Sunday, November 17, 2013
Shoup Returns
The Burke class destroyer USS Shoup, DDG-86, is wrapping up an extended deployment just shy of 10-1/2 months, having left on 9-Jan-2013 and scheduled to return on 18-Nov-2013. Wanna bet there will be a few extra divorces and ultimatums waiting pierside? The answer to dwindling ship numbers is not longer deployments.
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They have a plan to help reduce long deployments but its to increase the number of ships homeported overseas which causes similar problems with families and retention.
ReplyDeleteThe government seems to want to maintain or even increase the amount of the world the Navy is covering while reducing the number of ships. Their fix for this is longer deployments and overseas homeports which wear out ships and crews even faster and will require more new ships and crew to replace the ones worn out.
I would suggest that they need to rethink ship usage and keep a smaller number deployed and hold ships in higher readiness in the USA so they can be surged to a problem. It does not fit the governments policy for the Navy to be everywhere but it fits the reality of how many ships there are and keeping them in a state where they can function in an emergency.