10 missing, 5 injured after USS John S. McCain collides with tanker in Pacific

[Still-One]

There was a candlelight vigil in the Central Park of our little town last week for Kenneth Smith. His mother lives here.

[jimtranr]

A brief follow-up on "what the hell is going on".

The entire command chain has been sacked. That's the bridge watchstanders (the OOD and JOOD), McCain's CO, the DesRon commander, the task group commander, ComSeventhFleet, and CincPacFleet, whose appointment won't be renewed.

The reason: Not hacking of the ship's navigational or related systems, but laxity in maintaining operational readiness via the kind of intensive training and strict accountability that saved our rear end in the Tonkin Gulf. Forward operating units are under heavy pressure due to the requirement that they be at sea performing the mission at least one-half of each year, putting a strain on maintenance as well as underway training schedules. So the command system has been shortcutting to keep everything afloat in the forward operating area.

An example is a destroyer that failed 12 out of 12 performance-standard metrics and was still allowed to remain forward-operational rather than stand down for obviously-required in-port and--this is crucial--underway training. Looking the other way is not a recipe for maintaining razor-sharp operational readiness, and the human-cost price paid this year in the case of the two Seventh Fleet collision-involved destroyers is the end result.

[Masterlu]

[GSOphile]

I've seen several articles on this. Lack of funds under the sequester have resulted in cutbacks that have shortchanged maintenance and time for available for training. Comments on shamefully shoddy condition of the fleet, overextended crews due to manpower cutbacks and fewer ships to accomplish missions.

[Karl Maga]

Jim, you seem well informed. Can you advise us where we can readily find details? I’d especially like to read about our overall operational status, and what it’s biggest challenges are.

[GSOphile]

I've seen several articles on this. Lack of funds under the sequester have resulted in cutbacks that have shortchanged maintenance and time for available for training. Comments on shamefully shoddy condition of the fleet, overextended crews due to manpower cutbacks and fewer ships to accomplish missions. IMO some of this goes beyond command failures in the Pacific.

[vintage_tube]

Cutbacks affecting all aspects of the military with no reduction to but a growing worldwide posture, presence, homeland security, potential threats & treaty obligations has had a detrimental effect to combat readiness. It's easy to cut manpower, hardware, air & watercraft production & R&D, etc., -- cut funding & something will give; as demonstrated trickling down to these embarrassing events.

There isn't enough Brasso to remove the ugly tarnish.

There are bad guys out there who hate. Period.

Regroup/reevaluate & get your sh_t together.

Best Sirs;

Bob

[jimtranr]

Originally Posted by Karl Maga

Jim, you seem well informed. Can you advise us where we can readily find details? I’d especially like to read about our overall operational status, and what it’s biggest challenges are.

For the current topic, Mike, here's an article that addresses, or at least references, some pertinent issues, such as watchstanding schedules and the deference to individual CO's to determine operating standards (including seamanship): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/u...ype=collection

For the broader picture, publications like the Naval Institute Proceedings and similar journals offer pertinent professional perspective. You might find sites like http://military.com useful. And some of the major print media that are also available online have military affairs correspondents (e.g., Michael Gordon at the New York Times, Dan Lamothe at the Washington Post, etc.) that sometimes provide big-picture commentary.

[Robert_Anderson]

I spent 10 years in the Navy and another 20 working on military and USNS flagged ships. There are so many security and safety systems in use that is simply appalling that either ship could let this happen.