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USS Fitzgerald collision in C7F

xj220

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
CommodoreMid said:
I've actually seen a handful of people not make it and shown either out of the Navy or, if they were good officers just sucking at the aviation thing, given redesignation, but I've seen more PPCs not sign for plane stuff or TCs not given crews than those who didn't make it.
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Which I think is a bullshit move. If you don’t trust them in those positions then don’t qualify them.
 
Gatordev

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
I really have to wonder if VP leadership is like you guys depict. And I'm not saying it isn't, I just wonder. The reaction from Wing leadership that I've seen is usually a, "what do they need from me to help?" The flip side to that is if they do need something, the next question is, "Why aren't they asking me to help?"

Interestingly I've seen more FNAEBs in the last 5 years for performance than the previous 15. Several in the FRS and also in the fleet for not making AC. There will always be weirdo skippers or CDREs, but it seems HSM has managed to mature out of how it used to be, which had many similarities with VP.
 
xj220

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
Gatordev said:
I really have to wonder if VP leadership is like you guys depict. And I'm not saying it isn't, I just wonder. The reaction from Wing leadership that I've seen is usually a, "what do they need from me to help?" The flip side to that is if they do need something, the next question is, "Why aren't they asking me to help?"

Interestingly I've seen more FNAEBs in the last 5 years for performance than the previous 15. Several in the FRS and also in the fleet for not making AC. There will always be weirdo skippers or CDREs, but it seems HSM has managed to mature out of how it used to be, which had many similarities with VP.
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I don’t want to get into it too much on here, but I wish it was as you described. I have some stories that would blow your mind.
 
Gatordev

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Everything I've heard has been anecdotal. But that doesn't mean I don't believe you both.
 
Spekkio

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Swanee said:
But at some level each Officer is responsible for maintaining/setting/holding their Sailors/Marines to a standard. Whether that person is a 2ndLt Platoon Commander, an Ens DivO, a Capt or Lt flight lead/aircraft commander, an Lt/LCDR Boat Skipper, (and so on and so forth) they all have a standard to meet...

Do you think that by not empowering younger officers with a sense of "command" that the community is lacking? From day 1 I was told that I would be a provisional rifle platoon commander, and that as a pilot, I was really in an aircraft commander syllabus- the early part is that I had to learn how to fly the damn plane well to do that job. But there was always plenty of mentorship and hard learning to develop the judgement and leadership qualities to fit the bill.
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Everything you said is true, but a DH/XO/CO is going to uphold the standards that he learned as a JO, and the JOs are going to uphold standards the way that they learn and perceive them when they report onboard. They learn standards by the institutional culture around them, and they need consistency throughout the chain of command in order to give them credibility. In your community, you learned early that the standards were high, unwavering, and up to you to enforce. If the SWOs in question never learned that because of systemic institutional culture issues, then how do you hold an individual accountable for that? They were doing the job the way they were taught to do it. Even if a new ENS/LTJG recognizes that things are fucked up, without consistency and reinforcement up and down the chain of command he doesn't have the credibility to do anything about it; the crew will just ignore him and think he's an asshole.
 
Spekkio

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Uncle Fester said:
It’s the case. I saw guys get their OOD U/W letter and pin as the CO was leaving (literally the morning of the change of command), so that the command and CO wouldn’t look bad by DNQing a JO, but also the CO wouldn’t bear any responsibility for that guy when he stood a watch.

Also saw DHs who weren’t allowed on the watchbill, per the captain’s direction. And heard more of the same from other ships under other COs.

That situation predated “SWOS in a box” so that didn’t cause the problem, but it definitely exacerbated a bad situation. The community was able to get away with it for years. Then you add an unforgiving optempo, which doesn’t allow you time to train, and no depth to your watchstanding bench, and you get, well, this...

Normally it’d take a few horrific battles in wartime to show where a ‘peacetime’ Navy has fallen short. Hopefully this is the wake up call we needed.
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I don't know what you're talking about. According to the report, the root cause was clearly a lack of using moboards. If those darn JOs would just take their eyes off of everything important to draw grease pencil on a BAM (big-ass moboard) instead of looking at those fancy-shmancy radar with ARPA tools and VMS screens and correlating it to their visual picture, none of this would have happened.
 
Bergers2short

Bergers2short

Well-Known Member
None
picklesuit said:
He may have a valid argument...
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+1. That said, I kind of want CDR Benson's trial to go through just so the Navy is forced to respond to his defense. It seems like things haven't changed enough re:admin priorities, manning, ship's schedules, etc. Would the publicity of his defense force more changes? Not that we should need anything else to jumpstart wholesale changes in the surface community...
 
nittany03

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
And of course there are shoes commenting on how we aviators can’t judge, because we have the occasional Class A. :rolleyes: I’m reminded why I usually stay away from Sal’s comment section.
 
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