Naval munitions normally have different standards for things like HERO/sensitivity/etc. Even the Mk 8x series have different Navy and Air Force versions. The Navy ones have an extra ablative coating to delay cooking off if they’re in a fire. One might conclude that the Air Force finds replacing people to be cheaper than the coatings….
One of the major issues in getting AGS to fire conventional rounds actually is the barrel. They had to reduce the rifling twist rate to throw the LRLAP to the point it can’t accurately fire conventional rounds. There might also be a fusing problem with the twist rate.
US Navy News
Re: US Navy News
‘Not a suggestion’: Senators prod Navy’s Del Toro for failure to respond to amphib questions
By Justin Katz
June 13, 2023
WASHINGTON — More than a dozen lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee today sent a letter to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro admonishing him for failing to respond to their questions about the Navy’s compliance to a new law requiring the service to maintain a 31-amphibious warship fleet.
The letter [PDF], which was first reported by POLITICO, specifically refers to Del Toro’s April 18 appearance before the committee in which he pledged to “come back” to the committee with “a statement on how we can fix this,” referring to the disparity between the Navy’s long-term shipbuilding plan and the amphibious fleet required by law. The senators also took exception with the fact Del Toro had appeared just 24 hours after the committee received the Navy’s plan, leaving members little time to review it.
“The Navy’s current plan not only violates the statutory requirement, but also jeopardizes the future effectiveness of the joint force, especially as we consider national security threats in the Indo-Pacific,” according to the letter, organized by Sen. Sullivan, R-Ala., and signed by 13 Democratic and Republican senators who are also SASC members. Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I, was not among the signatories, but Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., was.
The amphib requirement, the letter said, “is not a suggestion but a requirement based on the assessed needs of the Navy and the Marine Corps.”
During a confirmation hearing today for Gen. Eric Smith to become the Marine Corps commandant, Sullivan briefly mentioned the letter, and entered it in the public record, saying the letter gives a “clear indication” about how the committee feels about the Navy’s “failure” to meet the 31-ship requirement.
The letter gives the Navy secretary a June 19 deadline to respond to the committee’s questions and provide an “updated shipbuilding plan.” A spokesman for Del Toro did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter.
Separately, the House Armed Services Committee on Monday took the first steps to adding unrequested funds to the Navy’s budget so that the Marine Corps can begin building the next San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock.
The House panel also included provisions in its draft legislation to shut down the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, which a senior congressional aide linked directly to lawmakers’ dispute with the Defense Department over the need for more amphibious ships.
“Congress made that determination and that is the requirement now for the… Marines. But CAPE is going in and telling members, ‘I don’t know if that’s the right one,'” the aide said. “So, I think members are very confused as to why CAPE thinks they can come back and [decide] they’re not going to listen to Congress.”
Re: US Navy News
TRANSCOM looking for more tankers to move fuel in shallower water between Pacific island chains
By Justin Katz
June 08, 2023
WASHINGTON — The commander of US Transportation Command says her agency is working on finding and recruiting 10 additional tanker vessels, especially those that can operate in shallower water, as part of a congressionally authorized program to boost the Defense Department’s ability to move fuel in and around the Indo-Pacific.
“We are concerned about fuel tanker vessels and not having enough US-flagged vessels to meet our requirements,” Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, the four-star Air Force general overseeing US TRANSCOM, said during a Brookings Institute event on Tuesday. Van Ovost referenced the newly established Tanker Security Program and said America can now lean on 10 US-flagged and -manned merchant marine tankers, but she wants to double that.
“We’re working on the next 10 as well to be able to assuredly move fuel inside the first and second island chain” stretching west of Guam to international waters off China, where shallow drafts prevent access for vessels already available to the command.
Lawmakers initially authorized the Tanker Security Program in the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act to give the Pentagon and the Maritime Administration (MARAD), a Transportation Department agency focused on civilian shipping, the flexibility to boost the military’s capacity for auxiliary vessels designed to move large amounts of fuel.
Through the program, MARAD pays stipends to the owners of privately-owned, militarily useful ships and, in exchange for the payment, those ships’ owners agree to assist the federal government if called upon.
The initial program directed the agencies to find and recruit 10 vessels, the capabilities of which have focused on establishing “consolidation stations to support underway refueling of the US Navy’s combat fleet,” a command spokesman told Breaking Defense on Wednesday.
“Authorized to begin this October, the [next 10] will target smaller, shallower draft tanking vessels to increase options for bulk fuel distribution across Indo-Pacific [area of responsibility], across all operational phases,” he said.
The spokesman added that lawmakers expanded the program from 10 to 20 ships at US TRANSCOM’s request “to increase assured intra-theater port access.”
But before TRANSCOM and MARAD can sign any contracts with ship owners, the congressional language directs the agencies to provide lawmakers with a report outlining “industry’s capacity” to support the program, the implementation timeline for bringing 20 vessels into the program by October 2024 and an assessment of whether a $6 million per-vessel stipend will be sufficient to attract participants.
The Pentagon’s shortfall in auxiliary vessels, such as tankers, and other sealift-oriented ships has been a longstanding concern for US TRANSCOM and Van Ovost’s predecessors. In 2020, then-US TRANSCOM chief Army Gen. Stephen Lyons issued a dire warning to lawmakers about the potential for a full-blown crisis in the Pentagon’s sealift capacity by 2025 if the status quo was not changed.
Since then, lawmakers have taken a series of steps to head off the problems Lyons predicted, such as the Tanker Security Program, and one of the Navy’s senior admirals overseeing logistics has said he believes the service has made “tremendous progress” in recapitalizing its sealift fleet.
Still though, the current MARAD chief has said there’s little more room for error.
“We’re moving forward… with all best speed to execute the vessel acquisition manager program,” MARAD Administrator Ann Phillips, who is also a retired Navy admiral, said in April, referring to a key effort that features industry helping the government scout out and purchase potentially useful sealift vessels. “But we can’t afford a lapse. I’ll be honest there. Any hesitation and we’re going to start to slip backwards.”
Re: US Navy News
Block V Virginia-class attack subs delayed 2 years due to staffing problems: GAO
By Justin Katz
June 08, 2023
WASHINGTON — Independent government auditors have found the Navy’s Virginia-class fast attack submarine program is continuing to “degrade,” and that problems with “staffing and work efficiency estimates” will result in each Block V boat taking an average of “over [two] years longer than reported last year.”
“Due to delays, program officials are developing a new, more realistic schedule for Block V. They said that they expect to complete this process in early 2023,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office outlining the status of various major Pentagon weapon system programs.
Auditors wrote that program officials said the Navy’s shipbuilders lack a sufficient workforce to complete the Virginia-class program while also building Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. “They noted VCS construction is about 25 percent below staffing needs as of September 2022,” according to the report. The potential for the workload of building both two Virginia-class submarines as well as one Columbia-class submarine each year to overwhelm the Navy and its industrial workforce has been a longstanding fear voiced by the Pentagon and lawmakers over the years.
GAO also noted that the shipbuilders are starting to outsource certain submarine work that they may have otherwise done in their own yards. Breaking Defense reported earlier this year that General Dynamics Electric Boat, the prime contractor for the Virginia-class submarines, tapped Austal USA to produce two modules destined for both submarine classes.
The report states that the issues that have caused scheduling delays are also prompting cost increases, which will lead the Navy to seek additional funds from Congress to finish building the Block V boats.
“While the fixed price incentive contract set target and ceiling prices for each submarine, program officials reported that the VCS shipbuilders have not met the work efficiency and material cost estimates that informed the target pricing,” according to the report. “Consequently, the Navy plans to request more funds to complete Block V, as its prior budget requests covered the target prices, but not up to the ceiling prices.” The report does not provide specific dollar amounts related to the cost increases.
A spokesman for General Dynamics Electric Boat today declined to comment on the GAO report when reached by Breaking Defense. A spokesperson for Naval Sea Systems Command, which oversees submarine construction for the Navy, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
GAO routinely solicits the Pentagon’s feedback as part of its annual audits. In their report, auditors stated the Navy’s program office said it “remains challenged” to meet a two ship per year construction rate. Program officials also told GAO that the Navy is working with its shipbuilders and investing in the submarine industrial base to improve the program’s production capacity.
Re: US Navy News
Defense secretary taps Pacific Fleet’s Paparo to be top Navy officer
By Geoff Ziezulewicz and Megan Eckstein
June 12, 2023
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has recommended to the president that Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, become the Navy’s 33rd chief of naval operations.
NBC News first reported Monday that Paparo’s name was sent to the White House last week.
Two defense officials with direct knowledge of the process, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, confirmed the accuracy of the NBC report.
President Joe Biden would still need to formally nominate Paparo and send the pick to Congress for approval.
Monday’s news flew in the face of conventional Beltway wisdom, with some news reports and talking heads predicting that the current vice chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, would become the next CNO and the first woman to hold the title and to serve on the Joint Chiefs.
Multiple sources said privately that high-ranking Pentagon officials were operating under the assumption Franchetti would be nominated for CNO right up until the NBC story broke. Last week, several current and retired flag officers told Defense News that Franchetti’s selection for the job was among the “worst-kept secrets” in Washington.
White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Paparo assumed command of PACFLEET — the tip of the Navy spear when it comes to containing China — in May 2021.
His spokesperson did not return a request for comment Monday afternoon.
While Franchetti was expected to be nominated as CNO, command of PACFLEET has in the past often led to the job of leading the joint-force U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, a route taken by current INDOPACOM head Adm. John Aquilino.
Navy officials declined to comment on the Paparo nomination Monday, and Defense Department officials declined to provide an on-record comment by Navy Times’ deadline.
“This is a Presidential decision,” Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Ryan Perry said in a statement. “The United States Navy has several highly qualified senior leaders, and it would be inappropriate to speculate which leader the President will nominate to serve as the next Chief of Naval Operations.”
The current CNO, Adm. Mike Gilday, became the top naval officer in August 2019.
Gilday is statutorily required to step down after four years. His last day will be Aug. 21, and the following day a new leader will have to be in charge. If Biden’s pick for CNO cannot be confirmed by that date — a possibility, as Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is not allowing military nominations to move forward in the Senate — then Franchetti will be called upon to perform the duties of CNO.
Arnold Punaro, a former staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Defense News that the services’ current vice chiefs can perform the duties of chief with no limitations, should there be a delay in the Senate confirming new service chiefs.
Re: US Navy News
Navy Recruiting
Navy cancels plan to force recruiters to work six days a week
By Geoff Ziezulewicz
June 30, 2023
The Navy announced Friday that it is halting a plan to force the service’s recruiters to work six days a week.
That about-face comes a day after Navy Times reported that the service’s roughly 3,900 recruiters had been told they would have to work an extra day each week starting July 8, as the Navy and other branches grapple with a recruiting crisis.
An email that Rear Adm. Alexis Walker, the head of Navy Recruiting Command, sent to recruiters this week — obtained by Navy Times — informed them of the forced extra work time and called it “a warfighting imperative.”
But late Friday afternoon an admiral above Walker, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, announced the six-day work week policy would not be going into effect.
In an email accompanying a statement by Cheeseman, Capt. Jodie Cornell, his spokesperson, said “the Navy is committed to providing a work-life balance for our personnel.” She declined further comment.
In his statement, Cheeseman does not specifically mention the six-day work week policy, but does note that the Navy had more contracts signed this past May than it did in May 2022.
“The reality is we have a projected shortfall, need a healthy pipeline of people enlisting, and need to grow our Delayed Entry Program,” Cheeseman said. “Our recruiters are the people who make that happen. We will continue to do everything to support our recruiters, adjust policy when we see an opportunity and remain focused on ensuring we have a force ready to fight.”
The Navy expects to fall short of its enlisted recruiting target of 37,000 recruits by between 6,000 to 7,000 bodies when this fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, according to the email Walker sent earlier this week.
The Navy barely made its recruiting quota back in fiscal 2022 and had to drain its delayed-entry pool of recruits to make mission.
“I am not being dramatic when I say that our inability to bring in the right numbers and types of people … impacts our ability to fight and win,” Walker wrote in his email to those under his command. “Recruiting is the prime mover — the thing that makes everything else go — for the entire Navy.”
Walker’s email also suggested that recruiters could go back to a regular work week if they brought in more recruits.
“I want to place the ball in your court and let you control how long we need to be” on a six-day work week, his email states.
Re: US Navy News
Surface Warfare Tackles Persistent Problems as More than Half of JOs Say They Don’t Want Command
By: Sam LaGrone
June 19, 2023
Over the last year, the Navy surveyed 2,500 officers on the highs and lows of a surface warfare career. The results surprised no one.
“SWOs of every rank take great pride in working with junior sailors. Our wardroom enjoys positive peer relationships, broadly has a strong bond with their commanding officers and appreciates the level of responsibility in their work,” reads the introduction to the survey.
“We also learned that fewer than half of our junior officers desire command. Most officers believe we are not retaining top talent. There is much frustration about our administrative requirements and the number of unqualified junior officers on each ship.”
Anyone familiar with surface warfare knows that frustrations about time away from home, too many JOs and a punishing amount of administrative paperwork are as common as mustard on a hotdog.
In 2021, the Government Accountability Office studied Navy career trends and found since 2004 SWOs had the shortest average careers of the major warfare communities in the Navy and surface warfare had a harder time generating department heads for ships.
“U.S. Navy officials stated that SWO retention to the department head milestone is low and requires them to commission nearly double the number of SWOs every year than needed, to ensure they have enough department heads eight years later,” reads the report.
The surface navy has polled its force every two years since 1999 and reached similar conclusions. Now, SWO leadership is trying to make better use of its data to make the community more appealing.
“There’s inherently a lot of friction on the ship,” Capt. Andy Koy, director of SURFOR commander’s action group at Naval Surface Warfare and former destroyer commander, told USNI News in an interview. “How can we reduce some of that?”
For example, having a ship full of ensigns competing for time on the bridge discourages SWOs from staying for the long haul, the community has found.
“Having a lower number of ensigns aboard, or the wardrooms that have a lower density [of officers] tend to have a greater feeling of connected value among junior officers. There’s definitely something to that,” Koy said.
Since the 2017 fatal collisions in the Western Pacific, the Navy has poured billions into training SWO ensigns that also makes better use of their time underway, USNI News reported from an underway aboard USS Halsey (DDG-97).
SURFOR has been on a drive to tie the thousands of data inputs the command gets from each ship to an overall dashboard for the health of the force. In parallel with the survey, analysis over time shows that the surface ship with the lowest density of officers tend to produce more department heads overall.
“We are bringing in 20 percent fewer officers next year – largely in response to this knowing that the ships with the lowest density of officers produce the highest percentage of department heads,” Cmdr. Bill Golden, deputy for the commander’s action group, told USNI News.
To keep the SWO pool healthy, the Navy is also targeting junior grade lieutenant SWOs with two to four years in the service, since the study found they are the most likely to leave.
“Many officers are likely making the decision to either stay in the Navy or remain a SWO as a LTJG. LTJGs are serving as either 1st or 2nd tour division officers on ships, and their satisfaction is most influenced by administrative burdens, equitable workload and work performance recognition,” reads the report.
In terms of complaints, the survey found that “most JOs are dissatisfied with administrative requirements, workload distribution, and working hours during shipyard availabilities.”
There were also specific reasons that women tended to leave the surface fleet.
“Junior officers were asked which reasons contribute the most to their desire to separate from the Navy. While men and women had similar trends, women expressed a stronger overall desire to separate from the service, with the ability to start a family as the leading reason why they plan to leave the Navy,” reads the survey.
Some JOs said they were reluctant to take the training to be a Weapons Tactic Instructor – a specialized training in a specific warfare area like mine warfare or air and missile defense – due to complications to train as a WTI and also attend graduate school.
An overwhelming number of junior officers wanted specialized career paths that would slot them as ship drivers, engineers or weapons system specialists.
In line with the findings, SURFOR will hold a junior officer symposium later this summer to gather more input on correcting some of the problems identified.
One innovation in use now is increased automation for tedious tasks like reporting a casualty on a ship.
“You have to go from a piece of equipment being broken to that report leaving the ship,” Golden said.
“We have ships doing that – are doing that in a not-quite-automated fashion. It’s not quite chatGPT. But there, they’re much smoother about getting that from the O1 who’s writing it, who’s through to the O6 to have it released and saving time and allowing [SWOs] to focus on… how to teach their sailors about warfighting and how to get better ship handling.”
The structure of the anonymous survey reinforced one positive for Koy and Golden.
“There was no one looking over their shoulder. They were able to take this survey on their own and they said, ‘Leading sailors and working with the people I am charged to lead is what I find the most valuable’,” Golden said.
“I think that is fundamental to what it means to be a SWO. On the first day you step on a ship, you might not know… what a CASREP even is, but you can help create a team and build that connection from your lowest-ranking sailor throughout that division and make it a place that people look forward to going to work.”
"New details emerge" USS Bonhomme Richard fire
What do you folks make of this......Commander? 
New details emerge about the 2020 Bonhomme Richard fire, ahead of censure of three-star
By Megan Eckstein
WASHINGTON — The initial response to the July 2020 fire that destroyed the multibillion-dollar amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was uncoordinated and hampered by confusion as to which admiral should cobble together Navy and civilian firefighters, according to new information from the then-head of Naval Surface Forces.
The discombobulation in those early hours meant sailors may have missed a small window to contain the fire in a storage area. One admiral who said he lacked authority to issue an order pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier. And when that admiral — now-retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown — found the situation so dire that he called on other another command to intervene, it refused, Brown said in an interview.
Brown, who led Naval Surface Forces and Naval Surface Force Pacific from January 2018 to August 2020, told Defense News in June he set up an ad hoc chain of command to coordinate trying to save the ship that Sunday morning, after seeing lower-level leaders struggle to communicate or to fight the fire aggressively. The move came after the fleet’s operational chain of command declined to step in due to confusion over who had control over the ship.
An investigation into the fire, released in October 2021, outlined several failures leading up to the fire and during the response. But Brown’s comments offer additional details and a new perspective on how the fire response came together and what was left out of the formal investigation.
Brown said he is sharing his story with Defense News now as he faces a secretarial letter of censure. He was named in the investigation as contributing to the loss of the ship, but was cleared by what’s known as a Consolidated Disposition Authority in December. He said he was not interviewed for the investigation into the fire.
Capt. J.D. Dorsey, a spokesman for Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, told Defense News “the secretary is still in the process of reviewing the command investigation and has not yet made any final decisions on actions beyond what the CDA has imposed.”
The morning of the fire
Brown, as the type commander for surface ships, said he should have played a supporting role the morning the fire broke out. He scrambled to his Naval Base San Diego office that morning and began making calls, including to Naval Sea Systems Command to understand what risk the ship’s fuel tank posed and whether the ship needed to be towed out to sea.
But he grew concerned the ship’s crew and federal firefighters were squandering a limited opportunity to contain the fire in the lower vehicle storage area, where it originated. The investigation into the fire noted the ship’s crew was slow to call for help and did not take actions to prevent the fire from spreading to other areas of the ship.
So Brown called ship commanding officer, Capt. Gregory Scott Thoroman, who said he and the crew had left the ship and were on the pier. The investigation into the fire noted the crew pulled out of the ship twice during the firefight that morning.
Thoroman should have been coordinating with the base’s Federal Fire Department and the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, collectively forming the incident command team, according to a 2018 Navy instruction laying out fire prevention and fire response responsibilities for ships in maintenance. Bonhomme Richard had been undergoing maintenance at the pier at the naval base.
Instead, Brown said, “I could just tell in his responses that he was unsure on how to coordinate the resources that were at his disposal. It was clear to me there was friction that was developing” between the Navy and civilian commands, with the federal firefighters having been pulled out of the ship multiple times and the Navy firefighters lacking the gear they needed to fully tackle the fire on their own.
With the Navy’s organization falling apart, he called the Expeditionary Strike Group 3 commander, Rear Adm. Phil Sobeck, around 11 a.m.
“Phil, you can tell me to eff off, because I’m not in your chain of command, but you have to get down to that pier and provide leadership and guidance because they’re all sitting at the end of the pier watching the ship burn,” Brown said he told Sobeck. “And he goes, ‘Admiral, I’m getting in the car, I’m on my way.’”
Brown took other actions during that time, including some outside his typical authorities as a type commander. He ordered destroyers Fitzgerald and Russell to leave the pier they shared with Bonhomme Richard, even if it meant damaging brows and cables, so no other ships would suffer fire damage.
But the firefighting itself was still disorganized, he said.
Brown directed his staff to contact U.S. 3rd Fleet around 12:30 p.m., but 3rd Fleet’s position was, “The ship’s in maintenance, it’s not our problem.”
Brown argues it was the fleet’s responsibility: During weekly meetings with PACFLT leadership, 3rd Fleet routinely briefed on the manning, training and equipping status of all the ships in maintenance, with Brown on the call in a supporting role.
A retired flag officer, who previously served in the San Diego region and understands the command and control structure there, also told Defense News 3rd Fleet should have been the organization to manage the failing efforts by the ship captain. The flag officer did not wish to speak on the record.
After the staff-level call failed, Brown set up a call with 3rd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott Conn, for the two three-stars to hash it out directly.
“I said, hey, Phil’s down there, but we have to formally establish a new command structure. And he told me he wasn’t going to do it because the ship was in maintenance and it’s not his problem. And I said fine.”
Defense News reached out to Conn to clarify his position that the Bonhomme Richard, as a ship in maintenance, was not under his command. Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, U.S. Navy Chief of Information, told Defense News that two policies — the OPNAVINST 3440.18 and the NAVSEA 8010 manual — “were not fully consistent, but they placed command and control responsibility on the administrative chain of command for a ship in this configuration. Third Fleet was the operational commander two echelons above the BHR.”
Vice Adm. Rich Brown said his staff reviewed these same two documents again in the weeks following the fire and again concluded that they were expected to play a supporting role, but that Pacific Fleet should have taken responsibility for the ship via its operational chain of command.
All the relevant leaders were already connected in a teleconference, so Brown went into the ad hoc command center in his office and told everyone Sobeck was in charge and made sure they all understood their supporting roles to assist Sobeck.
He then called the then-Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino.
“I told him what I had done, what I was seeing: the C2 degrading on the pier, there’s no focus of effort, people are off doing their own things. And I told him that I had asked Scott to take command and he said no. And I said ... ‘Phil now works for me, and I’ve got it.’”
“Absolutely, Rich, you got it, put the fire out,” the admiral replied, according to Brown.
Brown didn’t dispute the Navy’s accounting of the rest of the five days of firefighting as laid out in the investigation, but said the investigation’s accounting of how the command and control fell apart during a crisis is incomplete and the investigation itself was “fatally defective” without interviewing him or including a full picture of what will be a key lesson learned.
Flawed chain of command structures
The retired three-star said one of the reasons he wanted to share his perspective about the fire is because the same command and control flaw played a role in the 2017 collisions of destroyers Fitzgerald and McCain and the 2020 fire on Bonhomme Richard. Brown led the McCain investigation and participated in the Fitzgerald investigation, and he said one of the recommendations he made at the time was to reinstate a Cold War-era command structure that had two chains of command: one for ships in maintenance and the basic phase, led by a one-star admiral focused on ensuring they built up their readiness, and one for ships in advanced training and deployments, led by a one-star focused on employing their warfighting capability.
Brown said this setup could have prevented the Fitzgerald and McCain tragedies, and that he had urged the Navy to revamp the command and control setup in 2017.
“I was told, ‘It’s not going to happen; there’s one chain of command.’ That’s what they all kept saying to me, there’s one chain of command, and that’s the operational chain of command, which the [type commanders] are not in.”
Brown said that, with the operational chain of command in charge of the ships in maintenance, his job as the type commander was to ensure ships were up to date on their certifications — which Bonhomme Richard was. Still, he said the operational chain of command had made clear in the past the ship was always their ship, regardless of what phase of maintenance, training or operations it was in.
Had the Navy made Brown’s recommended change in 2017, Bonhomme Richard would have been clearly under Brown’s control in 2020 and he could have taken more aggressive measures when the fire broke out.
Brown said the Navy must learn from this disaster and make the proper reforms to prevent another ship from being destroyed — and the right lessons can’t be learned or the right reforms made if the Navy is working off an incomplete and inaccurate investigation.
Other Navy leaders agreed command and control was an issue the day of the fire, but disagreed that 3rd Fleet should have taken a bigger role.
Conn was appointed to lead the investigation — the Navy was clear at the time that he was given the assignment not in his capacity as 3rd Fleet commander but as an individual three-star admiral in the San Diego area with the experience to lead a command investigation.
Conn told Defense News in a media roundtable in October, when the fire investigation was released, that Navy policy was for ships in maintenance to go through the administrative chain of command, through the type commander. He added that “one of our recommendations going forward is to review where should the operational chain be aligned as part of the oversight in a lengthy availability.”
Rear Adm. Paul Spedero, who led the major fires review that accompanied the Bonhomme Richard fire investigation, added during the roundtable that there had been confusion and inconsistency in the past between administrative control and operational control of ships in maintenance. He said that issue had been largely solved as the Navy made reforms following the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions.
But, he agreed, the Bonhomme Richard fire response “certainly had issues. … There was a lack of clarity in [administrative control] and [operational control] responsibilities.”
Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the Navy spokesman, added in his statement that “there were multiple contributing factors that caused confusion on the [command and control]. First, there was a failure to adequately train for a fire in an industrial environment, and more specifically, exercise the various supporting and supported command relationships. Second, some of the policies in place were in conflict or unnecessarily redundant with one another. Finally, practices and procedures had developed over time that were accepted and followed but were inconsistent with written policies, which allowed the [command and control] in the circumstances of the industrial environment to become varied.”
Accountability actions
Brown said, despite the major role he played while the ship was on fire, he was never interviewed. Conn emailed him about a potential interview and to ask five specific questions related to the roles and functions of the type commander. Brown answered the questions, but said Conn never followed up to arrange a formal interview.
Brown said he had no indication he would be named as contributing to the loss of the ship until the report came out.
“I am convinced that there was undue command influence on that investigation at the end, because when you look at the findings of facts, in the findings of facts behind my name, they just don’t make any sense. And why won’t they talk to me?” he added.
Brown led the investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak on aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, in addition to the McCain investigation. “If you’re going to consider anybody for any type of disciplinary action, you need to, at the very least, interview them,” he said.
Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the spokesman, said retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown’s input via email was included in the investigation and “it is not uncommon for an investigation to use written questions to gather information.”
Overall, he added, “the investigation was thorough, is being reviewed by all echelons of the chain of command, and has been extremely valuable in helping to identify corrections across the fleet to help get at the challenges of shipboard fires.”
Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Sam Paparo serves as the consolidated disposition authority for this incident and sent Brown a short letter in December stating that “I have determined your case warrants no action.”
Brown said he thought the issue was resolved until his lawyer in early June warned him Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro would be sending a letter of censure.
“I just don’t know what facts changed in the last six months,” he said.
Lauren Hanzel, a former Navy judge advocate general who currently works in private practice as a military defense attorney, told Defense News that Conn and his team not interviewing Brown in the first place was unusual, particularly when it started to look like Brown was turning into a subject of the investigation and might be named as accountable.
Sending a censure after the CDA cleared Brown, she said, is even more unusual.
The process Brown described “is about as unique as us losing a capital ship. It’s unconventional, and I’m a little bit disappointed because if you look at due process and the appearance of fairness,” the Navy will come out looking bad in this case, she said.
Hanzel noted censures are often a tool to block future promotions for someone in the military who can’t be successfully prosecuted for wrongdoing, but she said Brown’s retirement in 2020 makes the benefit of censure less clear and appear political.
Brown told Defense News the Navy postponed sending him the censure letter in early June as he recovered from a medical procedure but that he expects to receive it in July.
Asked what he hoped would happen by talking to the media, Brown said the Navy has a pattern of punishing three-stars for political expediency without examining root causes and making reforms.
Though he planned to let it go before, “now I don’t think I can, because I think the Navy is destined just to make the same mistakes again and again, especially the surface navy, because we don’t have the [command and control] right.”
About Megan Eckstein
Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.
New details emerge about the 2020 Bonhomme Richard fire, ahead of censure of three-star
By Megan Eckstein
WASHINGTON — The initial response to the July 2020 fire that destroyed the multibillion-dollar amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was uncoordinated and hampered by confusion as to which admiral should cobble together Navy and civilian firefighters, according to new information from the then-head of Naval Surface Forces.
The discombobulation in those early hours meant sailors may have missed a small window to contain the fire in a storage area. One admiral who said he lacked authority to issue an order pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier. And when that admiral — now-retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown — found the situation so dire that he called on other another command to intervene, it refused, Brown said in an interview.
Brown, who led Naval Surface Forces and Naval Surface Force Pacific from January 2018 to August 2020, told Defense News in June he set up an ad hoc chain of command to coordinate trying to save the ship that Sunday morning, after seeing lower-level leaders struggle to communicate or to fight the fire aggressively. The move came after the fleet’s operational chain of command declined to step in due to confusion over who had control over the ship.
An investigation into the fire, released in October 2021, outlined several failures leading up to the fire and during the response. But Brown’s comments offer additional details and a new perspective on how the fire response came together and what was left out of the formal investigation.
Brown said he is sharing his story with Defense News now as he faces a secretarial letter of censure. He was named in the investigation as contributing to the loss of the ship, but was cleared by what’s known as a Consolidated Disposition Authority in December. He said he was not interviewed for the investigation into the fire.
Capt. J.D. Dorsey, a spokesman for Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, told Defense News “the secretary is still in the process of reviewing the command investigation and has not yet made any final decisions on actions beyond what the CDA has imposed.”
The morning of the fire
Brown, as the type commander for surface ships, said he should have played a supporting role the morning the fire broke out. He scrambled to his Naval Base San Diego office that morning and began making calls, including to Naval Sea Systems Command to understand what risk the ship’s fuel tank posed and whether the ship needed to be towed out to sea.
But he grew concerned the ship’s crew and federal firefighters were squandering a limited opportunity to contain the fire in the lower vehicle storage area, where it originated. The investigation into the fire noted the ship’s crew was slow to call for help and did not take actions to prevent the fire from spreading to other areas of the ship.
So Brown called ship commanding officer, Capt. Gregory Scott Thoroman, who said he and the crew had left the ship and were on the pier. The investigation into the fire noted the crew pulled out of the ship twice during the firefight that morning.
Thoroman should have been coordinating with the base’s Federal Fire Department and the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, collectively forming the incident command team, according to a 2018 Navy instruction laying out fire prevention and fire response responsibilities for ships in maintenance. Bonhomme Richard had been undergoing maintenance at the pier at the naval base.
Instead, Brown said, “I could just tell in his responses that he was unsure on how to coordinate the resources that were at his disposal. It was clear to me there was friction that was developing” between the Navy and civilian commands, with the federal firefighters having been pulled out of the ship multiple times and the Navy firefighters lacking the gear they needed to fully tackle the fire on their own.
With the Navy’s organization falling apart, he called the Expeditionary Strike Group 3 commander, Rear Adm. Phil Sobeck, around 11 a.m.
“Phil, you can tell me to eff off, because I’m not in your chain of command, but you have to get down to that pier and provide leadership and guidance because they’re all sitting at the end of the pier watching the ship burn,” Brown said he told Sobeck. “And he goes, ‘Admiral, I’m getting in the car, I’m on my way.’”
Brown took other actions during that time, including some outside his typical authorities as a type commander. He ordered destroyers Fitzgerald and Russell to leave the pier they shared with Bonhomme Richard, even if it meant damaging brows and cables, so no other ships would suffer fire damage.
But the firefighting itself was still disorganized, he said.
Brown directed his staff to contact U.S. 3rd Fleet around 12:30 p.m., but 3rd Fleet’s position was, “The ship’s in maintenance, it’s not our problem.”
Brown argues it was the fleet’s responsibility: During weekly meetings with PACFLT leadership, 3rd Fleet routinely briefed on the manning, training and equipping status of all the ships in maintenance, with Brown on the call in a supporting role.
A retired flag officer, who previously served in the San Diego region and understands the command and control structure there, also told Defense News 3rd Fleet should have been the organization to manage the failing efforts by the ship captain. The flag officer did not wish to speak on the record.
After the staff-level call failed, Brown set up a call with 3rd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott Conn, for the two three-stars to hash it out directly.
“I said, hey, Phil’s down there, but we have to formally establish a new command structure. And he told me he wasn’t going to do it because the ship was in maintenance and it’s not his problem. And I said fine.”
Defense News reached out to Conn to clarify his position that the Bonhomme Richard, as a ship in maintenance, was not under his command. Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, U.S. Navy Chief of Information, told Defense News that two policies — the OPNAVINST 3440.18 and the NAVSEA 8010 manual — “were not fully consistent, but they placed command and control responsibility on the administrative chain of command for a ship in this configuration. Third Fleet was the operational commander two echelons above the BHR.”
Vice Adm. Rich Brown said his staff reviewed these same two documents again in the weeks following the fire and again concluded that they were expected to play a supporting role, but that Pacific Fleet should have taken responsibility for the ship via its operational chain of command.
All the relevant leaders were already connected in a teleconference, so Brown went into the ad hoc command center in his office and told everyone Sobeck was in charge and made sure they all understood their supporting roles to assist Sobeck.
He then called the then-Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino.
“I told him what I had done, what I was seeing: the C2 degrading on the pier, there’s no focus of effort, people are off doing their own things. And I told him that I had asked Scott to take command and he said no. And I said ... ‘Phil now works for me, and I’ve got it.’”
“Absolutely, Rich, you got it, put the fire out,” the admiral replied, according to Brown.
Brown didn’t dispute the Navy’s accounting of the rest of the five days of firefighting as laid out in the investigation, but said the investigation’s accounting of how the command and control fell apart during a crisis is incomplete and the investigation itself was “fatally defective” without interviewing him or including a full picture of what will be a key lesson learned.
Flawed chain of command structures
The retired three-star said one of the reasons he wanted to share his perspective about the fire is because the same command and control flaw played a role in the 2017 collisions of destroyers Fitzgerald and McCain and the 2020 fire on Bonhomme Richard. Brown led the McCain investigation and participated in the Fitzgerald investigation, and he said one of the recommendations he made at the time was to reinstate a Cold War-era command structure that had two chains of command: one for ships in maintenance and the basic phase, led by a one-star admiral focused on ensuring they built up their readiness, and one for ships in advanced training and deployments, led by a one-star focused on employing their warfighting capability.
Brown said this setup could have prevented the Fitzgerald and McCain tragedies, and that he had urged the Navy to revamp the command and control setup in 2017.
“I was told, ‘It’s not going to happen; there’s one chain of command.’ That’s what they all kept saying to me, there’s one chain of command, and that’s the operational chain of command, which the [type commanders] are not in.”
Brown said that, with the operational chain of command in charge of the ships in maintenance, his job as the type commander was to ensure ships were up to date on their certifications — which Bonhomme Richard was. Still, he said the operational chain of command had made clear in the past the ship was always their ship, regardless of what phase of maintenance, training or operations it was in.
Had the Navy made Brown’s recommended change in 2017, Bonhomme Richard would have been clearly under Brown’s control in 2020 and he could have taken more aggressive measures when the fire broke out.
Brown said the Navy must learn from this disaster and make the proper reforms to prevent another ship from being destroyed — and the right lessons can’t be learned or the right reforms made if the Navy is working off an incomplete and inaccurate investigation.
Other Navy leaders agreed command and control was an issue the day of the fire, but disagreed that 3rd Fleet should have taken a bigger role.
Conn was appointed to lead the investigation — the Navy was clear at the time that he was given the assignment not in his capacity as 3rd Fleet commander but as an individual three-star admiral in the San Diego area with the experience to lead a command investigation.
Conn told Defense News in a media roundtable in October, when the fire investigation was released, that Navy policy was for ships in maintenance to go through the administrative chain of command, through the type commander. He added that “one of our recommendations going forward is to review where should the operational chain be aligned as part of the oversight in a lengthy availability.”
Rear Adm. Paul Spedero, who led the major fires review that accompanied the Bonhomme Richard fire investigation, added during the roundtable that there had been confusion and inconsistency in the past between administrative control and operational control of ships in maintenance. He said that issue had been largely solved as the Navy made reforms following the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions.
But, he agreed, the Bonhomme Richard fire response “certainly had issues. … There was a lack of clarity in [administrative control] and [operational control] responsibilities.”
Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the Navy spokesman, added in his statement that “there were multiple contributing factors that caused confusion on the [command and control]. First, there was a failure to adequately train for a fire in an industrial environment, and more specifically, exercise the various supporting and supported command relationships. Second, some of the policies in place were in conflict or unnecessarily redundant with one another. Finally, practices and procedures had developed over time that were accepted and followed but were inconsistent with written policies, which allowed the [command and control] in the circumstances of the industrial environment to become varied.”
Accountability actions
Brown said, despite the major role he played while the ship was on fire, he was never interviewed. Conn emailed him about a potential interview and to ask five specific questions related to the roles and functions of the type commander. Brown answered the questions, but said Conn never followed up to arrange a formal interview.
Brown said he had no indication he would be named as contributing to the loss of the ship until the report came out.
“I am convinced that there was undue command influence on that investigation at the end, because when you look at the findings of facts, in the findings of facts behind my name, they just don’t make any sense. And why won’t they talk to me?” he added.
Brown led the investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak on aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, in addition to the McCain investigation. “If you’re going to consider anybody for any type of disciplinary action, you need to, at the very least, interview them,” he said.
Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the spokesman, said retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown’s input via email was included in the investigation and “it is not uncommon for an investigation to use written questions to gather information.”
Overall, he added, “the investigation was thorough, is being reviewed by all echelons of the chain of command, and has been extremely valuable in helping to identify corrections across the fleet to help get at the challenges of shipboard fires.”
Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Sam Paparo serves as the consolidated disposition authority for this incident and sent Brown a short letter in December stating that “I have determined your case warrants no action.”
Brown said he thought the issue was resolved until his lawyer in early June warned him Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro would be sending a letter of censure.
“I just don’t know what facts changed in the last six months,” he said.
Lauren Hanzel, a former Navy judge advocate general who currently works in private practice as a military defense attorney, told Defense News that Conn and his team not interviewing Brown in the first place was unusual, particularly when it started to look like Brown was turning into a subject of the investigation and might be named as accountable.
Sending a censure after the CDA cleared Brown, she said, is even more unusual.
The process Brown described “is about as unique as us losing a capital ship. It’s unconventional, and I’m a little bit disappointed because if you look at due process and the appearance of fairness,” the Navy will come out looking bad in this case, she said.
Hanzel noted censures are often a tool to block future promotions for someone in the military who can’t be successfully prosecuted for wrongdoing, but she said Brown’s retirement in 2020 makes the benefit of censure less clear and appear political.
Brown told Defense News the Navy postponed sending him the censure letter in early June as he recovered from a medical procedure but that he expects to receive it in July.
Asked what he hoped would happen by talking to the media, Brown said the Navy has a pattern of punishing three-stars for political expediency without examining root causes and making reforms.
Though he planned to let it go before, “now I don’t think I can, because I think the Navy is destined just to make the same mistakes again and again, especially the surface navy, because we don’t have the [command and control] right.”
About Megan Eckstein
Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.
The USA is back and you aint seen nothin yet 
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David Newton
- Posts: 917
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 9:37 am
Re: US Navy News
Definitely politicking.
Again we see the same sorts of violations of due process that are standard with the Biden administration. Who the hell does Carlos del Toro think he is for even thinking of imposing any kind of censure without the chance for the censured to defend themselves? Substantial chance that's illegal under UCMJ.
Again we see the same sorts of violations of due process that are standard with the Biden administration. Who the hell does Carlos del Toro think he is for even thinking of imposing any kind of censure without the chance for the censured to defend themselves? Substantial chance that's illegal under UCMJ.
Re: US Navy News
Back when I was a n00b Corporal, my Sergeant Major told me that if there was a situation that required leadership and it involved Marines from another unit, and I was the senior Marine present, I was to take charge of the situation, give appropriate orders, and see that they were carried out. Once the situation was resolved, i would contact my chain of command and give a report of what happened so that they could pass it to the units the other Marines belonged to.
Apparently, "the senior person present takes charge" is far too complicated a concept for GOFOs to figure out.
Apparently, "the senior person present takes charge" is far too complicated a concept for GOFOs to figure out.
Re: "New details emerge" USS Bonhomme Richard fire
Thanks for sharing that, Senior
The BC Board
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. - Albert Einstein
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. - Albert Einstein
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Johnnie Lyle
- Posts: 2876
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 2:27 pm
Re: US Navy News
Is it a flawed chain of command or flawed commanders? Reading his account, it looks more like the latter.
Re: US Navy News
Definitely the latter.Johnnie Lyle wrote: ↑Fri Aug 11, 2023 2:48 pm Is it a flawed chain of command or flawed commanders? Reading his account, it looks more like the latter.
The most important thing for any military leader is to understand that there is a time and a place for the strict chain of command, and there is a time for the senior officer present to just take charge and issue orders, and worry about the bureaucratic niceties later--and when the shift needs to be made.
Re: US Navy News - Another CO Relieved
Japan-based Destroyer CO Removed from Command
By: Sam LaGrone
August 21, 2023
The commander of Japan-based guided-missile destroyer USS Howard (DDG-83) was removed from command Saturday, Navy officials told USNI News.
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Karl Thomas removed Cmdr. Kenji Igawa from command, “due to loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a service statement provided to USNI News.
“Capt. Edward Angelinas, former commanding officer of USS Robert Smalls (CG-62), will assume the duties as commanding officer until the permanent relief arrives. Cmdr. Igawa will be administratively reassigned to the staff of commander, U.S. 7th Fleet,” reads the statement from the service.
The relief was not due to misconduct but to performance issues, U.S. Naval Surface Force spokesman Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson told USNI News. He said no other members of the command triad – the executive officer and senior enlisted sailor – were relieved.
Igawa, a 2004 U.S. Naval Academy Graduate, took command of Howard late last year, according to a now-deleted Navy release.
While assigned to destroyer USS Stethem (DDG-63) just after graduating, “he provided linguistics skills and cultural insight to his crew during operations with the Japanese Maritime Defense Force (JMSDF) while helping his fellow Yokosuka-based Sailors to better understand Japanese culture,” reads the June release.
“Later, Igawa would serve as the Japan Desk Chief, Strategy Plans and Policy Directorate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Congressional Fellow before eventually taking command of the Yokosuka-based destroyer, USS Howard.”
USS Howard Suffered ‘Soft Grounding’ Near Bali Ahead of CO Removal
By: Sam LaGrone
August 22, 2023
A Japan-based guided-missile destroyer made a “soft-grounding,” near the Indonesian island of Bali ahead of a port visit on Aug. 10, USNI News has learned.
USS Howard (DDG-83) was heading to the island for a port visit when the destroyer grounded, Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Megan Greene said in a statement.
“On the morning of Aug. 10, USS Howard (DDG-83) experienced an apparent soft grounding shortly before arriving in Bali, Indonesia for a scheduled port visit. Upon indication of potential grounding, watchstanders took immediate action to protect the crew and the ship,” reads the statement to USNI News.
“The ship was able to return to normal operations under its own power and propulsion. There were no injuries as a result of the mishap. The circumstances surrounding the mishap are currently under investigation.”
“Soft groundings” are defined as a ship’s hull hitting bottom but can free itself without additional outside assistance or much damage. Navy Times first reported the grounding.
Howard’s commander, Cmdr. Kenji Igawa was removed from command by 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, “due to loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a service statement provided to USNI News. No other members of the command triad – the executive officer and senior enlisted sailor – were relieved.
Igawa, a 2004 Naval Academy graduate, had been the commander of Howard since December after serving as the destroyer’s executive officer.
While assigned to destroyer USS Stethem (DDG-63) just after graduating from the Naval Academy, “he provided linguistics skills and cultural insight to his crew during operations with the Japanese Maritime Defense Force (JMSDF) while helping his fellow Yokosuka-based Sailors to better understand Japanese culture,” reads a June news story from the Navy.
“Later, Igawa would serve as the Japan Desk Chief, Strategy Plans and Policy Directorate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Congressional Fellow before eventually taking command of the Yokosuka-based destroyer, USS Howard.”
Re: US Navy News
VCNO Lisa Franchetti Takes Command of the Navy
By: Heather Mongilio and Sam LaGrone
August 14, 2023
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – In a ceremony at the Naval Academy’s Memorial Hall, retiring Chief of Naval Operations Adm Mike Gilday was relieved by VCNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti. She will now perform the duties of CNO pending confirmation by the Senate amidst an ongoing block of confirmation for flag and general officers.
Gilday relinquished his command nearly four years to the day that he began serving as the Navy’s highest-ranking officer. Under his tenure, the Navy began the process of reshaping the service under the 2018 National Defense Strategy that shifted the focus from supporting the global war on terrorism to instead taking on China and Russia at sea.
“The character of war is changing. But our Navy team is adapting at speed. If we continue to act with urgency and purpose along with our allies and partners, we will meet any challenge,” Gilday said in his speech during the ceremony.
Members of the official party, which included Franchetti, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, arrived to the bell from Gilday’s first ship – the former Kidd-class destroyer USS Chandler (DDG-996), which was brought in for the ceremony.
Austin, Franchetti and Del Toro highlighted Gilday’s push to modernize the Navy as global competition increased.
“Your vision and transformational leadership these past four years has laid the foundation on which we are building our Navy’s readiness for today while designing the fleet of tomorrow,” Franchetti said.
“We look to the horizon and prepare for the challenges that lie ahead, I will act with a sense of urgency to ensure our sailors have everything they need to maintain our warfighting edge.”
In his speech, Austin said, “under Adm. Gilday’s leadership, the Navy has made great strides to modernize our fleet to strengthen its capabilities and to protect American power on a global scale.”
Gilday, a career surface warfare officer, pushed for an expanded fleet over almost his entire tenure as the service and the Pentagon clashed over the size and character of the Navy in the modern era. Last year, he said the service needed a fleet of about 500 ships to meet the needs of the National Security Strategy. He also led the service in the early requirements process for developing major new platforms for the air, surface and submarine forces. While CNO, Gilday also pushed for better unit-level accountability as part of his “get real, get better” construct that included efforts to better retain and recruit women and minorities.
Franchetti was nominated to lead the service last month.
“I am proud that she will be my CNO,” Gilday said in his speech at the ceremony. “She is a fleet sailor, an operator, a warfighter. She has already made the Navy better as our vice chief of Naval operations, the Navy is in good hands with her at the helm.”
Moving ahead, Franchetti will take charge of the service that is facing shortfalls in recruiting, flat budgets and lingering quality-of-life issues that have plagued the service.
Gilday, like the other top officers of the military, is leaving the office to an acting CNO as military promotions requiring Senate confirmation are currently on hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who has prevented service nominations from getting approval over the Pentagon’s policy of paying for leave and travel for non-covered reproductive care.
It is the first time in the Department of Defense’s history that three of the military’s top officers are in acting positions, Austin said during his remarks at the ceremony.
In his remarks, Austin called on the Senate to confirm the now more than 300 military nominations, including Franchetti, as well as Gen. Eric Smith, who is currently in the position of acting commandant of the Marine Corps.
“This is unprecedented. It is unnecessary. And it is unsafe,” Austin said.
“Our troops deserve better.”
Re: US Navy News
For some reason, the YouTube embed didn't work, but you can watch the three minute video here.VCNO Franchetti Issues First Guidance to Fleet as Acting CNO
By: Heather Mongilio
August 17, 2023
The Navy will continue uninterrupted despite the lack of a confirmed chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti said in her first message to the fleet since taking over the duties of CNO.
“The work of our Navy continues undisrupted and unabated. We continue to operate our ships, submarines, and aircraft at the point of friction with our competitors, and at the point of friendship with our allies and partners,” Franchetti wrote in the guidance, issued as NAVADMIN this week.
The Navy will continue its culture renovation, under the “Get Real, Get Better” mantra started under former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday.
“We are building teams that are self-assessing, self-correcting, and always learning toward one goal – delivering warfighting advantage. Similarly, we have commenced a once-in-a-generation transformation of our Navy in order to develop, design, and deploy the weapons and tools we need to compete and win, both now and in the future,” Franchetti wrote.
Franchetti is currently performing the duties of CNO while also continuing her position as vice chief of naval operations. Although she has been nominated by the White House for CNO, her confirmation, like 300 other military promotions, are on hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) who is preventing Senate military confirmations over the Pentagon’s travel and leave policy for non-covered reproductive care.
On Tuesday, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters that the Pentagon will not change its policy, which includes covering travel for service members with non-covered reproductive care, like abortions, in other states if they are positioned in a state where abortion is prohibited.
Franchetti took over the duties of CNO on Aug. 10 when Gilday retired. With Gilday’s relinquishment of office, there are now three military branches with top leaders in acting positions while awaiting Senate confirmations.
Re: US Navy News
Screw her and the horse she road in on.
That thing is the best the USN can come up with? The Chicomm's are pissing themselves laughing and so are the ragheads and my old buddy Vlad.
.
That grandma is no Elizabeth 1 or The Baroness Thatcher.
Thank God it's not my navy anymore. Just plain incredibly embarrassing.
That thing is the best the USN can come up with? The Chicomm's are pissing themselves laughing and so are the ragheads and my old buddy Vlad.
.
That grandma is no Elizabeth 1 or The Baroness Thatcher.
Thank God it's not my navy anymore. Just plain incredibly embarrassing.
The USA is back and you aint seen nothin yet
Re: US Navy News
Bath Iron Works, Mississippi shipyard can’t produce destroyers fast enough, Navy says
June 23, 2023
Edward D. Murphy - Portland Press Herald
Defense Department officials want to scale back their buying of Navy destroyers, it appears, saying the nation’s shipyards — including Bath Iron Works — can’t produce the warships fast enough.
In December, Congress passed an $858 billion defense bill that called for three Arleigh Burke, or DDG 51-class, destroyers to be purchased in the 2023 fiscal year and set up a plan that would allow the Navy to buy 15 destroyers over the next five years. Destroyers are the only vessels BIW produces, and the Bath shipbuilder is one of only two contractors that build the ships, along with Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
But the Pentagon’s top budget official said it plans to buy only two destroyers next year.
“I’m not hating on DDGs — my only point was that last year Congress added a third and the reason we didn’t budget for three is, again, we don’t see the yards being able to produce three a year. We don’t see them being able to produce two a year,” Mike McCord, the Defense Department’s comptroller, said in an interview with an industry publication.
A BIW official said the shipyard relies on a steady flow of work from the Navy to make investments in infrastructure and its workforce, and contracts that call for more ships make both possible.
“A consistent demand signal gives shipyards and suppliers the predictability to make major investments in workforce and facilities, both to expand destroyer production and to ensure that capability remains intact well into the future,” BIW spokesman David Hench said. He said improvements already underway in Bath will result in an improved construction schedule in time for the next multiyear contract to build destroyers.
The Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are over 500-feet long and are considered the workhorses of the Navy. Each warship costs about $2.2 billion to build, and are procured on the basis of a complex rolling budget. The first was built in 1985 and 92 are in service through this year.
McCord said the industry is only building 1.5 destroyers a year and that asking for more takes away the government’s ability to negotiate on price, the U.S. Naval Institute News reported.
McCord said that situation would be good for the books of the shipbuilders, but not for taxpayers.
“As the buyer, are you in the best place you’d like to be with any leverage, or are you actually short of leverage when (you say) ‘you produce on time or you don’t produce on time, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to keep writing you checks,'” McCord said, according to USNI News.
Congress generally authorizes an upper range of Pentagon purchases, but can’t generally require a minimum number of items to be purchased. A spokesman for Maine Sen. Angus King, who is on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, said the senator has met with Pentagon officials several times to discuss the decision to reduce the number of destroyers it will purchase over the next five years and those discussions will continue.
Re: US Navy News
GAO: Zumwalt-class, Virginia Attack Boats Risk Delays in Fielding Hypersonic Missiles
By: Sam LaGrone
June 8, 2023
The three Zumwalt-class destroyers could face delays in fielding the first hypersonic weapons in the U.S. Navy surface fleet, according to a Thursday report from the Government Accountability Office’s annual weapons report.
The Navy planned to add launch tubes to USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) during an availability at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., starting this year for completion by 2025. The following two ships in the $29 billion class – USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) and Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) – will get the CPS tube installation in their own modernization periods.
The space now occupied by the 16,000-ton destroyer’s twin 155 mm advanced gun systems will get replaced with four 87-inch tubes for about a dozen Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies (C-HGB) – the joint round developed for the Army and Navy. The weapons are part of the Pentagon’s Conventional Prompt Strike capability, or the ability to hit a land target at long ranges with little to no notice.
However, that schedule could get hampered by testing of the Conventional Prompt Strike systems on at-sea platforms, the program told the GAO. The delays in fielding the CPS on Zumwalt in 2025 and the integration of the CPS come from both testing a maritime version of the C-HGB and the tight schedule to integrate the weapon into the hull of the three-ship Zumwalt-class.
“The CPS program office noted that significant scope and challenges associated with the first-time integration of CPS may present risks to achieving DDG 1000’s installation schedule. In reviewing CPS program office information on critical technologies, we found that significant work remains for the program to demonstrate technology maturity,” reads the report.
“If the hypersonic weapon is not ready for integration on the DDG 1000 at the time of the aforementioned maintenance period, the Navy may have to extend the duration of the planned maintenance period or wait for the next scheduled period to incorporate the system on the ship.”
To hit the Navy’s planned 2025 goal for hypersonic weapon integration, “we got to get on with getting all of the design for the Zumwalt, getting all of those tubes in there, as we pulled out the forward gun mounts. We’ve gotten to put these large diameter tubes in there, and then finish the integration work into the combat system,” Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the head of the Navy’s strategic systems programs, said in November.
After backing away from the 155 mm AGS, the Navy singled out the Zumwalt-class ships for the hypersonic mission ahead of the Block V Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines. The Block V attack boats will include the Virginia Payload Module, which will also have room for the large hypersonic missile planned for delivery by 2028, but this has also been delayed, according to the report.
“In addition, as a result of delivery delays for the newest Block V Virginia class submarines, CPS will not be fielded on the submarine in phase three until 2030—2 years later than planned—unless another submarine option is identified,” reads the report.
The Zumwalt class faces other delays, according to the report. The initial operational capability for DDG-1000 is planned for April 2023 – more than six years behind schedule.
“The other two ships continue to face delivery delays. DDG-1001 final delivery was delayed 12 months to September 2023. While the program is working toward the completion of combat systems installation and activation for the DDG-1002, program officials stated that DDG-1002 final delivery moved from Fiscal Year 2024 to early Fiscal Year 2025,” reads the report.
Re: US Navy News
After Washington’s refueling woes, US Navy eyes new plans for carriers
By Megan Eckstein
July 6, 2023
WASHINGTON — With the aircraft carrier George Washington back at sea — albeit two years behind schedule — the U.S. Navy is combing through lessons learned from the delay in order to apply them to two other ships.
The ship’s midlife refueling and modernization effort was plagued by the pandemic, industrial base challenges and unexpected repair work related to years worth of deployments. The Navy is now eyeing contractual changes and other reforms to both get another carrier, the John C. Stennis, out of its ongoing refueling as close to on-time as possible and to benefit the next two carriers in line for their midlife work.
Washington began its refueling and complex overhaul — a four-year event that takes place at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding 25 years into a nuclear-powered carrier’s 50-year life — in August 2017. It should have finished that work in the summer of 2021, but instead the ship departed from the site on May 25, nearly two years late.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the shipbuilder continued producing and repairing the Navy’s aircraft carriers and submarines; for the most part, delays most starkly affected construction of new attack submarines.
But, “without a doubt the COVID pandemic caused significant disruptions to the global supply chain that impacted material availability, impacted the workforce through required health protocols to aid in containing the spread of the virus, quarantine requirements, and a loss of senior skill sets through early retirement,” Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Alan Baribeau told Defense News.
Still, he added, “it is unlikely that a defined amount of the delay would be able to be attributed to the pandemic versus other influences,” including equipment failures, having to redo work that was done incorrectly the first time, and unexpected repair work that was discovered during the refueling and complex overhaul service, or RCOH.
Meanwhile, the carrier Stennis is undergoing its refueling and complex overhaul now. The next in line are the Harry S. Truman, to begin in May 2025, and the Ronald Reagan, which is currently deployed to Japan and is expected to begin in 2029.
Stennis was delayed a couple months at the frontend, with refueling beginning in May 2021 instead of January to help minimize overlap with Washington. The Navy and HII plan RCOHs to happen more or less heel-to-toe, rather than with two taking place concurrently.
The 24-month overlap between Washington and Stennis split labor and material resources, therefore slowing the pace of work on Stennis, Baribeau said. The team also found unexpected but mandatory growth work in Stennis’ propulsion plant, further adding to the schedule.
“The current contract re-delivery date is August 2025, but the schedule is currently under review due to the resource constraints during the overlap period and propulsion plant growth work,” he said.
‘Reduce the risk’
Even as the Navy and shipyard rework the schedule, they’re trying to pull lessons learned to inform Truman and Reagan.
Though growth work — or additional, unexpected repairs that arise once a maintenance period begins — is a fact of life with ship maintenance, Baribeau said several initiatives are aimed at minimizing the volume of growth work and its impact on the schedule.
One effort would expand the rotatable pool of parts to have more critical, long-lead material on hand — such as valves, generator-stacking kits, turbine generator rotors and shafts — based on data trends.
Another looks at, where practical, conducting ship inspections even earlier to allow more time for engineering, ordering materials and scheduling four-plus years of work in an optimal sequence.
The team is also looking at a greater use of 3D scanning, in part to help document the difference between the condition of the ship as expected versus as-is upon arrival at Newport News so engineers can update the work packages to reflect any discrepancies.
On the contracting side, Baribeau said, the team is considering changes to how the Navy and industry share risks as a way to boost performance.
“The John C. Stennis RCOH has changed from cost-incurred payments to progress payments directly tied to schedule performance,” he said. “Additional efforts are underway to evaluate different contracting structures for the USS Harry S. Truman RCOH with deliverables targeted to understand and predict resource challenges within the entire Newport News Shipbuilding portfolio.”
After Truman would come Reagan, which, along with Washington, is one of the only two nuclear-powered carriers to ever serve continuously overseas as part of the forward-deployed naval force. Reagan shifted its homeport to Yokosuka, Japan, in 2015 to relieve Washington when it returned stateside to prepare for its refueling. Washington is to relieve Reagan in 2024, meaning Reagan will have spent nine years overseas compared to Washington’s seven.
Whereas stateside carriers have a three-year training, deployment and maintenance cycle that includes six months or more of planned maintenance at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia or Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington, forward-deployed carriers undergo a much shorter stint each year in the maintenance yard in Yokosuka. This leads to some work being deferred.
Unlike Washington, which went straight from Japan into its refueling, Reagan will conduct a lengthy maintenance period, called a docked planned incremental availability, at Puget Sound between its return stateside and its RCOH set for 2029.
“This will provide an opportunity to have a better understanding of her material condition prior to entering RCOH, which will reduce the risk of unplanned growth work,” Baribeau said.
Ahead of Washington relieving Reagan in Japan next year, the former’s crew has been preparing since last summer to get to sea in their ship after six years in the yard — meaning thousands of sailors have cycled through the ship on orders and never spent a day at sea on the carrier.
Baribeau noted crew members have taken temporary assignments on other carriers to gain experience and earn qualifications, and rehearsed getting underway in simulators and in tabletop exercises.