A REPORT ON THE FIGHTING CULTURE OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY SURFACE FLEET

[JJ_BPK]

The surprising part is that this report was released.

REPORT ON THE FIGHTING CULTURE OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY SURFACE FLEET

Conducted at the Direction of Senator Tom Cotton, Congressman Jim Banks, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, Congressman Mike Gallaghe

Written by Lieutenant General Robert E. Schmidle, USMC, Ret. & Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, USN, Ret.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................. .................................................. .................2
FINDINGS .................................................. .................................................. .....................................6
Insufficient Focus on Warfighting....................................... .................................................. ............... 6
A Dominant and Paralyzing Zero-Defect Mentality......................................... .................................. 9
Corrosive Over-Responsiveness to Media Culture .................................................. ......................... 11
Under-Investment in Surface Warfare Officer Training .................................................. ............... 13
Poorly Resourced and Executed Surface Ship Maintenance Program........................................... 16
Culture of Micromanagement.................................................. .................................................. ......... 18
RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION........................................ .................................................2


https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/me...avy_report.pdf

[WarriorDiplomat]

I would bet this report goes DOD wide....they have the same SECDEF under the same focus of effort

This report flies in the face of the reports of the rise of the Chinese

[Pete]

Interesting

Reminds me of the line from the movie "In Harms Way" where the Admiral is sending John W to a desk job because he got his Cruiser torpedoed.

Something along the lines of "You're about to get caught between a peace time Navy and a war time Navy"

We will not have months to spin up to speed in the next one.

[Box]

Something to think about in the context of the current cultural landscape VS the culture that is often used as a comparison...

Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman has framed this in an historical context, suggesting that none of the four key Admirals who led victorious fleets in World War II would have made it to the rank of Captain in today’s Navy.

When, in the last 20 years, has a senior military leader been relieved from command over a campaign loss ??

I think that is an important point to make - or at last something that needs to be investigated.
Let's not hide behind the crap that I have heard about "that was a different type of war"
...if that is the case, then behavior doesn't matter either because "that was a different war"

Accountability. Was it real back then?
Is it real now?
Have I missed something or did we have GO's and CSM's as recently as the 80's and 90's that had a history of bad behavior?
Is there really a suggestion that behavior doesn't let guys get promoted anymore?
Who went to jail over Fat Leonard?
What happened to LTC Vindman? Didnt he come out on a promotion list?
There is no historical consistency to the accountability of senior military leaders. The military is now, always has been, and always will be, an extension of failed diplomacy and the ones "running the war" tend to be aligned in more ways than one with the power brokers. When senior leaders malign the power brokers, they are sent away.
Same as it ever was.

Now the deeper thing to consider - these legendary fighting men that won a world war came home and parented the fucking idiots that have been running our nation into the ground for the last 50 years. The greatest generation raised a bunch of hippies.
They could win a war but they sure seemed to have failed at raising kids that could win the following wars.

Lastly - what grand fiasco is in store for our nation when the children of THIS generation's leaders are in charge of shit 10-15 years from now.
The best place to look for answers when ANYONE commissions a study like this is right in the fucking mirror. We are always our own worst enemy and it's hard to admit it.

I always hear folks (worst of all SF guys) bitch about standards and culture - but those same guys are the ones that have an emotional meltdown when the CSM addresses uniform standards or behavioral issues or unprofessional conduct.
...all these E9s and field grades care about is hair cuts and uniforms and baseball hats

It's the mantra of the day - immediately followed by "standards are dropping - these E9's and field grades don't give a shit about standards anymore."

"MY" annual evaluation is a clear record of my superiority - everyone else is just a sheet full of watered-down lies.
At least that has been my observation as a senior enlisted leader for the last half of my career.


Smoke and mirrors - swindlers that identify as 'conservatives' had four years to try and push things back in the other direction. They elected to spend most of that time trying to get in front of the camera to undermine the popularity of the President.
Now that the opposition is in power, they are all about publishing "reports" that point fingers.


Meet the new boss....

[Scimitar]

The sailors interviewed for this report do not believe the Navy prioritizes fighting and winning because Navy leaders do not talk about fighting and winning.

Could you ask for more proof than that, that the navy is off mission. Large group culture is achieved through communicating priorities. And winning is clearly currently not the Navy's priority.

S

[Roguish Lawyer]

Since when do we need to use violence to solve problems? What happened to honest dialogue?

[Box]

I've been wondering that same thing myself....

[bblhead672]

I hope the Submarine Fleet is not being run as badly as the Surface Fleet.

Although maybe signs were appearing back in the early 80's. I was onboard a sub at periscope depth that collided with another sub on the surface...due to a junior officer on the periscope who didn't know port running lights from starboard running lights and that reversing the lights meant another ship was coming at you instead of going away.

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by bblhead672

I hope the Submarine Fleet is not being run as badly as the Surface Fleet.

Although maybe signs were appearing back in the early 80's. I was onboard a sub at periscope depth that collided with another sub on the surface...due to a junior officer on the periscope who didn't know port running lights from starboard running lights and that reversing the lights meant another ship was coming at you instead of going away.

Jeebers.

[Badger52]

Found an article that discusses a larger issue that, coupled with a service's lack of organic warfighting focus, would bring a disaster. That is the reliance on decades old approaches and that the rest of the world has been going to school on us for quite some time. Snippet:

I’ll skip to the takeaway here. The U.S. should refrain from fighting the next war because we’ve already lost, long before even one shot has been fired.

The source for this ultra-defeatist news is not just a teacher at a sailor’s college, sited on a salty bay. No, the source is no less than a serving, 4-star general whose job title is Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Let’s dig in…

Here’s the long and short. The U.S. military conducted a major wargame last fall and “it failed miserably,” said U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten earlier this week.

Hyten spoke at a conference sponsored by the Emerging Technologies Institute. It’s a think tank run by the National Defense Industrial Association, an industry group focused on military modernization. (You can watch it on YouTube here, about an hour and 18 minutes.)

“An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us,” he said. “They knew exactly what we're going to do before we did it.”

According to a Pentagon spokesperson, one key scenario of this wargame involved U.S. forces battling with China over Taiwan. From Hyten’s summary, U.S. forces became sitting ducks and were destroyed piecemeal and systematically.

The overarching problem was, basically, everything.

Full article here.
(and yeah, I too hate websites that effectively block 50% of their window with top & bottom bars so it looks like peering through a tank window; scroll on)