u/ImgonnawaverwireAB - originally from r/GenZhou LONG POST: The Navy: more than just long tubes full of seamen
LONG POST
Someone in the last Air Force discussion said they were interested in hearing a leftist perspective on the different branches of the US military, so I figure what the hell, I can talk about the navy. My background: navy helicopter pilot, recently left a forward deployed squadron in the Pacific fleet, now on the back end of my contract and doing test and evaluation of aircraft prior to getting out.
Bottom line: the navy is in a pretty bad spot right now, and things appear unlikely to improve anytime soon.
Deployments have gotten longer and longer–a trend that started with 9/11 and has never really stopped. Navy leadership at the Pentagon is honestly pretty aware of this, and believe it or not would actually prefer not to run their ships and people into the ground, but their hands are largely tied by the Goldwater-Nichols act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater–Nichols_Act), which allows the combatant commanders to pretty much dictate ship deployments over the objections of the admirals charged with maintaining those ships (i.e., the generals put in charge of the middle east are almost always army or marines, and they don’t give a shit about the upkeep of ships, only that they’re constantly there to apply pressure). MEANWHILE, in the Pacific, which still remains dominated strategically by the navy, leadership is freaking out over how much ground has been ceded to China in the past two decades. So it doesn’t matter if there’s an admiral in charge over there who should be listening to what his upper level leadership tells him; they’re also constantly demanding ships on station.
To compound all of this, the navy really fucked away its shipbuilding over the past couple decades. All of the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were decommissioned, and were supposed to be replaced by the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship), which is basically a 1990’s end-of-history, best-corporate-principles bastard of a design–too large for “littoral” operations (which was always a made up warfare domain anyway), and with too short of range and not enough armament/armor for blue water operations. The LCS program has also been plagued with about as many problems as the F-35, believe it or not. Meanwhile, the navy again went with a glorified testbed design, the Zumwalt, to replace its aging destroyers and cruisers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer). It ended up costing over $1B a pop, way more than even our bloated budget could ever support, and the 32 planned Zumwalts was reduced to 3. So the Navy’s core component of surface vessels is stuck in Cold War era designs, and is trying to fill the gap with more Arleigh Burke DDGs and by continuing to extend the service lives of 25+ year old Ticonderoga cruisers.
All of the problems listed above also apply to the aircraft carriers, which due to the careful maintenance required of the nuclear reactors kept them on a VERY specific timeline: 6-9 months deployed, 12-18 months maintenance. With 10-11 carriers in inventory, this allows the navy to just BARELY sustain three carriers deployed while the others are in the yards. This system literally can not tolerate any delays in maintenance or extended deployments (which guess what…happen all the time). And the upcoming replacement for our carriers, the Gerald Ford class, has also been riddled with cost overruns and delays (think I’m seeing a trend here…). So some of our carriers are approaching 50 years of age (the Nimitz, which had just started coming home from its 8 month deployment but was ordered back to the middle east after just three days (hearts out to those poor souls) was commissioned in 1975!), and we still have not fielded a workable CVN replacement.
So, in summary, less ships are available, but demand for ships on station has remained high, making those that deploy stay out longer and break more often, which leads to compounding and longer term maintenance, which keeps other ships out longer and breaking as well, and on and on. Google “US warship returns from deployment” and you will be floored by how rusty and shitty they look.
At this point the navy doesn’t really have much faith in the surface fleet…just praying that our submarines (which honestly are still pretty awesome but also starting to feel their age), coupled with cyber and space warfare, can cripple a peer adversary at the very beginning, so we don’t have to find out how our aging fleet will fare against modern anti ship missiles.
INTERMISSION*
So anyway. What does this all mean for the rank and file? Put simply, it really fucking sucks. Morale was already getting bad, and COVID has made things so much worse (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2021/01/11/readying-for-the-worst-pandemics-long-deployments-take-a-hard-toll-on-crews-families-and-ships/). It’s at the point where commands all expect to have at least one suicide or suicide attempt a year, with more occurring at the higher stress, longer deploying commands. Port calls and world travel used to be the pressure relief valve that helped people get through the long months at sea, but now those are totally gone; you’re lucky if they let you pull up to a pier and give you a couple lukewarm beers. The last time I was underway was at the beginning of the pandemic, and it started to feel like living in a convalescent home. Bingo and card games every night, ice cream socials every week. Anything to keep sailors from slipping more into depression.
So, is the navy going to be the start of the next October Revolution, a la 1917? I wouldn’t count on it. The main reason why is simply the nature of the all volunteer force. Everyone is on a contract, that they willingly signed, even if we all agree that the way recruiters prey on kids is basically signing under false pretenses. The financial costs of breaking your contract are also severe, and what’s more, if you do start to act out, if you do raise serious objections of any kind, you’re just removed from your command and kept in a storeroom somewhere while they out process you. And the consequences are extremely similar for the vast majority of junior officers who act outside the official lines. So everyone pretty much just does their time and gets out, while the ones who stay in are usually too dumb or scared to get a job in the real world and/or have drank the kool aid and legitimately don’t perceive any serious problems.
Running really long here, sorry. At the end of the day, for the navy at least, feels like we’re stuck in the same slow decline as everyone else. Nothing ever changes, it just slowly gets worse somehow. It’s demoralizing, for sure. Becomes hard to explain to your everyday deck sailor why deployment is extended again, why they won’t be home for Christmas, or for their baby’s birth, or to try to save a marriage before their spouse disappears for good. More and more I keep hearing the same thing: we’re not at war! Why are we doing this?? The alarm bells are definitely ringing, and people are slowing coming to the realization that if this is the state of affairs in peacetime, how badly do you think we can expect a major conflict to go.
u/ImgonnawaverwireAB - originally from r/GenZhouLONG POST: The Navy: more than just long tubes full of seamen
LONG POST
Someone in the last Air Force discussion said they were interested in hearing a leftist perspective on the different branches of the US military, so I figure what the hell, I can talk about the navy. My background: navy helicopter pilot, recently left a forward deployed squadron in the Pacific fleet, now on the back end of my contract and doing test and evaluation of aircraft prior to getting out.
Bottom line: the navy is in a pretty bad spot right now, and things appear unlikely to improve anytime soon.
Deployments have gotten longer and longer–a trend that started with 9/11 and has never really stopped. Navy leadership at the Pentagon is honestly pretty aware of this, and believe it or not would actually prefer not to run their ships and people into the ground, but their hands are largely tied by the Goldwater-Nichols act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater–Nichols_Act), which allows the combatant commanders to pretty much dictate ship deployments over the objections of the admirals charged with maintaining those ships (i.e., the generals put in charge of the middle east are almost always army or marines, and they don’t give a shit about the upkeep of ships, only that they’re constantly there to apply pressure). MEANWHILE, in the Pacific, which still remains dominated strategically by the navy, leadership is freaking out over how much ground has been ceded to China in the past two decades. So it doesn’t matter if there’s an admiral in charge over there who should be listening to what his upper level leadership tells him; they’re also constantly demanding ships on station.
To compound all of this, the navy really fucked away its shipbuilding over the past couple decades. All of the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were decommissioned, and were supposed to be replaced by the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship), which is basically a 1990’s end-of-history, best-corporate-principles bastard of a design–too large for “littoral” operations (which was always a made up warfare domain anyway), and with too short of range and not enough armament/armor for blue water operations. The LCS program has also been plagued with about as many problems as the F-35, believe it or not. Meanwhile, the navy again went with a glorified testbed design, the Zumwalt, to replace its aging destroyers and cruisers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer). It ended up costing over $1B a pop, way more than even our bloated budget could ever support, and the 32 planned Zumwalts was reduced to 3. So the Navy’s core component of surface vessels is stuck in Cold War era designs, and is trying to fill the gap with more Arleigh Burke DDGs and by continuing to extend the service lives of 25+ year old Ticonderoga cruisers.
All of the problems listed above also apply to the aircraft carriers, which due to the careful maintenance required of the nuclear reactors kept them on a VERY specific timeline: 6-9 months deployed, 12-18 months maintenance. With 10-11 carriers in inventory, this allows the navy to just BARELY sustain three carriers deployed while the others are in the yards. This system literally can not tolerate any delays in maintenance or extended deployments (which guess what…happen all the time). And the upcoming replacement for our carriers, the Gerald Ford class, has also been riddled with cost overruns and delays (think I’m seeing a trend here…). So some of our carriers are approaching 50 years of age (the Nimitz, which had just started coming home from its 8 month deployment but was ordered back to the middle east after just three days (hearts out to those poor souls) was commissioned in 1975!), and we still have not fielded a workable CVN replacement.
So, in summary, less ships are available, but demand for ships on station has remained high, making those that deploy stay out longer and break more often, which leads to compounding and longer term maintenance, which keeps other ships out longer and breaking as well, and on and on. Google “US warship returns from deployment” and you will be floored by how rusty and shitty they look.
At this point the navy doesn’t really have much faith in the surface fleet…just praying that our submarines (which honestly are still pretty awesome but also starting to feel their age), coupled with cyber and space warfare, can cripple a peer adversary at the very beginning, so we don’t have to find out how our aging fleet will fare against modern anti ship missiles.
INTERMISSION*
So anyway. What does this all mean for the rank and file? Put simply, it really fucking sucks. Morale was already getting bad, and COVID has made things so much worse (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2021/01/11/readying-for-the-worst-pandemics-long-deployments-take-a-hard-toll-on-crews-families-and-ships/). It’s at the point where commands all expect to have at least one suicide or suicide attempt a year, with more occurring at the higher stress, longer deploying commands. Port calls and world travel used to be the pressure relief valve that helped people get through the long months at sea, but now those are totally gone; you’re lucky if they let you pull up to a pier and give you a couple lukewarm beers. The last time I was underway was at the beginning of the pandemic, and it started to feel like living in a convalescent home. Bingo and card games every night, ice cream socials every week. Anything to keep sailors from slipping more into depression.
So, is the navy going to be the start of the next October Revolution, a la 1917? I wouldn’t count on it. The main reason why is simply the nature of the all volunteer force. Everyone is on a contract, that they willingly signed, even if we all agree that the way recruiters prey on kids is basically signing under false pretenses. The financial costs of breaking your contract are also severe, and what’s more, if you do start to act out, if you do raise serious objections of any kind, you’re just removed from your command and kept in a storeroom somewhere while they out process you. And the consequences are extremely similar for the vast majority of junior officers who act outside the official lines. So everyone pretty much just does their time and gets out, while the ones who stay in are usually too dumb or scared to get a job in the real world and/or have drank the kool aid and legitimately don’t perceive any serious problems.
What might we see more of? Sabotage. No joke. The big ship fire in San Diego is being investigated for arson (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/08/26/arson-suspected-as-cause-of-fire-on-navy-ship-bonhomme-richard-defense-official-says/). A carrier deployment was pushed back over 6 months in 2019 (https://news.usni.org/2019/08/31/uss-harry-s-truman-suffers-major-electrical-malfunction-raising-questions-about-upcoming-deployment). I know multiple folks with first hand knowledge who described that one as “highly suspicious.” There are also multiple ways to delay a smaller ship’s deployment, from extremely negligent maintenance practices to stuffing t-shirts into the toilets to destroy the onboard vacuum waste removal system (in the latter case, the joke is always on us; the navy will literally have you shit in buckets if it gets you underway on time). You will see zero acknowledgment of this in any official source, but it’s a known issue that definitely keeps ships’ captains up at night.
Running really long here, sorry. At the end of the day, for the navy at least, feels like we’re stuck in the same slow decline as everyone else. Nothing ever changes, it just slowly gets worse somehow. It’s demoralizing, for sure. Becomes hard to explain to your everyday deck sailor why deployment is extended again, why they won’t be home for Christmas, or for their baby’s birth, or to try to save a marriage before their spouse disappears for good. More and more I keep hearing the same thing: we’re not at war! Why are we doing this?? The alarm bells are definitely ringing, and people are slowing coming to the realization that if this is the state of affairs in peacetime, how badly do you think we can expect a major conflict to go.
Anyway, that’s your navy.
u/Azirahael - originally from r/GenZhouYoink!
Thanks comrade.