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Well, my other post today talked about how three Army vessels sent to the Med to support the Hamas pier have to thumb a ride home. Like a clapped out Yugo, seems their craft are not seaworthy enough to be trusted to make it home. Well, might not entirely be the Army’s fault they have to beg rides.<\/p>\n
The Navy will reportedly sideline 17 vessels due to a manpower shortage that makes it difficult to properly crew and operate ships across the fleet.<\/p>\n
There just aren’t enough Merchant Marines to keep all the ships going at once, according to Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation for the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, told Fox News Digital. Merchant Marines operate the many support vessels needed to keep the Navy running.<\/p>\n
The Military Sealift Command drafted a plan to put 17 ships into “extended maintenance,” which would include a redistribution of crews to other vessels across the Navy, the U.S. Naval Institute reported.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Think we used to call this a shell game, didn’t we? Robbing Peter to pay Paul? Something like that.<\/p>\n
The ships include two replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases \u2013 the USS Lewis Puller, based in Bahrain and the USS Herschel “Woody” Williams, based in Souda Bay, Greece.<\/p>\n
The effort is known as the “great reset” and is awaiting approval from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. The change will reduce Navy demands for officers by 700 mariners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Not enough Merchant Marines…but some of the ships they are calling out are warships, true? I tend to be lost on anything over 30 feet long, so you experienced Naval-gazers will have to set me straight.<\/p>\n
A support group will consist of one or two ships that will move either in proximity or just behind a carrier group of over half a dozen ships, with specific jobs depending on region. Montgomery highlighted an instance around five years ago when the navy tried to deploy 60 ships but only managed to get 25 to sea due to insufficient numbers of people \u2013 and the age of the ships remains a concern.<\/p>\n
“The average age of the ships in the reserve force is about 45 years old,” Montgomery said. “Between 20 and 30 years is fine, because you don\u2019t have the same issues of modernization of weapon systems and big changes in electrical power distribution \u2026 but 17 of the ships are over 50 years old.”<\/p>\n
The Navy has a 30-year shipbuilding plan that will include the decommissioning of 48 ships to occur over a four-year period that started in 2022, according to Seapower magazine.\u00a0 Fox News<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sure hope Boeing isn’t supplying replacements, they have their hands full just trying to – well, anything right now.\u00a0 ‘Paper Tiger’ is an ugly term for the Navy… hate to see it come into vogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"