Over a Fifth of Navy Ships Aren’t Ready to Fight

[Feuer Frei!]

More than a fifth of the Navy isn’t ready to sail or fight, at a time when demand on the fleet is off the charts. And the number of unready ships is likely to rise as Navy officers try to fix their chronic readiness woes. According to statistics released by Rep. Randy Forbes, the Virginia Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, 22 percent of Navy ships didn’t pass their inspections in 2011. In 2007, just 8 percent of ships were rated as carrying junk equipment or insufficient spare parts. And more than half the Navy’s deployed aircraft — the F/A-18 Hornets, the jamming EA-18G Growlers, the P-3C Orion surveillance plane — aren’t ready for combat.
The Navy’s surface fleet goes into the water banged up. Its aircraft carriers, frigates, destroyers spend nearly 40 percent of their deployment time with “at least one major equipment or systems failure,” according to a chart Forbes released at a hearing on Tuesday. That can include “anti-air defenses, radar, satellite communications, or engines.” Let’s not forget that even the new ships are disintegrating.
And the demand on the Navy is huge. Consider the last year at sea. U.S. Navy ships and aircraft performed support missions for Iraq and Afghanistan. They helped with disaster relief after Pakistani floods and a Japanese tsunami/earthquake. They fought Somali pirates and spearheaded an ongoing war in Libya.


SOURCE

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

22 percent of Navy ships didn’t pass their inspections in 2011.

No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection.
- Joe Gay

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Platapus

No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection.
- Joe Gay

I thought there weren't supposed to be any Gays in the military.

[vienna]

The lack of readiness or fitness of various American military units has been a long standing problem. IIRC, when the U.S. bombed Libya in 1986, it was publicized a four groups of aircraft were sent on the raid. However, a fifth group was following the main group to replace any aircraft that might not make it to the target area(s). This works out, in total, to an allowance for about a 20-25% failure rate, depending on whether you base the calculation on just the publicized group or the entire numner of planes launched.

An acquiantance of mine who served in West Germany during the Cold Was once told me it was general knowledge that between 25-35% of the ground armor and transports in U.S. units were either unusable or in repair at any given time.

Going further back, in 1970 the U.S. launched a raid on the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam to attempt to free POWs. There is a book titled "The Raid" that gives a description of the efforts of the specially formed assault team to procure weapons, munitions, and other support equipment to carry out the raid. The quality of the weapons and munitions they were able to draw from U.S. military government stores was so poor and unreliable, the unit was forced to obtain weapons and ammuntion from outside, public sources, (gun shops, etc.); at one point, they were looking for a rifle-mounted night vision device and the Pentagon sent over their (then) latest model, an experimental unit bigger and heavier than the weapon on which it was to be mounted. The problem was solved when one member of the unit remembered seeing a night vision device advertisted in the back of a gun magazine. With a little adaptaion, the device, far smaller and lighter than the "official" unit, was installed a was used in the raid.

Given the lack of supply of body armor and the use of "hillbilly armor" in the Iraq War, the continuing lack of support from the upper reaches and commands of the military leadership for the safety and welfare of the troops seems to continue.

[Stealhead]

I thought that the Son Toy raid guys used a very early version of red dot sight that was made by a Swedish company and was not something even is US military inventory I have not read the same things you gather from your book are sure what was said was accurate or perhaps the author was opinionated? I find the rifle mounted night sight hard to believe no one in the early 70s would have had technology to make a sight that was less bulky than the "Star Scope" that was available at the time that is too bulky for CQC combat they did find use for the early red dot though.Hell just in the past ten yers have night scopes gotten small enough not be to bulky for close combat.

I know for a fact that the CIA provided the raiders with a special shotgun called the "duckbill" which they asked the CIA to design it had a special choke because they needed something to allow them to kick in the doors of the guards barracks and kill them easily without using grenades the CIA gave them the duckbills and they where excellent.Also SOG was a black program and got money to procure its needs from what ever source they deemed necessary for example many SOG and their mercenaries used AK-47s(more often the Type 56 the Chinese version) the demand for ammo was high enough that a South Korean factory was secretly making 7.62x39 ammo and also magazines for them.

I was given this information from a good friend of mine who is a plumber he was in SOG back in then from 68-72 I trust what he says over any author.I know he speaks the truth because he he has shown me photos of himself and Hmong mercenaries that worked with him.

Having been in the military myself I can agree that at times things are not in the best supply or condition but much of that is unavoidable there is not one military unit in any military that is at 100% all the time that just never happens.Also "not ready for combat" does not necessarily mean that something rated as such can not still perform in combat effectively it just means that it is not up to what ever the pencil pushers rate as "combat ready" in one case it may just be lacking a certain device or system but has everything else in others it may truly be incapable.For example my old unit in Germany we had the busiest section of flight line on the whole base but the least amount of equipment as a result our unit always showed up as being below the numbers because we had just enough serviceable units to cover demand the other units had more than enough but we always where ahead on run times which meant that the aircraft always got what they needed and never where delayed on our part the our sister units had lower run rates than we did.So on paper they where better units but in action they where worse go figure.

As to the Libya thing it is very common where possible in an extremely important operation to have back up units in case primary units fail or have some sort of problem and need to turn back that is very common and sound military tactic even Alexander the Great did this it is what you call reserves(and I do not mean US Army Reserves).And at the same time in the Cold War Warsaw Pacts tank levels would really have been 40-45%.

some pics of the Swedish red dot sights:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_femhrxbNtS...CK_MEADOWS.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_femhrxbNtS...LY_K_MOORE.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_femhrxbNtS...AID_SCOPES.jpg
http://seanlinnane.blogspot.com/2010...-tay-raid.html
http://shootery.blogspot.com/2010/07...int-sight.html

clearly not a night vision sight clearly a red dot sight.Also they used XM-177s aka CAR-15s and M193 ammo the same ammo used by any us troop at that time.

Sorry but when I see a clearly incorrect statement it really irks me.

[TLAM Strike]

The Chinese Navy on average conducts 3.5 submarine patrols a year since 2000, that is out of a fleet of over 55 submarines. Our fleet of around 50 subs does 100 patrols a year on average.

Yea our ships leave port and do stuff that is why they wear out so fast!

I would rather have crews wearing out ships that have ships and crews sit around doing nothing. Crew training is the most important single thing in the Navy, without highly trained crews we might as well be the Saudi Navy...

[Stealhead]

I agree for how large our military need is and with what we have man power and equipment wise we do a very good job.We work hard we train hard in the US military that as a result makes us better prepared than most nations in reality I dont give a damn what some paper says.

[vienna]

I thought that the Son Toy raid guys used a very early version of red dot sight that was made by a Swedish company and was not something even is US military inventory I have not read the same things you gather from your book are sure what was said was accurate or perhaps the author was opinionated? I find the rifle mounted night sight hard to believe no one in the early 70s would have had technology to make a sight that was less bulky than the "Star Scope" that was available at the time that is too bulky for CQC combat they did find use for the early red dot though.Hell just in the past ten yers have night scopes gotten small enough not be to bulky for close combat.

The book I mentioned above was written by Benjamin F. Schemmer and he had access to primary sources involved in the operation. Some of his particulars can be found here:

Obituary: http://www.blogofdeath.com/archives/000468.html

There is also a page showing a computerized depiction of the raid (an interest but somewhat poor quality video):

http://www.sontayraider.com/


What I wrote above was not a direct quote from the book; it was based on my recollection (hence the IIRC: "If I Recall Correctly"). The book gives a detailed account of the failure of munitions drawn from quartermaster stores and the choices made regarding weapons. The CIA was quite involved in the planning and execution of the Son Tay raid but denied any involvment after it failed to rescue any POWs and resulted in the deaths of Chinese Red Army personnel. In the book is a photo of the scale table-top model of the Son Tay camp with a plaque stating the model came from the CIA. It seems the CIA was proud of the plan but not of the results.

The "night sight" may indeed been a "red dot" type aiming device; it has been some time since I last read the book and I can not find my copy at the moment (I have sveral hundreds of books and, no, they are not fully organized, much like myself). I do recall specifically that the book clearly stated the "night sight" given to them by the military was large, unwieldly, and inaccuarate enough to be highly ineffective. That is why, in addition to making purchases of "civilian" ammo, they also turned to a non-military source for the "night sight", among many other items.

The readiness of aircraft is quite different than land units; aircraft, by nature, are highly technical and require much more maintenance than ground units. It is more likely an aircraft is "ready to roll" than a gound unit that is used much more often. I would also venture that a line aircraft gets much more prompt attention than, say an armored vehicle or transport. The basic psychology is you can always run away from a malfuctioning ground vehicle, but it is much more difficult at 20,000 feet up. Also losing a ground vehicle is much less expensive than losing a multi-mutil-million dollar aircraft. Please have a little pity for the plight of the ground soldier.

I would really suggest reading the book "The Raid"; I am sure many of the facts you noted are covered in the book and, besides, it is one heck of a good read...

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

The Chinese Navy on average conducts 3.5 submarine patrols a year since 2000, that is out of a fleet of over 55 submarines. Our fleet of around 50 subs does 100 patrols a year on average.

Yea our ships leave port and do stuff that is why they wear out so fast!

I would rather have crews wearing out ships that have ships and crews sit around doing nothing. Crew training is the most important single thing in the Navy, without highly trained crews we might as well be the Saudi Navy...

Don't be so sure. It is not clear what made up one of those patrols. If they didn't count the little training cruises, then the ratio might be a lot more even.

Patrols are valuable experience that brief training cruises can't match, but neither are patrols substitutes for those training cruises. Even with on board computerized trainers you can't do some training on patrol and that affects your readiness. So America with its huge number of patrols probably is not making the most efficient use of its days at sea, from a proficiency perspective.