From rumors floating around it sounds like the Little Rock will be spending the Winter in Montreal after having problems after departing Buffalo.
This has to be a new record, at least the last one built on the Lakes almost made it to Norfolk before breaking down!
This has to be one of the biggest embarrassments, of date, to the Navy as I have never heard of one of our “Latest and Best New WARSHIPS” having to spend the Winter in a Foreign Country because they could not keep her running long enough to make it off the Lakes before they got Iced in!
I don’t think anyone in the navee is capable of being embarrassed. The people “in charge” seem to have no sense of shame or duty to the taxpayer or anyone else. Their only loyalty is to the contractors with whom they hope to enjoy a long and lucrative retirement.
Maybe the old concept of “pour encourager les autres” should be applied to the builder’s senior management and the navee bigwigs who have failed so miserably for so long.
Would there be enough yard arms? I believe the naval architects who designed British warships in the past used to be known as the Royal corps of Constructers and they had to sail on their constructions. Those that designed a submarine were very attentive to their responsibilitys.
Judging from the recent performance of their new builds this fine tradition is no more.
The Navy needs a lot of much simpler, easy to build, mass produced, cheap ships. These overcomplicated, fragile, breakdown prone ships that cost a fortune are a big mistake. Small surface ships only have a life expectancy of a few minutes in combat, might as well build a lot of cheap ones so that some will survive.
Well you may be relieved to learn that in the 45 years since EVERSOLE was decommissioned there has been real progress in the educational attainment of the enlisted sailor. More than 99% of sailors have at least a high school diploma, fully 11 points better than the general public. Many more have taken college courses or finished bachelor degrees. On the whole the military is far better educated than the general public:
Of course there are real problems in the Navy with respect to maintenance. Computer-based training has replaced hands on experience in the name of cost savings. Chief Petty Officers, the newest of which have grown up in this system, are incentivized to spend more time on collateral duties than on becoming experts in their rates and leading divisions. Optimal manning has decimated ship’s force capabilities to conduct repairs. Elimination of billets for maintainers at depot activities allow skills to atrophy for sailors ashore.
Despite this, there is no justification for disparaging remarks about the sailors who man the fleet. Time and again they do the best they can with the resources they’re given. Further, aside from anonymous “rumors”, there are no indications that LITTLE ROCK is broken, or that her sailors broke her. All the official sources cite weather and tug services as the cause of her delay, and given that the Navy has been fairly open kimono when these LCS break, there is little reason to doubt them now.
Unfortunately the Navy (it’s spelled “Navy”) has had opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in damage control over the last 12 months. Those sailors’ abilities to bring their ships home is one silver lining to a particularly dark cloud. But the Fleet will not remain in port until every problem is worked out; to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, “you go to war with the Navy you have, not the Navy you want”. And despite all its issues, there is still no better outfit to sail into harm’s way with than the United States Navy.
with all that we can see how they operate vessels in peacetime how on earth are we supposed to believe they are going to become simply superlative in war? hell, I can see our ships careening into each other willy nilly once the shit starts coming down!
Someone needs to tell the navee that reefs, bays, and the shipping lanes of the world that provide so many opportunities for sailors to demonstrate their damage control skills are not classed as “harm’s way.”
People who consistently shoot themselves in the foot should not brag about their first aid skills.
She apparently ingested debris on her way from Buffalo to Port Colborne and laid by in the Welland for repairs. This has been documented by local news.
By the time she got to Montreal, the harbor was icey but certainly passable for a steel-hulled vessel, doubly so if they engaged an escort vessel to get them into the open St. Lawrence as commercial traffic was moving without significant hinderance. Instead they stayed at the pier for weeks and by now are most certainly iced in. So what is the basis for the delay? If everything was milk and honey aboard, there is no reason for the ship to allow itself to become beset.
If you are referring to the Fitz and JSM, where any of those ships damaged to the extent that they were in any danger of sinking or capsizing? Provided watertight doors and hatches were closed, that is.
If heroism and “proficiency in damage control” is limited to the ability to close doors, I agree, there are lots of heroes in the Navy.
There should be some entertainment value to reading the reports about the Port Colborne and Montreal episodes when somoeone files a FOIA request.
Of course given our new domestic situation FOIA may soon be a thing of the past. It’s not patriotic to ask too many questions about our (insert string of superlatives here) navee and defense contractors.
Why leaving out anything??
I obviously don’t know what he criteria for watertight compartmentation of a DDG is, but it SHOULD be better than for merchant ships. (I.e. 2 adjacent compartments flooded)