11 ms·

Navy failures destroyed the Bonhomme Richard

97 points by smitty1e 5y ago

chernevik 5y ago
Sure seems like the US Navy has lost track of some basic skills.
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  Unfortunately not an isolated incident [0, 1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crystal_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crys... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_(DDG-56)#2017_MV_Alnic_MC_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_(DDG-56)#20...
fasteddie31003 5y ago
Another example of the institutional rot that is happening across our county in aging institutions that have little accountability. Will any leadership be held accountable? No. The US Military is a jobs program first and a fighting force a distant second.
- rwmurrayVT 5y ago
  There have been major changes in the shipyard since the fire. Navy leadership, RMCs, and ship's force have been more involved at every level. The question to follow now is when will they return to complacency.
  - PicassoCTs 5y ago
    The density of these incidents seems to be increasing, ships run by untrained crew crashing into other vehicles, steered by software that does not work. Now the leadership that created the circumstances and conditions for this mismanagement to flourish, rushes to fix a problem they allowed to create?
    - rwmurrayVT 5y ago
      There's a major difference between repair/maintenance fires and the incidences afloat. Shipyard fires are being held to the highest standards ever since Oscar Austin, the submarine, and now LHD.
- twofornone 5y ago
  The leadership is more concerned with diversity and inclusion than combat readiness. This institutional rot, across industry, academia, and military, is a symptom of antimeritocratic hiring bias. For example, apparently women are so valuable to our military that the brass has decided to quietly lower standards in return for positive political coverage. This has been going on to an increasing degree for at least a decade, and is only accelerating under the current administration and, frankly, it's insanity. Also extremely toxic to morale.
  - s5300 5y ago
    > The leadership is more concerned with diversity and inclusion than combat readiness. How exactly did you reach this conclusion?
    - twofornone 5y ago
      Well, for one, there was a letter signed by 1xx retired leaders but I'm having trouble finding it on google under the pile of pro D&I propaganda that exclusively makes up search results. For two, consistent anecdata from personal acquaintances and forum posts. The demographics are also completely changing. The military was until recently carried primarily by white men from small town America. Now white maleness is effectively a career handicap when genitals, skin color, and sexual orientation are considered for promotion. I think the recent army advertisements are a valid proxy for the negative value that current leadership places on white-maleness. A military which is still majority white and male is releasing recruitment videos which exclusively feature minorities, females, and a healthy sprinkling of homosexuality. Here's a nice illustration, comparing recent US ads to those from Russia and China[0]. Only two of those forces are actually interested in recruiting competent soldiers, if these ads are any indication. China is laughing. 0. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfe6d6MzeLM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfe6d6MzeLM Edit: the sister post by jimmygrapes found one of the reports/letters I was looking for. I urge you all to read it to see, among other things, what happens to morale when demographic considerations are added to promotion evaluations. What is reported is consistent with what I've been hearing from former servicemember acquaintances.
AcerbicZero 5y ago
To the Navy’s credit it does appear they’re chopping some heads over it (even calling out the ships previous captain and some civilians) and perhaps this wake up call will help reorient the navy back towards where it needs to be. It’s certainly better than pinning this entire event on whatever E-3 started the fire. Can’t say I’m super surprised it’s reached this point though, we’ve been running our military like schizophrenic kids on adderall for the last 20+ years.
- QuarterReptile 5y ago
  >perhaps this wake up call will help reorient the navy back towards where it needs to be. Maybe. The reports are very clear that most of the problems are lessons learned but not implemented from the Miami in 2012. > It’s certainly better than pinning this entire event on whatever E-3 started the fire. Does this ever happen? I've never seen it. > we’ve been running our military like schizophrenic kids on adderall for the last 20+ years. Can you explain?
  - syngrog66 5y ago
    Afghanistan, Iraq, countless foreign bases and deployments all around the world, civil crisis response (think weather disasters and the recent Trump unrest shenanigans) and oh also actual "homeland defense" responsibilities somewhere in the mix too. a nation not officially at war and yet... thousands of combat deaths, etc
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > Does this ever happen? I've never seen it. It does. In this specific case, even. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022514854/sailor-charged-arson-uss-bonhomme-richard-navy-san-diego https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022514854/sailor-charged-ars... “The U.S. Navy charged a sailor Thursday with starting a fire last year that destroyed the USS Bonhomme Richard docked off San Diego, marking the maritime branch's worst warship blaze outside of combat in recent memory.”
    - bitcurious 5y ago
coldcode 5y ago
In WW2 sailors fought horrific battles with fire and damage while under fire and trying to keep from dying. Yet today it appears no one gives a shit about training. We dump massive money into building new ships (with tech that often is pathetically bad, see the new aircraft carrier). Maybe our military has been reduced to a money sink for big defense contractors, but that doesn't absolve them from basic training and disciplined planning for disaster which really costs very little to do right.
- bagels 5y ago
  This was my concern too. What's the point in having these ships if the most minor damage will cause a catastrophic loss due to incompetence?
jwithington 5y ago
So infuriating. I'm a former damage control assistant on a US submarine. The fire response read like a clownshow, and this article doesn't even highlight the worst of it. There was a Sailor who saw the smoke and walked by it, thinking nothing of it! Another officer thought the smoke might have been coming from the diesel generator. Why tf would the diesel generator be running??? It's hard for me to think of the software equivalent of these fundamental errors. Maybe something like finding a spike in network traffic and assuming it's load testing on prod, when you're actually getting pwned?
- secondcoming 5y ago
  It's just a guess, but the sailor who saw the smoke may have instead seen the CO2 from the extinguishers being emptied
  - jwithington 5y ago
    The one I'm referring to was the first person on the ship who saw the smoke. They then went back to sleep or something like that.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      That could be the sailor, but I would bet on the organization and leadership: In many organizations, bearing the bad news just creates enormous work and trouble for yourself, for your teammates, and rarely accomplishes anything. Rationally, it's absurd to ignore a fire. But I've seen organizations and situations where I would expect it.
      - hugh-avherald 5y ago
        I'd say training more than culture. The response to smoke onboard a ship should be automatic, not requiring any contemplation (even if it's just 'trigger alarm').
      - i_am_proteus 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
myrandomcomment 5y ago
At the end of the day the responsibility rest on the Captain. It is their job to see that those under them are well trained, retrained, and reenforced in that training as a daily operational objective. Every good CO I have ever met when taking over a new station will review in detail the training and readiness status of their command as job 1, and not just review on paper but execute all the drills and observe the results. This is fundamental and is taught in detail in command school. Their should be a full set of court-martial for this failure at the command level.
- AdrianB1 5y ago
  And becoming a Captain in peace time requires to check some boxes that are not really matching the competence for such a position.
- rwmurrayVT 5y ago
  Partially correct. In the shipyard the RMC can override the CO in several situations.
- bell-cot 5y ago
  True...but the USN can make it humanly impossible for a Captain to actually do his job. Imagine that you were a WWII submarine captain sent into battle with these lovely torpedoes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo Or made the scapegoat for the USN's wretched incompetence killing most of your crew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#Court-martial_of_Captain_McVay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#Court... Or... I've not heard much good about the USN on this front.
jet_32951 5y ago
Whatever is going on with the Navy, it doesn't seem to be well understood by flag officers. There have been far too many reports of crew exhaustion and confusion, too many reports of faulty or ill-designed user interfaces, and too little exhibition of loyalty downward from flag ranks toward the people who act to keep the ship afloat and moving. Is crew retention decreasing? It is hard to imagine people putting up with conditions in the Navy while there are so many stories like this going around.
- greedo 5y ago
  Considering how many FOs the Navy has, it's a disgrace. They could can 1/2 of them without even making a significant dent in the problem. The leadership problems in the USN have been endemic since Tailhook.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    Disagree here. The leadership problem is because the navy has introduced a crazy promotion scheme where a sailor gets promoted based on how well they look on paper and not how they actually do their job. I got out 4 years ago and it was sad to see, sailors hitting higher tenure because they couldn't promote. They couldnt promote because they put a priority on making sure their division got it's job done, but were punished with P or MP evals. Meanwhile the dipshit who doesn't know the first thing about their rate, and escaped learning about their rate by collecting pins, got EPs and promoted. Then a few years later, they put on anchors and are expected to lead a division of junior sailors to perform a job, but don't know the first thing about performing the job other than what was needed out of a book to score high enough on exams. Big reason why I got out.
bell-cot 5y ago
Direct links to sources (far longer, official U.S. Navy) cited by the article: https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%20and%20MFR%20Investigations/For%20Release%20Major%20Fires%20Review%20(19%20Oct%2021).pdf https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%2... https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%20and%20MFR%20Investigations/For%20Release%20BHR%20Command%20Investigation%20(20%20Oct%2021).pdf https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%2...
- bell-cot 5y ago
  A less-long read, with some good diagrams: https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left-sailors-unprepared-to-fight-uss-bonhomme-richard-investigation-finds https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left... And a juicy (and damning) tidbit from the parent's second link - the San Diego (local civilian) Fire Dept, arriving at the ship's pier 30 minutes after FedFire, and at least 45 minutes after the ship's crew knew of the fire, and knowing nothing of the ship's layout or systems, and having to (in effect) ask passing sailors for directions - was the first organization to actually get a hose to the fire, and start doing something useful - before the fire grew out of control. jwithington's comment about the whole fire response (presumably outside of the municipal crews) being a "clownshow" is profoundly understated.
wolverine876 5y ago
As with the collisions in the western Pacific several years ago, I don't see anyone addressing the overwhelming workload and lack of resources provided to the US Navy. I read much about those collisions, not such much about this fire, so the following is based mostly on the former. In absolute terms, they are very well funded of course. But what I read over and over is that there isn't time for training, because the demand we put on them - the world is a very large place - is much higher. They are told to cut training and deploy. After the collisions, they decided that officers (at least some positions) were too overworked and discussed (maybe implemented) limiting their workweeks to 100 hours. Think of any organization; when the choice is product or training, many managers will cut the latter, even at the obvious long-term cost. The pressure and immediate demand are too great. If someone is working over 100 hours per week, if they can get a break by cutting training, that actually seems like a valid choice - they need to function.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Fundamentally, the US military is optimized for quality over quantity. Look at the US Navy: ~400,000 active duty personnel operating ~400 ships (~250 combat, ~150 aux). Compare to the Chinese PLAN: ~250,000 active duty personnel operating ~750 ships (~500 combat, ~250 aux). A huge portion of that difference is due to aircraft carriers (11 USN, 2 PLAN), average tonnage per ship, and specifically the USN's lack of frigates. This arrangement optimizes for the USN's mission of international power projection, where logistics requirements are like an iceberg, with the deployed forces being the above water volume. However, it does leave a problem of training and experience. If no numerous smaller vessels exist for SWOs and crew to come up through, how do we expect them to have a deep reservoir of experience by the time they're commanding and crewing a destroyer+? The retirement of the Perry class, subsequent botching of the LCS program (and finally recent selection of a Constellation class design, to be built) left the current USN with ~50 less commands for officers and crew to cut their teeth on.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - giantg2 5y ago
Animats 5y ago
The article assumes you already know the basic story. Here's a more comprehensive article.[1] This ship was not at sea. It was docked, and partially disassembled for maintenance. Only 118 of the normal crew of 1000 were on board. On the other hand, they had assistance from the shipyard, other ships nearby, and civilian fire departments. Despite that, the ship burned for days and had to be scrapped. [1] https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left-sailors-unprepared-to-fight-uss-bonhomme-richard-investigation-finds https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left...
- userbinator 5y ago
  What's with the "(b)(6)" censoring in some photos? Presumably deceased?
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I've done a lot of FOIA litigation. (b)(6) must refer to a paragraph of the federal FOIA statute - an exemption that prohibits the release of that portion of the image. Here: Exemption 6 protects information about individuals in "personnel and medical files and similar files" when the disclosure of such information "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/foia_guide09/exemption6.pdf https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/foia_guide09/exemption6....
  - kfprt 5y ago
    I believe no one died in this incident.
    - redis_mlc 5y ago
      1) No one died, mostly because civilian fire departments refused to board it in case they got lost. There's some interesting parallels with the HMS Stark, which burned after being hit by an Exocet missile in the Falklands War. Their electronic communications and radar systems weren't working properly, they couldn't fight the fire, and the captain was recently assigned from subs. So it was more of an overal systemic failure like the BR than specific to a missile attack - the Exocet was an ignition source, but the failures afterward were leadership-related. You can watch YT videos on the Forrestall carrier fire, started by electrical faults in Zuni missiles on John McCain's airplane. The Navy supposedly raised fire-fighting skills as a priority after that, but I guess not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire During WW2, the Franklin carrier burned and when around 100 sailors got blocked off by smoke and flames, they jumped overboard to save their lives. Sadly the captain blacklisted them, and they were interned as deserters in Hawaii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Franklin_(CV-13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Franklin_(CV-13) 2) No lives, but multiple billions of dollars, lost. 3) There's a scenario that China could occupy Australia with 10,000 soldiers using their existing troop carriers. The US actually needed the ship that burned. NTD Media - How China Might Win a War with the US (Dr. Robert D. Eldridge) @4:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxE5mCOBio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxE5mCOBio 4) My understanding is the fire involved a love triangle. If so, wokeism set back the US military, as expected. I've also heard recently that in time of war, many female personnel are expected to "accidently" get pregnant before deployment, affecting readiness. I bring this up because our current military leadership seemingly can't. Source: I study WW2, and to a lesser extent, other wars.
dan-robertson 5y ago
One story I’ve heard told about the us navy (don’t have a link sadly) is that their current position is in some ways similar to the British navy in a time of dominance and peace (late eighteenth century maybe?) The story talks about a case where an elaborate system of instructions via raised flags directed two ships into crashing into each other somewhat catastrophically and the diagnosis from today is that the navy had fallen out of shape due to not having had to fight large naval battles—a situation that requires actual success rather than successful training exercises—and that their officers lacked the initiative to properly command their ships (e.g. avoiding crashing into each other). The story was particularly relevant with the US navy having recently had an avoidable collision at the time I saw it. There have basically been no naval conflicts between fairly matched forces since WWII and the story goes that no one knows how to run a navy anymore. I say running a navy in such a conflict is mostly irrelevant because the weapons which may destroy ships (particularly large ones) are so much more effective now that your fleet would be quickly destroyed.
- nimbius 5y ago
  The unspoken secret here is aircraft carriers existed in the 80s as a component of Kissinger's soft power. In 2021 there isn't a single meaningful country you'd waste the cash to park a carrier on the coast of that couldn't immediately send it to a watery smouldering grave. Even punching bags like Iran are a dicey proposition as the proxy soldiers are too asymmetric to reliably expect a destroyer to engage, and the nation itself is armed to the teeth with the latest Russian missile systems and radar. Hell, that they managed to land a high tech us drone is in itself alone enough to pull teeth out of the navy. Submarines exist to keep the peace. Their real purpose is that they exist and operate in the dated service of mutually assured destruction. Even here the accidents seem to mount lately though as these wandering souls of the doomsday device have seemingly nothing to do The us navy is in the midst of an identity crisis fuelled by octogenarian politicians that have pedalled the institution into treading cold-war era water with no real direction.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I think the bigger problem is that the economic incentives are totally out of step with war readiness or even just wise stewardship of taxpayers' money.
m0zg 5y ago
And all of that Navy is just to intimidate some illiterate Middle Eastern mujahedeen and a few Somalian pirates. This is completely ineffective against anyone with a submarine fleet, which is why you see this particular distribution of submarine fleet sizes: https://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-submarines.php https://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-submarines.php, and which is why, say, Russia doesn't even bother with building aircraft carriers anymore.

97 points by smitty1e 5y ago

chernevik 5y ago

Sure seems like the US Navy has lost track of some basic skills.

KineticLensman 5y ago
Unfortunately not an isolated incident [0, 1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crystal_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crys... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_(DDG-56)#2017_MV_Alnic_MC_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_(DDG-56)#20...

fasteddie31003 5y ago

Another example of the institutional rot that is happening across our county in aging institutions that have little accountability. Will any leadership be held accountable? No. The US Military is a jobs program first and a fighting force a distant second.

rwmurrayVT 5y ago
There have been major changes in the shipyard since the fire. Navy leadership, RMCs, and ship's force have been more involved at every level. The question to follow now is when will they return to complacency.
- PicassoCTs 5y ago
  The density of these incidents seems to be increasing, ships run by untrained crew crashing into other vehicles, steered by software that does not work. Now the leadership that created the circumstances and conditions for this mismanagement to flourish, rushes to fix a problem they allowed to create?
  - rwmurrayVT 5y ago
    There's a major difference between repair/maintenance fires and the incidences afloat. Shipyard fires are being held to the highest standards ever since Oscar Austin, the submarine, and now LHD.
twofornone 5y ago
The leadership is more concerned with diversity and inclusion than combat readiness. This institutional rot, across industry, academia, and military, is a symptom of antimeritocratic hiring bias. For example, apparently women are so valuable to our military that the brass has decided to quietly lower standards in return for positive political coverage. This has been going on to an increasing degree for at least a decade, and is only accelerating under the current administration and, frankly, it's insanity. Also extremely toxic to morale.
- s5300 5y ago
  > The leadership is more concerned with diversity and inclusion than combat readiness. How exactly did you reach this conclusion?
  - twofornone 5y ago
    Well, for one, there was a letter signed by 1xx retired leaders but I'm having trouble finding it on google under the pile of pro D&I propaganda that exclusively makes up search results. For two, consistent anecdata from personal acquaintances and forum posts. The demographics are also completely changing. The military was until recently carried primarily by white men from small town America. Now white maleness is effectively a career handicap when genitals, skin color, and sexual orientation are considered for promotion. I think the recent army advertisements are a valid proxy for the negative value that current leadership places on white-maleness. A military which is still majority white and male is releasing recruitment videos which exclusively feature minorities, females, and a healthy sprinkling of homosexuality. Here's a nice illustration, comparing recent US ads to those from Russia and China[0]. Only two of those forces are actually interested in recruiting competent soldiers, if these ads are any indication. China is laughing. 0. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfe6d6MzeLM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfe6d6MzeLM Edit: the sister post by jimmygrapes found one of the reports/letters I was looking for. I urge you all to read it to see, among other things, what happens to morale when demographic considerations are added to promotion evaluations. What is reported is consistent with what I've been hearing from former servicemember acquaintances.

AcerbicZero 5y ago

To the Navy’s credit it does appear they’re chopping some heads over it (even calling out the ships previous captain and some civilians) and perhaps this wake up call will help reorient the navy back towards where it needs to be. It’s certainly better than pinning this entire event on whatever E-3 started the fire. Can’t say I’m super surprised it’s reached this point though, we’ve been running our military like schizophrenic kids on adderall for the last 20+ years.

QuarterReptile 5y ago
>perhaps this wake up call will help reorient the navy back towards where it needs to be. Maybe. The reports are very clear that most of the problems are lessons learned but not implemented from the Miami in 2012. > It’s certainly better than pinning this entire event on whatever E-3 started the fire. Does this ever happen? I've never seen it. > we’ve been running our military like schizophrenic kids on adderall for the last 20+ years. Can you explain?
- syngrog66 5y ago
  Afghanistan, Iraq, countless foreign bases and deployments all around the world, civil crisis response (think weather disasters and the recent Trump unrest shenanigans) and oh also actual "homeland defense" responsibilities somewhere in the mix too. a nation not officially at war and yet... thousands of combat deaths, etc
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > Does this ever happen? I've never seen it. It does. In this specific case, even. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022514854/sailor-charged-arson-uss-bonhomme-richard-navy-san-diego https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022514854/sailor-charged-ars... “The U.S. Navy charged a sailor Thursday with starting a fire last year that destroyed the USS Bonhomme Richard docked off San Diego, marking the maritime branch's worst warship blaze outside of combat in recent memory.”
  - bitcurious 5y ago

coldcode 5y ago

In WW2 sailors fought horrific battles with fire and damage while under fire and trying to keep from dying. Yet today it appears no one gives a shit about training. We dump massive money into building new ships (with tech that often is pathetically bad, see the new aircraft carrier). Maybe our military has been reduced to a money sink for big defense contractors, but that doesn't absolve them from basic training and disciplined planning for disaster which really costs very little to do right.

bagels 5y ago
This was my concern too. What's the point in having these ships if the most minor damage will cause a catastrophic loss due to incompetence?

jwithington 5y ago

So infuriating. I'm a former damage control assistant on a US submarine. The fire response read like a clownshow, and this article doesn't even highlight the worst of it. There was a Sailor who saw the smoke and walked by it, thinking nothing of it! Another officer thought the smoke might have been coming from the diesel generator. Why tf would the diesel generator be running??? It's hard for me to think of the software equivalent of these fundamental errors. Maybe something like finding a spike in network traffic and assuming it's load testing on prod, when you're actually getting pwned?

secondcoming 5y ago
It's just a guess, but the sailor who saw the smoke may have instead seen the CO2 from the extinguishers being emptied
- jwithington 5y ago
  The one I'm referring to was the first person on the ship who saw the smoke. They then went back to sleep or something like that.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    That could be the sailor, but I would bet on the organization and leadership: In many organizations, bearing the bad news just creates enormous work and trouble for yourself, for your teammates, and rarely accomplishes anything. Rationally, it's absurd to ignore a fire. But I've seen organizations and situations where I would expect it.
    - hugh-avherald 5y ago
      I'd say training more than culture. The response to smoke onboard a ship should be automatic, not requiring any contemplation (even if it's just 'trigger alarm').
    - i_am_proteus 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

myrandomcomment 5y ago

At the end of the day the responsibility rest on the Captain. It is their job to see that those under them are well trained, retrained, and reenforced in that training as a daily operational objective. Every good CO I have ever met when taking over a new station will review in detail the training and readiness status of their command as job 1, and not just review on paper but execute all the drills and observe the results. This is fundamental and is taught in detail in command school. Their should be a full set of court-martial for this failure at the command level.

AdrianB1 5y ago
And becoming a Captain in peace time requires to check some boxes that are not really matching the competence for such a position.
rwmurrayVT 5y ago
Partially correct. In the shipyard the RMC can override the CO in several situations.
bell-cot 5y ago
True...but the USN can make it humanly impossible for a Captain to actually do his job. Imagine that you were a WWII submarine captain sent into battle with these lovely torpedoes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo Or made the scapegoat for the USN's wretched incompetence killing most of your crew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#Court-martial_of_Captain_McVay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#Court... Or... I've not heard much good about the USN on this front.

jet_32951 5y ago

Whatever is going on with the Navy, it doesn't seem to be well understood by flag officers. There have been far too many reports of crew exhaustion and confusion, too many reports of faulty or ill-designed user interfaces, and too little exhibition of loyalty downward from flag ranks toward the people who act to keep the ship afloat and moving. Is crew retention decreasing? It is hard to imagine people putting up with conditions in the Navy while there are so many stories like this going around.

greedo 5y ago
Considering how many FOs the Navy has, it's a disgrace. They could can 1/2 of them without even making a significant dent in the problem. The leadership problems in the USN have been endemic since Tailhook.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Disagree here. The leadership problem is because the navy has introduced a crazy promotion scheme where a sailor gets promoted based on how well they look on paper and not how they actually do their job. I got out 4 years ago and it was sad to see, sailors hitting higher tenure because they couldn't promote. They couldnt promote because they put a priority on making sure their division got it's job done, but were punished with P or MP evals. Meanwhile the dipshit who doesn't know the first thing about their rate, and escaped learning about their rate by collecting pins, got EPs and promoted. Then a few years later, they put on anchors and are expected to lead a division of junior sailors to perform a job, but don't know the first thing about performing the job other than what was needed out of a book to score high enough on exams. Big reason why I got out.

bell-cot 5y ago

Direct links to sources (far longer, official U.S. Navy) cited by the article: https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%20and%20MFR%20Investigations/For%20Release%20Major%20Fires%20Review%20(19%20Oct%2021).pdf https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%2... https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%20and%20MFR%20Investigations/For%20Release%20BHR%20Command%20Investigation%20(20%20Oct%2021).pdf https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%2...

bell-cot 5y ago
A less-long read, with some good diagrams: https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left-sailors-unprepared-to-fight-uss-bonhomme-richard-investigation-finds https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left... And a juicy (and damning) tidbit from the parent's second link - the San Diego (local civilian) Fire Dept, arriving at the ship's pier 30 minutes after FedFire, and at least 45 minutes after the ship's crew knew of the fire, and knowing nothing of the ship's layout or systems, and having to (in effect) ask passing sailors for directions - was the first organization to actually get a hose to the fire, and start doing something useful - before the fire grew out of control. jwithington's comment about the whole fire response (presumably outside of the municipal crews) being a "clownshow" is profoundly understated.

wolverine876 5y ago

As with the collisions in the western Pacific several years ago, I don't see anyone addressing the overwhelming workload and lack of resources provided to the US Navy. I read much about those collisions, not such much about this fire, so the following is based mostly on the former. In absolute terms, they are very well funded of course. But what I read over and over is that there isn't time for training, because the demand we put on them - the world is a very large place - is much higher. They are told to cut training and deploy. After the collisions, they decided that officers (at least some positions) were too overworked and discussed (maybe implemented) limiting their workweeks to 100 hours. Think of any organization; when the choice is product or training, many managers will cut the latter, even at the obvious long-term cost. The pressure and immediate demand are too great. If someone is working over 100 hours per week, if they can get a break by cutting training, that actually seems like a valid choice - they need to function.

ethbr0 5y ago
Fundamentally, the US military is optimized for quality over quantity. Look at the US Navy: ~400,000 active duty personnel operating ~400 ships (~250 combat, ~150 aux). Compare to the Chinese PLAN: ~250,000 active duty personnel operating ~750 ships (~500 combat, ~250 aux). A huge portion of that difference is due to aircraft carriers (11 USN, 2 PLAN), average tonnage per ship, and specifically the USN's lack of frigates. This arrangement optimizes for the USN's mission of international power projection, where logistics requirements are like an iceberg, with the deployed forces being the above water volume. However, it does leave a problem of training and experience. If no numerous smaller vessels exist for SWOs and crew to come up through, how do we expect them to have a deep reservoir of experience by the time they're commanding and crewing a destroyer+? The retirement of the Perry class, subsequent botching of the LCS program (and finally recent selection of a Constellation class design, to be built) left the current USN with ~50 less commands for officers and crew to cut their teeth on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- giantg2 5y ago

Animats 5y ago

The article assumes you already know the basic story. Here's a more comprehensive article.[1] This ship was not at sea. It was docked, and partially disassembled for maintenance. Only 118 of the normal crew of 1000 were on board. On the other hand, they had assistance from the shipyard, other ships nearby, and civilian fire departments. Despite that, the ship burned for days and had to be scrapped. [1] https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left-sailors-unprepared-to-fight-uss-bonhomme-richard-investigation-finds https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left...

userbinator 5y ago
What's with the "(b)(6)" censoring in some photos? Presumably deceased?
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I've done a lot of FOIA litigation. (b)(6) must refer to a paragraph of the federal FOIA statute - an exemption that prohibits the release of that portion of the image. Here: Exemption 6 protects information about individuals in "personnel and medical files and similar files" when the disclosure of such information "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/foia_guide09/exemption6.pdf https://www.justice.gov/archive/oip/foia_guide09/exemption6....
- kfprt 5y ago
  I believe no one died in this incident.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    1) No one died, mostly because civilian fire departments refused to board it in case they got lost. There's some interesting parallels with the HMS Stark, which burned after being hit by an Exocet missile in the Falklands War. Their electronic communications and radar systems weren't working properly, they couldn't fight the fire, and the captain was recently assigned from subs. So it was more of an overal systemic failure like the BR than specific to a missile attack - the Exocet was an ignition source, but the failures afterward were leadership-related. You can watch YT videos on the Forrestall carrier fire, started by electrical faults in Zuni missiles on John McCain's airplane. The Navy supposedly raised fire-fighting skills as a priority after that, but I guess not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire During WW2, the Franklin carrier burned and when around 100 sailors got blocked off by smoke and flames, they jumped overboard to save their lives. Sadly the captain blacklisted them, and they were interned as deserters in Hawaii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Franklin_(CV-13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Franklin_(CV-13) 2) No lives, but multiple billions of dollars, lost. 3) There's a scenario that China could occupy Australia with 10,000 soldiers using their existing troop carriers. The US actually needed the ship that burned. NTD Media - How China Might Win a War with the US (Dr. Robert D. Eldridge) @4:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxE5mCOBio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxE5mCOBio 4) My understanding is the fire involved a love triangle. If so, wokeism set back the US military, as expected. I've also heard recently that in time of war, many female personnel are expected to "accidently" get pregnant before deployment, affecting readiness. I bring this up because our current military leadership seemingly can't. Source: I study WW2, and to a lesser extent, other wars.

dan-robertson 5y ago

One story I’ve heard told about the us navy (don’t have a link sadly) is that their current position is in some ways similar to the British navy in a time of dominance and peace (late eighteenth century maybe?) The story talks about a case where an elaborate system of instructions via raised flags directed two ships into crashing into each other somewhat catastrophically and the diagnosis from today is that the navy had fallen out of shape due to not having had to fight large naval battles—a situation that requires actual success rather than successful training exercises—and that their officers lacked the initiative to properly command their ships (e.g. avoiding crashing into each other). The story was particularly relevant with the US navy having recently had an avoidable collision at the time I saw it. There have basically been no naval conflicts between fairly matched forces since WWII and the story goes that no one knows how to run a navy anymore. I say running a navy in such a conflict is mostly irrelevant because the weapons which may destroy ships (particularly large ones) are so much more effective now that your fleet would be quickly destroyed.

nimbius 5y ago
The unspoken secret here is aircraft carriers existed in the 80s as a component of Kissinger's soft power. In 2021 there isn't a single meaningful country you'd waste the cash to park a carrier on the coast of that couldn't immediately send it to a watery smouldering grave. Even punching bags like Iran are a dicey proposition as the proxy soldiers are too asymmetric to reliably expect a destroyer to engage, and the nation itself is armed to the teeth with the latest Russian missile systems and radar. Hell, that they managed to land a high tech us drone is in itself alone enough to pull teeth out of the navy. Submarines exist to keep the peace. Their real purpose is that they exist and operate in the dated service of mutually assured destruction. Even here the accidents seem to mount lately though as these wandering souls of the doomsday device have seemingly nothing to do The us navy is in the midst of an identity crisis fuelled by octogenarian politicians that have pedalled the institution into treading cold-war era water with no real direction.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I think the bigger problem is that the economic incentives are totally out of step with war readiness or even just wise stewardship of taxpayers' money.

m0zg 5y ago

And all of that Navy is just to intimidate some illiterate Middle Eastern mujahedeen and a few Somalian pirates. This is completely ineffective against anyone with a submarine fleet, which is why you see this particular distribution of submarine fleet sizes: https://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-submarines.php https://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-submarines.php, and which is why, say, Russia doesn't even bother with building aircraft carriers anymore.