The Navy’s turn
Well, my other post today talked about how three Army vessels sent to the Med to support the Hamas pier have to thumb a ride home. Like a clapped out Yugo, seems their craft are not seaworthy enough to be trusted to make it home. Well, might not entirely be the Army’s fault they have to beg rides.
The Navy will reportedly sideline 17 vessels due to a manpower shortage that makes it difficult to properly crew and operate ships across the fleet.
There just aren’t enough Merchant Marines to keep all the ships going at once, according to Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation for the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, told Fox News Digital. Merchant Marines operate the many support vessels needed to keep the Navy running.
The Military Sealift Command drafted a plan to put 17 ships into “extended maintenance,” which would include a redistribution of crews to other vessels across the Navy, the U.S. Naval Institute reported.
Think we used to call this a shell game, didn’t we? Robbing Peter to pay Paul? Something like that.
The ships include two replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases – the USS Lewis Puller, based in Bahrain and the USS Herschel “Woody” Williams, based in Souda Bay, Greece.
The effort is known as the “great reset” and is awaiting approval from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. The change will reduce Navy demands for officers by 700 mariners.
Not enough Merchant Marines…but some of the ships they are calling out are warships, true? I tend to be lost on anything over 30 feet long, so you experienced Naval-gazers will have to set me straight.
A support group will consist of one or two ships that will move either in proximity or just behind a carrier group of over half a dozen ships, with specific jobs depending on region. Montgomery highlighted an instance around five years ago when the navy tried to deploy 60 ships but only managed to get 25 to sea due to insufficient numbers of people – and the age of the ships remains a concern.
“The average age of the ships in the reserve force is about 45 years old,” Montgomery said. “Between 20 and 30 years is fine, because you don’t have the same issues of modernization of weapon systems and big changes in electrical power distribution … but 17 of the ships are over 50 years old.”
The Navy has a 30-year shipbuilding plan that will include the decommissioning of 48 ships to occur over a four-year period that started in 2022, according to Seapower magazine. Fox News
Sure hope Boeing isn’t supplying replacements, they have their hands full just trying to – well, anything right now. ‘Paper Tiger’ is an ugly term for the Navy… hate to see it come into vogue.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Navy
As a Marine of 16 years prior to being embarked on the Bonhomme Richard (rest her soul), I was somewhat surprised to hear the lengthy list of casualties at the nightly staff meeting with the commodore and ship staff and the MEU staff. I expected that with the Denver, who was really long in the tooth, but the BHR had three less years in the military than I did. Further, she had just gotten out of the yard a few months earlier.
Incidentally, it was amazing how quickly the deck got nasty looking. It was pristine when I saw her in the fall of 2012. By the end of a couple of month pump, the aircraft had done a number on her.
Hopefully, the oiler “Harvy Milk” that is named after a homosexual pedophile is unaffected.
That was the first 1 repaired doncha know.
The 100s of billions of $s we’re shipping overseas would go along long way toward fixing the problems with our shipping issues…among other things. Jus’ sayin’.
That and the funding of experiments to among other things: “observe the special tendencies of rosy wolf snails to express mail and female at separate times” and other such things we really need to know!
Like some people have said before, if a country has money to send overseas, it is time to lower taxes.
MSC has always had problems. Poor schedules/rotations lead many to stay there for upgrade time before quitting to move on to better ships/companies with better rotations and wages and others who stay for the rapid advancement this exodus inevitably causes (you’ve got 27 year olds sailing as Master on some of those ships…)
It’s also impossible to get fired from there once you’re in… the shortage helps dissuade officers from disciplining the gangbangers aboard ship. Knife fights? Threats of violence against licensed officers and even the Master? Can’t be bothered with that. Let them stay, let the inmates run the asylum. Hell, give the convicted felon-turned-mariner a sidearm and post him at the gangway! He’s on watch!
MSC is and has been a dumpster fire for some time now. It’s finally catching up to them…
Wow, rocking it like it is 1885!
A sailor went to sea, sea, sea.
To see what he could see, see, see.
But all that he could see, see, see.
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea!
A sailor went to say, say, say.
To see what he could say, say, say.
But all that he could say, say, say.
Was the bottom of the deep blue say, say, say!
A sailor went to sigh, sigh, sigh.
To see what he could sigh, sigh, sigh.
But all that he could sigh, sigh, sigh.
Was the bottom of the deep blue sigh, sigh, sigh!
A sailor went to so, so, so.
To see what he could so, so, so.
But all that he could so, so, so.
Was the bottom of the deep blue so, so, so.
A sailor went to soo, soo, soo.
To see what he could soo, soo, soo.
But all that he could soo, soo, soo.
Was the bottom of the deep blue soo, soo, soo.
A sailor went to sea, sea, sea.
To see what he could see, see, see.
But all that he could see, see, see.
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea!
I see what you did there there there.
OK, somebody school me on how they plan on getting ships that aren’t seaworthy back across the, you know, seas? I recall a story of a ship (ww2?) having to sail in reverse to get somewhere for repair. I an not knowledgeable is the different sizes of the ships except carriers. Are there boats that can be semi submerged, the damaged ship loaded, un semi submerge them selves and sail home? Kind of like a roll back wrecker, or do they do it like some hoosier by towing by a line tied to another ship.
If it’s a dead ship, they can be towed depending on how far they have to go. All ships have emergency towing plans/arrangements on hand. If it’s too far I suspect they’d have to look for yards close to wherever the ship is for major repair work.
This is why the US Navy getting rid of and scrapping a lot of tenders and repair vessels and disestablishing the patternmaker and molder ratings/skillsets was a bad idea, IMHO.
Inquiring minds want to know…
Similar to a roll-on/roll-off ship(RO/RO/ onto which you drive trucks and trailers, there are float-on/float-off ships with central water wells – get the damaged ship into to fo/fo ship, guy it in place, then sail the outer ship home. It does all the work, the ‘cargo’ ship is just a long for the ride. See the Gaza pier article.
Hilariously the Air Force is saying they are going to bring the deep bomber fleet back to alert level, last seen in 1991. The military can’t today can’t even maintain a few vessels, no way they can get the bomber fleet back to 1991 levels.
They would have to re-open Loring and re-purchase the jet
fuel pipeline that runs from Searsport to Presque Isle.
They sold it to Bangor Natural Gas and they sold it to someone
that wants to put a fiber cable in it.
Also the Pacific is now completely US Carrier free for the first time since I have no idea when. China is just loving it.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/single-us-aircraft-carrier-is-in-the-hot-pacific-region/
Kamala will get on that right away 🙄
The only thing she’d ever get on right away is a dick.
Or her knees……!
That would depend on if she liked you or not.
Nah, it’d only depend on if you could do something for her in return..
Suuuuure she will…😏
Everybody hold onto your butts. Just sayin’.
I potentially agree, but that whole Korean War thing didn’t work out too well for their forces. and the only other major war action they had was with Vietnam, who massively kicked their asses as well, using their equivalent of the National Guard and Reserves.
True. Not saying they’d win, just that sh*t will be FUBAR-ed for a while over it.