Saturday, January 18, 2020

Logistics Surge Exercise Results

You may recall, not too long ago, that the Navy instituted a large scale Transportation Command (TransCom) sealift surge test (see, “LogisticsSurge Exercise”) involving some 30 or so ships of the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) and US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration (MARAD).

At the time, the Navy reported that 80-85% of tasked ships were able to get underway.  I assessed that performance as average – not great, not horrible.  Well, as with every Navy public relations pronouncement, that result was not accurate and appears to have been a manipulated spin of the actual results.  From a new USNI News report on the surge, we see a completely different and woefully worse result,

When U.S. Transportation Command tested the ability of the nation’s maritime Ready Reserve Force to set sail on short notice, only about 40 percent of the vessels deemed ready were able to leave port.

About 60 percent of the Ready Reserve Force was considered ready, and only 40 percent of those ships were able to steam out of port, retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, the administrator of MARAD, said Thursday at the 2020 Surface Navy Association Symposium. (1)

We have to do a tiny bit of arithmetic to discern the true magnitude of this abysmal result.  Of the entire Ready Reserve Force, only 60% were considered ready and only 40% of those were able to leave port.  That means that only 40% of 60% were able to sail.  Doing the arithmetic, 40% x 60% = 24%.


24% !!!!!


Only 24% of the RRF were ready and able to sail.  Yikes!  That’s horrendously bad by any standard. 

It’s also a far, far cry from the Navy’s initial claim of 80-85%.  I don’t know what kind of statistical/logical gymnastics the Navy went through to arrive at that number but it was obviously a fraudulent or, at best, highly misleading number presented to try to look good.

The response to these real numbers?

“We’ve got some challenges there,” Buzby [Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, the administrator of MARAD] said. (1)

Some challenges????  Really?  You think so, RAdm. Buzby?  I have to ask, what have you been doing during your time as administrator of MARAD?  Apparently, you haven’t been improving readiness.  To be fair, the Navy isn’t exactly allocating much funding for this but why haven’t you been loudly beating the drum and sounding the alarm?  This is the security of the nation at stake.  Apparently, this was just a ‘get along, go along’ job for you.  Shameful.

This is yet another example of the Navy’s mindless pursuit of shiny new warship hulls at the expense of logistics, training, readiness, maintenance, and everything else.  It is also yet another example of the Navy's pattern of hiding real data and presenting misleading or fraudulent data.


Shameful.

Shameful.

Shameful.




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(1)USNI News website, “Test of Ready Reserve Force Exposes Need For Newer Ships, More People”, Ben Werner, 16-Jan-2020,
https://news.usni.org/2020/01/16/test-of-ready-reserve-force-exposes-need-for-newer-ships-more-people

16 comments:

  1. What's really scary sad and I'm convinced this will happen: instead of fixing the problem, just watch this "capability " go further down the drain, some token fixes and USN will declare that it's a waste of money and not necessary anymore and get rid of it all. Just give it a few years, if I can think this through, you bet USN leaders are thinking "let's get rid of all this crap"....

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  2. So that means a whole eight (8) RRF ships able to leave port, to say nothing of executing any kind of task.
    I'd say "amateur hour", but amateurs would do better than this.

    But it's not a problem, what really matters is building worthless LSCs and putting more money into sensitivity training.

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    1. There were some other ships involved. The reports are fragmentary and confused. I get the impressions that there was another, smaller group of ships that were maintained at a higher readiness and those may have been where the Navy's original 80% number came from. If so, even that is discouraging because 80% sailing out of higher readiness ships is pretty poor.

      Regardless, the 24% sail rate from the RRF is atrocious.

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    2. On that. If you divide the 40% out of the 60% thay would have got about 66% reediness for the fleet deemed sail-able (not the real total). If there was a second pool with higher readiness I can see how you get to the initial press brief numbers for PR proposes.

      But it seems to me the key thing is this

      "“We got it, but the industry felt it,” Buzby said. “This was only a ten-day call. But if this was going to be an open-ended call, one has to wonder if there would be the same turnout.”"

      Foreign flags of convenience, commercial ship building allowed to wither at the hands of nations who do subsidize their commercial industry... There is no reason to think the navy/transportation depeartment could actually do the drill or maintain the ships. As it is even active USN and USCG ships lack dry dock capacity to sustain needed maintenance, I doubt anyone in the Pentagon (or near related services) gets a promotion for caring about maintenance for a bunch of gray cargo ships. And nobody in congress is interested in paying for ways to expand the US merchant marine population.

      The age of the fleet specks volumes for how much the navy really cares about this capacity.

      If you kill LCS now how many modern ships could you buy for the reserve fleet?I mean its seems the navy is forgetting every potential major war its going to fight/support is at the wrong end of a long supply line against people who are the short side of theirs.

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    3. In all likelihood, USN would prefer to kill Reserve Fleet to buy a few more LCSs! Not the other way around! MIC doesn't give a crap about what it is needed, they want orders, fixing a couple of rusting hull doesn't cut it.

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  3. Noticable too is the lack of manpower. Even if you have newer ships, you need a crew. My guess is they are probably getting old too, who's going to replace them?

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    1. The one nice thing about the declining reserve logistics fleet is that it perfectly matches the declining reserve fleet manning!

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  4. Well since this sorta about readiness

    A rather depressing set of stories about readiness and training or lack there of not sure all of these have shown up here.

    https://www.propublica.org/series/navy-accidents-pacific-7th-fleet

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    1. I will say I had not seen the first one on the f-18 squadron before the dismal lack care for maintenance and proper training and just basic due diligence is depressing.

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  5. I was curious about the RRF numbers, and I was startled to noticed a trend when I did a cursory look...

    Most of these ships were constructed in the late 60s or early 70s with a few in the 80s.

    A simple exercise to get "ready to sail" isn't enough, we have no idea on there maintenance, mechanical reliability, or the ability to replace worn out equipment on these things.

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    1. They have caretaker crews that are supposed to perform maintenance and keep them ready to sail. The reality, however, is that the Navy isn't funding maintenance adequately, isn't manning them adequately, and isn't providing sufficient drydock access.

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    2. The average age of the RRF fleet is 44 years. It’s in desperate need of recapitalization. We should be buying or leasing numerous gently used vessels per year.

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  6. ComNavOps,
    Any chance you could put a Ready Reserve Force Structure Tab on the blog, similar to the Fleet Structure tab? I have no idea what we should really have for a ready reserve force. It looks like the logistics ships are in worse shape for war than the fighting ships. The manning aspect is critical. Subsidizing civilian mariners directly or using active duty sailors may help, but even then I don't see it being an easy fix.
    Maybe the Marines could take it over, they seem to want to do everyone's jobs for them. The Marines could have their own fleet! Put some VLS tubes on all the ships and now, magically, they are warships!

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  7. The reserve force could also be completely manned by enlisted sailors with Chief Warrant Officers (CWO5) as the top rank. Allow the enlisted sailors a chance to run their own fleet! I know CWOs are technically not enlisted but they were enlisted for at least 13 years before becoming CWOs, so they have significant experience. Make it competitive to be in the reserve force for the enlisted sailors. Have a pay increase for reserve force sailors. Require additional training, higher scores on training, and Merchant Mariner Credentials to be a part of the reserve force. Make enlisted sailors want to be in the reserve force and increase the number of eligible Merchant Mariners at the same time.
    The National Guard could be in charge of the ships. Take the ship out for two weeks a year and do maintenance one weekend a month. More than one Guard unit could be assigned to a single ship, so the ships could be active multiple weeks of the year and have multiple units doing maintenance.

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    1. I don't profess to know all the ins and outs of this but from my simplistic view, you've got the makings of a great approach. Really great comment! I hope someone in a relevant position reads this.

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  8. The Ready Reserve Force is 46 ships at 20 mariners per ship and at $10,000 per month if they all are Chief Warrant Officer 5s at the top of the pay scale. That would come to
    46 x 20 x $120,000 = $110,400,000 per year, double that for parts and fuel and you likely have a round number for the most expensive possible way to keep the Reserve Force ready.
    The majority of the ships are Roll on Roll off ships about 632 to 750 feet in length. Many of the ships were not built in the USA.
    Marad could contract with the Japanese or Korean shipyards and get a neopanamax (366 x 51.25 meter, 1201 x 168 feet) or smaller standardized fleet that would be easier to maintain and sail.
    Building 3 ships per year would keep the RoRo fleet age reasonable and if used very little, would have reasonable resale or lease value at the end of 10-15 years in the fleet. The best vessels could be maintained for an additional 10-20 years in a reduced state of readiness or for parts.

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