Comment & Discussion | Proceedings – January 2023 Vol. 149/1/1439 – USNI News
Retention Must Be a Special Evolution
The Navy has recently lowered entrance exam requirements in a bid to recruit more sailors. Under the pilot program, the Navy will accept lower scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, between the 10th and 30th percentile, provided that the prospective sailor’s Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery individual line scores are high enough to qualify for a Navy rating.
It is a mistake to think this a viable option for meeting the particular Navy’s end-strength manpower needs.
In the Vietnam Era, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara implemented a similar program of drafting low-IQ recruits. That system didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Many of those drafted under this program were derisively referred to as “McNamara’s Morons. ”
The particular Navy should look at alternative options. Programs such as this risk dumbing down the workforce and will have an overall detrimental effect on the entire military. We never learn from history.
—YNC Bernard Michael Burawski, USN (Ret. ), Life Member
I agree with Lieutenant Swain that to retain the best and brightest mariners, Navy leaders must be mentors and coaches and set proper examples for their subordinates at all times.
When I was a chief petty officer, an operations specialist, I strove to keep my division informed about upcoming projects plus our schedule. I welcomed their input and their opinions at our frequent division meetings on how best to accomplish a task.
During in-port time, I sent as many sailors as possible in order to Navy schools and team trainers to increase in-rate skills. I put them in for awards based on their efforts both at sea and in port. I scoured their service and training records for data I could use in their own evaluations to make them more competitive in advancement exams. I didn’t encourage them to get their Enlisted Surface Warfare in addition to Enlisted Aviation Warfare pins until I had already earned mine. However , I in no way compromised good order and even discipline just to curry favor.
I expected a lot from my mariners, but they knew I would fight for them if they needed me to. Back then, chief small officers had been the backbone of the Navy. Restore typically the authority together with leadership of the chiefs, and you will have resolved 90 percent of the retention problem.
—OSC(SW/AW) John M. Duffy, USN (Ret. )
Cyber Power Is a Key Element of Sea Power
Cyber is an essential enabler of every instrument of national power and a vector through which adversaries can affect them all. A nation ineffective in cyberspace cannot succeed in deterrence, competition, crisis, or armed conflict.
Internet capabilities and additionally operations employed in day-to-day competition have been strategically consequential, rivaling the impact associated with armed conflict. In large part, this is because U. S. adversaries recognize that cyber capabilities have distinct value with regard to achieving strategic gains in competition without escalating to be able to militarized problems or worse. They have successfully exploited cyber vulnerabilities for you to erode this economic competitiveness, military overmatch, and political cohesion of the United States and its allies. The Navy blue needs to integrate and employ cyber abilities and operations across the competitors continuum.
Commander Bebber rightly calls for naval campaigns that employ internet power to alter the trajectory regarding Chinese ocean power. Such campaigns require persistence, operating to set the conditions of security and the terms of opposition in our prefer. This means understanding how adversaries are winning without having fighting within and through cyberspace—and then anticipating what vulnerabilities they plan to exploit, how they may do so, not to mention adapting before those vulnerabilities are exploited or weaponized.
Campaigning can undermine often the adversary’s desired crisis and also war conditions—constraining options, reducing capacity, eroding the adversary’s confidence as well as trust in its people, features, tactics, and tools, plus sowing doubt in its ability to achieve a military fait accompli or prevail in a war involving attrition. Typically the goal should be to create an environment that is risky, costly, in addition to futile prior to crisis and even armed conflict through continuous integrated procedures in coordination with the interagency, allies, together with foreign partners.
National defense has always been more than a matter of deterring or winning in armed conflict. It is also about being successful in tactical competition. Accordingly, the joint force has a three-fold task: integrate and additionally leverage web power to fight and win across the physical domains connected with land, air, sea, not to mention space; campaign in and also through cyberspace to set favorable conditions to help deter inside crisis as well as win in conflict; and persistently campaign inside competition where adversaries seek strategic decision outside of equipped conflict. Leader Bebber has offered your Navy a way forward to seize and sustain the initiative against our own pacing threat. Navy frontrunners would be wise to consider his counsel.
—Emily Goldman, USCYBERCOM
NATO Navies Must Get the Balance Right
In the “Analysis with Past Naval Operations” section , the exact authors have made a serious misjudgment that undermines the rest of their particular thesis. Their assertion that will “a Royal Navy victory in the Falkland’s War was not a foregone conclusion” became wrong as soon as HMS Spartan and HMS Conquerer arrived in the South Atlantic.
The presence of submarines, especially nuclear-powered submarines, in a restricted area dooms operations by enemy surface forces. This Baltic is invested along with NATO submarines: These forces will establish sea control there early in any conflict—without other forces.
—RADM W. J. Holland, USN (Ret. )
The authors claim that the British Falklands victory was because of “effective British counterfires, made possible simply by scouting and, again, highly effective [command and control]. ” Nevertheless , accounts of those who fought this war (Admiral Sir John Forster “Sandy” Woodward, among others) agree on the following factors regarding victory:
Strategic—training and competence of Britain’s professional causes, hands-off approach by civilian leaders, matériel support by simply France and the United States, as well as Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island plus logistics efforts in the UK.
Theater—positioning of carrier battle group and logistics assets.
Tactical—performance of Harriers and their pilots, stamina for troops in addition to tactical acumen of job group commanding officers, coaching and effort of nautico crews, and even extensive use of Special Air Service together with Special Boat Service causes.
Contrary to the authors’ claim, command and control were far from ideal. Indeed, command structure during the discord with three not-quite-equal activity group ordering officers (two one-star vs . one two-star officer), communication problems each between Task Forces 317. 0 and additionally 317. 1 and with CTF 317 back home, as well as subordination of theater submarines to CTG 324. 3 instead of to CTG 317. 8, were a—if not the—main cause for recurring operational friction.
Finally, had Argentina postponed the invasion until after the decommissioning from the Royal Navy’s two remaining carriers, the Falklands would have become the Malvinas.
—Michael The. Titz, Existence member
How to Rebalance the Navy’s Strategic Culture
In many ways, Captain Mobley nails it. In my study in the Navy’s transition to jets, I found that this culture about rugged individualism he describes prevented the particular adoption in procedures standardization for a decade after Nautico Air Systems Command’s safety center determined standardization was the way to operate jets safely. The Dark blue lost greater than a thousand aircraft and aircrew to accidents during that period.
Navy professional military education does need the revamp. When the Naval War College (NWC) was at the most influential, teaching not to mention research (principally via wargaming) were fused, producing both the ideas that would lead to success in World Battle II as well as the leaders who executed those ideas. After the war, teaching and research were separated, which remains the case except for the small advanced research programs such as the Halsey Bravo Group.
NWC ought to reintegrate the two processes at the intermediate level through a classified, technical warfighting curriculum. This would produce new and better warfighting concepts that could enhance NWC’s influence on force development, etc . It also would create a cadre from officers that understand the integrated operation of all elements of a new fleet and also joint makes.
In 2013, I asked some sort of senior functions analyst how OPNAV N81 integrated strategy documents generated by N5, and he answered that they did not need any external strategy—they developed their own in-house. Often the culture of numerical analysis locked out qualitative inputs.
—CAPT Robert C. Rubel, USN (Ret. )
You can’t have a maritime technique without ships. You can’t have ships with out mariners. You can’t have boats without shipyards. The naviero strategy of the future relies on shipyards, which rely today mostly on Deep blue or Military Sealift Command gray fleet contracts. We are in a long slow decline. To maintain the shipyards, they must possess a reason in order to exist beyond Navy contracts. This means a healthy U. H. Merchant Marine and commercial fleet.
Foreign fleets are usually cheaper. If the United States wants a vibrant industrial fleet together with mariners who else see a future in shipping, then subsidies must be in place. Expansion associated with current financial assistance would be cheap compared with building an plane carrier. And it would support our shipyards, fleets, as well as mariners.
—Joseph E. Reynolds
Beyond Force Design 2030: Preparing for Fourth-Generation Combat
I applaud Lieutenant Kim’s continued interest in Marine Corps infantry, and I appreciate their use of military history. His call for cheaper loitering munitions is spot on. On the worrying gap that is small-unit unmanned aerial system (UAS) protection within our battalions, we are throughout agreement. Your means to electronically counter enemy small UASs would be a crucial addition to an infantry battalion’s table of equipment.
His proposed fourth-generation Marine Corps squad is not even close to reality already. Platoon commanders and company commanders currently organize and equip their very own units to be able to best achieve the mission at hand. The exact podcast Controversy and Clarity recently interviewed leaders through Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, one of the Force Design 2030 (FD2030) experimental battalions.
They spoke about employing his or her squads around formations regarding two or three fire teams plus equipping them to fulfill specific tactical roles in accordance with typically the commander’s estimate of the situation and in collection with the enhanced inventory involving weapons and gear from FD2030’s “arms room concept. ” Allowing this trained tacticians to man and equip their units for the job at hand negates the need for an one-size-fits-all “fourth-gen squad. ”
Saying that particular fire teams will by default perform specific roles limits the tactical flexibility that is a hallmark connected with Marine Corps infantry. Give company commanders and platoon commanders the tools and the technical flexibility Marine corps have employed for generations and they will build often the winning groups.
UASs, counter-UASs, and loitering munitions will not completely erase or rewrite the way we layer sensors, fires, in addition to effects to gain an advantage found in combat. Combined arms maneuver warfare starts with well-trained and even educated tacticians who can make the most of the equipment together with personnel within their formations.
—Maj Zach Schwartz, USMC
Update ‘Anchors Aweigh’
Composer-bandleader Charles Zimmerman probably has been never on the forecastle when the boatswain’s report that inspired his music was called to the bridge. In fact , few U. T. Navy personnel have ever actually witnessed this operationally and legally significant ritual.
As soon as the anchor is free from the sea floor and hangs freely, your boatswain calls out “Anchor’s aweigh” (not “Anchors aweigh”) to the link. At that moment the colors are raised at the mainmast and lowered at the stern; the single black ball signaling that the ship is at point is struck; and the jack is reduced at the staff at the bow. The officer of the deck shifts the watch from the quarterdeck to the connection. At that point, the exact ship is operationally and additionally legally underway and noted so in the ship’s log.
An apostrophe about the bruit: If the lyrics are to be updated to be inclusive, let’s (contraction of “let us”) correct the name of the music, too, to show proper punctuation.
Anchor’s aweigh!
—CDR Earl Higgins, USN (Ret. )
As someone who has loved “Anchors Away” since childhood, I have to respectfully dissent from the suggestion to change the first range from “anchors aweigh, the boys” for you to “anchors aweigh, sailors. ” Lieutenant Commanded McLaughlin’s intent is noble, but his / her substitute line simply sounds metrically off. I would suggest, instead, “anchors aweigh, all hands” to preserve the meter.
—CAPT Matthew Lim, USN (Ret. )
Reimagine Recruiting to Prevent Sexual Assault
Lieutenant Roland addresses an important topic but mischaracterizes the scope of the problem and offers simplistic, naïve solutions. She contends that “there is more space for [sexual assault] in the Sea Corps than just about anywhere else, ” and that only by means of changing their marketing approach to “recruit better Marines” can it address the problem. To support her thesis, she refers to incidents from decades ago—such as the 1991 Tailhook convention—and presents statistics, such as her comparison of sexual assault rates within the military to the civilian public, that are often misunderstood.
When properly presented, the statistics published in the Uniform Crime Report , the particular National Crime Victimization Survey , typically the National Intimate Partner Sex Violence Survey , plus the DOD Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of active-duty members reveal a state with affairs exactly opposite towards the dire descriptions offered by Lieutenant Roland.
In an exhaustive 55-page Gonzaga Law Review article (February 2021), “National, Military, and College Reports upon Prosecution for Sexual Assaults and Victims’ Rights: Is the Military Actually Safer than Civilian Society? ” authors David Schlueter and Lisa Schenck review the data from these national reports, as well as numerous state crime and conviction reports. These people conclude the sexual assault rate intended for 18- to help 24-year-old women in the military is 20 percent lower than the same cohort on college not to mention 35 % lower than nonstudent civilians. For military men, the rate is less than half that of their college counterparts.
The legal protocols in the Ocean Corps need general official review of all sexual attack charging decisions, dictate this assignment of an attorney to act as a victim advocate (separate from the prosecution or defense), and afford the victim the option of immediate unit reassignment when they so choose. None of these safeguards are available to civilian victims. This unique support framework for victims might help to explain why reporting and confidence rates to get sexual strike in the military are five to seven times higher than in all U. S. states with available data. In addition , beyond often the legal framework, therapeutic and also medical support are also immediately available and can be obtained with no making a criminal complaint.
Rather than the Marine Corps being a singularly dangerous environment for the young people who are the majority of potential abuse victims, careful statistical evaluation and the basic facts pertaining to sexual invasion in the army suggest otherwise. In an era of rising crime as well as police budget cuts, the Underwater Corps and other armed services are significantly safer for his or her members compared to civilian alternatives.
—LtCol Shaun T. FitzPatrick, USMC (Ret. )
Assessing Army Capability: More than Just Counting Guns
In the interest of technical accuracy , for which your publication will be justly respected, I note that the armored vehicles pictured on p. 27 are not “tanks” but a type of self-propelled gun widely used by Soviet airborne forces in the 1960s: your ASU-85. But “tanks” anyway, for another excellent issue!
—Ben Parker
The Surface Fleet Needs EDOs
Lieutenant Ordonner Molina presents a good case for making the exact duties with the ship`s maintenance management police officer (SMMO) a primary duty. Yet , I would question if having an engineering duty expert (EDO) since the SMMO is the best use of these types of officers.
A new warrant policeman engineering technician in the SMMO billet would be more efficient. This could still allow the alignment about “experts to tasks” the author advocates while bringing a considerable fund of knowledge to the ship.
—SCPO Paul H. Sayles, USN (Ret. )
A Submariner in Space
Hanging on our wall is one of my personal proudest possessions, a 1986 letter coming from Naval Army Personnel Control (NMPC) announcing my nomination for the Astronaut Mission Specialist program. I had formed just graduated as the only submariner space systems engineer in a Naval Postgraduate School curriculum full of aviators.
My engineering thesis was around the design of a good forward-error-correcting code communication program between the yet-to-be-designed space station and astronauts conducting extravehicular activities, compensating for shadow zones created by the station’s truss method. I also wrote a paper that provided lessons by months-long submarine deployments during isolation pertaining to long-term missions in area.
NMPC informed me I was the first career nuclear-trained submarine specialist ever to be nominated meant for astronaut—and of which my community leaders have been none too happy about it. In the end, a problem with my own uncorrected visual acuity not meeting astronaut standards kept me personally out of the plan. It’s not an exaggeration to say that was the biggest career disappointment of my life. My thoughts never abandoned the “what ifs” in space.
I’m proud the fact that Captain McCulley, who wore silver dolphins before the career as a naval aviator began, was your first submariner-astronaut. I’m even more proud that one day soon, a gold-dolphin wearing representative, Kayla Barron, may set foot within the moon. I’d like to think that in some small way I established your precedent how the Navy and NASA might be willing to consider that months spent submerged on a submarine was a much more relevant analog for room travel as compared to hours spent in a cockpit.
—CAPT William Toti, USN (Ret. )
Has the Time Come for Midget Submarines?
The first Italian attack against some well-defended harbor was about 1 November 1918. Italian swimmers Rafaelle Paolucci plus Rafaelle Rossetti rode a fabulous modified torpedo into Pula Harbor in addition to sank the former Austro-Hungarian Vibrus Unitis using limpet mines. The primary difficulty with swimmer delivery vehicles (SDVs) was getting them close enough to their targets. In 1940, Italy lost two fleet submarines trying to deliver SDVs. Finally, in September 1941 SDVs sank three ships around Gibraltar Harbor—supposedly the safest in the world.
World War II German SDVs were hazardous to the operators but were being pressed into service against the D-Day landings. At war’s end, the best midget submarine was the German Seehund , with a crew of 2. It had a range of 300 nautical miles surfaced or even 63 nm submerged at 3 knots. It carried two torpedoes into the English Channel using limited achievement.
Midget submarines may have use in the Aegean, Bosporus Strait, Black Sea, or the coast of Vietnam in the Southerly China Ocean, but there are easier ways to lay fosse.
A closer review of midget boat history is recommended.
—LCDR Sankey Blanton, USN (Ret. )
Asked & Answered
All seven answers released in December highlighted European cemeteries. Did no one submit U. S. military cemeteries inside the Pacific?
The particular Philippines hosts two of the most beautiful and historically significant memorials. The first is the Manila American Cemetery and even Memorial, which contains the largest number of graves of our Ww ii military dead—16, 859. It recently underwent a complete renovation, with a new visitor center that depicts the particular battles fought against across the Pacific. I attended the rededication ceremony representing the U. S. -Philippine Society.
The other is the Cabanatuan American Memorial erected by the survivors on the Bataan Death March along with the World War II prisoner-of-war camp in Cabanatuan. This honors all those Americans together with Filipinos which died during their internment. Typically the ABMC took over maintenance of typically the Memorial for 1989. While serving like a political-military police in 1992 I had this privilege from attending often the 50th anniversary of the Bataan Death March at the Funeral. You could not help yet be moved by the absolute cruelty to those who died and the resilience of those who also survived.
—CAPT Brian Buzzell, USN (Ret. )