The U.S. Navy’s top uniformed officer wants to bring in industry experts to help the service understand why it has suffered two serious crashes in the Pacific theater in the last three months."Industry experts". Right. About the only similarities between merchies and warships is that both types of ships float and move through the water.
Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon, Adm. John Richardson, the chief naval officer, said that he expects to bring in leaders from industry as part of a broader review on what might have led to Sunday’s crash between the destroyer John S. McCain and the Liberian-flagged merchant vessel Alnic MC.
Here's a better idea: Get together a few panels of post first-tour and second-tour junior officers. Ask them what the fuck is going on and task them with coming up with solutions. They know the problems of driving warships better than any bunch of "industry experts" with Ph.Ds in whatever.
Not that'll happen.
Stupid fuckers.
7 comments:
Three words: Mk. I Eyeball.
Yeah, is there some sore of bridge watch cultural shift I am not aware of? OOD being a nice guy and sending the look outs below for some shut eye? Is the CIC all on youtube at once? Not that I trusted them guys when I was on watch. I could see the same radar on the bridge.
It's the same insanity that suggests a privatized ATC system will work just fine. Industry is the answer, Government run is dumb/wasteful/evil. People in charge of things with no bearing on the subject are anointed experts and allowed to gin up some cockeyed ideas that will get tried and discarded within 4 years, after killing a number of seamen recruits and such. The answer is pretty clear, increased staffing and training...but that costs money. Of course, so does a consulting gig, but that pays industry friends rather than peons.
How busy is that area? Slashdot had a link to a video from AIS data of the Alnic MC.
I take it it warships on the move don't broadcast their positions.
Industry experts in this field are wearing khakis or Dixie cups.
Used to, at least.
Who has been counseling the CNO?
What if those "industry experts" are post first or second-tour junior officers with Ph.Ds in whatever? My post-academia experience is the private sector pays better. Major recruiting point over the past twenty years or so: eight, ten years incountry then a lucrative carreer in the private sector. Especially in tech applications.
Something about Erik Prince's Afgan Blackwater Colonials that's had me wondering: when I was incountry, forty odd years ago, I peeled a few potatoes, cleaned a few shitters. The Army did everything. No doubt Navy et al. Not sure when it started but I started noticing the outsourcing of domestic support with the Bush Wars. Makes me wonder who's going to do the domestic support for Prince's merchs?
The problem is that the surveys and panels they do do of enlisted and JOs say things like "I am so sleep deprived I keep hallucinating on watch" or "doc says I will have a heart attack at 25 but my supervisor scheduled me on another 24 hours with no sleep".
The navy realizes that the guys flying $20 million dollar helicopters need eight hours of sleep, but thinks the guys steering billion-dollar destroyers can go without it. Only a handful of commands have adjusted watch and work schedules to fit what medical science has proven about healthy and safe sleep patterns.
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