This is it. There’s no need to constantly think of new names. There’s superb mileage in having a ship’s history back to the founding of your country (or close to it- Hornet, looking at you), for example.
Not just to remember the CVs of course, even though their record alone justifies it, but the 1777 sloop, commanded by some fella named John Paul Jones and recipient of the first ever salute from a foreign warship to an American warship. Good, solid record as a raider (including the capture of the RN sloop DRAKE), and went down swinging against the British in Charleston in 1780. Some pretty amazing accomplishments in just three years.Another USS Argus, definitely!MikeKozlowski wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 11:50 am *ARGUS and NAUTILUS: Two of the ships at the pointy end of the Barbary Expedition of 1804. ARGUS gave sterling service there as the technical flagship of the Expedition, transporting William Eaton, Presley O'Bannon, and eight Marines. She held on until the War of 1812, when she became the terror of the British coast for a while. Eventually captured, but the RN had something of a black eye when she was finally brought to bay - and her record was strong enough that a new ARGUS was laid down at Washington. Burned on the stocks, but it's still a name to be proud of.
Mike
There needs to be room for adding to the list. We’re always going to have new sailors and marines joining the fleet, and they will continue to be as heroic as their ancestors. Likewise, we’re going to fight new battles - as much as we all fervently wish we did not have to - so there will be new names like FALLUJAH to add alongside HUE CITY, CHOSIN or LEYTE.Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 10:50 amThis is it. There’s no need to constantly think of new names. There’s superb mileage in having a ship’s history back to the founding of your country (or close to it- Hornet, looking at you), for example.
Naming ships after politicians sets a nasty example.
And MONITOR, obviously. She’s definitely gotten the short end of the stick. WEEHAWKEN and NAHANT would also be good choices.1Big Rich wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 2:03 pmAnother USS Argus, definitely!MikeKozlowski wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 11:50 am *ARGUS and NAUTILUS: Two of the ships at the pointy end of the Barbary Expedition of 1804. ARGUS gave sterling service there as the technical flagship of the Expedition, transporting William Eaton, Presley O'Bannon, and eight Marines. She held on until the War of 1812, when she became the terror of the British coast for a while. Eventually captured, but the RN had something of a black eye when she was finally brought to bay - and her record was strong enough that a new ARGUS was laid down at Washington. Burned on the stocks, but it's still a name to be proud of.
Mike
I still hope one of them will return New Ironsides to use...
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/h ... sides.html
Regards,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the USN have a clear naming policy?kdahm wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 4:02 pm As pointed out in the last couple of posts, there will always be more names than ships to put them on. It just gets worse with the modern tendency to 'correct historical wrongs' and 'naming things for politicians'.
I would therefore propose a shift in the naming systems:
State Names - 50 states + 8 Insular territories. Need to have something named after them for regional pride
City Names - Maybe 40 names?
Historical names - List of 30 to 40 names that are kept in commission, like Enterprise, Saratoga, Yorktown.
Medal of Honor winners, and those who maybe should have if the contemporary standards had been more neutral - List of 50-80 names, with some added or dropped as fits the ships
Dead Presidents - Maybe 10-15 at the most?
Other politicians - garbage scows and yard boats need names, don't they?
Famous admirals - Probably best to drop them, unless they're in the MoH category. See politicians
That would leave 58 + 40 + 40 + 80 + 15 names for 233 combat ships. 11 carriers + 68 subs + 22 cruisers + 70 destroyers + 21 LCS + 8 mine CW + 33 Phibs + 30 support = 263 ships needing names.
It’s not been that clear cut, and brutally violated throughout the USN’s history.Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:52 pmCorrect me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the USN have a clear naming policy?kdahm wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 4:02 pm As pointed out in the last couple of posts, there will always be more names than ships to put them on. It just gets worse with the modern tendency to 'correct historical wrongs' and 'naming things for politicians'.
I would therefore propose a shift in the naming systems:
State Names - 50 states + 8 Insular territories. Need to have something named after them for regional pride
City Names - Maybe 40 names?
Historical names - List of 30 to 40 names that are kept in commission, like Enterprise, Saratoga, Yorktown.
Medal of Honor winners, and those who maybe should have if the contemporary standards had been more neutral - List of 50-80 names, with some added or dropped as fits the ships
Dead Presidents - Maybe 10-15 at the most?
Other politicians - garbage scows and yard boats need names, don't they?
Famous admirals - Probably best to drop them, unless they're in the MoH category. See politicians
That would leave 58 + 40 + 40 + 80 + 15 names for 233 combat ships. 11 carriers + 68 subs + 22 cruisers + 70 destroyers + 21 LCS + 8 mine CW + 33 Phibs + 30 support = 263 ships needing names.
Capital ships: states, historical battles
Cruisers: cities, historical cruisers
Destroyers: erm not sure, mixed bag
Submarines: dreadful spindly killer fish types
Well. SSBNs are capital ships. Modern destroyers fall straight into the cruiser category. SSNs get the killer fish names.
What’s not to
Like?
Well, Rob, if we go with the prize names, then we should definitely commission a new USS Isla de Cuba, if for nothing else just to piss off Raul...Johnnie Lyle wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 2:43 pm along with several of the classic prize names (JAVA, GUERRIERE, MACEDONIAN, CYANE, LEVANT, PEACOCK and EPERVIER).
This is why politicians should never have ships named after them.jemhouston wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 9:58 pm I'd allow Dead Presidents after they have been dead for twenty years.
I know we're not getting a USS Trump, but I sure as heck don't want a USS Obama or Biden.
Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues
Sam LaGrone
August 22, 2024 [Updated: August 26, 2024]
Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy, USNI News learned.
The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.
Based on the crew requirements on the platforms, sideling all the ships could reduce the civilian mariner demand for MSC by as many as 700 billets.
A defense official confirmed the basic outline of the plan to USNI News on Thursday. Two sources identified the forward-deployed sea bases as USS Lewis Puller (ESB-3), based in Bahrain in U.S. Central Command, and USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB-4), based in Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Greece, and operated in U.S. European and Africa Command.
A Navy official, when contacted by USNI News, acknowledged the service was working on a plan to retask civilian mariners but did not provide details.
The new effort, known informally as “the great reset” has yet to be adopted by the Navy and is awaiting approval from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, USNI News understands.
‘Burning Through People’
The Military Sealift Command operates a fleet of logistics ships that refuel and resupply the Navy’s ships around the world and are crewed by 5,500 civilians who are employed by the Navy.
Across the MSC there are about 4,500 billets for mariners on a wide variety of U.S. support ships ranging from resupply vessels, fleet oilers that refuel ships and aircraft, salvage ships, the Navy’s two command ships, submarine tenders and hospital ships.
For every billet on an MSC ship there are about 1.27 mariners to fill the positions, a ratio that two former MSC master mariners told USNI News on Thursday was unsusstainable.
“If you’re required to have 100 people on a vessel. There are only 27 more people on shore at any given time to rotate those crew members,” a former MSC mariner told USNI News.
At that ratio, a mariner would be at sea for four months and off for about a month and then return.
“That math just doesn’t work,” the former mariner told USNI News.
“No one is able to have a healthy work-life balance and be able to get off the ship and get adequate time to go home, have time at home with their family, take leave, take care of medical requirements [in that timeframe]. There is so much training required of every billet at MSC to stay proficient with Navy requirements and training and merchant marine credentialing.”
That’s much more time at sea than commercial mariners. For example, the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association union contracts requires their members to work with two mariners for every billet, which translates to a paid month off for every month at sea.
In addition to the more demanding schedule, the extra wrinkle for the MSC mariners is that they earn leave at the same rate as other DoD employees and junior mariners aren’t paid for their time off on shore if they haven’t accrued leave.
If the Navy and MSC elect to reassign the crews of all 17 ships, the so-called great reset could free up 600 to 700 sailors to the larger MSC pool, USNI News understands. That would bring the ratio closer to 1.5 mariners per billet and allow MSC mariners more time on shore and allow the Navy to crew newer support vessels like the John Lewis-class fleet oiler. Three have delivered to the Navy, but none have deployed in part due to crew availability, USNI News understands.
The punishing schedule for the mariners led to a retention issue for MSC that was accelerated by the severe “gangway up” COVID-19 prevention measures ordered by retired MSC commander Rear Adm. Michael Wettlaufer.
“[During] COVID nobody was getting off the ship, mariners were being treated poorly and so they started to quit,” a retired MSC mariner told USNI News.
Since then, “mariners have been quitting at a greater rate than MSC can hire new ones… People say ‘I had to quit because it’s a terrible work-life balance. I can’t go to sea and also have a family, so I got to leave.’”
Another former MSC mariner told USNI News he enjoyed sailing with MSC, but he saw his older peers deal with divorce and estrangement from their children and didn’t want that for himself.
“I can’t say much bad about MSC, he said.
“But when I left, I left because of my family.”
That pressure to retain experienced mariners led to the decision to craft the plan to sideline ships, three sources familiar with the plan told USNI News.
“This is basically the result of many years of neglect and mismanagement of their force,” Sal Mercogliano, former MSC mariner and associate professor of history at Campbell University told USNI News on Thursday.
“They are just burning through people.”
Spearheads and Seabases
Perhaps the highest visibility ships purposed to be sidelined are the two forward-deployed expeditionary sea bases. While Navy officials did not identify the hulls, two people familiar with the draft plan said the ESBs were CENTCOM’s USS Lewis Puller (ESB-3) and U.S. Europe and Africa Command’s USS Herschel “Woody” Williams (ESB-4).
Puller has been forward deployed to Bahrain since 2017 serving as host for both mine countermeasures and special operations forces in the region. For example, CENTCOM has used the ship as a platform to launch anti-smuggling operations to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian. In 2023, it was positioned off the coast of Sudan as a platform in case U.S. citizens needed to evacuate from the country.
Puller is based on the Alaska-class tanker design and is a follow-on to a converted amphibious warship USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15). The ESB was commissioned in port in Bahrain to allow it to operate as a warship. The idea proved so popular, the Navy has bought several more of the platform. Williams has held annual patrols around Africa and been central to the Navy’s effort in the region.
The largest shares of ships proposed to be sidelined in the great reset are the 12 active Spearhead-class EPF in the service, USNI News understands. The first two EPF, USNS Spearhead (EPF-1) and USNS Choctaw County (EPF-2), have already been sidelined at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. While technically still part of MSC, the ships have a sparse crew and are listed in reduced operating status.
The EPFs, high-speed aluminum catamarans that are built at Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., are crewed by about 26 MSC mariners and have been deployed to the Pacific, Europe and Africa as part of U.S. outreach missions.
The hull form is set to be the basis for a new class of hospital ships which will enter the fleet by the end of the decade.
While the order has yet to be signed, Mercogliano has tracked EPFs beginning to return to the U.S. from aboard far from the end of their expected service lives.
“These ships have a lot of life in them,” he said.
Navy warship production in worst state in 25 years. What’s behind it?
By David Sharp, The Associated Press
Sunday, Aug 11, 2024
The Navy’s ability to build lower-cost warships that can shoot down Houthi rebel missiles in the Red Sea depends in part on a 25-year-old laborer who previously made parts for garbage trucks.
Lucas Andreini, a welder at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, in Marinette, Wisconsin, is among thousands of young workers who’ve received employer-sponsored training nationwide as shipyards struggle to hire and retain employees.
The labor shortage is one of myriad challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats. Combined with shifting defense priorities, last-minute design changes and cost overruns, it has put the U.S. behind China in the number of ships at its disposal — and the gap is widening.
Navy shipbuilding is currently in “a terrible state” — the worst in a quarter century, says Eric Labs, a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.
“I feel alarmed,” he said. “I don’t see a fast, easy way to get out of this problem. It’s taken us a long time to get into it.”
Marinette Marine is under contract to build six guided-missile frigates — the Navy’s newest surface warships — with options to build four more. But it only has enough workers to produce one frigate a year, according to Labs.
Where have all the workers gone?
One of the industry’s chief problems is the struggle to hire and retain laborers for the challenging work of building new ships as graying veterans retire, taking decades of experience with them.
Shipyards across the country have created training academies and partnered with technical colleges to provide workers with the skills they need to construct high-tech warships. Submarine builders and the Navy formed an alliance to promote manufacturing careers, and shipyards are offering perks to retain workers once they’re hired.
Andreini trained for his job at Marinette through a program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. Prior to that, he spent several years as a production line welder, making components for garbage trucks. He said some of his buddies are held back by the stigma that shipbuilding is a “crappy work environment, and it’s unsafe.”
But that’s not the reality, he said. His health benefits are better than at his previous job, he’ll be getting a pension for the first time, and there’s an opportunity to acquire skills even more advanced than what he received during his initial training.
Plus, Andreini says, he feels like he’s serving his country.
“It makes me happy to be able to do my part, and possibly make sure sailors and some of my friends in the service come home safely,” said Andreini, whose father was in the Navy in Vietnam.
Alonie Lake, also a welder, fellow graduate of the technical college’s program and a single mom, is happy for a job with long-term stability — something Marinette’s backlog of Navy contracts virtually guarantees.
Lake, 32, said she thinks a lot of younger people are interested in jobs in the trades “and the satisfaction of working with their hands to create tangible results.”
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro recently underscored the importance of training programs during commencement ceremonies at a community college in Maine. The college has partnered with nearby Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to teach workers the skills needed to repair nuclear submarines.
“It is incumbent upon all of us to consider how we can best lend our talents and, in the case of the graduates, their newly developed skills, to build up our great nation for all Americans, and defend against the threats and challenges of today,” he said.
Once workers are hired, will they stay?
The Navy is trying to help shipyards ensure that once new workers are trained and hired, they stick around in a tight labor market.
In Wisconsin, part of $100 million in Navy funding that’s being provided to Marinette Marine is being used for retention bonuses at the shipyard, whose past employee retention was described by Del Toro as “atrocious.”
The shipyard, which employs more than 2,000 workers, is providing bonuses of up to $10,000 to keep workers, said spokesperson Eric Dent. “The workforce shortage is definitely a problem and it’s a problem across the board for all shipyards,” he said.
Retention is a concern even for shipyards that have met their goals, including Huntington Ingalls Industries, which makes destroyers and amphibious warships in Mississippi and aircraft carriers and submarines in Virginia.
The company is creating training partnerships with colleges and public schools at all grade levels. Enhancements in Mississippi include more than a million square feet (92,900 square meters) of covered work area, cooldown and hydration stations, and a second dining area with a Chick-fil-A. Huntington Ingalls also collaborated with the Navy and the city of Newport News, Virginia, to build a new parking garage for workers and sailors.
A problem decades in the making
Much of the blame for U.S. shipbuilding’s current woes lies with the Navy, which frequently changes requirements, requests upgrades and tweaks designs after shipbuilders have begun construction.
That’s seen in cost overruns, technological challenges and delays in the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Ford; the spiking of a gun system for a stealth destroyer program after its rocket-assisted projectiles became too costly; and the early retirement of some of the Navy’s lightly armored littoral combat ships, which were prone to breaking down.
The Navy vowed to learn from those past lessons with the new frigates they are building at Marinette Marine. The frigates are prized because they’re less costly to produce than larger destroyers but have similar weapon systems.
The Navy chose a ship design already in use by navies in France and Italy instead of starting from scratch. The idea was that 15% of the vessel would be updated to meet U.S. Navy specifications, while 85% would remain unchanged, reducing costs and speeding construction.
Instead, the opposite happened: The Navy redesigned 85% of the ship, resulting in cost increases and construction delays, said Bryan Clark, an analyst at the Washington-based think tank Hudson Institute. Construction of the first-in-class Constellation warship, which began in August 2022, is now three years behind schedule, with delivery pushed back to 2029.
The final design still isn’t completed.
Shifting threats and changing plans
Complicating matters further is something out of the Navy’s control: the changing nature of global threats.
Throughout its history, the Navy has had to adapt to varying perils, whether it be the Cold War of past decades or current threats including war in the Middle East, growing competition from Chinese and Russian navies, piracy off the coast of Somalia and persistent attacks on commercial ships by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
And that’s not all. The consolidation of shipyards and funding uncertainties have disrupted the cadence of ship construction and stymied long-term investments and planning, says Matthew Paxton of the Shipbuilders Council of America, a national trade association.
“We’ve been dealing with inconsistent shipbuilding plans for years,” Paxton said. “When we finally start ramping up, the Navy is shocked that we lost members of our workforce.”
The Navy insists it’s taking the shipbuilding problems seriously.
“The Navy’s role in defending our nation and promoting peace has never been more expansive or mattered more,” said Lt. Kyle Hanton, a spokesperson for Del Toro’s office. “We continue to work with our industry partners to identify creative solutions to solving our common challenges.”
How Navy chiefs conspired to get themselves illegal warship Wi-Fi
By Diana Stancy
September 3, 2024
Today’s Navy sailors are likely familiar with the jarring loss of internet connectivity that can come with a ship’s deployment.
For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.
But the senior enlisted leaders among the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew knew no such privation last year, when they installed and secretly used their very own Wi-Fi network during a deployment, according to a scathing internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.
As the ship prepared for a West Pacific deployment in April 2023, the enlisted leader onboard conspired with the ship’s chiefs to install the secret, unauthorized network aboard the ship, for use exclusively by them.
So while rank-and-file sailors lived without the level of internet connectivity they enjoyed ashore, the chiefs installed a Starlink satellite internet dish on the top of the ship and used a Wi-Fi network they dubbed “STINKY” to check sports scores, text home and stream movies.
The enjoyment of those wireless creature comforts by enlisted leaders aboard the ship carried serious repercussions for the security of the ship and its crew.
“The danger such systems pose to the crew, the ship and the Navy cannot be understated,” the investigation notes.
Led by the senior enlisted leader of the ship’s gold crew, then-Command Senior Chief Grisel Marrero, the effort roped in the entire chiefs mess by the time it was uncovered a few months later.
Marrero was relieved in late 2023 after repeatedly misleading and lying to her ship’s command about the Wi-Fi network, and she was convicted at court-martial this spring in connection to the scheme.
She was sentenced to a reduction in rank to E-7 after the trial and did not respond to requests for comment for this report.
The Navy has yet to release the entirety of the Manchester investigation file to Navy Times, including supplemental enclosures. Such records generally include statements or interview transcripts with the accused.
But records released so far show the probe, which wrapped in November, found that the entire chiefs mess knew about the secret system, and those who didn’t buy into it were nonetheless culpable for not reporting the misconduct.
Those chiefs and senior chiefs who used, paid for, helped hide or knew about the system were given administrative nonjudicial punishment at commodore’s mast, according to the investigation.
All told, more than 15 Manchester chiefs were in cahoots with Marrero to purchase, install and use the Starlink system aboard the ship.
“This agreement was a criminal conspiracy, supported by the overt act of bringing the purchased Starlink onboard USS MANCHESTER,” the investigation said. “Any new member of the CPO Mess which then paid into the services joined that conspiracy following the system’s operational status.”
Records obtained by Navy Times via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal a months-long effort by Marrero to obtain, install and then conceal the chiefs Wi-Fi network from superiors, including the covert installation of a Starlink satellite dish on the outside of the Manchester.
When superiors became suspicious about the existence of the network and confronted her about it, Marrero failed to come clean on multiple occasions and provided falsified documents to further mislead Manchester’s commanding officer, the investigation states.
Unauthorized Wi-Fi systems like the one Marrero set up are a massive no-no for a deployed Navy ship, and Marrero’s crime occurred as the ship was deploying to the West Pacific, where such security concerns become even more paramount among heightened tensions with the Chinese.
“The installation and usage of Starlink, without the approval of higher headquarters, poses a serious risk to mission, operational security, and information security,” the investigation states.
‘Deep manipulation’ and ‘corrupt dealings’
Marrero’s background is in Navy intelligence, and she earned a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in information security and digital management, according to her biography.
The investigation notes that she should have known better.
“Her time in service and specialized training makes it clear the member knew or should have known the risks associated with an unauthorized Wi-Fi system,” the investigation states.
No officers aboard the Manchester had access to the unauthorized network, nor did any lower-ranking sailors, according to the investigation.
“The deep level of manipulation is only overshadowed by the level of corrupt dealings in which CMC Marrero used to conceal the system,” the investigation found.
While Marrero claimed the Wi-Fi system was secretly installed for morale purposes, the investigation notes that such a claim “is undermined by the selective availability of the Wi-Fi and strict control of its access to the CPO Mess only.”
The Manchester’s secret Wi-Fi network was born in March 2023, when Marrero and a co-conspirator got to work buying and installing the Starlink system before the ship’s deployment began the following month.
The Starlink dish was installed on the Manchster’s O-5 level weatherdeck during a “blanket” aloft period, which requires a sailor to hang high above or over the side of the ship.
During a “blanket” aloft, duties are not documented in the deck logs or the officer of the deck logs, according to the investigation.
It’s unclear who harnessed up and actually installed the system for Marrero due to redactions in the publicly released copy of the probe, but records show Marrero powered up the system the night before the ship got underway to the West Pacific waters of U.S. 7th Fleet.
Marrero and her cohorts paid $2,800 for a Starlink High Performance Kit with a personal credit card, and contacted Starlink to expedite shipping so the system would arrive in time for the deployment.
Starlink offers plans ranging from $90 to $5,000 a month, and allows users to control network settings via a cell phone app. The Navy is installing such authorized capabilities aboard some ships in the fleet.
That was not the case aboard Manchester, where Marrero set up payment plans for the chief’s mess to pay for the system — either $62.50 a month or a one-time fee of $375 — that the ship’s Chief Petty Officer Association treasurer collected into a chiefs mess checking account.
Those involved also used the Chief Petty Officer Association’s debit card to pay off the $1,000 monthly Starlink bill, and Marrero warned the chiefs to only use the network in their rooms.
Marrero served as the gatekeeper of the system, records show, downloading and maintaining the Starlink app from her phone and naming it “STINKY.”
Only she could add others to the network, and would directly type the password into their devices, according to the investigation.
After Manchester got underway from San Diego, Marrero and the chiefs soon realized the Wi-Fi signal didn’t cover all areas of the ship, so the senior chief purchased signal repeaters and cable at the Navy Exchange store in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during a port visit in late April or early May, according to the investigation.
A ‘STNKY’ network
Little stays secret within the close quarters of a deployed ship, and shortly after getting underway, scuttlebutt started swirling among some sailors about the unauthorized Wi-Fi network, the investigation states.
The ship’s former executive officer, Cmdr. Matthew Yokeley, caught wind of the rumors in May and notified the commanding officer, Cmdr. Colleen Moore.
Moore confronted Marrero about whether the chief’s mess had an unauthorized Wi-Fi network that same month.
Another unidentified crew member approached Marrero about a Wi-Fi network aboard the ship after finding available networks on a device that started with the name “STINKY.” It’s unclear who found the “STINKY” network, due to redactions.
In both instances, Marrero denied that such a Wi-Fi network existed. But she soon changed the “STINKY” Wi-Fi network name to another moniker that looked like a wireless printer — even though no such general-use wireless printers were present on the ship, the investigation found.
Moore and Yokeley conducted an inspection inside the ship but did not find any evidence of an unauthorized Wi-Fi system. They did not check the exterior of the ship.
Separately, the Navy relieved Yokeley days later on May 19, 2023. The Navy has said his relief was unrelated to Marrero’s crimes.
About a month later, in the middle of June, the unidentified crew member again confronted Marrero again about the Wi-Fi network, because junior sailors suspected the password was being hidden from them.
Once more, Marrero denied such a network existed.
That same month, Marrero seized a comment placed in the CO’s suggestion box regarding the Wi-Fi network so that it wouldn’t end up in Moore’s hands, according to the investigation.
But Moore received another comment in the suggestion box about the network weeks later, in the middle of July, and again approached Marrero about the network. Again, Marrero denied its existence.
Moore and the ship’s acting executive officer, Cmdr. Samuel Moffett, then conducted another sweep inside the ship.
Although the network that appeared to be a wireless printer appeared on their personal devices during their search, neither made additional inquiries regarding that network, according to the investigation.
Moore told the crew during an all-hands call on July 14, 2023, that no covert Wi-Fi network existed aboard the ship.
While those interviewed claimed Marrero misled the chiefs mess into thinking Moore knew about the Wi-Fi system and had signed off on it, the investigating officer wrote that such statements “lack credibility,” given that only chiefs had access to the system and Marrero renamed the network at one point.
“Any reasonable Chief should have known that with those conditions, CMC Marrero’s assertions that the CO was aware and authorized the system was unreasonable,” the investigation states. “To think otherwise would mean they believed CDR Moore intentionally authorized a concealed Wi-Fi network only for the CPO Mess, excluding all others from usage.”
Weeks after the all-hands call, in August, Moore and Moffett conducted a third, internal inspection of the ship after an outgoing crew member claimed that a secret Wi-Fi network did exist.
‘The gig is up’
On August 18, a civilian from the Naval Information Warfare Center installing an authorized Starshield satellite communication system on the Manchester notified the officer of the deck of the chiefs mess Starlink satellite dish on the O-5 weatherdeck.
Marrero and the chief’s mess knew ahead of time that the Starshield installation near their secret Starlink dish could expose their Wi-Fi network, but they agreed to keep the dish installed, according to the investigation.
The Manchester’s combat systems officer soon took a photo of the dish, and then called in another unidentified crew member to the stateroom to ask if he or she had any knowledge of the dish. The crew member pointed the combat systems officer to Marrero, and then texted Marrero that the combat systems officer knew about the dish and had snapped a photo of it.
“The gig is up,” Marrero texted back, according to the investigation.
Marrero’s secret Starlink dish was removed the same day, and Marrero told another unidentified crew member the next day that it was authorized for in-port use — prompting sailors to re-install the illegal Starlink.
Moore learned about the Starlink dish on Aug. 24, six days after its discovery, during a conversation with the operations officer who had heard second-hand information about the presence of an unauthorized Wi-Fi network.
Moore called the combat systems officer into the stateroom to ask what they knew about the network. The combat systems officer admitted to learning about the system on Aug. 18, but said they didn’t tell Moore about it after discussions with mentors.
It’s unclear which mentors were consulted, due to redactions.
Later that day, Moore approached Marrero again about the dish and whether it belonged to the chief’s mess.
Marrero responded that she “she was not tracking” and told Moore she would hold a meeting with the chief’s mess.
During that chiefs mess meeting, Marrero told her fellow enlisted leaders that Moore knew about their secret Wi-Fi, and two chiefs subsequently removed the dish from the O-5 weatherdeck.
An unidentified chief also volunteered to take responsibility for the network.
The next day, an unidentified chief provided Moore with false statements regarding the installation of the dish, and who was responsible.
It’s unclear due to redactions if the chief was referring to themselves, or another chief. The chief also told Moore that they only used the connection while in port.
Moore remained skeptical, however, and told Marrero later she didn’t believe that.
To bolster their lie that the Wi-Fi was only used in port, Marrero and another chief altered Starlink data usage charts from the service’s website to make it look like the chiefs mess only used the Wi-Fi network in port.
“The actual, un-doctored billing cycle statements show usage while underway,” the investigation states.
Marrero then shared these fabricated charts with Moore, but Moore “did not trust the data usage charts as they appeared to be poorly doctored,” investigators wrote.
Marrero finally confessed and apologized to Moore on Aug. 26, copping to the fact that she deceived her CO throughout the entirety of the deployment.
An unidentified crew member removed the Starlink cable following that meeting, and Moore contacted leadership from Littoral Combat Ship Squadron 3 and Destroyer Squadron 7 to fill them in.
That same day, the chiefs mess also met with Moore and revealed their use of the unauthorized Wi-Fi network in port and at sea. Although Marrero initially attended the meeting, she exited after the chief’s mess requested she leave.
The chiefs handed the system over to Moffett the next day, after he and the ship’s legal officer requested they turn it over.
‘Egregious misconduct’
At a special court-martial in March, Marrero pleaded guilty to willful dereliction of duty charge specifications, Navy Times previously reported. She also pleaded guilty to two false official statement charge specifications that involved her telling the CO that there was no Wi-Fi aboard the Manchester, according to her trial summary.
Additionally, she pleaded not guilty to an obstruction of justice charge, but was found guilty at trial, according to the trial summary record.
Marrero failed to safeguard the Manchester against operational security risks when she set up the secret Wi-Fi, the charge sheet says.
Marrero’s “egregious misconduct” with the illegal Wi-Fi “cannot be understated,” the investigating officer wrote, particularly given how Moore needed her to step up following the relief of the ship’s second-in-command that summer.
“In a time period in which the CO relied extensively on [Marrero] to recover the Command’s climate in the wake of the XO relief, CMC Marrero willfully and intentionally concealed the presence of an unauthorized system,” the investigator wrote. “Following the relief of the previous XO, it is reasonable that the level of trust and confidence with CMC Marrero increased, with heavier reliance on her to pick up the slack left behind.”
Command senior chief convicted for unauthorized Wi-Fi on her ship
By Diana Stancy
Monday, June 3, 2024
The former command senior chief of the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew pleaded guilty at a court-martial in March to charges that she installed an unauthorized Wi-Fi system aboard the ship and then lied about it to superiors, according to records obtained by Navy Times.
Before her trial, Naval Surface Force Pacific, or SURFPAC, quietly relieved then-Senior Chief Grisel Marrero from her leadership position aboard Manchester in September, due to a “loss of confidence,” the command said in a statement.
Marrero, whose online biography indicates a background in Navy intelligence, declined comment for this report. SURFPAC officials also declined to discuss further specifics of the case.
She was sentenced to reduction in rank to E-7 in March, according to a trial summary obtained by Navy Times.
Marrero wasn’t the only high-level relief aboard Manchester’s gold crew last year.
The Navy also ousted the second-in-command of the ship’s gold crew, Cmdr. Matthew Yokeley, in May 2023. The reliefs of Marrero and Yokeley were not related, according to SURFPAC, which declined to provide further details regarding the reasons for Yokeley’s ouster.
At a special court-martial earlier this year, Marrero pleaded guilty to willful dereliction of duty charge specifications.
According to her charge sheet, Marrero failed to safeguard the Manchester against operational security risks when she set up the secret Wi-Fi.
Such Wi-Fi systems are generally banned aboard Navy ships because of cybersecurity concerns.
Marrero “willfully coordinated the procurement, installation and use of an unauthorized and unapproved Wi-Fi system” onboard the ship between March 2023 and August 2023, according to her charge sheet.
Charge sheets state that she “willfully failed” to share a commanding officer’s suggestion box comment from a crew member about the Wi-Fi system with the then-commanding officer of the Manchester’s gold crew in June 2023.
She pleaded not guilty to an obstruction of justice charge, but was found guilty at trial, according to the trial summary record.
That charge involved an incident near Naval Base Guam in August 2023, where Marrero altered a data usage image on a chief’s mess Starlink account to reflect less data usage, which she did to “influence or impede” pending criminal or disciplinary actions against another Navy member whose name is redacted on the charge sheet copy provided to Navy Times.
Starlink provides broadband internet access to remote locations via an array of satellites.
SURFPAC spokesman Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson told Navy Times that other sailors were also disciplined in connection to the unauthorized Wi-Fi, but he declined to provide further details.
Marrero also pleaded guilty to two false official statement charge specifications that involved her telling the CO that there was no Wi-Fi aboard the Manchester, according to her trial summary.
Marrero is currently assigned to Naval Surface Forces.
The Manchester was in or around San Diego, Hawaii and Guam at the time of Marrero’s crimes.
If she got the MBA at Harvard Business School, that confirms HBS = 2/3 BS.Drunknsubmrnr wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 12:56 am I’m very disappointed in that crew if they didn’t have that network pw cracked within a few days. A submarine crew would have done that out of boredom if nothing else.
Is it the opinion of the board that the MBA turned that chief evil, or was she evil before she got the MBA? I have to say that if she wasn’t even bright enough to hide the WiFi network an MBA in infosec wasn’t worth much.
Diving to safe depth….
Drunknsubmrnr wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 12:56 am I’m very disappointed in that crew if they didn’t have that network pw cracked within a few days. A submarine crew would have done that out of boredom if nothing else.
Is it the opinion of the board that the MBA turned that chief evil, or was she evil before she got the MBA? I have to say that if she wasn’t even bright enough to hide the WiFi network an MBA in infosec wasn’t worth much.
Diving to safe depth….
