I worked with one who was Master on a Patriot vessel… his glaring lack of basic knowledge was startling, to say the least.
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Not unless we can find out how many people hold an MMC and compare that with the number of jobs.
How many licenses are there compared to jobs?
How many (particularly upper level licensed) are leaving the industry due to terminal disgust at the cost of maintaining a license? Those are the experienced and qualified people who have earned some relief from a regulatory burden that is contributing to the problems the politicians are using to justify a scam program for people who can’t even do their own jobs as evidenced by Navy performance lately.
I see the issue as real career type jobs are going away, being replaced by backpackers working brown water boats in entry level jobs for small money for a short term. They are the equivalent of fast food workers, they count as jobs but amount to nothing but churning the employment numbers.
Yes, I’m not surprised to hear that.
The navy has a different approach then the commercial side. Even assuming the Navy is fucked up it’s the guy with a hammer everything looks like a nail thing. The military side looks to a civilian as an effed up version of commercial. I can’t see a navy CO doing well outside the Navy system but it’s not as simple as just being incompetent.
I see the same thing to a lesser degree with guys coming over to RO/RO as captains from box boats.
Should just expand the MSP if you want more actually operable ships. No better way to keep something running than to run it.
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It was bad…
1.) He thought coming to the bridge during an anchor watch that the swing arc on the ECDIS screen was everyplace the anchor had been on our watch, not the vessel itself swinging to meet gentle currents and winds. We got lit up pretty bad for that…
2.) It took him 3 hours to anchor the vessel because it had to be dropped PRECISELY on the spot we were in before sailing for exercises. Vessels in the anchorage around us were watching, and the spectacle was a topic of discussion for weeks.
3.) He’d routinely wait for us to be fetched up, then bang on the “FWE” button and run off the bridge like Fred Flintstone at the end of a workday and leave us with the angry calls from the Chief Engineer and 1 A/E. That happened until he was confronted by the two of them and told, quite simply that “it better not happen again.”
He was a very nice guy, but those examples of his conduct had many baffled. He also thought it’d be a great idea to fudge numbers on our speed trials in a way that calculated out to 38 knots speed on a vessel with a max sea speed of 24 knots. When told why it simply could not work, he had to be convinced to just let 23.4 knots be good enough. Way too eager to impress Admirals in a service he had long since retired from. When the commercial Master returned it was night and day…
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< weep >
I’m amazed that the US Navy functions at all and all I can put it down to is the quality of the noncommissioned officers. The idea of being an engineer officer for one posting, then supply officer then a course and becoming a SWO is bewildering.
There is ample evidence that they are well and truly bewildered.
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It’s bewildering because it doesn’t happen. Surface Warfare Officers don’t serve as supply officers, and the extent to which we are engineers is overstated. Only young division officers in their first or second tour may actually stand EOOW (OICEW); these watches are usually stood by senior enlisted or warrant officers. A SWO on his department head tour may be detailed as the Chief Engineer, and you can argue that their lack of detailed technical knowledge of the plant is a detriment, but as a senior leader they should be spending more of their time providing leadership and management of programs and people, not being a wrench-turner. SWOs get more into the weeds of tactical watchstanding; most department heads spend little time on the bridge after their division officers tours (when all SWOs are required to earn their OOD (OICNW) letters).
I am tepidly hopeful that this program will be beneficial for the sea services and the merchant marine, but there does not seem to be much in the way of teeth in the EO as written. The follow up from SECDEF, SECNAV, and SECDHS will be crucial.
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Maybe the weeds are blocking their view of the strategic elements … like not running into other ships, rocks, and reefs.
It looks like the tactics include freezing or running in circles while screaming and shouting.
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By now you know what we consider ’normal’ in our civilian world: an engineering officer is forever an engineering officer and a deck officer is forever a deck officer. (Rare exceptions apply.)
We don’t go from OPS to WEPS to SWO this to that and around again.
That’s like saying ‘We take the second mate and make him the chief engineer for a tour.’ To most of us that’s insane. The guy in charge of engineering doesn’t have to know about the engineering? That’s like saying NAV doesn’t have to know about navigation. Or WEPS doesn’t have to know about weapons. (Oh, that IS how it is!)
But if you think that’s okay, then it shows what my bosses think is okay, which is exactly what it seems like my bosses think is okay, which to us is insane.
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I don’t see how flooding the MM with people who have the advantage of free schooling at a time when wages are stagnant is a good thing.
We need more ships, not more mariners.
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We’re all SWOs, some of us are doing OPS jobs, some WEPS, some ENG. And I know what you consider normal, and I’m glad it works for you guys. I happen to believe in our generalist system (with the caveat that we are manned, trained, and equipped appropriately). There are those who clamor for specialty career paths like in the Royal Navy. I think reasonable people can have a debate on the merits of both philosophies.
I chimed in to tamp down the hyperbole, of which this is another example. Anyone getting detailed to be a Chief Engineer is going to get a school for it enroute, and already had to possess their EOOW letter (which admittedly, they may or may not have stood much watch with). NO ONE is showing up as CHENG asking how the propeller goes roundy round. Will they be as proficient as a merchant chief engineer who worked his way up from 3A/E? Probably not. But a Navy CHENG can stand watch in the Combat Information Center, and is also a qualified OOD. How many C/Es have their OICNW?
It isn’t insane, it’s a different way of doing business. It has its pros and cons. Your way does too.
I get your side’s view. When an engineering department consists of a hundred or more hands it makes sense that a CHENG should be more a leader and administrator than an operator. I don’t knock that. To many of us it just sounds insane.
What I struggle with is what happens when someone tries to put the square peg in the round hole: a whole lot of pounding for a bad fit.
I’ve seen a lot of low quality officers on the commercial side, I was surprised when I first starting sailing deep-sea.
Watching the captain have a melt-down when the pilot gets off early. One time in straight buoyed channel almost a mile wide, dark windy night, pilot got off inside because it’s too rough outside. Captain was bouncing around like a kangaroo. I’m thinking wtf, it’s a straight shot out.
Seen that more than once.
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There is a saying for this: “A coastal master gets worried when he can’t see the coast, a Deepsea Master gets worried when he can”.
There’s a saying for this too; “jack of all trades, master of none”.
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“A coastal master gets worried when he can’t see the coast, a Deepsea Master gets worried when he can.”
Funny… most ships I’ve been on we considered that prime time for running fixes.
In the Army deck and eng officers are all WO/CWO. Up until 2016 before the Army had a shortage of warrents they only took applicants for deck/eng officers who were E6+ and came from their respective MOS in the boat field(88L&K). Now, the Army opened the boat warrent positions up to big Army and Navy and we have people who never set foot on a vessel come out as 3 a/e or mate equivalent. This has caused the field to suffer greatly and is one reason so many are getting out of it, including me. I do not want to work for a chief who cannot remember how to change AC motors or is telling people to do improper confined space entry and those are just some small examples.
I did get a bit defensive and I hope you know I was not attacking you personally. I just get used to people talking down to Army watercraft personnel when the majority of us out there know what we are doing. There are always gonna be bad apples though. Your reasoning makes sense and this is an attempt to garnish more support from vets by the current admin. While the civilian side might see an uptick in people looking for a job I can tell you that the life style, even in the Army, weeds people out. I have only known a handle full of people who went to actually sail in the MM after they got out of the army. They already had their MMC, knew that is what they wanted to do and knew what to expect. Most people never want to sail again after the Army. When i was out in Japan we stopped at Yokoskua quiet a bit. I have never seen an unhappier lot at sea before or since. Most people do not like the life and do not want anything to do with it after the military. Some of us find a passion and stick with it but we are a very small minority.
Also with the free schooling they are meaning getting credited by the USCG for the training received by their branch, much like how the Army does it. The catch is these people still need the sea duty to hit those marks and have to put in the leg work to go to the MMC officer on post to apply. They are not gonna send people to school for free and hand out MMC just because they passed A school and they sure as shit are not sending us to schools on their dime, outside of military schools. These people would still need to use their GI bill for any training not credited to them during their time in service. I do believe that this is being blown out of proportion and in actuality this EO is forcing the Navy and USCG to conform like the Army did in the 1990s to USCG MM standards. So i highly doubt the job market is gonna get flooded because of this, or it will take at least a year due to the Navy and CG getting their shit together.
Like the plugs they used to fill the tell-tales in the LCS engines.
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