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Disassociated tour for aviators on aircraft carriers/gators
- Thread starter Max the Mad Russian
- Start date
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Tells me he's legit...
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Well, I'm not fluent in trolling, much too old to care 'bout this bullshit.
You an aviators are possibly missing the point - 99.9% of answers on my questions I can relatively easy find on USN-related web sites, often official ones. I am not hunting for facts - I just take them from the shelfs of information mall created in your country. What I cannot find there is an opinions. And those are most interesting of all. And most relevant, as always.
I'll pass along your praise to Al Gore.
Nuke SWOs are free from OOD watches...free to stand nuke watches. Other SWOs are free to stand engineering watches for the conventional engineering side of the carrier or stand watch on the bridge as the carrier CO sees fit.
What makes underway OOD so difficult in the Russian Navy? I always found it to be one of the easier parts of the job.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Here I stand the chance to draw the line between generalists, who USN officers are, and specialists, who are the Russian Navy officers. Let me slightly dig the explanations out. You know, we need to choose our designator at the age 16-17, when we enter the Naval Colleges. 97% of Russian Navy and Coast Guard officers (coasties here have no their own colleges and academies, about 5% of annual NavColls graduates - usually from top quarter of the class - enter CG instead of Navy by competitively volunteering in the limited number of the slots). Last three of the overall five years of studies in respective College are devoted to designator. In USSR there were 11 naval colleges (the number explains the different specialties/designators), each modeled roughly around the approach the Annapolis and West Point had been created by (cadet/midshipmen year seniority, restricted access to the city, one and a half month vacation per a year, uniform and military discipline on a daily basis, active duty status from the Oath at the beginning of the first year and so on). While we are not supporting the majors in those colleges, the designator itself is used as a centerline for education and training. I am the communication means officer and I started to learn the electromagnetism as a basis for my job at the age 19 while at college. First two years we had standard university-level math and physics but from the second year we began to study practical physics related to the aim - how the ships can communicate to the shore and each other? Radio bands are not simple some Hz spectrum, electromagnetic field in every point can be described by the system of 12 equalizers, and I should pass through it to choose a frequency that allows me to hear the other side. And so forth - electrical engineering from the third year to be employed not only as the radio officer but as the constructor or supervisor on the naval radiomeans manufacturing facility. Programming, cryptanalysis (all the secure apparatus, from voice to data, too), repair and maintenance (enlisted corps in Russian Navy is still of conscript nature, often hardly with the full high school graduation), and simultaneously - a bit naval training as well, all around the year. There are just few general courses for all designators. Eventually, those are just navigation (from plain and celestial to the satellite one, and you should know how the satellite works as if you have been an engineer who designed it) and damage control/fire protection (as the Russian Navy from 1955 was submarine-oriented, everyone in the naval college should know how to employ an emergency pump and how to use the foam generator whatever situation arose, as well as how to escape from the drowned boat through the torpedo tube, and everyone did it at special training facility in each naval college, at the end of a third year). That's all.
If I am the fresh grad from my NavColl, I never saw the ship's engine, I don't know how it works. I never studied the ship's artillery and missiles, let alone torpedoes and mines. I know nothing about naval aviation or aviation at all except how to be airline passenger, since the aviation world was cruelly deleted from the Russian naval mind as a result of the interservice rivalry for a scarse sources after WWII. And I know - in the fleet I will have the shipmate alongside, who graduated the respective Naval College in question - somebody will know how to fire misiles, someone will run the machinery and black gang as well, someone will have the knowledge where the ship's rudder is, how to search a submarine and so on. We are very, very narrow specialists in our respective fields and remain such during all our career up to the flag rank.
Now take me as a fresh Lieutenant after such a narrow pipeline and put me on the bridge, trying to qualify me as cruiser's OOD. It is a nightmare by nature. During a weeks you should throw your deep and beloved radio knowledge away and find out what the naval engineering is, weapon engineering is, psychology of leadership is (by the way, Russians in general believe that leadership is born-not-made, so we have no inherent courses on leadership, just a routine career advice to follow the born leaders and model them), maneuvering is, tactics is, foreign language communications to the tugs and overtaking vessels is, the CO's indifference is, the XO's hate is, and this is personal to a highest possible degree. While Western civilization is running by the guilt, which is a feeling of the mistake and is far from the core personality, the Oriental world (Russian military is under much notable Oriental influence than Western one) is ruled by the feeling of shame, which is about the strafe at one's personal self as a whole. "You're doing poorly" is about guilt, you are good in general, but you should correct your behaviour. "You're bad" is about shame, since it means you are effectively useless as a person and this is extremely hard to correct, it's better to fire you, no one will be concerned if you fell overboard (this is the true example of the XO speech in the face of the poor junior OOD, often while the enlisted could hear it).
In short - if you are narrow specialist and all of a sudden you have to become an experienced generalist within a weeks, and you are under heavy pressure by the CO/XO with the true personal hate expressed in very harsh language no matter of the subordinates around, it should be convincing, I hope, to the matter of how hard job is to stand an OOD on Russian surface ships, at least when you are junior Lt. After awhile, it becomes easier, but the takeover of the ship to the new CO or XO can start the process from the beginning, even for the LtCdrs OODs. There is the proverb on the Russian cruisers: "Officer is the crap up to LtCdr generally, and up to Capt in some specifical questions". By the way, I enclose a part of my article about Russian Cruiser as a phenomena, maybe it can explain it better.
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Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Exactly, but not only that. In mostly landmass countries there is also the habit to have the strong influence of the Army on the other branches. No matter how the Army is configured in itself, it inevitably is dominating the national defence and security structure and so trying to put the Navy and Air Force along its own lines. This is happiness that in US of A the Army had been mostly anti-insurgent asset essentially up to the WWI, I think.
Interesting.
The way you describe it, it sounds more like the challenge is that you're expected to qualify OOD very quickly...you say "weeks" where we'd probably say "months" at the very least. What is the reason for that?
For us, you start out as a Conning Officer, and at the very beginning you're probably getting a lot of direction from the OOD. Gradually you should earn enough trust that you can start making some decisions on your own.
Then as a JOOD, you should be an OOD U/I...basically an "acting" OOD to get practice doing what the OOD does, without taking on the responsibility for it all just yet.
It's a fairly long process, depending heavily on how much actual underway steaming time the ship gets, but even optimistically speaking, during a deployment, it should probably take at least ~3-4 months, and that is again, extremely generous, assuming you've got an exceptionally smart person. Even if you have the theory down, it still takes time for the CO to gain trust and confidence in you, and you can't really rush that unless the ship is desperately in need of qualifying new OODs.
I've also seen it take over an year for folks who show up when their ship is in a long yard period. That said, it seems you provide pretty extensive training in your NavColl's.
Who teaches the new OODs? Does the lack of NCO's hamper the ability to train new OODs? Is that one of the reasons you found it so challenging?
What is the reason Russian OODs are expected to pick up marine engineering and weapons engineering?
Marine engineering for USN OODs is really only necessary in the sense that you learn some theory of what drives the ship through the water and keeps the lights on. Basically enough to let you know how to drive it, then a bit more to learn about how things are connected in order to learn how casualties affect
Weapons engineering particularly seems excessive. Unless an OOD is also borrowing some responsibility from the TAO, knowing weapons engineering isn't really something I'd expect an OOD to be responsible for. Or do you not differentiate between "OOD" driving the ship and an overall "Surface Warfare" kind of qualification?
You also don't seem to think on CO's/XO's too fondly. What is the reason for that?
Is the foreign language requirement English? I could see that being a pain in the ass...if I had to learn to speak a foreign language as part of my OOD qualification, that would not have been fun.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
As the Army in most countries is the biggest branch, it is their common approach, but only in land-locked or near to that countries Army is not only tried to provide its dominance at the strategy and doctrines but also the structure of the Army is often interferring with the other branches' ones. "Regiment" is an archetypical Army unit, but Soviet Air Force let alone Naval Aviation were forced to adopt the regimental structure (air regiment contains two to five squadrons) due to the Army influence. Again, it is the Army which is issuing the most detailed military guidances and codes, mandatory to follow in the other branches while they quite can contradict with the nature of the latters. For example, Army food regulations quickly becomes the Military food regulations, while no Navy ship or Air Force squadron, being forward deployed, can live up to the Army standards of the bread backery, but food inspections of that units are usually running by the Army officers who demand to stick with these regulations, as if the Mediterranean deployed destroyer is in her homeport.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Thanks a lot. Let me give step-by-step answers, ok?
Usually two to three months here, depending on the officers roster and availability of the escape ways. Say, in the same Comm Dept there are the officers who are under security protection from stand OOD watch as they have special watches within the crypto-protected rooms. Again, no engineers are eligible to stand OOD, it's a law - if your designator is marine engineering (either turbines, diesels, electricity, nuclear, DCFP special and so on, i.e. if you are in the guts of the ship), you are sort of Restricted Line in USN parlance. No bridge watches for them except for the EOOW on some ships where the main machinery dashboard is located on the bridge (up to frigate, but mostly corvettes). Again, the Dept Head always can screen some of his Divs from OOD watch if they have to deal with unreliable equipment. Say, on the Kirov-class CGNs the main AAW missile complex, S-300F "Fort" is served by two Divs and an engineer. The fire control system of that "Fort" is so whimsical that have those Divs let alone Eng standing the OOD watches they quite can be on hours off when the radar suddenly goes out of commission. All in all, not so many officers aboard even on a big ship are available to stand OOD, so one of the XO's main aims is to list the officers and held them to this watch.
On a cruisers we have the Deputy OOD which is uniting your Conning Officer and JOOD down and connected to the same reason - to introduce of the JO to making decisions on his own, but overall responsibility is on the scheduled OOD. In some cases they intended to hang the DOOD on some endless secondary inspections just to be free to do their job. There is neither habit nor the regulation about the mentorship in Russian Navy. On a smaller ships from DD down to corvette there is only one OOD, no deputy, no Conn, no JOOD. Sometimes the ship's NAV, if seasoned one, can enormously help the fresh OOD and usually does, but it is rather a tradition than regulation.
It is rather the "surviving under pressure" experience. If you fail to pass the CO/XO OOD exam twice, you're nailed to be off this ship the next year and your career chances are reduced to significant degree. Not a problem at all - you can go to another ship and try again or got yourself ashore and spend your "up to 20" there, but with sufficiently lower salary and you will never be the ship's XO/CO, period.
Main teachers are formally XO and your Dept Head. But eventually it is up to you since everyone of them has a huge amount of more important (for their evaluation reports) jobs. Absolutely no help from the NCO. Some experienced Chief can only hold your Divisional job for awhile, allowing you to pay more attention to OOD deal, but he cannot help in the OOD preparations as such. There are no NCOs on the Russian ships' bridge - only a few of enlisted conscripts: a helmsman, a couple of lookouts, maybe an draftsman of the CIC on duty, all the others are commissioned officers.
Marine engineering - there are several occasions in which the OOD should personally direct the changes in the electrical commutations or machinery gears' setting. On some frigates the pitch of the propellers cannot be changed from the full spead ahead to the stop instantly, as it can damage the pitching gear on the shaft. If the remotely controlled switcher works properly, it is the EOOW's job but if not, the OOD by himself should know what he has to order to the conscript in the tiller/yoke room, where the manual drive of the pitching gear is installed, in step-by-step mode, as the EOOW sitting in his engineering spaces in the guts of the ship quite can has no real picture with understanding of the reason why the ship has to be stopped so quickly.
Weapon engineering is important to the OOD watch as there are constant troubles with loading/reloading of the big Soviet-type missile launchers at sea, which is extremely hard work. You should control along with the gunnery Dept Head the alternations of the connecting/disconnecting of the cables from the missile body, as any violation of that sequence can bring about a disaster with the missile's fuel fire and warhead explosion. Again, it is shared responsibility that makes the XO sure the things are doing in proper way. My own experience as just relieved OOD, as I saw it from the wing of the bridge, smoking - on Russian warships usually the forecastle's gun is installed, roughly similar to common NATO 76-mm OTO Melara, automatical gun named AK-176. While the turret/gunhouse of that set is manned, the main mode of usage is remote control from the gunnery officer command post, where the gun is controlled by fire radar, usually one named MR-123. Once on anchor, the boatswain guys were working of the forecastle while the gunnery sailors maintained the gun, turned to the starboard beam. Fire control radar was switched OFF but there were two naval cadets on a summer practice aboard, from some NavColl, who were studying the radar as they were ordered to by XO and their college's case officer. Ad hoc, they asked the bridge for a permission to switch the MR-123 emitting high voltage on, just to have two or three antenna rotation circle to fit the target position indicator in a proper illumination mode, and then-current OOD gave that at once, and I've just nearly swallowed my cigarette but that had been done. The circuits of the AK-176 are routinely configured in the way that logic prescribes: at the moment when the high emitting of fire control radar is ON, the gun automatically turns to zero bearing and zero elevation, to be able to react to the new target from the most proper position. That was what happened - gun turned and the barrel had hit one of the guys throwing him overboard. Happily we were anchored and the seas were warm and calm. A cadets were right, too - they should ask the permission from OOD as was ordered, but that OOD was not of gunnery or radar designator, he was navigator, and his carelessness quite could turn him to accidental killer...
Due to the fact that CO/XO are specialists forced to be generalists, too, pretending to be organic enough. They usually former navigators or weapon engineers, it is extremely seldom event to find a CO/XO from any other subcommunity. They either are struggling with their inherent designator's demons, simultaneously trying to show their leadership integrity for everyone. Of course there are good COs and XOs, but mostly they are very nervous and inconsistent in Russian Navy.
Yes English especially on, say, Baltic sea with its extremely tough fishers and yachting traffic. I cannot speak Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Swedish, German, Danish language, thus even plain navigation under COLREGS-72 there claims the English oral practice from OOD on a daily basis.
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Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
What about Russian Coast Guard, all this is easier (I mean the OOD matter), since the ships/cutters (in Russian practice all CG ships that are not the crafts lesser than 100 tons of displacement are calling "frontier frigates"; formers - "frontier crafts", while "craft" in-Russian sounds like "cutter") are small in general and there is a lot of COs holding the rank of Lt/LtCdr. But given the fact that Coast Guard has no its own aviation (the FSB Border Guard Aviation served them with SAR and surveillance tasks), it is ironically the XO's usual job to land any helo at the ship's helipad, organize the refueling and permit it to went off. On a big cutters there is a little landing signal battle station at the roof of a hangar, and it is funny to see how XO is snaking inside to grab the radio mike and direct the helicopter. Of course there is a specialist WO and six to ten enlisteds in that aviation division subordinated to XO, trained to run the jet fuel storage, pumps, firefighting gears and hangar equipment, but relatively young Coastie XO is not yet mature enough to reject himself from the pleasure and adventure to land and dispatch the helicopters, a job he as Russian maritime navigator or weapon engineer can hardly get anywhere else in his life. And Coasties in Russia are usually fluent in foreign languages - I once met a guy, XO of the middle-sized cutter, who freely spoke Norwegian. There was a way he learned that, or at least he believed that helped - every single thing and piece in his stateroom carried a little plate with the name of that thing in Russian, English and Norwegian, written with grease pencil. Russian Coasties are funny guys in general, the only thing I was against while over there, was their adherence to KGB legacy, that I'm sure has nothing common with the plain Coast Guard service.
On my Disassociated Tour it took most Aviators ~2mo to get OOD, but we got a tailored PQS and it's not our first rodeo. Most could have realistically qualified in 1mo but there was usually some backlog as the un-pinned SWOs took their sweet time getting their qual and increased the amount of time we had to spend as CONN. Most of us didn't require a lot of JOOD time.