5 ms·

In your opinion, are high level commanders well educated? field experienced ?

by jgord 9y ago

avs733 9y ago
not OP but gonna answer from my experience... 1)...at what? Many of them are very bright and well trained, but seriously, at what? People who go into leadership are often strong managers but that doesn't make them good captains or good seaman. They are incredibly skilled, just at the wrong thing. You gotta remember that at the end of the day it is likely someone under the age of 22 with their hands on the wheel and people of similar age running all the major systems. The promotion path to captain is not exactly hands on. 2)...oh yeah. They have been serving on ships for a long time. But in the Navy, serving on ships does not in any ways equate to seamanship. The Navy (and obviously IMHO) has a little bit of a chip on its shoulder about 'blowing shit up' that likely comes from feeling underutilized in our last to endless wars, and this is especially prevalent in the surface fleet. They tend to prioritize things like warfare officers and sometimes even ex-pilots for promotion up towards captain ranks. Those people are absolutely deployed but doing things totally unrelated to navigation and seamanship as a core mission. They should, but often don't have the time or space, have impeccable seamanship skills.
drblast 9y ago
Well-educated...it depends. Many have impressive sounding degrees. However, an extreme anti-intellectual bent is very common. Do you know the people who studied for and aced all exams through brute force memorization, promptly forgot all the material or never understood how it would be applied, but now have the certificate that says they know X? That was 90-95% of Naval officers. I had a one week class in digital communication, as part of a nine-week introductory class for new officers. They go over basic information theory as it applies to naval communication systems and encryption. The valedictorian of that class, who had just aced the test on digital communications the week before, raised her hand the following week to ask a clarifying question about a follow-on topic: "When you say everything is just ones and zeros...what does that even mean?" That sums up naval training. I realized then that this person, despite all appearances of knowing the material and being an excellent student, had NO clue what anyone was talking about and hadn't for the entire class despite having the highest grade of anyone. So you'd have an aircraft carrier CO with a Master's degree in chemistry who didn't really understand the concept of vector addition as it applied to calculating relative wind. He'd be yelling at subordinates for not being able to calculate (improperly) wind vectors and distances. All subordinates were clearly confused by this, felt like the CO, being highly educated and the CO of the ship, must know what he's talking about. If you'd ask the CO to explain what he meant he'd become irate and tell you you were stupid. The nuclear officers/enlisted knew their shit, and those were some of the smartest and best people I've ever worked with. They'd nod their heads at the aforementioned CO and then ask, "he really doesn't understand vector math, does he?" when he was out of earshot. The rest of the crew would assure the nuclear guys that they must be wrong.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  The valedictorian of that class, who had just aced the test on digital communications the week before, raised her hand the following week to ask a clarifying question about a follow-on topic: "When you say everything is just ones and zeros...what does that even mean?" That sums up naval training. That sums up a big chunk of computer science. What answer did she get from the instructor? It's a good question, coming from a non-technical person, and I'd definitely give a dirty look to anyone who laughed at it.
  - saint_fiasco 9y ago
    It's not a good question from someone who aced a class in digital communications. What did the guy think was being communicated?
    - tbihl 9y ago
      So the guy accumulated all the pieces of the puzzle before he could assemble them? It's not efficient,but it works as long as you don't get laughed down for finally grounding your facts in something. Sometimes you just have to keep making forward progress, and put things together later. He just unpacked the black boxes in a different order.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    > I'd definitely give a dirty look to anyone who laughed at it. Perhaps that would be appropriate before said person had taken a digital communications class and aced a test on it. After that, however, I think a wry chuckle is very much appropriate.

In your opinion, are high level commanders well educated? field experienced ?

by jgord 9y ago

In your opinion, are high level commanders well educated? field experienced ?

not OP but gonna answer from my experience... 1)...at what? Many of them are very bright and well trained, but seriously, at what? People who go into leadership are often strong managers but that doesn't make them good captains or good seaman. They are incredibly skilled, just at the wrong thing. You gotta remember that at the end of the day it is likely someone under the age of 22 with their hands on the wheel and people of similar age running all the major systems. The promotion path to captain is not exactly hands on. 2)...oh yeah. They have been serving on ships for a long time. But in the Navy, serving on ships does not in any ways equate to seamanship. The Navy (and obviously IMHO) has a little bit of a chip on its shoulder about 'blowing shit up' that likely comes from feeling underutilized in our last to endless wars, and this is especially prevalent in the surface fleet. They tend to prioritize things like warfare officers and sometimes even ex-pilots for promotion up towards captain ranks. Those people are absolutely deployed but doing things totally unrelated to navigation and seamanship as a core mission. They should, but often don't have the time or space, have impeccable seamanship skills.

drblast 9y ago

Well-educated...it depends. Many have impressive sounding degrees. However, an extreme anti-intellectual bent is very common. Do you know the people who studied for and aced all exams through brute force memorization, promptly forgot all the material or never understood how it would be applied, but now have the certificate that says they know X? That was 90-95% of Naval officers. I had a one week class in digital communication, as part of a nine-week introductory class for new officers. They go over basic information theory as it applies to naval communication systems and encryption. The valedictorian of that class, who had just aced the test on digital communications the week before, raised her hand the following week to ask a clarifying question about a follow-on topic: "When you say everything is just ones and zeros...what does that even mean?" That sums up naval training. I realized then that this person, despite all appearances of knowing the material and being an excellent student, had NO clue what anyone was talking about and hadn't for the entire class despite having the highest grade of anyone. So you'd have an aircraft carrier CO with a Master's degree in chemistry who didn't really understand the concept of vector addition as it applied to calculating relative wind. He'd be yelling at subordinates for not being able to calculate (improperly) wind vectors and distances. All subordinates were clearly confused by this, felt like the CO, being highly educated and the CO of the ship, must know what he's talking about. If you'd ask the CO to explain what he meant he'd become irate and tell you you were stupid. The nuclear officers/enlisted knew their shit, and those were some of the smartest and best people I've ever worked with. They'd nod their heads at the aforementioned CO and then ask, "he really doesn't understand vector math, does he?" when he was out of earshot. The rest of the crew would assure the nuclear guys that they must be wrong.

CamperBob2 9y ago
The valedictorian of that class, who had just aced the test on digital communications the week before, raised her hand the following week to ask a clarifying question about a follow-on topic: "When you say everything is just ones and zeros...what does that even mean?" That sums up naval training. That sums up a big chunk of computer science. What answer did she get from the instructor? It's a good question, coming from a non-technical person, and I'd definitely give a dirty look to anyone who laughed at it.
- saint_fiasco 9y ago
  It's not a good question from someone who aced a class in digital communications. What did the guy think was being communicated?
  - tbihl 9y ago
    So the guy accumulated all the pieces of the puzzle before he could assemble them? It's not efficient,but it works as long as you don't get laughed down for finally grounding your facts in something. Sometimes you just have to keep making forward progress, and put things together later. He just unpacked the black boxes in a different order.
- eric_h 9y ago
  > I'd definitely give a dirty look to anyone who laughed at it. Perhaps that would be appropriate before said person had taken a digital communications class and aced a test on it. After that, however, I think a wry chuckle is very much appropriate.