Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, USN Goes Salamander on Corrosion

David Larter remains the town crier for the most critical long-term crisis in our Navy, corrosion prevention. Here and elsewhere, we beat the drum with him - and good people with important jobs are starting to speak out. Excellent! 

“Corrosion is one of the big things if we want to keep the ships around for 40-45 years; we have to do what is necessary on the corrosion side of things,” Moore said. “I don’t have the exact numbers, but we are spending $10 billion on our ship depot maintenance. And I’m guessing that several billion of that is corrosion-related, so it’s a significant portion of the budget.

“We have to stay on top of it. We have to be willing to do the work necessary to limit corrosion on the ship. And it’s not just at the depot. It’s in intermediate maintenance and its with ship’s force. We have to recognize that this is a law-of-physics thing and stay on top of it.”

When you do the regression analysis, here is the hard truth of one of the largest variables with a relatively inelastic demand curve; manpower.

For a couple of decades the wrong people have been running our manpower reviews with the wrong charter; efficiency. While important, efficiency should never get 51% of the vote over effectiveness.

The Transformationalists and their manpower lackeys have had their day in the sun. They have been measured and found wanting.

The dramatic slide in corrosion control is, at least, being discussed in open at the very highest levels. Great - now let's do something about it.

Yes, people are expensive, yet so is having much of your battleforce looking like that 55 Buick in the cow pasture off of GA HWY 82 since 1978 with the pine tree growing out of the trunk.