Sacked...
 

I read these stories about suspended/relieved/sacked/you name it commanders that collide with the surface traffic or run aground. Why is the Navy court this hard on them?
There is no, like, second chance?:damn:

Well, can you really screw up anymore than running a ship you've been entrusted with aground?

It runs with the assumption that the captain is 100% responsible for his ship. It's a position of absolute command, and with that comes the responsibility.

I still think that they are way too hard on these men....:shifty:

Weed out the weak, only the strong will remain.

I mean, it could happen to anyone. As for the punisment, maybe one rank below than the present one, but to end a whole career.
That sucks...:down:

I think it is unfair. By civilian standards. But by civilian standards the captain's powers over his ship would also be considered rather despotic - you don't question the captain. It's a very hierarchical structure, and one where errors are not forgiven.

Another oversight on his ship could result in much worse than the captain's sacking, and there's no second chances there either.

If no one questions the skip, then why are commands confirmed several times?
To minimize the possibility of error, and XO & Chief should also see if there's any danger and inform the cap.
:hmm:

Officers do not generally get second chances in any branch of the military for any reason.

Like the boarding inqury would do any better...:|\\

No, it doesn't happen to competent captains, only incompetent ones. If your ship runs over someone else's, it's your fault. If your ship gets run over, it's your fault, even if you were asleep in your bunk at the time.

After HMS Melbourne ran over and sank USS Frank Evans in 1969, both captains ended up losing their commands. Later in 1970 my ship was doing maneuvers with the Melbourne. I was a radioman on the midwatch, and was surprised to find our captain up on the bridge a 02:30. He wasn't taking any chances.

It's an old tradition. Even part of the Horation Hornblower novels are concerned with how precarious a command is. There was also an episode of JAG in which a ship ran aground, and the captain had to explain to marine lawyer Colonel McKenzie why his next command would be a desk.

I'm not saying it's necessarily right; it's just the way the navy looks at it.

My company commander (Kaleu A.....) in basic training lost command of his S-Boat (Hyäne, I think) by driving it up on the beach in Kiel for almost its entire lenght because the engine telegraph man misunderstood an order (ahead flank instead of back emergency).
She came to rest on a bicylce shed, crushing a few bikes.
He phoned his squadron commander "sir, we broke some bicycles"
"Ok, then throw them away.."
"Not possible, our boat lies on top of them!"
After that he was reassigned to recruit training and I must say he sucked even there...
:rotfl:
And no, he was not named Bernard.

But what about the situation where there is an increased surface traffic, shallow water and degraded sonar preformance. And still cap's fault? That's major BS!

LOL!!!:rotfl:

At the end of the day your the captain the navy has given you a $1 billion dollar toy to go play with they dont want thier money wasted because the captain has banged her into a ship or run her aground, and as the captain is soley responcible for every action the buck stops with him.

Same with us guys even though a loader who is putting the rubbish on the back the driver is fully responcible for anything that should not be there regardless if he knows its there or not, not only that a dust cart costs around £100 grand mark so the council has entrusted that driver to look after it being overwieght costs the drive per 100kg (£10 per 100kg) it comes out of his wages at the end of the month.

Now a navy cant do that cause you smash up a billion dollar sub, and cause 90 million dollar damage no matter how many times you re mortgauge your house you wtill will never be able to pay for it.

It is almost impossible to give out a proper order based on incoplete and unverified information that is given at the moment...:arrgh!:
Put one of the JAG's to man any station, he would not be capable enough to operate it, let alone to command a boat. Since it is dificult and complicated task, I think for that reason the navy judges should cool a bit. If they keep this as a tradition, who would command their subs?

That is a good point here in the RN we are running low on submarineers apparently (dont know if its true or not ramius will probably know) but if we kept doing that to our skippers then no sub would be able to go to sea dont forget we have what 12 subs, although america can afford to loose a few along the way at this rate they wont be able to sustain the loss which means more and more incompetant officers are drafted to a command inexperianced which causes more and more problems and accidents and its just a cycle.

If i was an employer about to employ a captain to command one of my new boats and i had a guy with a 20 year unblemished record but not paper work qualified, and a 28 year old fresh from sub school with no experiance in command and certificates coming out of thier ear holes i personaly would choose the older guy simply because he has been there done that.

Of corse its the other way round now days.

I totally agree 100% with you, Kapitan! Nothing beats the experience, but I assume US NAVY has sub commanders of age at least 35, no?:hmm:

Many valid points gentlemen.

But do not forget we are dealing with the military here.

These are institutions which in some cases have centuries of tradition behind them.
They have always done things these ways, and always will.
These traditions have served them well for hundreds of years.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.

You cannot apply civilian standards to a uniform service in these situations without damaging the service which you seek to improve.

Military forces work best when given clear, unambiguous orders by the civilian leadership and are then left to carry said orders out in the manner they see fit without interferrence.

According to what im told by a RN officer once he stated we have commanders of the age of 28 in command of warships and submarines, now average age is around 35 -38 but he was on about the really young ones.

In WW2 some of the RN submarine commanders were in their early twenties.Thirty eight was considerd retirement age.