Quote:
Originally Posted by bigbill
This is what I discussed on the previous page, the lack of training and proficiency that goes all the way to the top. We've shifted our focus to the Pacific to counter the Chinese and to some extent, the Indians. The Russians like to rattle sabers with their navy but it's really a collection of Cold War relics that can't deploy more than a few weeks at time. We asked too much of our destroyer and cruiser force but meanwhile continue to invest in the Littoral Combat Ship which is an answer to a question not asked. We overtasked our existing ships and cut back on maintenance, training, and professional development. All because unit and squadron commanders didn't have the situation awareness or guts to say no to a task.
I've done two watches a day for six months at a time in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. I was one of the core Officer of the Decks responsible for training new officers. I was 4 hours on, 8 hours off, 08-12 and 20-24. I also had a department head job in the engineering plant. I had no formal training or classroom time, I was paired up with a career Surface Warfare Officer who spent 3 months training me about 10 hours a day on the bridge. We had a tactical operations plot that kept track of other ships using radar, but they didn't have windows unless they walked out to the bridge. When I was on watch, they knew to grab binoculars and look to avoid getting embarrassed by me. One watch I asked about a contact on the horizon and was told it was a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm said "COSCO" on the side and wasn't responding to radio coms.
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And I hate to say it Bill, but you just made my point. You have described the experience that a young Third Mate (entry level deck officer) has. And that doesn't even account for the years of classroom training a Third Mate has as well. The good news is that part of the fallout from this year of disaster is that the USN intends to phase in proper commercial type navigation radars with full ARPA (Automatic Radar Plotting Aids) as well as ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display Systems) and have now authorized their vessels to activate their AIS (Automatic Identification Systems) when operating in heavily trafficked areas. All three will help, there's no doubt. But the first two of three take a fair amount of training to use appropriately. How well they are utilized is still very much an open question.
I still feel that the best answer to the problem is the simplest. Make deck officer (and engineering officer for that matter) an actual career track. Set it up so that you can continue to be promoted by gaining experience in the wheelhouse, and specializing in, as you called it, "ship driving."
CaptStash....