Well...
The truth is finally coming out...
The Navy’s manning shortages are curbing the service’s ability to repair its ships while at sea, according to a watchdog report released Monday.
Sixty-three percent of executive officers — a ship’s second-in-command — surveyed reported that insufficient manning made it “moderately to extremely difficult to complete repairs while underway,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday.
Full article, HERE from Navy Times and HERE for the GAO report.
BLUF-
This goes all the way back to sequestration and the impacts of 'rightsizing' crews under that. Reduction in ship manning was done to 'allow' more work to be done during maintenance availabilities with shore based sailors... Yeah, right...
And the pièce de résistance that made it even 'better' was the reduction in the underway days, forcing crews and commands to cram even MORE qualifications into less and less time, plus tying ships up at the pier where they had to use 'systems' online to conduct training pierside rather than underway (hence no maintenance).
Of course the other 'little' issue of sequestration was the cuts (back in 2010) of over $450 million in shipboard maintenance budgets...
The OPTEMPO/PERSTEMPO requirements (e.g. how often the ships/crews were supposed to be at sea) pretty much went out the window as there was no reduction in the amount of operations the Navy was expected to perform, including operations and exercises with foreign Navies...
Today, things are even worse, with the Teddy Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group having to leave 7th Fleet uncovered to go to 5th Fleet to 'cover' the contremps between Israel and Iran. They were already 7 months into a 6 month deployment, and now they have NO idea when they are going to get home!
So much for retention in THAT CSG...
Sigh...It's sure as hell not my Navy anymore. But I don't blame it on the kids, I blame it on the CNO/SECDEF et al who have created this 'cluster'...
Kicking the soapbox back in the corner and going to find my BP meds.
Brother man, this is a direct result of toxic leadership environments, the Biden purges after the 2020 elections, and the realization from Main Street America after Afghanistan in 2021 that no one wants their kids working for an admin that uses the military as pawns. The ARE good leaders and salty sailors still in the Navy that believe what they are doing matters, and it does. We need Trump to win too Billy to chat aganist… and God help up all when the democrat machine loses in November. Admral John Kirby showed his true colors by replying all to an email and a copy going to Fox News. You can’t begin to fathom the true level that the Dems “hate” the military for the core values of leadership, honesty, and integrity…. Wanna bet the paperwork for a draft isn’t already signed and ready to go??
Just like the US military in 1935, and I expect similar results when STHF. We need another Ching Lee.