Our USN Submarine Fleet!

[rwtdiver]

My wife just sent this to my email!

https://themessenger.com/business/delays-leave-us-navy-with-just-31-ready-attack-submarines

Could this really be true?

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[rwtdiver]

Just a question?

Is anyone seeing the above post?

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[redboat219]

Just a question?

Is anyone seeing the above post?

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

Yes I can see it.

[rwtdiver]

Yes I can see it.

Thank you Romel!

Been having some computer (PC) issues, just checking to see if it's working!

Thank you,
Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[QuarterMaster]

My wife just sent this to my email!

What I got out of this???

A good wife understands her husband.

Definitely a keeper Rob, but you don't need me to tell you that!

[redboat219]

[rwtdiver]

Thanks Romel!

Not good news for sure!

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[wlambing]

Gents,

This is NOT new news!!!!! For more than a decade, this has been SOP for the USN. It just surfaces every once in a while, on an otherwise slow news days for some hack writer who thinks he's found some great thing. We (US) don't have enough drydock space or manpower in the remaining Public shipyards to accommodate all of the necessary fleet maintenance and accident fixes (SSN-22, for example). That's what all of the BRAC closures bought you for your non-existent "savings" the used-car salesmen in DC sold themselves and foisted on you over the years!

[Fishb0y]

I've been off submarines now almost as long as I was on them. It still pains me with what happened on SSN-22. She was my last boat, and maybe the 2nd best boat in the fleet capability wise.

[DrSchmidt]

Even made the news in Germany....

[Davjacva]

Over the course of the last week, I've read pretty much the same article by different people in different venues. As a retired sub-vet and worked at both a private shipyard and public over the last 20+ years mainly working on subs, but the last few working on carriers. What they really leave out is the people getting hired into the shipyards, and it's really abysmal and only getting worse. When I retired in 2003, the main hires in Test Engineering were senior retired sub-vets or ex-officers mostly with college. Some E-6's, but mainly chiefs. By the time I left they were hiring senior E-5's which wasn't even allowed by HR 15 years prior, but it was better then the type of college grads they were getting to come in. When I switched shipyards it was even worse on the surface side. Most of the hires into Test Engineering/ Work Control didn't even have an engineering background, so they get hired on the rock bottom...and there were a lot of them. After the initial support project a lot of them quit. This problem is only increasing as the size of the Navy is at rock bottom and there isn't a ready pool of people with (a) background, and (b) willing to WORK. If you've been reading the news over the last few years this has been steady spiraling downward, and as for subs, there isn't a lot of options for support. 3 subs couldn't get underway for 3 years because they couldn't get support from a yard and lost their certs. Pretty shocking stuff. Our leaders are even more shocking to say the least, and i'm glad as hell I'm not in the military now, and definitely couldn't recommend it to anyone. Warfare is not their primary concern anymore.

[CC Clarke]

As an aside, Mare Island (along with every Navy installation in the Bay Area) was shuttered when local politicians (you know their names) decided they didn't need thousands of well-paying, secure jobs. More importantly, the US doesn't have anywhere near the industrial capability to maintain what we have - much less what we want. The surrounding city of Vallejo turned into a ghetto within three years of MINSY's closure. Oakland wasn't doing too hot before, but after the massive Naval Supply Center closure, the downward trend continued. Talk about short-sighted!

I spent 15 years at Trident Refit Facilty and marveled at how we could nail a refit in 24 days. Out of several hundred refits, I don't remember us ever delaying a boat for patrol. We had a strong apprenticeship program, (four years with an Associate's degree awarded at the end after two extra classes) and I got to go to every Navy sonar school I would have had to re-enlist to attend. Out of ten years in the sonar shop, I probably spent at least two in school. Everyone who disliked the local Naval Shipyard (PSNS) transferred to TRF and really liked it.

I transfered to the private sector for 24 years and you had to pull teeth to get any training. Finding skilled workers to perform submarine maintenance is not an easy task; I've seen TRF advertising job fairs with hiring bonuses lately! I was working at Texas Instruments when they made an offer to me, and was happy just to score the job.

[Davjacva]

TRF is an entirely different maintenance world than the rest of the navy has to deal with. It's supporting the most effective part of the nuclear triad. You have life cycle maintenance that pulls items out before they fail, all supply chits in the boomer navy are PRI-2 (unless they're PRI-1); whereas the rest of the navy is PRI-when we feel like sending it to you. Even the old boomers never went to sea with items that were broken, or out of service. With fast boats it was routine. I was pretty shocked when I switched over. During an old boomer refit, IMA was on you as soon as you pulled in to start, which was 4-5 days before the refit. On my last two fast boats, IMA didn't show up for the first week, then they were chopping through your worklist and sending most of your items to the next availability a week prior to ending. It was a joke, and you had absolutely no control over it. All navy ships should be under a TRF program, it's little wonder why subs like the Ohio have been around for 42 years. The kept the Enterprise around for 50, but it was in the yard every 3 years for a couple of years during it's last 20 and a lot of stuff was out of service. The surface navy's support is just pitiful. We could go on and on with the degradation of the military, but it's just one particular point of many of how degraded the military is. I've been out for just over 20 years and have been around the navy since and it's puzzling how it all seems to just get smaller and worse.