“If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” — Mickey Mantle
Part of being mortal is knowing that time will take its toll. You can do things in the early years to mitigate the wear and tear if you are lucky enough to have a long life, but the wear and tear will always be there.
A military should not have that problem. Nations and the militaries that serve them can grow old in years of existence, but in many ways they are immortal as long as the nation survives. Each year, new people arrive to serve, new equipment is purchased – and if properly managed – old equipment is retired.
Where people and nations get in trouble is when they they stop thinking about the long term, and instead concern themselves with short term results.
If a new leader finds their new area of responsibility in good condition, they have a choice;
1. Continue the habits of his successful predecessors in balancing today’s needs with tomorrow’s requirements, or if the incentives and personalities are skewed in a certain way….
2. Invest all in the now, for the rewards of the now, for the praise of the now.
If #2 is chosen, eventually the music stops. There is complete physical breakdown, or you are defeated at war. When that happens, one can look back at the glory years and spend the rest of your time soaked in regret for the path, #1, not taken.
History is full of examples legion.
What if a new leader walks in to a position where he finds an organization hobbled by years of short term or ill-directed thinking?
They also have two choices;
1. Pretend it isn’t there. Paint over the problems, smile, say nice things, invest in easy projects, and see if you can roll early before anything bad happens.
2. Lean in.
People and militaries once they go down the short-term focus path to destruction can still recover. History is also full of turn around stories.
A year ago after the horrible events for the surface community in WESTPAC, a process still ongoing was started to address long ignored issues. It was generally understood that these issues were in other areas as well.
This is good and we need more stories about them. It may be harder now with the entire PAO nomenklatura being under EMCON B and aviation hiding readiness from the public eye like the surfac community has for years, but if we keep hearing reports of the broad strokes of recovery and self-reflection – then maybe we’ll be OK.
This week, your maritime news feed was filled with some tales of woe, and perhaps opportunity for redemption.
First on the aviation side of the house as reported by Sam LaGrone;
The Navy’s fleet of F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets will have to meet a minimum 80-percent mission capable rate by the end of Fiscal Year 2019, according to a Sept. 17 memo sent from Mattis to military service secretaries and other Defense Department civilian leaders.
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“We must focus on meeting our most critical priorities first. These include achieving a minimum of 80 percent mission capability rates for our FY 2019 Navy and Air Force F-35, F-22, F-16 and F-18 inventories — assets that form the backbone of our tactical air power — and reducing these platforms operating and maintenance costs every year, starting in FY 2019.”
Remember the “carrier gap” we are seeing more and more of? Well, we need to get used to it with the present force levels and funding – and we should welcome it.
We need to operate and husband the fleet we have, not the one we wish we had. That is the only way we will be able to meet the SECDEF’s readiness goal.
On the surface side of the house, David Larter has a series of stories out concerning a very real nightmare of our own making that those who have been tracking it for years have been yelling about, almost unheard, from the cheap seats; how to get an army to where it is needed.
Logistics cannot be fudged. You need a lot of ships to move your heavy divisions? What ships?
The ships the U.S. counts among its ready stock of ships available for a large-scale contingency are 46 ships in the Ready Reserve Force, 15 ships in the Military Sealift Command surge force, and roughly 60 U.S.-flagged commercial ships in the Maritime Security Program available to the military in a crisis,
The 46 Ready Reserve Force ships, overseen by the Maritime Administration, are old and rapidly approaching the end of their hull life, as are many of the senior engineers who are still qualified and able to work on the aging steam propulsion plants.
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A recent Navy report to Congress from March estimated that about 90 percent of all equipment used by the Army and Marine Corps in a major contingency would be transported by sea…
Note the “major contingency.” That is a real war, not the colonial police actions of the last few decades.
Of the 46 ships in the ready reserve force, which combined with Military Sealift Command’s 15 roll-on/roll-off container ships makes up the U.S. surge fleet, 24 are steam operated. Steam is largely obsolete in the commercial world that the U.S. relies upon to keep its emergency stock of trained mariners employed and in seagoing careers. And the hulls themselves are rapidly approaching the end of their useful service life.
“The average age of this fleet is 43 years,” said the maritime administrator, retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, in a March interview.
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Of the 46 ships in his reserve force, about 23 or 24 need urgent attention…
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It’s a problem that Congress and the military, with little fanfare, are starting to focus on.In the 2018 and 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress freed up authorization for the Defense Department to buy up to seven commercial ships, built anywhere in the world, that could recapitalize the Ready Reserve Force.
The kicker, however, is that Congress wants the secretary of the Navy, prior to purchasing more than two of the new ships, to submit a plan for a new class of new-build sealift ships.
“In order to procure more than two such vessels, the secretary would need to certify that the U.S. Navy has initiated an acquisition strategy for the construction of no fewer than 10 new sealift vessels, with the lead ship anticipated to be delivered by not later than 2026,” according to the explanatory statement released by Congress.
Faster please.
So, we manage to get enough duct tape and bailing wire to keep the old ships underway and build a few more – who is going to get them across the pond?
Cue the “we don’t need frigates” song from earlier this decade …
This should terrify everyone;
“The Navy has been candid enough with Military Sealift Command and me that they will probably not have enough ships to escort us. It’s: ‘You’re on your own; go fast, stay quiet,’”
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“The last bullet point on one of the slides is ‘Learn how to swim,’” he said. “It’s to that point. There’s not going to be a bunch of destroyers around us as we take those ships over there. We’re going to be hitting the sea buoy, cranking it up and going hell-bent for leather, hoping to stay undetected.”
The world will survive if we have a few more carrier gaps so we can recover readiness. Our fleet will survive if a LCS/FF or two or ten are traded for better USNS and support ships.
If we do these things in a time of peace, when real war comes – and it will come again – we will be in a much better place to fight and win.
