130 Comments
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Captain Mongo's avatar

As an old CLF guy, this is right on. As I used to tell my crews :"Without us, nobody goes very far, stays very long or does very much.". The Navy is not, and cannot be a business. It must be run to win wars.

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Strategic Sapper's avatar

Logisticians win campaigns...

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Quartermaster's avatar

Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics.

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Quartermaster's avatar

I can't remember what CLF stands for.

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OrwellWasRight's avatar

apparently Combat Logistics Force (I had to look it up too:) )

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Quartermaster's avatar

We used to call the auxiliaries the Service Force.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

Problem is, this isn’t a quick or easy fix. Too much spent on nice hairdo’s and makeup.

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Zorost's avatar

Do you mean that literally or figuratively? Across several sources, I notice there is no mention of the Captain's gender.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

I meant the emasculated navy that is woke.

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Kevin's avatar

There is apparently one female captain of an MSC ship. It's a hard life, even though you make a lot of money.

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Quartermaster's avatar

When you are aboard and underway.

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Lee Wahler's avatar

bull! NOT ENOUGH FUNDING. see my other post

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LT B's avatar

Slow your roll shipmate, we have LCSeses and mission modules. Pixy dust not Fleet Marine Diesel is needed.

And the president asked, "Where's the closest LCS?"

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Zorost's avatar

USNS Big Horn. USNS Harvey Milk. What exactly is the naming policy for ships that carry lube for the Navy? Is there a USNS "Ten Inches n' Thick"?

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The Drill SGT's avatar

I think the Kaiser class was named (half) for Navy shipbuilders and half for rivers. Big Horn is a river

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Zorost's avatar

Thank you for your service increasing autism awareness.

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Scoobs's avatar

Well if a penchant for hauling lube is a qualification for naming auxiliaries then a USNS P-Diddy can't be far behind!

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Roger Autoclave's avatar

🤣🤣🤣

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Pete's avatar

Politics. Admiral Rickover once said that you get nothing by naming a sub after a fish, but a city or a state can generate good will.

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Zorost's avatar

Thank you for your service increasing autism awareness.

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Scoobs's avatar

Probably explains why we're now naming "Virginia Class" SSNs for states, politicians, fish, and now cities - gotta spread the love!

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Lee Wahler's avatar

MSC does NOT get to pick names. It is the SOLELY SECNAVs job

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Zorost's avatar

Thank you for your service increasing autism awareness.

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Oceanmariner's avatar

Should have been called the Dan White.

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campbell's avatar

Geez. all for the want of a simple nai.........er...... fathom line.

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KenofSoCal's avatar

To borrow from the Air Force, NKAWTG. The perfumed prices/princesses of the Potomac strike again.

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sid's avatar

When senior USN leadership pointedly advertises that leading "Sailors" in an identifiable "Navy" isn't important....

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/8133423/cno-and-mcpon-visit-guam

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Musings From Ignored Canada's avatar

Canada is building 2 AOR's. Canada should build 10 or 20 and give them to our allies. Once you get going on a build, the efficiencies just get better and better as you build more. This would likely be the best thing we could do to regain our honour after years of short changing our allies.

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Quartermaster's avatar

Alas, Soviet Canuckistan is a hot mess in their own right.

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Pete's avatar

Assuming you do not change the design every day after signing the contract.

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Roger Autoclave's avatar

Sometimes efficiencies are realized. The 68 class CVNs reversed that expectation.

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Brettbaker's avatar

Interesting part of the video was when TOS said that the crews weren't run ragged when the Navy ran the ships due to Navy regs for sailor time on job. There aren't these restrictions since they're just civilians, so the Navy makes life miserable enough that the CivMars decide to quit after a few years.

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Lee Wahler's avatar

said differently from someone who served on an AF back then:

The USS crews had all sorts of mickey mouse rulle and were Twice the size of modern CLF ships. But the sailors could NOT get off the ship, and nowadays CIVMARs vote with their feet~

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Thomas Grow's avatar

Again, “They castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” H/T CS Lewis

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Ed's avatar

Good thing USS Lincoln wasn’t near that shoal.

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Alan Gideon's avatar

“You can have all the battle force destroyers and carriers you want, but if they cannot be replenished at sea, you have a coastal defense fleet.” I would say that quite nicely sums up the problem. We can either treat the next war as an away game, or a home field game. My guess is that it’s been too long since the Potomac Fleet has heard a shot fired in anger. And that, I would say, is the root of all the Navy’s ship procurement problems. U.S. defense can be described as having four phases - defended by isolation, the A.T. Mahan theory era, the recent 80 year peace dividend sloppy thinking era, and the current head in the sand era. You can see how phase three morphed into phase four; just too many years of a lack of a serious existential threat. The Army and Marine Corps have had the advantage of occasional failures, from which they have learned valuable lessons. The Navy has not, so the fall will be all the greater.

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OrwellWasRight's avatar

"four phases - defended by isolation, the A.T. Mahan theory era, the recent 80 year peace dividend sloppy thinking era, and the current head in the sand era. You can see how phase three morphed into phase four; just too many years of a lack of a serious existential threat."

Almost exactly matches the "weak men create bad times create strong men create good times create weak men" meme.

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Garry Dale Kelly's avatar

No background in this at all but it seems to me that the operative US naval mindset since Korea has been "force projection" and not war fighting capability.

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OrwellWasRight's avatar

Probably a fair statement, if we include airstrikes on ground targets as force projection. There was riverine warfare in Vietnam, but almost all "peer" opponent activity has been projection of power and posturing (which is important as well) as opposed ot any actually "war at sea" type fighting.

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Jetcal1's avatar

Fun times. We can't man, maintain, or sail either the USS or USNS hulls. While at the same time we have the oh so effective LCS blue and gold crews lying pierside along with the Zumwalts sucking up seapay while type II billets go wanting.

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Sicinnus's avatar

Add to it that the Zums and LCSs are "optimally manned" and apparently senior enlisted heavy because that complicated, Tiffany equipment cannot be operated by those with less experience.

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Jetcal1's avatar

I wonder how many miles that class has accumulated under their keels.

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Kevin's avatar

Many thousands.. Or do mean while not being towed?

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Jetcal1's avatar

They should have many tens of thousands. A mere in/out chop to the Med from NorVa is in the mere thousands.

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timactual's avatar

Indeed. If I recall correctly one of the functions of LCS was to reduce costs and maintenance requirements of the fleet by using the cheaper LCS. Instead, we have LCS doing "sea duty" in CONUS ports while real ships do anti-piracy, presence, and other missions.

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Andy's avatar

They are moving to single crews and upping crew and berthing to 112. too little, too late.

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Jetcal1's avatar

Which I'd bet is pretty close to the complement of any one of the USNS ships that were laid up. Seems like that would be a better use of fleet assets.

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sid's avatar

Its time to rethink "manning" [no. I do not care if you are offended by my gender insensitivities] the Service Force like USN owned Merchant ships.

Any damage at all, and this is what we get.

"War" [?] Ships -already way too dependent on tethers to the shore- which can be easily taken out of the fight because the ship that supplies them will have zero Damage Control capabilities.

And, now we see how it goes if you only have one such ship in theater.

Doesn't have to be that way. An example...

When the USN was so hard up to keep the Marines from starving on Guadalcanal, this happened...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/USS_Alchiba_%28AK-23%29_aground_and_afire_off_Lunga_Point_in_November_1942.jpg

Thats after eating the first of three Long Lances...

You can read the rest of the story here:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1996/june/only-her-crew-kept-her-afloat

"Only Her Crew Kept Her Afloat"

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Charles Wemyss, Jr.'s avatar

When we as military no matter the branch and especially as officers and senior enlisted forget the basics, the basics forget you. You can get to the more graphic “forget you” easily. No one is watching the store, no one in the puzzle palace knows a damn thing about the real condition our total fighting force. Sad to say but at this point if a member of the Congress or the cabinet staffs lips are moving they are lying. It’s a shame and someone somewhere down the line will pay a price with their lives. Too quickly the NEO at HKIA in Augist of 2021 is forgotten. How many oilers need to run aground before the lights come on??

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

Wonder what the sailor says when he assigned to the USNS Harvey Milk? Asking for a friend

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Dale Flowers's avatar

^ "This sucks."

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

Lol!!!

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BK's avatar

Its shameful to see this degradation of the US Navy and its supporting vessels.

China just test-fired their DF-41 ICBM into South Pacific today.

We are behaving like old man Rip Van Wrinkle still in slumber.

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