Man, I come on here to check for a mod, and see this hot potato.
Here are my two cents:
(1) This is a manning problem. I witnessed first-hand how the Surface Navy uses up sailors, then expects them to conduct super-human feats of prolonged alertness and performance. Folks, the human body is similar to a machine; when the battery starts to get low, it needs a recharging, or it will start to malfunction. I know: I have been so exhausted before that I was hallucinating, a quality you do not desire in a watchstander at sea or anywhere. Somewhere along the way, some high-ranking muckitymuck convinced the Navy they could get away with a certain level of reduced manning because "muh computers," and my experience has been that this was a swindle. Anyone who has been to sea with the Surface Navy has seen the empty racks down in the berthings. These ships were built to carry a certain amount of crew. As long as there are exhausted sailors due in part to pandemic under-manning, there will be mishaps at sea. Further, I am under the unpopular opinion that even with perfect manning, the chance of a mishap remains. Risk can be minimized; it can not be completely eliminated at sea. Godspeed the fallen.
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apparently USN officer didn't have a lot of real naval training
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(2) False. I cannot speak to what goes on at the Naval Academy; I came into SURFOR via OCS. Immediately after commissioning, I attended Surface Warfare Officer School for three weeks. The course included shiphandling, COLREGS, navigation, and simulator time. We practiced getting underway, landing to the pier, underway refueling, anchoring, man overboard drill, and operating in dense traffic and low visibility, all while learning to monitor sensors and manage the bridge team to develop a surface picture. Once I reported aboard, and while underway, I was placed on the bridge watch to learn under instruction of the OOD.
(3) I don't think every SWO has the same training experience, and the lack of uniformity in training is problematic but likely unavoidable. For example, some newly commissioned SWO's report to ships going into the yards, and you can learn some stuff at the simulator labs, but you can't beat learning at sea. Another difference is every commander is different. One way to fix this is to divorce crews from ships, turn over the ships fully to the yards, select and train a crew for deployment, issue them a ship like you would issue a Marine a rifle, they sail on it, then turn it over to the yard when done. But the Navy leadership will never go for this; they are content to have a crew moldering on a dry-docked ship for two years or more (think about nuclear refueling for example). I have some radical ideas on how to fix these issues plaguing SURFOR, but I am allowed to because I now command an armchair. ;D
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(4) The notion that the root cause is some generational problem is a whole cloth invention. These are the hardest working people I've met, and may I propose that if this were a lazy generation:
there would be no volunteers!
(5)Regarding funding, you could audit the Pentagon and the DoD contracting milk wagon and find enough money to launch and man another 500 ships. The whole apparatus is riddled with waste and needs to be leaned up, but enough lunch tickets have been issued that it is politically untenable to clean it up. Maybe I am overly pessimistic on this, oh well.