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Would you say this is primarily a resource problem? A culture problem with the 7th Fleet? A culture problem in the USN overall?

by lainga 8y ago

crooked-v 8y ago
"Every enlisted man in the Navy only gets 4-5 hours of a sleep a night" seems to be a common anecdote service-wide, including from people I know personally who served.
- kryogen1c 8y ago
  Also, "nights" are not a real thing, not in the biological sense. In the surface ship nuclear power plant world where there is no air conditioning, you can't stand watch for more than 5 hours, which means 4 5s and one 4 hour watch. Think you stand the same watch every day? Nope, not enough people. You normally stand 1 on 2 off (5 and dimes) or one on 3 off (5 and 15s). This puts your sleep window at different spots every night. Subs are air conditioned, so they can stand either 6 and 6s or less commonly 6 and 12s. Their lives are generally worse in every way. Except they all like smelling each other farts and sharing beds, so it works out.
mlb_hn 8y ago
DOD issue, if not USG. Army had (has?) the same issue as well, 2015 whitepaper on sweeping everything under the rug until it breaks (https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1250.pdf https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1250.pdf)
genkimind 8y ago
I think the high operational requirements expose a culture/procedural/values problem of the shipboard Navy overall, it's just particular visible in 7th fleet because of the unsustainability of the workload.
- Datenstrom 8y ago
  Can confirm this is a problem in Naval aviation also.
- vkou 8y ago
  I obviously haven't done an A/B study, but I would figure that having periods of crunch time (long or short) with periods of sane time would both keep military units in practice for when they do need to be up for three days on four hours of sleep AND let them train/maintain/not crash their ships into other ships. But I doubt that the culture described in TFA, and this thread evolved in any way but organically.
nadinno78 8y ago
Cultural Problem IMO. My boss likes to say that the military takes their young officers and train the common sense out of them. Personally I blame the service academies for what amounts to 4 years of legalized harassment. First three years are all about getting harassed. The last year is about dishing out the harassment. Then they get a degree to justify the whole thing.
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
IMHO the responsibility properly rests on the POTUS, who is commander-in-chief of the military, and on the Congressional armed-services committees. It's their job to make sure the U.S. military is functioning well, and they're apparently not doing it.

Would you say this is primarily a resource problem? A culture problem with the 7th Fleet? A culture problem in the USN overall?

by lainga 8y ago

Would you say this is primarily a resource problem? A culture problem with the 7th Fleet? A culture problem in the USN overall?

crooked-v 8y ago

"Every enlisted man in the Navy only gets 4-5 hours of a sleep a night" seems to be a common anecdote service-wide, including from people I know personally who served.

kryogen1c 8y ago
Also, "nights" are not a real thing, not in the biological sense. In the surface ship nuclear power plant world where there is no air conditioning, you can't stand watch for more than 5 hours, which means 4 5s and one 4 hour watch. Think you stand the same watch every day? Nope, not enough people. You normally stand 1 on 2 off (5 and dimes) or one on 3 off (5 and 15s). This puts your sleep window at different spots every night. Subs are air conditioned, so they can stand either 6 and 6s or less commonly 6 and 12s. Their lives are generally worse in every way. Except they all like smelling each other farts and sharing beds, so it works out.

mlb_hn 8y ago

DOD issue, if not USG. Army had (has?) the same issue as well, 2015 whitepaper on sweeping everything under the rug until it breaks (https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1250.pdf https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1250.pdf)

genkimind 8y ago

I think the high operational requirements expose a culture/procedural/values problem of the shipboard Navy overall, it's just particular visible in 7th fleet because of the unsustainability of the workload.

Datenstrom 8y ago
Can confirm this is a problem in Naval aviation also.
vkou 8y ago
I obviously haven't done an A/B study, but I would figure that having periods of crunch time (long or short) with periods of sane time would both keep military units in practice for when they do need to be up for three days on four hours of sleep AND let them train/maintain/not crash their ships into other ships. But I doubt that the culture described in TFA, and this thread evolved in any way but organically.

nadinno78 8y ago

Cultural Problem IMO. My boss likes to say that the military takes their young officers and train the common sense out of them. Personally I blame the service academies for what amounts to 4 years of legalized harassment. First three years are all about getting harassed. The last year is about dishing out the harassment. Then they get a degree to justify the whole thing.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

IMHO the responsibility properly rests on the POTUS, who is commander-in-chief of the military, and on the Congressional armed-services committees. It's their job to make sure the U.S. military is functioning well, and they're apparently not doing it.