Navy promised reform after collisions, made things worse

After the collisions of the USS Fitzgerald and McCain the Navy leadership promised serious reforms to prevent similar incidents from happening. According to many in the Navy what actually has been done has made things worse, when it hasn't been business as usual. In late 2017, Admiral Philip Davidson went on a speaking tour to reassure commanders that the leadership was serious about reform. After speaking in San Diego, he was asked if commanders really could push back against sailing orders if they felt the ship wasn't ready. His response was chilling.

“If you can't take your ships to sea and accomplish the mission with the resources you have," he said, “then we'll find someone who will."

Other "reforms" have largely turned out to be laughable at best. The Navy said they were going to launch a program to monitor how much time officers spend standing watch. The officers were given wire bound notebooks and pens. Another involves monitoring near miss collisions. It involves officers writing a Word document and sending it up the chain of command. Specialists are being loaned to ships about to undergo readiness testing, and parts are being cannibalized to keep ships running.

The leadership response is typical. According to Admiral Bill Moran, "It doesn't happen overnight".

taskandpurpose.com...

Every time I see stories like this, I imagine the closed door discussions go like this,

Admiral: Our ships are running into each other, we need newer and better technology!! "
Budget Committee : "That means more money for Reasearch and Development"
Military Industrial Complex : ( big smile ) Yes it does.

a reply to: DAVID64

The MIC is already grinning over the complete mismanagement of the last 30 years that has pushed us into this position.

At least some people at the Pentagon that have yet to undergo their mandatory lobotomy recognize that technology isn't the answer.

Well what do you expect?
They are probably up to snuff on their "sharp" training but went lax on basic seamanship.

To be fair, there have been no sexual assault complaints made during the collisions.

Navy Times has a somewhat less pessimistic view of reality here: www.navytimes.com...

a reply to: Bluntone22

Instead of going for a smaller, more effective force that could do more with less, the Pentagon has played budget games and wound up with a smaller force that has to do more with less of the same. And now, the Navy is playing chicken with the future of the Truman and threatening to retire her 20+ years early.

a reply to: schuyler

Because PACFLT has a leader willing to stand up for his people. His boss on the other hand is the same one that told Congress the Navy was doing good because they while they had two bad collisions there were over 200 ships that didn't collide with anything.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: schuyler

Because PACFLT has a leader willing to stand up for his people. His boss on the other hand is the same one that told Congress the Navy was doing good because they while they had two bad collisions there were over 200 ships that didn't collide with anything.

That's fine. So do we dismiss PACFLT as a result? That's kind of like saying, "Well, but Trump is President!" so we can dismiss what anyone else in government says or, in this case, actually does to address and confront the issues.

a reply to: schuyler

No, but when there's one commander saying he's stopped deployments of ships, and a lot more people lower in the food chain talking about how people are afraid to blink and things are, at least for now, worse, then who should we believe?

Thank you for following up on this in the forum; it has been interesting and sad to learn about this.

As others have said it is not so much a funding or technology issue as a training and leadership issue. After all, the deficiencies in the radars and other equipment were well known to the brass.


a reply to: Zaphod58