Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Balisle Report on DefenseNews with Phil Ewing

Phil may have a face for radio ... but he has done all the heavy lifting WRT The Balisle Report. This is well worth your time - very Salamanderesque.



Hat tip Lee.
at 11:03
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22 comments:

Byron said...

Degraded life-expentancy due to sub-par maintainence? And how many years have I been screaming about this? Huh?

11:30
Largebill said...

VADM Balisle was my CO on ANZIO and he lead with very high standards.  I have no doubt if things need shaken up he'd be the right guy to shake them.  Real question is whether the people who matter will listen to these concerns in time.

15:58
AO3 Ken said...

Merchant marine snipes in the engineering spaces???  I'm just idiot BB stacker (former) and that seems like a bad idea to me...

16:33
G Lof said...

But when all is said, the root of these problem is money.  I seen time and again people care more about saving a buck, rather than getting the job done. The unfortunately saving for saving sake means in the more waste as money is spent with no results. Poor training of sailor result in poor maintaians, which has to be corrected at greater cost. Underfunding procurement caiuse far fewer weapons bought, that means developing new system soon that expected. THe list goes on and on of false economies wasting DoDs limited resources.

16:34
BostonMaggie said...

Don't pick on Phil!

19:01
xformed said...

So long you're like a broken record....but a voice worth hearing saying "THE SKY IS FALLING!" because it is.

20:00
xformed said...

I'm sure the bean counters will line up against him...

20:01
Curtis said...

Byron,

Take a typical line guy like me and ask if I'd find value for the $ spent in maintenance in any American Shipyard and the answer is going to be a NO.  Give me, as CHENG or CO those same $ and dedicated time against the pier and I'd fix everything wrong with ship's company, anything that could go wrong, paint the ship and be off happy and give back half the $. 20 years ago I/you were paying $77/hour for illiterate Mexican illegal alien "fire watch" personal at Southwest Marine.  I don't think that things have changed for the better.  SUPSHIP was the most despicable experience of my whole naval life.  Those guys, all of them, scum.  We wrote a navy message every week to CNO and others and concluded that overhaul progress was unsat.  Never got a response.

20:02
xformed said...

I now know one of his inspectors was a retired CAPT who also played a major role in bringing major improvements to combat systems readiness at both the equipment and training levels.  He said of his 50 ship visits, I'd be heart sick.  He and Phil were working together back then, so I trust the review was through and determined by some very talented and capable retired officers.

At least, Byron, someone is heaeding your warning, finally.

20:04
xformed said...

Well, as a once upon a time Snipe working for some excellent Enlisted Engineers (who pretended they worked for me), the idea of a merchant crew is a very bad one.  Like when we put shore based simulators from the TDs and brought in contractors.  Repairs of hours turned to repairs of days, while we found extra lectures to keep the Pre-Comm guys awake.

Same would apply here, as someone would put some rules in place to keep the overtime choked off.  No hot water?  No problem...someone will be along tomorrow.  What?  no electricity to the chow line for MidRats?  Tomorrow....tomorrow (hearing Annie in my head)...

20:12
Byron said...

Then you never did any overhaul at Mayport N.S. And it's been a long damn time since you stood watches in CCS, and I can tell since you just made the statement that ships company could fix the problems. I got a news flash for you: half the damn time, they get the freakin' problem description wrong in the 2Kilo! A lot of times, they don't even know the damn compartment or frame number. I'll go one better than that: waiting to get a tag out in CCS on an FFG, a Lt. comes in wanting to know where the hell Aux 4 is...AUX FREAKING 4!. CHENG looked at me, I started to laugh, rest of the watch about pissed themselves.

You dumbasses drank the Kool Aid and turned the keys over to US. You don't do maintainance, you don't do repairs, you can barely write a repair request chit, since most of the time you barely know the system name much less how it's broken: " It don werk".

20:31
Anonymous said...

Merchant marine engineeing forces work with the minimum number of personel necessary, using computers and other automation to do most of the inspections. The minimum number of sailors does not take into account battle casualties (or boarding parties), and all that automatic monitoring equipment is probably not very shock resistant. Although some drills are performed for SOLAS compliance, beyond a limited fire, most merchant ship damage response involves donning the EBE and getting to the lifeboats.

This is not the path to cost savings it is the path to buying new boats after the old ones are sunk.

OTOH, I think that there might be something to be learned in the area of cross training.

21:47
Brickmuppet said...

urp...that was me.

21:49
Brent said...

I was the CSO at CNSP when Phil was the N6 at CNSL. He is a very bright guy, and will absolutely tell it like it is. You can take what he says to the bank!

22:59
C-dore 14 said...

About fifteen years ago the Navy (MSCLANT) experimented with manning an amphibious ship, USS EL PASO (LKA 117) with Civil Service Mariners under the NFAF concept (like the T-AOs).  They hand picked the Master, who was a USNR O-6, had previously been Master of several MSC T-AOs, and was a SOSMRC graduate.  The ship chosen had a fairly uncomplicated engineering plant and the Engineer was hand picked too.  I transferred to the West Coast before this experiment was completed so not sure how it turned out but assumed that they didn't see the cost savings they were after since the trial was never repeated.  I thought they tried some type of split manning on the command ships after I retired but know little about it.

Hope some bright civilian somewhere in MSC held on to the lessons learned

23:49
C-dore 14 said...

I've known Phil Balisle for many years.  We had O-5 and O-6 commands on the East Coast at the same time and he commanded the LINCOLN BG in Everrett when I was at UW.  He is a knowledgeable, no nonsense guy who knows his combat systems and engineering and was the perfect person to lead this review.  I have no doubt that he will follow up on his recommendations.

23:55
Curtis said...

I was a major user of the tugs in the Gulf back when.  The Master had previously been master of one of our converted AO.   The pay rate at that level didn't change nor at any other level.  On the other hand, ships went from 300 men to 30. Got a lot more sarcastic too.  Still, one can give as one gets and ask if there's salt with that?  Upton.  Same name as my CSO at the time.

Fred Cole was an XO of mine shopping in the wine delta of Napa when I ran across him again at the BOQ at Alameda where he declared that working for PEB sucked.  I never doubted him.  I left him behind, years earlier on a ship that didn't care about combat readiness but would fly a cat 4 casrep for a second delay on the pitch pumps.

strange times.

03:56
Curtis said...

Byron,

Please go back a full 30 years.  Once a quarter we would dock pierside at Manama for an avail from Navy Shipyard Charleston who would fly in with the their tiger teams and cruise boxes loaded with tools.   Our work packages were reviewed to a fair thee well by our CWO4 DCA and LDO LT Engineer.  I wrote earlier about cropping out the Main Steam Stop and telling the guys from Charleston to just weld in the new one we had sitting on the deckplates.

Later, when I was CHENG, I had a standing avail with ANY tender and SIMA and the 2R I approved in every work package were perfect.  There were no errors.  No discrepancies.  Once a week I would present myself to the RO on the tender or that dipshit 06 at SIMA/SUPSHIP.  My Master Chief found us a program that we could run on our little 286 "laptop" computer that would put our work orders into professional format.  When we were in the Gulf, I could pull alongside Acadia, or Cape Cod and put a 500 job work order in their hands, go over it and get it done.  Same thing at BASREC for a 10 day SRDA or SRF Jubail for a 10 day SRDA but you know, not one bit of that translated into useful anything when dealing with Southwest Marine or Todd Shipyard.  Crooks and thieves in American yards.  And yeah, never spent a millisecond in an East Coast Yard, worked at PMS 182 though didn't I?  For years.  13 YEARS to build a T-AGOS ship for LFA in Southern yards.  You MUST cut me some slack.  13 years to build a ship.  Without any guns on it!!!!!  Southern yards earned a reputation they'll never live down.  What about that LPD that sprays lube oil worse than any Packard ship did?  I don't know a thing about Mayport except.

I get to call them.  I do.  I wasn't all that happy with the pukes from CNSY when they demanded a QA package for that bloody valve.  "oh, we're precious and not going to weld in that perfectly fine valve"..... pissants.

Byron, we share an era.  It is really saddening to know that B double E is gone that most sailors can't clean the lint out of the pocket much less do a falling ball test on a lube oil sample or write CASREP or 2K or fix the most basic things.  You deal with that every single day.  Seriously, the guys I lead for most of my life, give them time at the pier and they could fix anything from a Mk19 or Mark 23 gyro to a Packard or Waukesha main engine and anything in between.  Ditto for Mk 86 or RIM 7 or 53 sonar or anything.  Heck, we fixed the pier itself after we broke it with a donut.  :)

04:54
Byron said...

I feel your pain. I've watched it happen in slow motion. We used to hire sailors all the time with confidence they knew what they were doing...not so much any more. I recently had to get a vent system tagged out. While standing in CCS on a FFG, the EMC called for his truty EM2 to take the tags he had already printed out and go with me to take the controllers and switches. Unfortunately, this second class PO didn't know where they were at. I had to show him. I looked at the chief and he knew that I was dissing him. That was the chiefs job to show these sailors where all these systems are, especially freakin' ventilation! You get a fire in a space, one of the first things you do is secure the damn ventilation!

06:07
leesea said...

C-dore 14 sir I was asst project officer on the T-LKA project.  Adm Borda's concept was to have on ship on each coast in ROS-5 for sailor & marine training and to surge as sealift in support of amphib ops.  The El Paso and Mobile (after being towed in from distant NISMFS) started their conversions at Beth Ship in Balto.   We got the engine plant mostly done, the accomodations were civilianized but the deck gear was in bad shape and needed more work.   I got two 55 man MILDEPT set up to augment the CIVMAR crew on flight decks and boat ops.  SPAWARs was NO help in modifiying milcomm suites.  That applied to ELP.  Mobile was in much worse shape having undocumented hull damage from a probable grounding.

Then  Adm Borda died (sic) and within 2 weeks OPNAV killed the project after we had spent about $36 mil~   The ELP steamed one day to NISMF Philly and MOB was towed up later - where they sit today. 

Contact me offline for my suggestions concerning those ships use today as Multi-Mission Support ships with focuse on HA/DR missions.

12:47
leesea said...

There are so many differences betweent merchant marine engineering practices  and those of naval ships, it is almost too much for this forum./
Suffice to say merchant mariners are all journeymen level, they get assigned to simpler engineering systems repleadly, their down periods are mandated, they a older and more experienced that many (junior) sailors, and they do not have to perform as many "other duties as assigned".

Naval Auxiliaries are not warships so to certain extent is a oranges and grapefruit comparison?

BUT their are methods, processes and systems used on NFAF ships which can and should be applied to commissioned ships.  I have heard of several technigues already adopted.

12:55
C-dore 14 said...

leesea, Thanks for the feedback about a program that I thought might have some potential.  As an aside, I did my MIDN 1/C cruise aboard MOBILE when she was brand new and on her first WESTPAC.

12:58

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