When You Fool Yourself, You are One

The GAO has a report out on LCS maintenance.

A long running concern here has been the intentional, and borderline criminal, neglect of maintenance Navy-wide in general.

The LCS program, from the manning CONOPS to maintenance has been one long example of bad ideas made flesh by an entire generation of pigheadedness.

In 2021, we have good people in hard jobs doing the best they can with the dog's breakfast of a class of ships they were given - and yet we can't seem to build anything straight connected to this crooked timber.

We should have stopped building them long ago - but we will have to make do with what we have.

If you want to, rage read the whole thing ... but I want to remind everyone - the first LCS was commissioned in 2008, over a dozen years ago.

We also found significant unplanned work in maintenance contracts we reviewed—often because the Navy didn't understand ship condition before planning repairs. One effect of unplanned maintenance is schedule delays that limit fleet readiness.

...

GAO found in the 18 LCS maintenance delivery orders it reviewed that the Navy had to contract for more repair work than originally planned, increasing the risk to completing LCS maintenance on schedule. A majority of this unplanned work occurred because the Navy did not fully understand the ship's condition before starting maintenance. The Navy has begun taking steps to systematically collect and analyze maintenance data to determine the causes of unplanned work, which could help it more accurately plan for maintenance. 

Amazing. Simply amazing. It is as if we didn't have a few centuries of experience maintaining warships.

The toxic culture of yes-men and happy-talk that begat the LCS program to begin with seems to be impacting maintenance as well.

Being that no one was held accountable for the former, I guess we should not be surprised about the later. 

How long do we want our ships in service again?

Last week we looked at aircraft maintenance a bit. Let's take some time to look again at ship maintenance.

All the talk the last 18-months about a 355-ship Navy has left me cold for a couple of reasons beyond the budget hole;

1. We have a huge backlog of deferred maintenance and gundecked maintenance needing correction that needs funds.
2. We are not properly budgeting (though indications are improvements are being made here in the last year+), in time or money how much it is going to take to make sure our ships last as long as some want them too.

I have two things for you to consider in line with the above;

First let's check in with Ike;

Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) will remain tied up in maintenance at Norfolk Naval Shipyard until early 2019, resulting in a maintenance availability about triple the expected six-month length.

Eisenhower is no stranger to overrun availabilities, after its last 14-month docked availability ran about 24 months. The carrier is the second oldest in the fleet at 41 years old – only outdone by lead ship USS Nimitz (CVN-68) at 43 years old – and has been among the hardest-run carriers in the fleet, contributing to its maintenance difficulties.

This is a sober and correct response. We should use this experience to re-calibrate the benchmarks we use to estimate yard time;

“The U.S. Navy is committed to sending to sea ships that are at a peak level of readiness in terms of manning, training and equipment. Anything less is unacceptable,” U.S. Naval Air Force Atlantic spokesman Cmdr. Dave Hecht told USNI News on Friday.

“In terms of maintenance of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, that is an extremely complex process, especially when it comes to vessels that have been in service for as long as USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. IKE’s maintenance is pressing forward with all expediency, and while delayed, we expect the ship and her crew to return to sea in the near future, fully capable to execute any mission handed to them.”

Next, a picture.

Just look at this PAO pic from the USS WASP (LHD 1). What concerns me more, I don't know; that the ship is in such a condition or that our Navy decided that it was OK to put out a photo demonstrating such as a good-news story.

What message does this send to our friends and potential adversaries? Does this give the impression of a navy on the rise or decline? Of a serious sea power (yes, two words this time), or one that is coasting on reputation and inertia?

What N-code is Eeyore again?

After reading Lance Bacon's bit over at Navy Times, I felt like we all need to go get a drink or six.

The atmosphere was one of frustration shrouded in uncertainties as 1,100 Navy and industry leaders discussed ways to provide maintenance and modernization to a surface fleet burdened by growing demand and diminishing funds.

The Fleet Maintenance & Modernization Symposium 2014, aptly titled “Delivering Readiness in Austere Times,” provided a forum for ship crews, maintenance centers and industry to express their needs, challenges and potential solutions.
...
Sailors said they are increasingly mired in the mess that routine maintenance has become. Even things that should be a quick hit — something as simple as laying non-skid surface on a frigate’s tiny O3 level weather deck — is burdened by paperwork, conflicting requirements and the lack of contract flexibility. Similarly, civilians said they have insufficient visibility of what is happening on ships to better assess maintenance issues.

There are 89 administrative steps to hurdle from request to work for common maintenance, and that is “incredibly burdensome for the crew,” said Jeffrey Baur, maintenance policy manager for Fleet Forces Command. To overcome this “malicious expectation of adherence to a process,” a new planned maintenance system is in the works that will front-load maintenance schedules to ensure the right parts and people are sent to meet the problem. The new PMS is expected to be implemented by late 2021.

Yes, you got that date correct. Seven (7) years.

We fought and won WWII in less than five (5). Chew on that a bit.

Back to the Joy Parade;

While the Navy has looked in 92 percent of tanks and bilges aboard ship, some amphibs have not had that inspection in nearly 20 years.

Even more startling: Fewer than 29 percent of items identified in assessments are actually fixed, ... Even carriers have been forced to defer work — something once unheard of — because the surface Navy’s dire needs have drawn all available maintainers.

“I can’t get a pipe fitter because of the amount of work going on in surface,” said Capt. Mark Oesterreich, Naval Air Force Atlantic’s director of ship material. “There is a lack of resources to do critical jobs.”

Public shipyards are about 1,500 workers per day under the requirement, said Vice Adm. William Hilarides, head of Naval Sea Systems Command. The result: a carrier more than two months late in availability; two attack subs more than six months late, and two guided-missile subs more than a year late.

There is a great phrase that has always been a reference point for me from one of my intellectual heroes, Adam Smith;

“Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation”
-Adam Smith, 1782

There is a Salamander corollary that goes with that,

“Be assured, shipmate, that there is a great deal of deferred maintenance to be drained from a once well led Fleet.”

Things can get very bad, but with the right leadership and priorities, things can be turned around. We have the Sailors and knowledge, we just need the right leaders.

And to wrap it up ... we got so close,

“If we surge in the next four months, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Oesterreich said, pointing out that the West Coast has less availability than his fleet.

The reality of shorter maintenance periods and longer deployments is leaving too little time to fix problems and the cycle is increasingly unrealistic, a panel of command master chiefs said.

“I’ve seen ships that are scarily undermanned and under experienced,” said Command Master Chief (SW/AW) Justin Gray, who serves on the destroyer Gonzalez. “It’s not the sailors’ fault. It is the Navy doing that to the ship.”

According to one official estimate, as much as 40 percent of planned work is not done or done incorrectly.

How long have we been numbly accepting the "9-month deployments are the new normal for awhile until we settle in to a 8-month new normal for a few years?" Do we think this has no cause or consequence?

Master Chief Gray - you won't say it, so I will. The "Navy" isn't doing that to the ship, the Navy's senior leadership is allowing it to happen. It starts with SECNAV, his deputies, and then the CNO. What are their priorities? What are their speeches on? Where is their travel time spent?  

OK, let's be fair. Re-read the above, the linked article, and the below as well. Keep in mind the following from SECNAV's article in the Harvard Business Review from this year;

Leading a large, complex organization like the U.S. Navy ... calls for a certain approach. You begin with a narrow focus on your organization’s unique strength and role. ... 

That focus helps establish priorities. .... 

My primary objective since becoming the secretary of the navy, in 2009, has been to rebuild a fleet that declined from 316 ships in 2001 to just 278 before I took office. 

...

As the governor of Mississippi, I learned the power of setting a few specific priorities and relentlessly pushing them. As the CEO of a private company, I saw that creating a compelling vision and crafting an inspiring narrative are key to achieving results. You must never lose sight of the ultimate goal.   

...

Leadership in an interdependent system also means taking responsibility for keeping the system healthy.

Inside big organizations, managers themselves work interdependently, bringing their various strengths to the mix. Devote your energy as a leader to reminding your organization what its crucial role is, creating the vision and the narrative, and looking out for the health of the system. Then your presence, like the navy’s, will make a difference.

Well, crap.

How is that working out for us? 

That is who should be answering the questions. This did not happen out of the blue. We've seen this movie before. We are here on his watch. Given all he has said - he needs to address how we got here head on.

No blaming others - no - again - this has happened on his watch. If he thinks Rowden and Oesterreich are wrong, then fire them.

While we are at it, let's look again at Captain Oesterreich's point about manning. How are the shore billets doing compared to deploying units? How thick and rumpled has the tail gotten as the Fleet starves? Is there as much pain ashore as at sea? 

All those people ashore may have spent the last decade making sure that everyone got their special snowflake non-warfare pin, but what about the unsexy but important like pipe fitters, did they spend a little time there? 

What has been the percentage change in BA/NMP for HT over the last decade compared to the diversity and inclusion commissariat (both military and civilian). Did we design HT to be in a position to "optimally man" the Fleet? 

What support staff was working on decreasing and streamlining those 89 steps, as opposed to creating and finding redundant SAPR training events?

This did not happen by accident. This was not benign neglect. This happened for one main reason; leaders sand bag and delay either making a decision or a ruckus until the PCS cycle makes it someone else's problem. They are trying to survive in a command climate where you are to shut up and color, be one of the Carebears, and join in the sing along.

When the music stops, then the person left standing has to fix what others pushed to the right.

Here and at Midrats over the last few years we have reminded everyone that we will reach the point of fail-to-sail or catastrophic failure at sea. So far, we seem to be doing our best to make EagleOne and your humble blogg'r correct - again.

I think it is great to have a panel like they did at the Fleet Maintenance & Modernization Symposium, but what about action? Let's parse the 3-star's statement;

Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, the new commander of Naval Surfaces Forces, said this era must be marked by competence among maintainers and confidence in decisions made by leadership.

OK. Work with me a bit. What era in our Navy did not require "competence among maintainers?" The implication is, of course, that the era just prior to now is/was one that was beset with "incompetence among maintainers." If so, who are they, why were they allowed to be incompetant, and how are they being held accountable?

If we now, shockingly, find ourselves actually requireing competence to rebuild the material readiness capital that has been beset with ruinious policy in the near past, then what changes are being made to bring about the needed competance?

Also, if we need for there to be "confidence in decisions made by leadership" - then that implies that we are in a position where there is not confidence in decisions made by leadership. If that is believed, then, why? Who is responsible for this loss of confidence, and how are they being held accountable? What steps are being made to re-establish that confidence?

If nothing is being done, then we can assume that everyone is just fine with the level of competence and confidence in October of 2014 ... but no one is.

So, again - deeds not words. What is being done, who is doing it, and what is going to be made a lower priority so warfighting - and without proper maintenance there can be no warfighting - is the priority?

Back to Master Chief Gray,

“But if we want ... a Navy of true technicians, we need to invest in them.”

Agreed. But in a time of decreasing to at best steady state budgets - we have to establish priorities. The budget is a zero-sum-minus game. We have to take the money from one thing to create another. If we cannot do things now we are being asked to do without destroying the future ability to do it and more important things, then we need to say, "No" until resources match requirements.

That call isn't the Master Chief's. No, that is a 4-Star problem that requires 4-Star leadership inside direction and guidance from civilian leadership.

That is who we need to hear from. If we don't get what we need, then we will need to have CDR, CAPT, RDML, and RADM who reconcile themselves that they are happy with their terminal rank and decide to make a stand.

If we don't make this stand at peace while our material readiness capital is still at a salvageable level, then someone out there will be this century's Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Don't be "that guy."

Study your Admiral Rozhestvensky - and while you are at it - your Admiral Makarov as well.

The Surface Force's Lost Generation

Over at Defense News, Megan Eckstein has your must read to start your week. I hope she does not mind, but I'm going to pull a lot from her article. Read it in full, but there is so much here that validates what we have spent the last two decades on the Front Porch and on Midrats discussing, we need to spend some time to take a deep dive.

Back in 2009 we warned everyone that the Navy's decision to classify INSURV was nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the results of bad decisions on maintaining the readiness of our Navy from the taxpayers and allowed senior leadership to play other games as opposed to their core responsibilities. To say that almost two decades after the Cold War all of a sudden INSURV was classified was just, in a word, insulting.

In 2009, the U.S. Navy faced a readiness crisis.

The cruiser Chosin and destroyer Stout were both deemed unfit for combat operations by the service’s Board of Inspection and Survey, which at the time checked ships’ material conditions every five years.

And they weren’t the only ones. From 2005 through 2009, nearly 14% of surface ships failed their inspections, up dramatically from 6.2% from 2000 to 2004 and 3.5% from 1995 to 1999.

The crisis came after the Navy discontinued several of its Cold War-era organizations focused on maintenance and training in an effort to save money during a time without a significant threat to U.S. security.

No, the "without a significant threat" line is simply BS, an excuse, and for many who knew better ... a lie. We all saw what the People's Republic of China was building. FFS, contemporarily we were a few years in to "The Long Game" series here and we were just riding the wave smarter people set in motion.

"Without?" No, that dog just won't hunt.

This excuse was designed only to cover people who were focused on little more than building personal clout in their present job, while shifting Navy problems in to someone else's PCS cycle to solve. Sure, there was myopia by an ill-informed or just wrong cohort, but for most it was simply, as we say in horse country, "shooting up the horse."

There were some who tried at the time to fix it inside the system, but ultimately came up short. 

There were good guys, a lot of them - they just didn't get to 50.1%; 

Adm. John Harvey, who led U.S. Fleet Forces Command at the time, helped charter a fleet review panel to determine how the Navy ended up in this position.

... 

In 2010, the fleet review panel’s report, dubbed the Balisle Report after lead author retired Vice Adm. Phil Balisle, shocked the surface fleet with its data on the poor state of ship readiness and crew training. It painted a dire picture of a surface navy that needed to be fixed; otherwise, there was a risk someone could get hurt or killed.

Let's freeze that for a moment. The summer of 2010. That is 12 and a half years ago. Here is what we wrote about this in June and July of 2010. What is that, between three and four WorldWars length of time?

The review, released in 2010, was condemnatory. “The panel is in full agreement that surface force material readiness is in decline. [T]he message is clear: the trend is in the wrong direction.”

Chief among the review’s recommendations was a call for the return of readiness squadrons, which oversaw surface ship maintenance and basic training. The review found that when these squadrons were eliminated in 1995, so too was the fleet’s focus on and accountability for making deployable ships and crews.

So many of the problems we have today can be traced back to the post-Cold War arrogance of the 1990s,  Perry's Last Supper, TQL, the triumph of the accountants, layered with the Transformationalist snake oil of the following decade.  

In 2010, Harvey pushed to reinstall the readiness squadrons, but he couldn’t rally enough support from the Navy’s manning, engineering and budgeting leaders, among others. The recommendation was never implemented.

But in summer 2017, two separate collisions by Navy ships in the Western Pacific killed 17 sailors. The service once again had to dig out of a ship readiness hole, and a key leader again called for the return of the readiness squadrons. Again, the idea went nowhere.

The lives of 17 Sailors and two WorldWars after 2010 later. "Nowhere" has one hell of a butcher's bill.

“The Balisle Report gave us this tremendous look at a history, really since 2000 or so, of these various decisions that were made in various different parts of the Navy,” Harvey told Defense News. “The collective impact was very, very negative in terms of our ability to keep our ships properly manned, trained and equipped.”

...

“Bringing back the readiness squadrons,” Harvey said, “if you talked to Adm. Balisle, it was his No. 1 recommendation to do. And I agreed with that.”

Still, Harvey added, the urgency to make this major change was “overcome by other events at that time.”

"Other events..." indeed; as we documented at the time linked to above.

The U.S. Navy has not made significant progress toward growing its fleet size above 300 ships. The FY23 National Defense Authorization Act allows the service to shed 12 of the 24 ships it proposed retiring. Even with a slower retirement rate and marginally higher shipbuilding and construction funding from Congress, it will prove difficult for the Navy to grow the fleet toward 355 ships. That was the last publicly stated force structure objective, back in 2016; since then, the Navy has not officially stated a revised target. (Source: Doug Berenson/Oliver Wyman)

It is a hard sell to beg for more ships when from a material condition to a maintenance support perspective we seem to have trouble taking care of what the taxpayers have already bought us by borrowing money in the name of children yet unborn.

Kitchener said there are two key differences this time around: an advanced adversary in China that’s forcing the Navy to think about its near-term readiness to fight; and data analytics and modeling that prove the surface groups will be worth the investment.

I'm sorry, but bullsh1t.

The threat from the PRC was as well known in 2016 as it is now. I will add to this that no one has confidence on the "analytics and modeling" coming from the Navy. 

The Age of Transformationalism, gutting of maintenance, and the vaporware that was "optimal manning" have blown all credibility in the Navy's "muh metrics" claims. Kitchener's numbers may very well be perfect, but no one has any reason to believe any of them from Main St. to Congress. Sorry, but institutionally we blew that credibility over the last two decades and it will take a long time to get it back.

We would make much better headway by simply saying, "For most of this century we blew it. We were wrong. We are trying to do better." 

Some, like Harvey, gave the Navy a window to save itself a dozen+ years ago and we didn't take advantage of it.

We have years of work to do ... but Step-1 here is to admit our mistakes. Until we do that, everyone can very reasonably assume we will do it again.

Data is central to Kitchener’s new effort. He told Defense News in an interview that various efforts have identified the ways to improve ship maintenance: building up a larger inventory of select spare parts, adding capacity in key shops and departments that are potential chokepoints, increasing training and growing expertise in certain technical areas, and more.

Ahh...the "Just in Time - -TQL" hangover. What takes one year to destroy, takes five years to rebuild. All that Kitchener is saying is not new. It is, just like readiness squadrons, returning to the last baseline that worked.

Are we in the process of a "baseline reset?" That would be a good thing.

Take Destroyer Squadron 9, for example, located in Everett, Washington. Its ships are scattered geographically: one located in Everett, five in San Diego and two in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

I'll let you do a distance and time zone review of that for yourself. Norfolk-Mayport was hard enough.

There are reasons this exists, but none of them are satisfactory when an overall net cost is considered.

Kitchener said he’s awaiting the final recommendations of his working group this summer, but expects each fleet concentration area to have a single surface group responsible for maintaining and training all surface ships, including cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and amphibious warships, based in those cities. These home ports include San Diego; Norfolk, Virginia; Mayport, Florida; Everett; Pearl Harbor; Yokosuka, Japan; Manama, Bahrain; and Rota, Spain.

I am trying to hard not to just snark old-school...but really - we have reached the point that giving commanders a chance to "walk the pier" without getting on an aircraft is something "new."

Instead of gratuitous snark, have a meme.

I mean, this is how it should be ... and seems to be heading back in the correct direction. It should be applauded. 

Each surface group would devote itself entirely to readiness. ... in the case of a maintenance casualty, the surface group back home would work to find the quickest solution, allowing the destroyer or amphibious squadron staff to continue focusing on operations. 

“This is oversight and responsibility and accountability throughout the entire” readiness cycle, Kitchener said. “The idea is, this exists in the fleet concentration area, it’s got a cadre of people that are constantly on our ships assessing, understanding what the problems are; we’re pulling the trend analysis here at the headquarters, giving them focus areas. It’s a very active, not just some sort of bureaucratic, organization.”

For those who were JOSs in the 90s, I guess a bureaucratic system focused on maintenance excellence is new and radical, but it has a track record. This is simply good stuff. We tried everything else and failed, why not try what worked?

Also, can we also make progress in the "Syllabels Reduction Act of 2023?" Can we simply go back to calling things "bases" as opposed to "Fleet Concentration Areas?" 

2 syllables and one word > 8 syllabels and three words.

As there is a lot of ruin in a nation, there was a lot in institutional capital previous generations built up prior to the 1990s that could be drawn on to pay for bad decisions, but that account is pretty much drawn down to almost nothing. 

Talk to anyone on The Hill ... it's gone.

The Navy has observed improvements in maintenance performance, but is also facing new setbacks as labor and supply chain challenges across the manufacturing sector continue to take a toll on the ship repair industry.

Rear Adm. Bill Greene, the fleet maintenance officer for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, said in the fall that only 36% of surface ships are expected to complete maintenance availabilities on time in fiscal 2022, down from 44% in fiscal 2021.

... 

 This duality is also reflected in the most recent Board of Inspection and Survey report, which noted surface ships are seeing higher overall readiness scores than the six-year average, but have more functional areas deemed “degraded” than the six-year average, using a scoring method of satisfactory, degraded or unsatisfactory.

Time for a reminder ... we need to make INSURV publicly available again. Less accountability gave us less readiness, and as a result our nation and its Navy is less secure.

What vexes the Navy, Kitchener said, is variance in maintenance performance: ... Kitchener outlined a three-step process to address this. The first step was already done under Performance to Plan ... P2P has highlighted the need to prioritize people or materials for a certain ship availability, and then coordinate activities across multiple shops at a shipyard to get a specific repair done on time.

The second step is allowing surface groups to devote their full attention to implementing the actions identified through P2P in hopes of achieving better on-time maintenance rates.

The third step, on which Kitchener said he’d offer more details soon, is creating a surface response plan that prioritizes certain ships’ readiness over others.

If a contingency arose and a combatant commander needed three destroyers, the three ships at the top of the list would be called upon to deploy on short notice. Those ships higher up on the list would be expected to stay in a peak-readiness state, and the maintenance and supply communities would act accordingly. Ships lower on the list and less likely to be called upon for unexpected tasking may be in a lower readiness condition if the fleet is short on personnel or materials, for example.

For those outside the Minotaur maze that is the US Navy's decision making, you are allowed to ask, "Why didn't we do this already?"

I know. I know.

So, what will this look like?

Kitchener said the future SURFGRU Southeast, currently named Naval Surface Squadron 14, is the “most robust” organization and has served as a model for the working group, which determined how many supply specialists, logistics personnel, diesel engine (versus gas turbine) experts, and so on, were needed to keep ships properly ready.

Kitchener said the Mayport group has 105 billets for a squadron that tends to about 10 destroyers — compared to just 10 personnel tending to nine destroyers and cruisers in Everett. The exact number of billets in each group would depend on the number of ships at a particular port, but Kitchener said the groups would more closely resemble the Mayport squadron than the Everett unit.

Mayport ... the best Sea & Anchor Detail in the Navy. 

The Navy was skipping training and maintenance to achieve unsustainable levels of at-sea presence, and it was down about 12,000 sailors thanks to the individual augmentee program that sent personnel to support joint operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sequestration cuts to the federal budget in 2012 further diminished readiness, Harvey explained.

No one said, "No." No one defended our Sailors or our Navy. We let the COCOMs abuse the running room they made for themselves as a result of Goldwater-Nichols and the whole accretions encumbered COCOM structure and Cult of the Joint that came with it. 

Yes, I am beating that horse and will continue to beat it until we get something fit for the 21st Century. 

No senior leader was willing to put their "career" - whatever that is after you have 4-stars - on the line to defend their Navy. We needed "Admiral No" and instead got "Admiral Hinge."

It wasn't something that happened to our Navy. No, it was something we allowed to happen to our Navy. Heck, during some of the worst of it, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a USN 4-star.

“It was going to take more billets, more people. … And there just was not a clean, widespread agreement among everybody who had to agree that this was the right way to go,” Harvey said. “In the greater scheme of things and what was going on, it just never rose to the level where it had a critical mass of leadership who all said: ‘Yes.’ ”

No, plenty of billets were found for other "priorities and distractions" - they were just more important than manning, training, maintaining, and equipping a fleet to fight and win. As I've offered for years, give me the top-cover and the manning documents ashore, and I'll find your billets. Just let me recode and reassign as needed. If I need more, I'll look at afloat and DC staff. They're there - you just have to be ready to upset a different group of people who don't add warfighting value anyway.

In the end, this is the cost of distraction and ill-focus;

Retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown, who investigated one of the two fatal ship collisions in 2017 and then took command of Naval Surface Forces in 2018, resurrected the push to bring back readiness squadrons. He said that, by 2017, virtually all Balisle’s recommendations were implemented — with the readiness squadrons being the major exception.

Brown told Defense News a robust readiness squadron likely would have prevented the fatal collisions involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain.

In summary, yep.

The existing structure asks destroyer squadrons to oversee the maintenance and certification of ships and serve as the sea combat commander for a carrier strike group. If the squadron needs a ship to fulfill a warfighting requirement, it creates a conflict of interest that can put maintenance and training needs at risk.

Brown said this construct “failed, and we recognized that it was failing, and so that’s why the Balisle Report said, and later I said, we’ve got to do this. And we just didn’t do it.”

He called the 1980s readiness squadrons “a proven model” that restored the Navy from having a hollow fleet in the 1970s to having a robust surface force by the 1980s.

There it is again; baseline reset.

A future “high-end fight requires so much dedicated concentration and focus that we need these additional commands. They’re going to come at a cost — it’s going to come at a huge manpower cost, and the Navy’s got to buy that manpower because it’s the right thing to do for our carrier strike groups,” Brown said.

Yes, buy manpower ... but also repurpose existing bloat ashore. Yes, recoding BA/NMP is a pain - but it can be done. Yes, rice bowls and rent seekers will be upset. All it needs to be is a senior leadership priority. And at the end of the day, shouldn't the ability to fight and win at sea be number 1?

We cannot change the past, but we must acknowledge, name, and recognize past errors so that they won't be repeated. 

There is some good stuff going on as outlined in Megan's reporting, and we should see more in this direction, but no more happy talk. No more multi-syllabic bullsh1t bingo lingo. No more petty distractions.

There are a lot of smart, good people in important positions who want to do great things. They just need the right higher direction and guidance to execute.

The Depot Dearth

Why do we seem to have such a problem keeping an eye on the unsexy but important? Isn't one of the cornerstones of a mature professional to know the importance of keeping a long view on the hard work needed in the background to keep the marquee shiny-sexy objects functioning?

Especially when money gets tight or the pressures of the now ratchet up, there is a temptation for the short-sighted to sacrifice long-term viability for today's green bubble on the PPT. We saw this in spades during the "Peace Dividend" era of the 1990s and again in a slower way once the Long War kicked off.

There is a lot of ruin in a navy, and deep decay can take root for a long time until it finally undermines the structural strength of its host. So it is, it seems, with depot level maintenance.

On the Surface side of the house, one of the big takeaways on the latent causes of the WESTPAC incidents of 2017 was that our ships were not getting the depot level support they needed. As a result, ship's company was doing depot level work - in addition to the work they already had to do. As humans only have 24-hrs a day, you can figure out the rest.

As we are reading more and more, we have a long-standing readiness problem on the aviation side of the house as well. Is it part of the same myopia?

The GAO is on the hunt. See if you can spot a pattern.

How bad is it?

This report is a public version of a sensitive report that we issued on April 25, 2018.7 The sensitive report included an objective related to the trends in aircraft availability. DOD deemed some of the information, such as aircraft availability, not mission capable status, number of aircraft in depots, and budgeted and executed flight hours, to be sensitive (i.e., For Official Use Only), which must be protected from public disclosure. This public report omits the information that DOD deemed to be sensitive. Although the information provided in this report is more limited, it addresses the same objectives and uses the same methodology as the sensitive report.

Why is depot level maintenance so important?

Depot-level maintenance occurs less frequently but requires greater skills. Specifically, depot maintenance is an action performed on materiel or software in the conduct of inspection, repair, overhaul, or modification or rebuild of end items, assemblies, subassemblies, and parts that, among other things, requires extensive industrial facilities, specialized tools and equipment, or uniquely experienced and trained personnel that are not available in other maintenance activities. Depot maintenance is independent of any location or funding source and may be performed in the public or private sectors.

Legacy systems are needed now and in the near future for when a war does or does not show up. Why are these problems so bad, and can more resources to depot level maintenance help?

Sadly, it appears no one knows.

Without clarity about whether the DOD instruction and the Navy guidance apply to legacy systems, program officials will not know whether they are required to have a sustainment strategy or are required to update the plan for their respective fixed-wing aircraft. Furthermore, the program offices, the services, and DOD may not have full visibility of necessary requirements to document program objectives, related risks, and the effectiveness of the program, ultimately jeopardizing the sustainability and affordability of each of the programs.

In absence of metrics, this is when you have to rely on experience and factual judgement.

While the bean counters work to get the right number, can a reasonable person assume that more support for depots now would result in better availability?

Yes.

So, let's do that and then adjust later if needed. History is losing patience with us.

Where have you gone RADM Meyer?

A Navy turns its lonely eyes to you ....

---

Below are a few paragraphs from the remarks as written for ASNE conference by ADM J.C. Harvey, Jr., U.S. Fleet Forces from 14 Sept. 2010.

In it he brings up something that has been critically missing during the Lost Decade - accountability. People or process? How about both.

Did/does it have to be this way? no.

.... Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer's reflection on what made the Aegis program so successful.

I won't bore you with all of the details, but he attributes his success to two major characteristics. First - good governance, which included a very high degree of personal accountability. For 15 years, Admiral Meyer was the single accountable officer responsible for bringing Aegis from concept to implementation.

And PMS 400 was the single organization responsible for the Aegis program.

We no longer have an Admiral Meyer and PMS 400. Aegis was once a small island in a big fleet - now Aegis is the fleet. And as Aegis has grown, so have the number of organizations responsible for some piece of the Aegis pie. Which leaves us the question - "who is now responsible and accountable for the whole pie?"

Second, Admiral Meyer describes the importance of single minded dedication to the pursuit of technical excellence combined with being obstinate.

Admiral Meyer understood both the operational impacts and the burdens that would be placed on the backs of our sailors if he delivered a combat system that was not operationally effective, suitable, and reliable. And so Admiral Meyer refused to budge one iota from that standard of system performance, reliability, and effectiveness.

Admiral Wayne Meyer and his team were true to his roots as a professional navy engineer - he never wandered, he never waffled. His example shines before us to this day - an enduring commitment to excellence. Now, I know many of you here today aren't EDO's. But that doesn't matter - I believe my message applies to everyone here today. Whether you are an EDO, a government civilian, or a private contractor; whether you work at a shipyard, a regional maintenance center, or at a headquarters - we are all one team.

And so my message to you today reflects my expectations as a fleet commander for the maintenance and modernization of our ships - our foundation must be the absolute adherence to the time-tested standards of performance, reliability, and effectiveness.

We don't need maintenance managers or system life-cycle managers - we need technically savvy, hard-nosed systems engineers who are absolutely committed to delivering excellence in design, development, construction, test and delivery.

I need you focused first and foremost on effectiveness - if it's cheap, efficient, but doesn't work - it does the fleet no good. The worst sin we commit is when a new system or platform is expensive and still doesn't perform to specification and requires still more expensive fixes to get right.

You are the front line in the battle to maintain our standards, it all starts with you. I expect you to ensure our ships are built correctly, receive all the proper maintenance necessary to reach expected service life, and that the ships and their installed combat and engineering systems will perform to design specifications as long as our crews do their jobs underway correctly and conscientiously.

No matter what organization you're in, and whatever "box" you're in within that organization - and however the boxes are arranged linking you with other boxes or other organizations - straight lines, dotted lines, dashed lines, or imaginary lines - be obstinate! Never, never, never give way on our standards of excellence.

And you know what they are...

The standards that have sustained our navy so well for so long - standards of technical rigor in design and performance, standards of uncompromising adherence to our maintenance plans and standards of professional performance in every aspect of your duties.

These are the standards this community brought to our navy in response to Secretary usher's call to arms in 1841 - they are in your DNA.

Today, each of you must make the personal choice to go back to your roots, face today's challenges head-on and take ownership of whatever actions are necessary to bring our design, development, construction, test, delivery and maintenance programs back to standard.

And you, each one of you, must consider yourself accountable, wherever you serve and whatever you do, to the fleet sailor to sustain those standards.

That accountability is non-negotiable and must drive your daily work just as it drove Admiral Meyer.

ADM Harvey is on point. Accountability begins at the top though, we need a follow through with how we structure our programs.

I think it would also be helpful if we went beyond discussions from decades ago and do some self reflection. For starters, why does ADM Harvey need to make a speech on accountability? Why does he need to encourage one of my favorite personality characteristics, obstinance? Why does he need to remind a group of exceptional professionals to,

"Never, never, never give way on our standards of excellence."

Of course, we all know why. The pressure to PPT over excellence for expediency's sake to support ADM/VAD/RADM's pet project is huge. Without top-cover or you are crushed and left adrift. Everyone would like to be Col. Boyd ... but not everyone is Col. Boyd. As a result, we get ACS, DDG-1000, LCS, and LPD-17.

To really fix a problem though, you cannot indirectly allude to it in an intellectually passive aggressive manner. You need to be honest and direct.

As an institution, the Navy needs to take a deep breath and reflect.

An alcoholic does not recover from his disease by reminding himself that he needs to take better care of his health, he needs to drive safely, that he needs to get more sleep, that he needs to spend less money on Boone's Farm and more on breakfast.

No, that won't do. It is a good start, and a sign that the person knows he has a problem - but it won't cure the problem. Like the alcoholic, we need to be brutally honest with each other and ourselves. We need to clearly say, "This is what I did, and this is why I did it. This is why it is bad. This is why I won't do it again."

The alcoholic will never recover if he states, "I had a hard day at work, made poor decisions, and couldn't keep the car on the road. Sorry I wrecked your Porsche and shat in the pants I borrowed."

No. We are getting closer - much closer - but we are not there.

BZ to ADM Harvey though - he is speaking clearer and is identifying problems better than anyone else in CONUS right now who has a prime parking space. Very important part of the conversation.

Share it.

SIMA Returns

VADM McCoy - I again tip my hat to you.

The Navy’s Southeast Regional Maintenance Center (SERMC) formally re-established its Intermediate Maintenance Activity (IMA) at Naval Station Mayport, June 28, providing the fleet with a renewed capability to train Mayport-based surface ship crews to perform shipboard maintenance and repairs.

In the past, IMAs served as a critical component of the training pipeline for fleet Sailors. In recent years, however, funding cuts led to the downsizing of these facilities. Re-establishing the intermediate maintenance activity in Mayport reflects the Navy’s commitment to a “back-to-basics” approach to shipboard material readiness.

“This is not just about a ceremony, but rather we are embarking on an important mission that recognizes the significant revolution that has happened in how the Navy views surface ship maintenance,” said Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, commander, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). “In a budget-constrained environment, the fleet has supported adding a total of 50 additional skilled personnel to this activity. By 2012, we will add another 85 military and civilian. We are expanding and bringing back the needed facilities to properly support the needs of the fleet.”

I almost titled this another "XXX goes Salamander" - as things that we have been talking about for years - and being told to shut up about because we "didn't get it" - are now coming to pass.

Read it all - but this from NAMTS News sounds like vindication.

While the changes were well-intended and the immediate results of the reorganization of the maintenance infrastructure and hands-on in-rate training created a short term cost savings for the Navy, the unintended consequences of not training Sailors to maintain or repair their shipboard equipment created a noticeable void in material readiness that degraded with time.

The commanders of the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, concerned over this decline in readiness, commissioned a Fleet Review Panel in 2009 to look into how Surface Force readiness had changed and to make recommendations for improvements. The Panel report concluded there was no single specific cause or issue driving down Surface Forces readiness, but rather it was the result of many changes in policy and practices over time. The report served as a catalyst to focus senior Navy leadership's attention on the readiness issue and spawned a number of corrective actions.

Ya'll's can put the beer you owe us next to Mr. T's Haircut's seat for when he returns.

I know this resonated with a lot of folks on the front porch active duty, civilian, retired and otherwise as many of you sent this to me.

Let's bask on another data point on the way back to sanity and recovery.

BTW - one reason I am not crowing is that this burden from the fever-addled minds of the Transformationalists was born by - and will be fixed on - the backs of Sailors. They suffered for the theories of lesser men - and they will rebuild and repair the damage done. They will, given time, get us back to square one. From there we can start to improve and make it better.

BZ to those who made it happen. Time to get to work, we have a mess to clean up.

If you need more shore BA/NMP to build it up - just give me the manning documents from OPNAV and CNP - I'll find you the BSC in about 45 minutes as long as you let me re-code as I wish. I'll leave the paygrades - I just want free access to the BSC. Yea, I'll find you the bodies. Heck - I'll even give you 20% for savings.

LCS's "Bottom 5"

I will only say this because it bears repeating; we do not have a command climate in the Navy that allows honest and fair debate of some issues. Full stop.

LCS is one of those issues. The author - rightly - does not want his name, rank, or former position known.

What I can tell you is this individual has an extensive background and first-hand knowledge of LCS. It is worth your time to review.

All I asked him was, "What is your LCS Bottom 5?" Below is his response.

Take a deep breath and dive in. Byron, roll around in #2.

---

1. They chose to make RSO the LCSRON.

Huge mistake. RSO is literally where people went to retire, people went who were on light-duty, females went when they were pregnant. It was a building full of unskilled, unmotivated individuals. They didn't have a clue on how to do their job as an ISIC, and even now - they've made improvements by leaps and bounds, they're still waiting on some of the 'dead-weight' to transfer/retire. One of my favorite quotes came from one of the LCS-[REDACTED] CO's as he described his frustration with the N6 shop,

" We can lead them to water, we can shove their heads in it, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stick my lips to their asses and suck... "

Part of me wonders if they assigned RSO as the LCSRON because someone wanted the program to fail.

2. 3-M.

They decided they wanted to make use of Sked via distance support. They took away the admin rights of the LCPO's, and push their boards from LCSRON to the ship. There's no printed boards, 13 week reports or anything. This boils down to zero accountability for maintenance, and depending on the crew, maintenance either gets done or it doesn't. The ISIC isn't enforcing these discrepancies even though they are openly talked about. I won't even begin to talk about how the minimum manning affects maintenance or their philosophy of hiring civilians to do maintenance.. well, I take that back - here's 1 example. A civilian shows up to do an A-1 MRC. Doesn't check in with anyone, just shows up and goes down to the gear to start maintenance. When we stop him and ask what he's doing, he says he's been hired to do this MRC. When asked about the 5 related maintenance checks that must be done with that card, he says, "We weren't hired to do those." Hmmm... not a great solution. Oh, and the N43 shop at LCSRON doesn't have a single Combat Systems guys actively working to fix the 3M problems that exist such as wrong MIPS and MRC feedbacks.

3. Standards of acceptance.

The standards for accepting various pieces of gear continually shifted as it became apparent that certain systems weren't going to work as advertised. To date, the main gun can not be employed accurately via the DORNA FCS. The IFF doesn't sync with the TRS-3D target data. The WEBR 2000 is almost useless. And the 30MM guns that have been installed are another problem completely. They are going to stay installed, but unusable for the time being. Did we really get what we paid for?

4. Bandwidth.

All the programs on the ship that are supposed to take a burden off the crew rely on a lot of bandwidth to stay connected with the LCSRON, keep NIAPS synced up, etc. They started us out with EHF and INMARSAT, but they tied together these systems with a unique comms suite that created constant problems. When it became obvious that the bandwidth just wasn't going to cut it, they decided to give the ship the commercial broadband antennae. They came out to the ship, and the crew gave them a suggestion of where to place the dish in order to maximize the cut-out zones, but even though their surveys agreed with the crew, they pulled off the EHF dishes x2, and replaced 1 of them with the new system. This gives that antennae a huge cut out zone, and has resulted in spotty bandwidth with only INMARSAT as a back up. When you design a ship around distance support - how are you going to be so blind as to limit it's bandwidth, basically crippling most programs across the board?

5. The attitudes of the people in charge of the program.

How many times have blind optimism and this idea that 'all change is good' created an unsafe standard in this program? The LCS program keeps pressing the different organizations to change their standards in regard to LCS due to the small crew and 'new-design' of the ship. Sometimes these standards feel like they are being changed just for change sake. [REDACTED], and to be honest I hope the ship never comes in harms way - because the only real systems that it has to defend itself are the CSW mounts. At least I know the GMs on board are good shots.

---

There - a little Fleet Input for 'ya.

LCS: Trying to Beat the Clock

Alternate headline: "LCS: Trying to Beat the Horse Deader

As the wolves on The Hill start to circle the wobbly and bleeding LCS program, a few news items coming out Friday didn't help things much.

First, as it should be in a moment of budgetary crisis, there is cost. You know - how affordable the program is. As my FORTRAN professor told me a back in the '80s, "Son, if your code is stupid, your results are stupid, and your grade will reflect same."

Via AviationLeak;

“In response to a recommendation in our July 2013 report, DOD now plans to do an independent cost estimate for the program before its next seaframe contract award in 2016,” GAO says in a recent for-official-use-only report, “Littoral Combat Ships, Navy Needs to Address Communication System Limitations and Obtain Additional Operational and Cost Data,” obtained by AWIN.

Such an estimate is important, GAO says. “If the Navy follows the LCS Plan of Action and Milestones, it may contract for the entire fleet of . . . LCS ships before actual operational information is obtained for both variants.”
...
The GAO notes: “The Navy plans to finalize its request for proposals for up to 28 additional LCS ships in late 2014, before it incorporates lessons learned from the USS Freedom deployment into the LCS CONOPS (concept of operations) or gains similar operational data for the Independence variant.”

Well, lookie there. What is that, classic Front Porch mantra circa, say .... 2005/6? Welcome to the party, ya'll.

Funny how it reads like a crisis. 2016 is over two years from now. You know, the distance from Pearl Harbor to the point where we've taken North Africa, Sicily, and were working our way up the boot of Italy.

Take your time folks. Get out the abacus and tell us what you think.

Seriously, that is one of the original sins of LCS; too much technology and concept risk in one package - all based on hope, wishes, and will. That has never been enough - but we tried anyway. 

So, all the cost numbers people have been throwing back at us (being that they really have no operational capability to brag about);

Part of the problems, GAO says, may be in the way the Navy calculated its initial cost estimates.
...
“In lieu of actual LCS data, the Navy used operations and support data from other surface ships, such as frigates, that were modified to approximate LCS characteristics to build the LCS cost estimate (referred to as modified analogous data),” GAO says. “For example, cost estimators used modified frigate data to estimate sustaining support costs such as munitions handling, and to estimate non-maintenance supplies and equipment costs. Maintenance estimates were calculated by modifying analogous data from frigates and destroyers, among other ships, even though their maintenance concepts differ from those of the LCS.”

Navy officials say that until they have actual operational data on both LCS seaframes, it is unknown whether the modified analogous cost data will reasonably correspond to actual LCS costs, according to GAO.

LCS: we don't know what it can do, how much it will cost, or if it can even fight ... buy by golly we want over 50 of them.

Oh, wait .... did someone send the N6 shop an email? What is that other transformationalist talking point? Celestial Networks, battle networks, networked networks, two turntables and a microphone, and such?

“LCS relies on the Navy Information Application Product Suite system to transmit data, using bandwidth capacity to do so, as do many of the distance support functions,” the report says. “One internal Navy report found that problems with the system led to sensor data not leaving the ships for months, among other connectivity issues.”

The Navy internal report’s finding that “the LCS concept depends on distance support of ships, but the [information technology] pipes to make it happen aren’t reliable yet” led to a recommendation to “accelerate implementation of the condition-based maintenance program,” GAO says.

I really get tired of saying "I told you so."

The bandwidth ... the EMCON issues ... etc ... etc .... yep.

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) fleet has some communication problems that need to be addressed to enable the vessels to operate as planned, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says, and Navy officials say they are assessing the problems and GAO recommendations.
...
“LCS depends on operational and maintenance support from the shore more than other Navy ships, so reliability and adequacy of communication systems, and the bandwidth required to transmit information, are critical to effective operations and sustainment,” GAO notes.
...
the LCS’s ability to share critical information with shore support facilities will likely be limited if these issues re not adequately addressed, which could reduce the LCS’s operational availability.”

Sensors installed on the ship relay data several times a day to shore-based personnel, who analyze it to identify any deficiencies in the equipment and plan for required maintenance.

Most of the anti-LCS gaggle, your humble blogg'r included, threw in the towel at the turn of the decade and resigned our Fleet to its fate and hoped that smart people working hard would find some way to make the best of this ship inside its spoken and unspoken limitations, but really.

Here we are. Don't even think about bring up FFG-7 and SPRUCAN comparisons. Don't even go with TICO-Actual's experience; we are way beyond that. We've debunked them earlier anyway.

I don't know about you folks ... but, ummmm, yea. Someone throw some pixie dust around.

Disrupt the Navy’s Operational Model to Counter China

For this decade, the US Navy has to be ready to match any military challenge by the People’s Republic of China with the fleet we roughly have now. Any clear-eyed look at budgets, priorities, or plans makes that clear. If so, how do we best keep an aggressive China at risk with the forces we realistically have? What can we do to best deter war, and if that fails, transition to war best positioned to win? 

Today we turn over the conversation to Bryan Clark and Bryan McGrath. Gentlemen, over to you.

---

Naval leaders, civilian and military, face difficult choices when confronting the threat posed by China. The fleet must be kept in readiness for combat, it must be modernized and upgraded, and new ships and technologies must be planned, designed, and acquired. Each of these requirements is resourced in the budget, and the resulting balance among the near, mid, and long term objectives is the goal of every Secretary of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations. Unbalance the budget, and some part of the portfolio suffers. 

This balance became harder in recent months after outgoing Indo-Pacific Commander ADM Phil Davidson warned that China’s military could seek to forcibly unify Taiwan with the mainland within the next six years. Now known as the “Davidson Window,” the INDOPACOM assessment caused influential members of Congress to characterize the Navy’s recent budget submission as unresponsive to the growing near-term threat. Some argued the Navy should consider alternative fleet employment schemes to shore up its overseas presence. 

There is a growing concern among Congressmembers and analysts that the Navy’s force generation model, the Optimized Fleet Response Plan (ORFP), is insufficient to meet the requirements of day-to-day competition with China in the Indo-Pacific. This is fair criticism, as to the extent that OFRP is “optimized”, it is focused on affordably producing full-up aircraft carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups on a regular, but infrequent, schedule. And while OFRP accomplishes what it is designed for, this predictable model of force generation eases China’s operational planning while reducing the Navy’s overseas posture. 

The Navy has been extracting more presence from OFRP during the last few years by deploying carriers and surface combatants multiple times during each 3-year cycle. OFRP was designed to provide this flexibility—but not for every cycle. Without more maintenance between deployments, the fleet incurs a readiness debt that needs to be repaid with longer overhauls down the road. The money to pay for a more operations and maintenance could come from the Navy’s procurement or research and development accounts, unbalancing the Navy’s approach in favor of more near-term investment. It appears this choice will be unnecessary, as the Senate Armed Services Committee recently proposed adding $8 billion to Navy accounts in the defense authorization bill.  

While we agree with the need for additional resources, continuing to wring a more robust posture from the OFRP is unsustainable, as evidenced by the Navy’s ongoing readiness shortfalls. The Navy should make a more fundamental change in the way the Pacific Fleet is employed and postured to achieve a more effective near-term conventional deterrent, while protecting investments in mid and long-range priorities. To that end, we recommend that the Pacific Fleet and the Navy Staff resurrect the 2017 CSBA Fleet Architecture Study “Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the United States Navy” and begin to implement its hybrid fleet employment scheme that features a “Deterrence Force” and a “Maneuver Force”.

The animating principle of the CSBA fleet architecture was to support a posture of conventional deterrence by denial, in which proximate naval forces could dissuade Chinese aggression by creating uncertainty regarding the likelihood of Chinese success. This emphasis on conventional deterrence by denial anticipated the Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy of 2017 which made this approach a central tenet. 

To enable a posture that can create uncertainty for Chinese leaders, the CSBA architecture breaks deployed naval units into two separate forces, each relying on a different existing force generation model. The first is the Deterrence Force, in this instance comprised of most Pacific Fleet surface combatants and amphibious ships, as well as Guam-based submarines. The Deterrence Force would adopt the higher-tempo readiness cycle currently employed by Forward Deployed Naval Forces based in Guam, Japan, and Spain, consisting of about 4 months per year of maintenance and training and 8 months of operational time. 

Because they operate more frequently and are focused on the Indo-Pacific theater, Deterrence Force units would better understand the threats, opportunities, and geography of the region, improving their ability to cooperate with partners and allies in peacetime. When armed confrontations arise, everyday power projection needs would be provided by airpower resident in the Navy’s amphibious assault ships (LHD, LHA). Submarines and surface forces would operate independently or in task-oriented groups to support strike, anti-surface warfare, and anti-submarine warfare.  

Deterrence Forces would not be tied to CVN readiness and maintenance cycles, nor would they be required to achieve the same level of integrated certification as Carrier Strike Groups. Freeing most surface combatants from the rigid timetables imposed by OFRP would create a larger force of available ships to be employed forward, resulting in a more powerful conventional deterrence posture.

What then, is to become of the large, nuclear powered aircraft carriers the Navy currently builds its force around?  They would be lynchpins of the Maneuver Force and would remain in something like an OFRP cycle due to the requirements of carrier maintenance. West Coast carriers and an appropriate number of surface combatants would be removed from the everyday business of forward deployed presence and deterrence to create a large formation of two CVNs plus their escorts operating across the Indo-Pacific. The Maneuver Force would perfect truly integrated multi-carrier operations and conduct large scale exercises with allied navies. Operating within 48 hours of aircraft launch points reaching the East and South China Seas, the Maneuver Force would focus on high-end military operations, including the peacetime demonstrations and battle problems needed to deter aggression and reassure allies. 

The fleet architecture in Restoring American Seapower and a subsequent 2020 Hudson Institute study suggested a force structure for the Navy aligned to its objectives. Both efforts clearly influenced the DoD’s 2020 Future Naval Force Study, and we believe much of their analysis remains valid. That said, the critical requirements of deterring Chinese aggression demand revised thinking about how the Navy’s existing force structure might be more effectively and efficiently employed, and we believe the new deployment schemes proposed by this architecture provide a reasonable and testable option. Such a revision would not be easy, and further analysis would be necessary to determine the benefits of the approach and the difficult challenges to implementing it.

Among these challenges would be the degree to which required maintenance could be accommodated by the Pacific shipyard repair base, as the reduced cycle applied to the Deterrence Force would likely create shorter, and more frequent, maintenance windows. Also, additional forces may need to be transferred from the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific Fleet to comprise the Maneuver Force.  The blow here could be softened by working closely with our UK and French allies to coordinate carrier deployments and ensure coverage of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. Additional strain would be placed on the surface combatant training force, as it would have to accommodate the requirements of both Deterrence Force and Maneuver Force readiness.  

The development of the 2017 architecture was a six-month undertaking employing the talents of several dedicated thinkers and was briefed to the senior leadership of the Navy at the time to significant interest and praise. Current Pacific Fleet and Navy leadership should apply an analytical “Tiger Team” to an excursion from that plan using today’s fleet. We believe the opportunity exists to improve the combat power and flexibility of the force facing the Chinese daily, while husbanding and refining the war-fighting combat punch of the carrier force for high-end conflict. 

Bryan Clark is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and leads its Center for Defense Concepts and Technologies.

Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of the FerryBridge Group LLC. No client views are represented here. 

Amid Tears of Shame ... I Find Hope

As I mentioned to a small cadre last week, this really should not see the light of day.

Whatever we do, we should not let Marine Corps officers read this ... as we would never hear the end of it.

Now, what kind of Salamanderesque attitude is that? I must be getting weak.

No, back to Vince Lombardi Salamander. Sunlight is the best medicine; things shouldn't be off limits just because it might create discomfort for some.

So ... navylive.dodlive.mil has been such a treasure trove of for the snark inclined as of late; it would be sad to let such glowing gems of leadership not to be gibbetted to the masses as examples of what not to do. We simply must do better.

I'll let you get their names from the link, but here is what we got for answers from the question; "How Do Junior Officers Inspire Innovation?"

BEHOLD!

A junior officer, or JO as we call them, are your typical new kids on the block. Even a seasoned JO has something to learn and discover about his or her leadership style. ... The willingness to try something new and think outside the box is a junior officer’s key to inspiring innovation. The impact this has on a Sailor, fellow officer, and/or entire crew can have lasting effects. Their ideas can spread throughout commands simply by word of mouth. Innovation and new ideas from a JO can be a breath of fresh air. A curious JO, who is constantly learning, will always try to think of something new.
...Working on the deck plates with Sailors on a daily basis is the greatest responsibility of a junior officer. Our position demands that we guide Sailors to their optimal potential, personally and professionally. Because we are on the deck plates, we see the flaws that “trickle down through the ranks.” While we are a Navy rooted in tradition, our finest resource is the diversity in which we are comprised.
...The role of the junior officer in the Surface Fleet has evolved over the years. The junior officers have become more of a bridge between officers and enlisted,...
...comparing what I do on Freedom to a junior officer’s role on a traditional CRUDES ship is like comparing apples and oranges.

On my cruiser, you wouldn’t find a single junior officer (including myself) helping to clean, move boxes from the pier to the ship, take down lifelines for a gunnery exercise, or even clean their own plate and flatware.
...When I help my Boatswain’s Mates move shackles from anchor windlass or my Operational Specialists write messages, not only am I helping accomplish a task to further the mission of the ship, I’m simultaneously building rapport and a stronger working relationship with my Sailors.

For the love of all that is holy, I need a drink.

Wait ... wait ... there is hope, and hope has a name.

There is one JO in this cluster that deserves to be mentioned by name. By name, as he gets a Salamander BZ and should give all hope that yes, our Navy still makes them right.

Very well played Lieutenant ... very well played.

I give you the Salamander JO of the Month; LT Austin Henne, USN, Main Propulsion Assistant on USS Freedom (LCS-1).

His answer made my week.

I recently attended a LCS PMS summit headed by Rear Adm. Gale  The conference was focused on establishing clear informational objectives required prior to making a decision on the balance between LCS contractor preventative maintenance vs. ISEA based preventative maintenance.  I was extremely impressed by the individuals representing SURFOR, NAVSEA, Lockheed Martin, NAVSES, LCS Squadron 1, and various entities.

While they expressed insight into their specialized fields, I quickly realized I was the only individual in the room who was currently serving on a LCS.  When given the chance to speak, I made every effort to tell the story of the blue shirts on the deck plates who strive valiantly every single day to work hand-in-hand with contractors to ensure that LCS is a viable fleet asset to perform sustained operations at sea.  However, the number of hours that ship force was spending on contractor maintenance was going largely undocumented. In short, the following week a request was made to ship force to document the man hours that ship force spent on contractor maintenance either tagging equipment out, operating machinery, or escorting personnel in secure spaces.  I am very satisfied to know that the enormous effort that LCS Sailors are making are being more accurately documented.

Boom. It is all right there; 
- Put the entire LCS cabal on report, they are a detached and abstractly focused group. In spite of the fact that LCS has been displacing water for years, they only have one serving person at the summit. All those very senior, very experienced, and very important people in one room .... and only one 1st-hand report among them. Gobsmacking.
- Blowing off the squishy question and instead giving an answer to the question you wish were asked.
- Speaking truth to power that their metrics and pretty PPT are garbage as maintenance hours are not reported correctly. The worse fears that those of us have had since the start of LCS's manning CONOPS are right there; contractor maintenance is not meeting the needs of the Fleet, and as a result, already overworked Sailors are having to do the work for them. By doing so, you effected positive change that will help HIS Sailors and HIS Navy.
- Speaking for HIS Sailors because they cannot speak for themselves. Putting himself out there for HIS Sailors, because that is what an officer does. Focused on the ability of HIS Sailors to do their assigned duties in support of HIS ship in the face of a support structure that is failing them. Ship, Shipmate, and then Self.  

LT Henne; if you did this on purpose, BZ. If not, then even more of a BZ as you have the instincts of the best that we ask of our junior officers. Your peers that came first in the article should make sure and scroll down the page and ponder your entry.

Benchmark.