The Ship Model Forum

Here's a new eye opener of a book from the USNI Press.

"lessons Not Learned" The U.S. Navy's Status Quo Culture by Roger Thompson

Despite it's reputation in the world, there is evidence that the U.S. Navy is in trouble. Inexpensive diesel submarines routinely beat U.S. nuclear subs. Air Force pilots from various countries frequently beat Navy Pilots, whose weapons are often improperly tested. The "UP or OUT" promotion system, massive personnel turnover, inexperience and drug and alcohol abuse have taken a huge toll also and made it difficult for the Navy to build cohesive well-trained combat units.
"Lessons Not Learned" offers a compelling, often scathing assessment of the Navy's "Learning disability" in certain areas and offers a firm argument for reform, improvement and change.

That's the lead in from the USNI book catalog promotion for this book. In other words, not an opinion of liberal know-nothings. How do we react to this I wonder??


Myself, I have long felt that civilian life is now so comfortable, and high paying, and soft that many of America's best if not most of America's best, would not touch military service with a ten foot pole. It was a hard road when I was 17 and joined up, I suspect it still is a hard road. But we expected it to be hard. Can today's Navy count on smart kids to sign up when they can get a high paying 9-5 job making computer games ,selling insurance, working on Wall street or playing pro sports?

Can our Navy be less than the efficient machine we think it is. Would an Iran war against some modern weapons systems reveal weaknesses we don't suspect? Like early in WWII when our experinced Sub commanders turned out to be over cautious, under trained and quite simply not up to the job of war?

Bob B.

The real problem is the bias of the last two or three administrations against expensive naval equipment, maintenance and operations. The Navy is a direct orphan of Saddam Hussain.

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If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

-- "A Nation at Risk" (1983)

imo even if a few other countries have better pilots than the USN we would still get the job done. Just look at the numbers of carriers i have a cool picture i found on the internet a while back comparing all the carriers of the world. The USN has more deck space than the rest of the world COMBINED. If a diesel sub beat a few of our nuc attack subs that would be bad, but considering how large a CTF is one of the destroyers/asw helicopters or one of the other attack subs would get it before it would pose a serious threat to a carrier. All that said, its good to have some criticism, because we will never be perfect and if it shows a weakness that they havent thought about before thats great. Then they will be able to fix it and be a better navy for it.

Without money to train, maintain, or replace equipment and personel the Navy will continue to have big problems with readiness.
They have little or no "visible" role currently and are suffering accordingly. Also, the need for big deck carriers are still viewed as primary and are absorbing large quanities of available funds.
Politics will continue as usual unless something requiring a very visible Navy and money will not be available until the SHTF and then it will be too late.

I don't understand how the media and our elected officials can take anything as a lesson from our last three wars. It is very likely the next war will be more like the one that began in 1950 than the one which began in 1993.

Our high-technology may buy some time to adapt on the ground or in the air, but ships take years to build, and so do their crews.

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If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

-- "A Nation at Risk" (1983)

I posted on another model website, mainly an aircraft one, that the Navy basicly got a 30 year old airframe in the F-18E/F. Compaired to what the USAF is getting hardware wise the USN got a jacked up 30 year old design. Needless to say I got considerable considerable push back on the subject by those that defend the status quo. It hasn't made much sense to me that spending several billion dollars on a state of the art nuclear carrier then equipping it with a 30 year old fighter design that lost in a fly off, being pressed into service also as an attack, ecm, tanker, jack of all trades-master of none airframe, was short sighted or even criminal on the part of the USN. Any thoughts?

jpk,

The reason this aircraft lost in a fly off wasn't because the aircraft was not any good...you have to remember which aircraft it flew against in the fly off, which aircraft was it?

I am amazed that you would call the F-18 a 30 year old air frame considering the aircarft is still production. Moreover the air frame has been updated with the newest electronic,i.e., databuse update. I think you confusing the design history of the aircraft with it's current
operational roles.....If the air frame is 30 years old then why countries lining up to buy the aircraft? Why did this 30 year old air frame replace the F-14? Why is this 30 year old air frame now under consideration for the new ECM role? AS far as the ACMI capabilities of the F-18 is still a hard advisary to content with. The capablilities of this aircraft has proven you wrong about the Navy being "Jacked Up"

Once the F-35 comes online the current fleet of fighters will be either retired because high time on the air frames or be used in another role.

The for the Nuclear Carriers in the fleet....those had been in the pipe for years and funding for said carriers was approved long before the construction started. For every new carrier to come on line, an oil burner is retired. Most of the old carriers are to be dismantled or donated as a floating museum. Most of the other countries wanting a carrier could not afford to even meet manning requirement's let alone the operating cost.

Regards
Dave

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Peter,

Thank you! I would agree.


Regards
Dave