The prevailing wisdom holds that America’s smaller fleet is more capable than the U.S. Navy of yore because of higher capability per individual ship. It is a dangerous assumption.
To its credit, in 2010 the Navy completed a study of the surface fleet’s manning, training, and equipment readiness.
The Balisle Report was a brutal assessment: ship maintenance went underfunded for years; one-fifth of the fleet cannot pass inspections; aircraft and ships had junk as equipment and/or insufficient spare parts; fewer than one half of deployed combat aircraft are fully mission-capable at any given time; training throughout the surface fleet has been inadequate; ships are undermanned, and returning ships are cannibalized for parts to keep others running.
The fleet was in substantially worse shape than it was in 2001. A less-comprehensive report from GAO also identified some of these problems and trends.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
U.S. Navy trouble
The final part 3 of a piece Winslow did for POGO about the current capability of the U.S. Navy:
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If the Navy can't keep half of its current air fleet fully operational, how will it maintain a fleet of over engineered F-35s? Is it not likely that the very selling points of a so called fifth generation fighter will be the same systems that end up not being functional the most often, especially in any high tempo combat enviornment?. If so, then thats all the more reason that fighter design needs to get back to basics. A plane wont be sent up if its engines and wings are broken, so fighters like the f-16 are likely to always be able to count on high thrust and low wing loading. All the fancy stealth tech in the world wont matter if its not maintained properly, and proper maintainance wont matter if a plane is in the shop when you need it in the air.
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