Where’s the sense in teaching an officer about tactics when
he can’t navigate from point A to point B without colliding or running aground?
There are some serious deficiencies in the way the Navy is
operating that are contributing to the incompetent shiphandling by its
officers.
Time At Sea – As
a budget saving measure, ships are being kept docked for excessive
periods. The USS Guardian, as we saw in
the recent post, had only been to sea 59 days the entire previous year. You can’t gain much experience that way. The Navy’s incompetent handling of
maintenance has also resulted in ships being sidelined for extended periods
waiting for maintenance. We have
submarines that have been idled for months or years. Sailors need to sail.
Zero Defects – We
can’t learn if our officers are so scared of making a mistake that they won’t
explore the envelope of the ship’s performance.
We have to change the culture to allow shiphandling mistakes. We also need to provide a training
environment where mistakes not only can happen but are encouraged. More on this below.
Time In Position
– The Navy rotates officers far too fast.
They’re unable to master their position before they’re moved to the next
one. There are Captains that take
command and leave without ever putting to sea!
How can we correct this situation? How about we form a Top Gun school for basic
shiphandling? Let’s cycle officers
through a school that has several vessels of different sizes that the students
can actually learn hands on. Let’s teach
them how to navigate, maneuver, anchor, dock, etc. and not just to a barely
acceptable standard – let’s make it a master course with each student receiving
many hours of actual experience. Yes,
there will be lots of dents in the hulls and we should encourage that! Let’s make it an intensive academic course,
as well, so that the students thoroughly learn the rules of the road at sea and
all the other bits of knowledge that a master mariner would have to know. In fact, let’s culminate the course with the
equivalent – if not the actual – licensing exam for the Coast Guard’s Master
Mariner license. And – and this is key –
let’s set a very high standard and hold it.
Let’s weed out the unfit. Not
everyone is capable of being a Master Mariner.
 |
| I feel the need, the need for basic navigation! |
Since a student can’t sail a ship by himself, this would also be a great opportunity to cycle sailors through the various crew positions for intensive training. We could produce accomplished shiphandlers and well trained crews.
Our current hodge-podge of training methods with its
reliance on computer based learning and learning aboard ship, on the job, is
clearly not working. It’s past time to
try something else.
Points well taken. Hope Big Navy takes heed.
ReplyDeleteCONOPS has defined yet another job for the LCS,
ReplyDeletethe Navy's T-38/F-5. Trainer and adversary for the Fleet.
And if accidentally dented, one the Navy's
war fighting capacity remains unimpaired. ;-)
Hell of a great maintenance casualty trainer also!
DeleteI also question the up or out attitude. If a guy likes his job, but doesn't want to be in command, why not just let him serve? Is there not value in having a guy that has years of experience in his job?
ReplyDeleteSpot on.
DeleteThe common rationale is that up or out avoids stagnation in the ranks and prevents people from getting too comfortable. This is conceptually a good thing, but the problem IMO is the way it's executed in the US military is utterly retarded and turns it into a negative.
DeleteWell, Star Trek actually influenced the Navy's design of the CIC, maybe they can borrow their version of career tracks. Engineers are career engineers, Command officer are on the track to one day have their own ship, etc. An officer from engineering or medical might be an the OOD due to being an experienced officer, but the bridge crew are tasked specifically with seamanship and command.
DeleteWith cyber warfare now being instituted, it will definitely be an even narrower track than most SWO tracks
Wonder if we could use the old TICOS as trainers? Take out the missiles and AEGIS, just use ballast and drive them hard for remaining time they have left? I don't think you are talking about weapon system training, more basic seamanship, so why not use some LCSs and TICOs as basic seamanship trainers?
ReplyDeleteI'm all for that.
DeleteThis is where having more small combatants could useful an economical. A vessel say the size of a Cyclone class (perhaps an altered version of the CG's FRC) could wear two hats. They deploy with crew staying in US waters learning seamanship and commanding a small crew. They could do drug intercepts and other light duties. Then once they have met requirment
Delete, redeploy on the same vessels on anti-piracy duty which involves working in crowded shipping lanes alongside commercial vessels (important to learn) but also doing a mission that requires some combat awareness and tactical piloting. And using a PC sized vessel means lower cost (an FRC runs around $64 million), lower maintenance and still perform useful missions like anti-piracy and drug interdiction that we are wasting expensive destroyers or assigning to the LCS that never seems to actually deploy.
If the LCS worked as advertised it could have been a good trainer since they are capable of shallow water operations (waters a Burke wouldn't want to wallow around in) and big enough to some large ship handling experience...if they didn't spend all their time in port like they do now.
Since the Navy uses non-USN aircraft for aggressors in top gun, perhaps the can justify buying a few more dependable vessels like the NSC cutter for a "Top Sailor" program. These could do the missions the LCS is supposed to already be doing.
I don't see any particular reason why we can't "retire" the oldest TICOs, the oldest Burkes and some of the early LCSs, remove all the weapons, radars,etc, keep the consoles and data-link everything and just use software to stimulate the weapons BUT REALLY you want to train in basic seamanship FIRST then 2 ships together then a small fleet and finally graduate to more complicated scenarios with weapons. There is no reason this should cost a fortune and would reap incredible dividends in the long run.
DeleteOther option would be to buy some simple civilian ships and reconfigure the command deck to emulate a Burke, TICO or LCS BUT I think that would cost more, USN would screw it up. Running costs would be cheaper though.
"And – and this is key – let’s set a very high standard and hold it. Let’s weed out the unfit. Not everyone is capable of being a Master Mariner."
ReplyDeleteAs an example of this in action, you have the UK's Perisher course, which has been described as Top Gun for submarines, albeit with a critical difference:
- Unlike how the movie portrayed it, Top Gun is essentially more of a "train the trainers" course, and even if you don't do well in Top Gun, you'd still remain a naval aviator. If you fail Perisher, you will never serve on submarines ever again.
That said, I think that's a little too harsh, and it's brought on because the Royal Navy has so few subs that every submarine captain has to be the cream of the crop. When you only have 8 submarines, well....
You're absolutely spot on that the zero defects mentality makes it impossible to learn from one's mistakes, and it breeds a certain fearfulness into officers because any mistake is potentially fatal, and incentivises the hiding of faults and problems. We've seen this happen during the "Zero Defects" mentality when the USAF was controlled by Strategic Air Command's "Bomber Generals"; for further reading on this, I suggest "Revolt of the Iron Majors", by ML Michel III.
IMO we need to be able to build a culture, a training environment, that allows junior officers to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, with more time at sea to season them, so that you don't have cases where a Commander finds himself on his first seagoing command on the bridge of a billion dollar DDG.
By all means, we should continue to be strict with captains as to their responsibilities and what is expected of them. But at the same time, it's only fair that those captains have been prepared correctly to take command of a seagoing warship.
DeleteThe Royal Navy has 11 submarines, not 8. The US Navy has 58-ish on 5 times the population so, if anything, the USA has even fewer subs per head of population so US sub captains should be 'creamier'. Normally Comnavops weeds out poor research like that....
DeleteReworded my post a bit. I was thinking more on the SSNs with those numbers... The argument RN cheerleaders have advanced to me is that RN captains are man for man better skilled and trained that the US, because the RN is more selective and picky about the submarine service's officers, given the smaller number of command slots available. The implicit argument is that because the US has also something like 50 SSNs (LA, Seawolf, VA) vs 7 Trafalgars and Astutes, the US is less choosy about who gets into submarines, because there are more slots to be filled.
DeleteI myself don't really agree with this mindset; I'm reminded of the WW2 IJN, where they were so selective about pilots that while the IJN fleet air arm was a phenomenal instrument, once it was attrited down and finished off in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot the Japanese had no way to rebuild that elite force. (Of course, an equally contributary factor was how the IJN kept its aces on the frontlines instead of rotating them back for instructor duty to build up the institutional knowledge.)
Also, the proponents of the idea that RN captains are possessed of greater skill than their USN counterparts never seem to want to acknowledge that being able to bring 7:1 odds to a fight is a hell of an equaliser for that skill disparity...
By that logic, the Chinese with 5 times the US population and only 75-ish SSNs and SSKs must have better captains and an advantage in numbers. With quality steadily increasing, it's not UK submariners the US need to be comparing themselves against!
DeleteI think the truth is somewhere in the middle: I think the British probably are a lot choosier than the Americans as to who gets into their submarines. On the other hand, I think the Americans are probably better skilled than the British give them credit for, on account of actually going about and doing things. At the end of the day, I'm not entirely convinced that Perisher's fail = total out is really the way forward.
Delete"With quality steadily increasing, it's not UK submariners the US need to be comparing themselves against!"
True, albeit there's the caveat that nobody really knows how good the Chinese really are: on the one hand they haven't really been operating at the same level for the same amount of time as the UK and US; on the other hand, they've put a lot of effort into catching up.
I do think that the British are a little *too* full of themselves, and to an extent I think the British feelings of superiority and greater skill vs the US are a salve to bruised egos because the British military has been in a steady decline since the Suez Crisis.
I think this blog proves that the US Navy is in an even steeper decline right now!
DeleteAnon April 14, the USN has been in decline since the introduction of steam, according to great great granpappy. The good old days are gone forever, is heard.
DeleteYou don't often hear "I miss the bad old days"
Im not sure I understsnd where things went wrong... I understand the enlisted side more than the officer side from experience, but the ideas cant be that different. People got to their ships. They were thrown onto a watchbill and got trained up. They were qualified only when they showed proficiency in their tasks. They were pushed to qualify quickly but not overly so. You "qualled" when you were good at it. Then you moved to the next...
ReplyDeleteHow did everyone learn 10, 20, 50, or 100 years ago?? When did unqualified folks start becoming JOOD, TAO, OOD, CDO, CO or anything else??? How did we come off the rails? What changed? I literally dont understand the existence of ships sailing without competent bridge teams that get hit or run aground...
Allow me to add that any such training should result in a Coast Guard Master's Certificate.
ReplyDeleteThat's what was proposed in the post. A Master Mariner holds the highest level of Coast Guard Master's license which is 'unlimited', meaning that the holder is certified to operate any size vessel.
DeleteAs I understand it, there is no such thing as a Master's certificate, per se. Instead, there are levels of Master's licenses for different tonnages of ships. The ultimate level/tonnage being the unlimited which is referred to as Master Mariner.
I'm not a Coast Guard expert so someone can correct me if I've gotten some aspect of the classifications wrong.
It's simply baffling to me that our Navy Captains are not licensed Master Mariners.
I believe you are quite right, and that lack is also a puzzlement to me. Also: SWO School should deliver a Mate's license and Department Head school a First Mate's license IMO.Why not? BTSOOM--perhaps institutional jealousy?
DeleteI'm not that familiar with the US Coastguard - the comments above imply that the Coast Guard is not making the same mistakes as the Navy. Is that true? Sounds like a good topic for a blog post....
ReplyDeleteIt's important to note that USN officers who go surface warfare officer (SWO) are often those who cannot qualify or wash out from more prestigious career fields. Aviation, submarines, SEAL, etc.
ReplyDeleteAll of those communities have rigorous training and screening processes. Lots of folks wash-out from flight school, nuke power school and BUDS before they ever reach the Fleet.
No such screening exists in surface warfare community. They will take anyone with a pulse. So basically you have ensigns showing up to ships with little/no exposure to ships and no idea if they will actually be good seaman.
And by the time they get to their ship, there's no incentive by CO to weed them out. It reflects badly on the CO and they won't get a replacement any time soon.
There needs to be some sort of Basic SWOS that trains and assesses the aptitude of officers before they reach their first ship. If they don't have the headwork to be good seaman, them send them somewhere else (supply corps, etc.) or get rid of them.
Somewhat on topic, just found this article on Business Insider.
ReplyDeleteNo politics so let's drop the Vlad part and maybe a bit of hyperbole BUT GPS/GNSS and other satellite based navigation systems are vulnerable AND A PRIME TARGET!!! This is EXACTLY WHY USN should get back to BASIC navigation and seamanship, all those fancy gizmos are probably going to stop working or can't be trusted in a war against Russia or China, give it a few more years and even terrorists might be able to jam locally GPS, we need our military to still be able to move and navigate without all these systems.
https://www.businessinsider.com/gnss-hacking-spoofing-jamming-russians-screwing-with-gps-2019-4
I do think that the British are a little *too* full of themselves, and to an extent I think the British feelings of superiority and greater skill vs the US are a salve to bruised egos because the British military has been in a steady decline since the Suez Crisis.
ReplyDeleteBut we do know how to pronounce the word 'Submariner'.
And now the USA has started its decline to be replaced by the Chinese, let's see if it can learn any lessons from that.
ReplyDeleteThis topic reminded me of a great Jeff Bacon Broadside cartoon:
ReplyDeletehttps://images.app.goo.gl/aXmXHhYXQFmWyrG46
How Aviators view SWOs
That's pretty good!
Delete