Posted on 06/20/2022 10:40:49 AM PDT by Retain Mike
Surface warfare reforms crafted to improve mariner skills and manage demand for ships are trickling into the fleet five years after two fatal collisions in the Western Pacific forced the Navy to retool how the service trains the surface fleet.
Multiple investigations and criminal prosecutions found that basic failures in seamanship and ship handling led to the June 17, 2017, early morning collision between USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan. Seven sailors died.
Two months later, a misunderstanding of a newly installed throttle control system led to USS John McCain (DDG-56) drifting out of a ship separation scheme outside of Singapore and colliding with merchant tanker Alnic MC. Ten sailors died.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
Yeh. Well, it is called sea duty. My LST was stationed in Yokosuka but saw Vietnam a lot more than homeport over three campaigns down south. The Navy decided the war was over at the end of 1970, so we went from 160 shipmates to 120 when I left, I stood a lot of one in three watches, meaning one night in the rack and one 24 hour day over three days. The engine rooms were worse off standing port and starboard for a couple months with six hours on and six off.
By the way explain to me how fighting a war ia not an unrelenting demand?
Incompetent leadership and training lead to accidents are more than lack of sleep.
16 hr shifts were not uncommon to me
Todays navy is charmin soft.
I was in in the early 90’s and it feels like 75 years ago. As a BT we spent many 24 hour unplanned shifts In and out of port replacing piping or working on tagged out equipment. We didn’t get underway if we didn’t have efficiently operating boilers. The Navy would have had to increase our staffing 10 fold if they focused on getting us more sleep.
We only had 12’s at 4 on 3 off, 3 on 4 off.
USAF.
Port and Starboard 6 on 6 off for 2 years on my FFG in the 90s....best damn ASW crew in the PAC
Its the new well rested navy that takes lots of time - not rested enough? Stay in your bunk until you feel well rested - some one else can pick up your duty station.
Well rested, woke, transgender loving, fagot feeling military will be wiped out before they even get started in a modern war. How well and long would they stand up, were they fighting in Ukraine?
12s bleed to 16... there are only 2 men for the shift
Working for the DoD in support of the Navy warfighter for 30+ years around active duty and veterans I heard my share of stories about living on a “boat” (their term not mine).
The word “comfortable”......never came up....ever.
Sailors have become too bloody soft. It should be watch on watch and give ‘em a half gill of rum every day. that’ll toughen ‘em up.
I don't usually laugh out loud reading news articles but this is one of the funniest things ever printed.
Those collisions weren’t the first ones caused by fatigue and lack of sleep among watchstanders.
Garbage. Neither of those collisions was caused by any such thing. They were products of poor training and lack of communication on the Fitzgerald and disastrous software patches installed aboard the McCain before she set sail for one of the most congested sea lanes in the world. This sort of candy-coating on the part of command is an effort to avoid the problem, not fix it. Reinstating SWO school and returning training hours wasted on social engineering to actual operational training are apparently too difficult to accomplish. Naptimes for the Navy is a bandaid over arterial bleeding. IMHO.
An NCO would step up. I was 1800-0600.
0600-1800 was an Airman and the NCOIC.
those 2 men shared a rack
Is this policy being implemented to prevent Covid-19 vaxx complications from kicking in?
This is a bunch of CYA. When I was an Electrician’s Mate on a destroyer ‘69-71’ most of the crew stood 4 and 8s for weeks. The ship never ran into anything.
“those 2 men shared a rack”
Hotbunking. So glad I was never a squiddie.
Yeah I heard the term “hot racking” a few times. Lol
I also heard about bunkmates with let’s just say, less than stellar hygiene habits.
A crew that cannot sustain a Port and Starboard watch schedule and still keep up on maintenance, cannot fight.
Yup.
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