commander Jesse Sanchez.
Not sure if they do any training on how to run a ship anymore, but looks like they are meeting their affirmative action goals and that seems to be what counts. Just sayin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ident-was-preventable/?utm_term=.0d2374b3db85
Commander Alfredo Sanchez and second in command Commander Jesse Sanchez.
Not sure if they do any training on how to run a ship anymore, but looks like they are meeting their affirmative action goals and that seems to be what counts. Just sayin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ident-was-preventable/?utm_term=.0d2374b3db85
Obviously there is an inquiry. Let's wait and see what that shows. It is very curious, to say the least.
The captains of those two destroyers that were involved in collisions maybe should have done a little more micromanaging.
What are you supposed to do if you are the captain of a cruiser and you get a crew of incompetent fuckups who are borderline insubordinate? Just say WTF and let them run into other ships so they don't give you a bad review?
Bottom line, we don't know what was happening on this cruiser. A bunch of complaining malcontents does not mean the captain is Cap. Bligh any more than a big demo on the Mall means Trump is unfit to hold office.
One of the great naval movies of all time.
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